My Trip to Lowe's

Have you ever met one of those guys who can build, fix or basically do anything? If not, allow me to introduce you to my father-in-law. That man's idea of a relaxing vacation isn't spending the day at the beach or going to Disneyland. His idea of vacation is changing the floor plan of his house. He actually lives in a double wide Mobile home, but to look at it, you'd never be able to guess that is what it is. His handiness isn't limited to construction either. He's also a mechanic and a journeyman electrician. Basically, he can do just about anything (except get a computer to work for him). I, on the other hand, am not so inclined (except for the computer part). You can imagine the significant disappointment my wife must have felt the first time she told me that our washing machine was leaking. I just stared at her unblinking. I didn't have the first clue how to fix it. I did, but not completely and to be honest, it was a pretty terrible job.

I said all that to say that because of my deficiency in the area of handymanliness, I don't have many occasions to go to a hardware store. However, as it happens, I was in need of something specific that I was sure I could find at my local Lowe's. So I jumped in my little pick up truck and drove to the redneck Mecca.

When I arrived I began playing the game of "Where Do I Park". I haven't been to enough Lowe's to know whether or not they are all built similar, but I'd be surprised if they weren't. The problem is that the entrance door is at one end and the exit door is at another. So you have to choose: short walk from car to building; or short walk from building to car. There is always the third option of parking all the way to the right of the building where you can pull up after you've made your purchase and load your truck. The problem here is two fold.

1. Unless you're buying 2x4's in bulk, you're gonna have a long walk to whatever section of the store you actually need.

2. It's is generally populated by construction guys buying 2x4's in bulk and they tend to make snide comments about how "cute" my truck is.

So I opted for "short walk from store to car" in case I actually purchased what I was looking for, I wouldn't have to carry it too far.

I found a place, parked side ways in two spots (don't want any hard hat wearing, hammer jockeys to scratch the paint job), and entered the labyrinth of hardware. Another uncomfortable thing about Lowe's is its employees. The front end is completely peopled with women (and a couple of men who are management and know next to nothing about tools-this is the part of the store in which I would work) and most of them are either enraptured with a book they're reading or waiting for the next cute construction guy to walk in. After I've disappointed the watchers, I make my way to the stockers and specialists.

I say that, because there are two kinds of Lowe's employees out on the floor. First, is the guy who actually knows what he is talking about. He is extremely helpful and eager to be so. The problem is that he is usually speaking to the guy who walked in right before you. If you happen to get this guy, your Lowe's experience will be favorable and you will return frequently (even if you don't get him on subsequent trips, you'll return in hopes of finding him again).

The second kind (and the coincidentally the kind I get) is the stocker. This is the guy who works at Lowe's because that is where he is employed, but could just as well be working at Office Depot or Kohl's for that matter. He doesn't know a rotary tool from an oscillating tool (neither do I but then I don't work at Lowe's). He is just as friendly but lacks even rudimentary knowledge. He smiles as you approach and welcomes you warmly. He even asks if you want any help. The difference is that the whole time inside him there is a normal dude without a red vest screaming, "just keep walking, there's nothing to see here-these aren't the associates you're looking for (complete with an attempt at Jedi mind control)". If you make the mistake of asking him for assistance, you will spend the next few minutes traversing the store hoping to stumble on the item you were asking about or the specialist who knows all about it.

This day I knew exactly what I was looking for and headed straight for it, turning aside all offers at assistance. This is when my real problem began. You see I was looking for something specific that could only be found on one specific aisle. So as I made my way to that aisle I heard a slight commotion and turned down my aisle to see a couple making out with ferocity. She had him pinned against the shelving unit and they were deeply involved in the kind of passionate, wild kissing that you would expect to see in a couple that is truly in love and haven't seen each other for 10 years.

As soon as I had seen them, I caught my self and stopped at the entrance of the aisle. I turned away quickly and began examining the items immediately in front of me. They continued on undisturbed. I cleared my throat but they paid me no attention and kept on going. The problem (other than the obvious) was that what I needed was right next to where they were desecrating the sanctity of Lowe's. I was torn- do I walk away and leave them be, or do I get what I had come all the way to Lowe's to get? At this point, I figured it was my duty to put a stop to it. After all, there were children present and sooner or later someone would stumble on this unholy activity and have to put a stop to it. I figured if not me, who; if not now, when! So I cleared my throat, summoned all the fortitude I could muster and pulled out my cell phone and began talking loudly to no one at all.

As I got closer and closer, my true horror was revealed. The talking loudly thing worked and they broke up the little tryst. That is when I discovered the grisly truth. This couple who had just been locked in Love's strong embrace and had been slobbering all over each other like he had just gotten out of prison had a combined age of no less than 120 years. If either one of them was a day under sixty then I'm cupid.

My stomach began to churn and I no doubt turned a greenish hue. They smiled and began walking away hand in hand. I kept expecting him to ask if she wanted her gum back and for her to ask if he wanted his teeth back.

Now, I suspect that somewhere there is a girl who is gonna read this and say, "How sweet, after all these years, they are still very much in love and desire each other." I tell you it's not sweet. I do hope that my wife and I will be that much in love when we're sexagenarians (no pun intended). But you can be certain that it will be reserved to our home or sneaking little kisses in public, not holding an entire aisle at Lowe's hostage.

The sad thing was that the thing I went to Lowe's to get wasn't what I was hoping it was and I left empty handed but with a mind full of things I couldn't un-see.

My Christmas Parade

I have lived in the Temecula Valley for 10 years and have never attended the Old Town Electric Lights Parade. To be perfectly frank, I don't care for parades. I think they are generally a line up of poorly constructed floats decorated with a bunch of self important people. However, last night I felt oddly compelled to grab the wife and kids (and by that I mean she dragged me out there) and trek out to old town to join the denizens of this fair valley in all of this festive fanfare, which I was sure would produce a generous portion of blog fodder.

As we arrived a little over an hour early, traffic had already begun to back up significantly. My wife myopically suggested that the majority of people were just headed home. She was wrong. However, we decided to grab some dinner at the golden arches, which turned into a great idea because we discovered another parking area that was not nearly as far a walk as the other secondary lots. So we enjoyed our dinner and walked over to the parade staging area.

We found a spot near the tail end of the parade. We were warned that we might miss some of the parade because we were technically outside of the parade route. I was sure that once they saw the hundreds of people with us, the floats would extend their parade route to include us. I was not wrong. We did miss seeing the marching bands in all of their glory but we still heard five different renditions of Jingle Bells and one version of Angels We Have Heard on High (thanks Calvary Chapel Murrieta for marching to the beat of a different drum).

While standing around waiting for the parade to begin, the sidewalks began to resemble a line crush at a black Friday sale. People were elbowing and pushing their way through others to get a better seat. Just as the parade was to begin a woman with two little girls and three pink lawn chairs stepped in between me and the rest of my family and tried to set up camp. I didn't say a thing (I'm much to non-confrontational for that); I just resumed the position I had been in prior to their trespassing. Once the woman saw that this giant of a man had every intention of looming over her she quickly assessed her position and found it less than desirable. She picked up and moved on, presumably to sit in someone else's lap.

The parade began and the first entrant to make it's way past the end of the route was the Great Oaks Marching Band with a rousing rendition of the aforementioned Jingle Bells. They were decked in Christmas lights and looked very festive. Then there was a line of City Council members, Community Service representatives and a few other civil servants waving and bequeathing a merry Christmas on all of the parade revellers.

We then saw the first of what seems like a thousand different boyscout troops walk through the parade. I didn't know we had so many different troops in the valley. I am not entirely sure why we need so many different troops. It seems like they could start one and just let anyone from the valley join. But they had a plethora of them. It was comical at times. There was a stereotypical "nerd" troop leader. He was walking in full camping gear (backpack, sleeping roll, pots and pans and a fishing pole, complete with fake fish). He had his little scarf tied around his neck and was wearing the trade mark cargo shorts with hiking boots and brown tube socks pulled half way up his calf. He looked like a hairy, nerdy version of Shelley Long from Troop Beverly Hills. I yelled, "We don't need no stinkin' badges" but he either didn't hear me or was pretending not to because he just kept walking.

The highlight of the scouting portion of the parade was when one boy scout, walking along side the float holding the rest of his troop, chided a crowd member by irritatedly calling back, "I'm not a cub scout!" I hope at their next den meeting they discuss the meaning of the word "semantics".


Next followed a few local businesses and clubs. There were cheer groups and martial artsy people along side a dachshund club and a bus of retired people on "holiday". At one point, Arby's made an appearance with two people dressed as the hand thing that stands out front and waves people in and two girls dressed as elves. One was dressed as a male elf and the other-well, based on her costume, I can only assume she is Arby's hood rat.

There were some local celebrities on hand, but the highlight for me was meeting Drippy, the water drop. He represented the Rancho Water district and I had a few questions for him about my water bill. I suspect it's some sort of conspiracy because he flat out refused to answer any of the hard -hitting questions I asked.

Then a float of little beauty queens passed by. It was full of little girls who wore enough makeup to disguise congress as a bunch of zombie's (okay, that analogy maybe lacking in sufficiency) and who will no doubt wind up on an episode of E! True Hollywood Stories as a cautionary tale of toddlers and tiaras (at the very least they'll wind up on The Soup being made fun of by Joel McHale).

The next set of "celebrities" to walk by were some of the contestants from various reality TV shows. There were a couple of the tap dancing dads from America's Got Talent, some Survivors, Amazing Racers, and two Big Brothers. They passed by with Santa close behind, which made me speculate as to what Santa might bring these people. I surmised that fire and a compass would make suitable gifts for the Survivors and Racers respectively; the tap dancing dads might get some new tap shoes and I am certain the Big Brother contestants would receive industrial- grade antibiotics.

There were some 95 different entrants in this small town parade. One of the best was the Volkswagon Club that included 25 different VW's. There were Bugs, Buses and one Kia Spectra. I didn't just make a typographical error. For some reason the VW club was anchored by a 2001 Kia Spectra.

The grand finale to this little parade was a float with St. Nicolas himself riding a sleigh bedecked in lights and tossing candy to the kids in the street. Or at least that's what I imagined it would look like. We left with about four entrants to go. Both boys had seen enough (as had their parents) and were ready to go. All in all a good time was had by all.

I have not yet decided if we will make a repeat appearance at next year's parade. I think I have gotten all out of it that a spectator can get. I say spectator because, although I am not sure how, I think it would be great to be in next year's parade. So this year I shall endeavor to be an exemplary citizen. One so worthy of note that the parade planners are compelled to replace Santa with me. I will be so loved and admired that they'll make me honorary Mayor. Either that or I'll just start a Boy Scout Troop.

My Pops

I want every one to know that I love my Pops. I have always loved my Pops. I can't remember a time in my life where I didn't respect and care about my Pops. If you aren't familiar with my family allow me to inform you that "Pops" is what my brothers and I call our dad. I can't really tell you for certain when we started calling him Pops but whenever that was it stuck and we have been calling him that ever since.

Anyway, I really do love my Pops. We've never had "issues". I never resented him for anything he did while I was a child. We've had one semi-serious argument since I was 12 and we both admitted we were wrong and hugged and made up within 20 minutes of the dust up (for the record, I was more wrong than he was). Basically, we'd make for a really boring episode of a day-time talk show.

My Pops never claimed to be the smartest man alive, but he was always ready with an answer for any query we threw at him. I remember a time when we were driving down interstate 5 in central California and I asked him what the giant stands with the large propeller things were for. He quickly told me that they were called windmills and they kept the earth spinning on its axis. A little farther down the road we saw the other kind of wind mills, the kind that look like giant egg beaters. When I asked him what that kind was for, he without a moments hesitation told me that they kept the air in our atmosphere circulating so that we wouldn't breathe stale air. In other words, my Pops was a creative genius.

I would like to tell you about an event in our family's history that has become a story that will be passed down from generation to generation until it is only spoken of in distant memory but with the utmost respect for my Pops.

One day in 1992 my Pops came home from work and told my mom he needed to speak to her privately. Now this was weird because in a family of 7 privacy is a foreign concept. But he stressed that it must be private and it must be now. He led my mom back to their bedroom, closed the door behind them and told her she had better sit down. What happened next is legendary.

My Pops had a very concerned and pained look on his face. He began pacing back and forth in front of my mom and wringing his hands. He kept muttering things like, "I need to tell you something important."; I'm not sure how to say this"; "This will be hard for you to understand."

My mom is a worrier. She (not unlike me) can see the worst possible outcome in a situation and it makes her nervous and causes her discomfort. She is not a worrier to the point that she stays up at night wondering and troubled about unimportant things. But when something gives her adequate cause for concern it will bother her. As she was sitting there on the bed a million terrible thoughts were rushing through her mind: Is he having an affair? does he have cancer?did Tom Selleck die? (you'd have to know my mom to understand that one).

My Pops just continued pacing back and forth. He was completely distraught at how exactly he would drop this difficult news on his wife. His worry was how she would look at him after she knew his secret. The pain of the task that lay before him was evident in every aspect of his demeanor. His countenance had dropped. A line of perspiration had appeared across his forehead. He was so fraught with worry and anguish.

At this point my mom was really concerned. She was trying to gather herself, to summon all of her courage, in order to pry this troubling information from him and begin to deal with the fallout. In her best "calm" voice she said,

"Rod, just tell me."

My Pops stopped in his tracks. He turned and faced her. He leaned in close, and with an ashen face and in a raspy voice he told her his secret.

"Kay....I'm Batman!"

Yep, that's it! My Pops is brilliant. This maybe the greatest practical joke a man has ever played on his wife. This story is often rehearsed in our family, usually with a tone of awe and raucous laughter. My Pops is a comic genius! I love seeing the expressions on people's faces as I share this story. I wish I could be sitting next to you in person now just to see your face when you read the line above.

I love my Pops for many reasons, but I will always fondly recall this moment of triumph. Every time I think of it a smile spreads across my face and my heart swells with pride. I wish everyone had the same kind of relationship with their dad that I have with mine, but let's face it, not everybody grows up with batman as a father.

My Montezuma's Revenge

Have you ever met one of those people who always orders the same thing at a restaurant? It doesn't seem to matter that they've been there eleventy-hundred times, they will without fail order the same exact thing. It doesn't matter if the restaurant were to mark up the price a bazillion times, they'd either quit eating there or shell out the money! Do those people annoy you? Do you find yourself wanting to grab them and shake them and scream, "For the love of everything sacred and holy, will you please just pick something else!"? If this is true of you, putting aside your obvious need of therapy of some kind, you may want to discontinue your perusal of my blog. For yes, as you may have guessed, I am one of those people.

If that bothers you then I am sorry that I don't really care about your personal issues. If you haven't caught on yet, this blog is not about you--unless you have the misfortune of being one of those people that annoy me enough to write about. In which case, it is very much about you, but not the way you probably hoped.

As I mentioned earlier, I am one of those people who gets the same thing every time I go to a particular restaurant. If I may (which again, this is my blog, so yes I may), I would like to let you know why I have become such a creature of habit. Pure and simply put, I find security and comfort in it. If I don't try anything new, I am never disappointed. Every now and then at the behest of my wife, I will sample a new entree and almost every time, I am disappointed.

Despite my predilection to culinary invariability, I feel that I would make an excellent food critic. You may scoff at such conjecture but what I lack in variety I more than make up for in ability to aptly describe what I am eating and can be very persuasive when called upon. If you are one of those narrow minded sorts who thinks that you have to have a variety of experience to know what's the best, I would just ask, Who is more of the fool-the man who knows what he likes and orders that or the man who tries a hundred different things, only to settle upon the exact same thing that another man chose at once?

However, my point is not to tout my own prowess, but to pass on to you what I have learned from my trip to several different Mexican food eateries. First off let me state, I lack the consent of these places to mention them in my blog, therefore I will be giving them fictitious names. However, I will be leaving clues so that you might surmise the identities of these establishments and steer clear or patronize them at your leisure. Secondly, I would like to say that my findings may be somewhat tainted as I am a fan of tex-mex and not Mexican food in its traditional form. I have been to Mexico and I feel that we in America make it so much better. ( I here illustrate my point by directing your attention to Chinese food. It was just mediocre until they brought it to America and some genius said, "Why don't we try deep frying it?" and a succulent sensation was sired).

Let us now turn our attention to the first restaurant (these are listed in order of my favorite from least to most). Let's call this restaurant "The little bull". This restaurant is considered tex-mex but it may be more accurate to refer to it as mex-tex because it is far more Mexican-y than it is Texas-y. Here I ordered, the taquito/flauta platter. Mostly because I don't like this restaurant very much and feel it is next to impossible to mess up a taquito. I will say that they were good and the Mexican Cesar salad was delicious (the pine nuts add a special twist). I would have quite enjoyed my meal if it hadn't been for the woman seated at the table next to us. I am not sure how old she was but I am quite certain that she is too old to be that plastered at 5:00. She was so tanked that when she had finished drinking her meal, she refused to tip her waiter, preferring instead to give the money to the bus boy who had been shuttling the drinks she was imbibing from the bar, fueling her booze soaked repast. Overall, I give the restaurant 4 stars (out of a possible 100). It was good, but if you want me to return you'll find someway to quarantine the alcoholics in the bar!

Next on my list of lunch is a little restaurant we shall call "Blevy's". Some people think it is named thus because it was founded by actor Blevy Chase, but that is just an urban legend. Here, I ordered the flautas and empanada platter (are you beginning to see a pattern?). The food was terrific. I especially like this restaurant because if it is your birthday they give you a big sombrero with "Blevy's" written on it. The thing I wish to address here is the hostess. When we walked in the man with whom I was eating said to her, "Tres, Senorita!" She looked at him perplexedly and said, "I am sorry, I don't speak Spanish." I interpreted for her and we somehow made it to our seats. As much as I love Blevy's, I am concerned that they employ such people and am forced to ponder-if this is who they have as the face of their company, what kind of mental midget is working the grill?

Much of my young life I considered Blevy's to be my favorite but only because I hadn't learned that our next restaurant existed. As my #1 favorite restaurant I give you, (drum roll) Over the Boarder! They have the best empanadas, flautas, nachos and pretty much anything else you would find at a tex-mex restaurant. If you have noticed, I have mentioned multiple items because this is one of those rare instances in which I was not disappointed by venturing outside of my comfort zone. As a matter of fact, I have never been disappointed by Over the Boarder. Their food is excellent, I have never met a waiter/waitress, host or cook I didn't like. They are even selective in their clientele. They don't let just any one eat there. If you choose to eat there, you are obviously a person of high taste and astute discernment.

Well, I suppose I have ignored my boys long enough. They are threatening to get me banned from Over the Boarder if I don't stop and play with them. I know they're probably bluffing, but that's not a hand I'm willing to play!

My Driver's Education

When I was a kid I can remember watching the cartoons on the Disney Channel (mind you this was back when they showed Disney Cartoons-you know Mickey, Donald and Goofy not Miley, Lindsey or (insert name of latest "tween" sweetheart to foster the image of a rebellious harlot to get back at Disney for forcing childhood innocence upon them into their teen years). One of my favorite cartoons was the one about Goofy becoming a different person behind the wheel of a car. I remember distinctly how he was very calm and polite and would go out of his way to avoid even stepping on a bug and then he would get behind the wheel and transform into a Mr. Hyde- type character. This once caring and concerned citizen became a tyrannical despot who felt that all others should yield to him and allow him the right of way. He didn't just feel that way, he considered it his right and demanded others' observance of it.

I only bring this up because I have been contemplating my own driving skills and feel that I also make a sort of Hyde-esque transformation when driving a vehicle. Before you get on your high horse and "tsk-tsk" me, just seriously consider your own driving habits. It amazes me (as I think from the safety of a desk and not behind a wheel) how I almost always assume the other guy is at fault (although, in my defense that is usually the case). I am not so level headed behind the wheel and it is at those times that I "know" the other guy is to blame-not me!

Case in point: Near my home there is a shopping center on either side of the street and an island in the middle of the road almost completely blocking access to the other shopping center depending on which side of the street you're on. The only way to turn left out of the strip mall on the east side is to turn right and pull a U-turn from a turn lane which serves as the only access to the strip mall on the west side of the street (still with me?). The point is the other day I found myself needing to turn left out of the east side of the street so I pulled into the turn lane and waited for traffic to clear so that I could make my safe and legal u-turn. The problem was that while I was waiting for traffic to clear, a car prepared to make a right hand turn out of the west side shopping center. This woman pulled up to her stop sign (I had no such posting impeding my progress) but only looked back at the traffic coming at her and failed to even look at the lane in which I was patiently waiting to make my turn. Now the sensible and kindly thing to have done would be to wait for her to proceed knowing that she hadn't seen me. However, the Hyde-ian part of my brain was triggered and instead of ensuring safety, I felt it was necessary to assert my personal rights-specifically that right to proceed first when I don't have to stop and the other person does. As you may have guessed, I pulled out, she did too and was completely shocked and awed that there was now a silver mini-van where she expected only black top. What happened next is what baffles me and is really the point of my rambling today. She began to lay on the horn and yell all manner of cursing and insinuations about me and various farm animals. I did not appreciate this! My window happened to be down at the time so that my ears received the full brunt of her slander and calumny. My window being down also afforded me the opportunity to defend myself from this salacious speech. In a calm rational voice (that never exceeded a decibel above a normal talking voice), I stated that I didn't have a stop sign and that she would do well to heed the advice of my kindergarten teacher, Ms. Saul and, "look both ways next time!" Except you know from the tenor of my introduction that this is not how it went down at all. No, I yelled at her that I didn't have a stop sign and went on to imply that she was a woman of low moral character. I am not saying this was right. But when she began to yell at me because I was adhering to the rules of the road it was just like Goofy! I became a different person entirely.

For the most part, I am an exceptional driver, especially with passengers. If I, in a moment of clarity, realize I am the one at fault in a near miss, I have no trouble waving or admitting in some way that I am at fault. But if I am not-LOOK OUT!

That is why I feel that there should be some kind of class or test that one should have to pass before they are allowed to get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. Hey, November's just around the corner, maybe we can get it on the ballot this year!

My Neighborhood-No More

For the past six years we have lived in the same place. That is something of a record for us. From the time we got married (July, 2000) to the time we moved into our current abode (July, 2004), my beautiful bride and I had moved no less than seven times. That may not sound like much to you, but is about six more times than I would have preferred (and the last time I checked this blog was called, “Jared-muses” not “some insignificant chirp who feels the need to one-up everyone’s story no matter how outlandish they are forced to exaggerate-muses”). Anyway, I love my little condo, I really do. It is almost perfect. I say almost because there is one drawback to living here (other than the ridiculous HOA fees charged to me by the neo-facist, communistic property management which I refer to as the Fourth Reich). That major hurdle to perfection is the menagerie of tenants who dwell around me.

I must pause here to say that for the most part, we have been uniquely blessed to not be surrounded by only terrible neighbors. In six years, our most directly connected neighbors have been mostly tolerable. There is the single, school teacher who lives directly across from us (and happens to be the only other original tenant in the 36 units that surround our immediate area). Other than the Macaw and a penchant for playing his guitar and singing loudly, he has been a very pleasant neighbor (and at least he sings well). Also, there are the “Extremes”. I called them that (until I learned their names) because he is a moto-cross rider (as attested to by the fact that he has a couple of bikes and walks around in a full back and neck brace after a crash, which happens with uncanny frequency-I didn’t say he was good) and because he has the word “extreme” tattooed across his back in eight inch gothic letters (which are often visible because he never wears a shirt when he’s not wearing the back brace). They are a nice couple and we always got along swimmingly. But that pretty much wraps it up on the good neighbor side of things. One unit, the one with which we share a wall, has been particularly productive in the bad neighbor department. The original tenants smoked like they were in their own personal episode of MadMen and still believed all of the phony doctors who recommended smoking as a stress reliever (although, I don’t suppose dead people have too much stress, so in a way, they were right). The bigger problem was that they would leave their cigarette butts all over the place-at least until my wife swept them all up one day and piled them up at their front door.
The next set of tenants was a family-Mom, Dad and teenage daughter and son-typical American family, right? A little too typical if you ask me. My wife said that they weren’t terrorists, but he always walked around with a “Die, American Pig” scowl on his face and the family seemed to get along more as co-workers than as relatives. A couple of calls to Homeland Security and they moved away a short time later (Ok, I admit that I was also consuming several seasons of 24 while they lived next door and that may have contributed slightly to my assumptions).
The most recent set of “winners” to play musical renters was a young couple with an infant daughter who lived there for a month. They moved in week one, the cops came to visit week two, he moved out week three and she moved out week four. In the past month or so, there has been an influx of renters moving into the vacant condos surrounding us. The most ridiculous of the new tenants are the ones who moved in directly above us. I am not sure what they are doing but it sounds like they are moving stuff across the floor continually. I don’t believe it could be furniture- who moves furniture that much? I think it might be dead bodies. Maybe they start to stink a little bit so you move them over to the window. But you don’t want the neighbors to see you airing out your dead bodies so you got to hide them back in the closet again. I am willing to hold my tongue and not turn them in if they would please, for the love of everything sacred and holy, stop moving the bodies around! If it persists, I believe the FBI has an organized crime division who will be getting a call.

What was once a pleasant little condo has been turned into a glorified apartment complex which I feel shall be featured on COPS very soon. The nefarious conduct has escalated. The other day I walked through the courtyard to our garage and was almost knocked over by the smell of mary-jane (and I don’t mean the perfume worn by Spiderman’s on again, off again love interest). However, the majority of criminal activity has been limited to the building across the parking lot from us. This is where the stabbing occurred. It seems that some guy didn’t like that his girlfriend broke up with him and moved out. So he found her new place (across from us) and paid her a visit one night. He bullied his way into the house and an argument broke out (which usually happens when one party infringes upon another). Long story short: he stabbed her; she played dead; cops were called; paramedics arrived; he was arrested, she moved away; the neighborhood was peaceful again…but for how long?

The winner of "Neighbor of the Decade" though goes to one particularly strung out single mom. I shall, for the sake of brevity, refer to her as, “the woman”, in lieu of the other name I have for her, "Crazy, Paranoid, Insomniatic, Crack Whore, the first”. If I may, I will share with you this particular story in better detail than the previous ones I have related.

One night, about 10:00 pm my wife and I decided to call it a night and head to bed (this is not married code, we really are so boring sometimes that we actually go to bed that early). We had been asleep for roughly three hours when we were startled awake by knocking on our door. I sleepily stumbled to the door and peered through the lookout hole and saw the woman. She was standing there in a bathrobe with hair disheveled and a wild paranoid look in her eye. I generally sleep without a shirt (this is not said to gross you out but to explain my next move) so I called through the door, rather than opening it, in order to ascertain what she could possibly want. She began to ramble on about us shining lights into her house doing so with a vocabulary that Andrew Dice Clay would have envied. I realized I was dealing with a different kind of crazy than the garden variety crazy we normally see, so I went back to the bedroom to get dressed. When I returned to the door she was nowhere to be seen. By this time my wife is up, robed and wondering at the commotion. I stepped back inside and closed the door. I then proceeded to the other side of the house (which was like three steps) and went out onto our patio. The woman was making her way back across the parking lot from her condo and beginning anew with baseless accusations of us keeping her awake by shining lights in her windows and keeping her from some obviously much needed sleep. I tried to explain to her that despite the fact that our personal hobby is staying up late and clandestinely shining laser lights into our neighbors’ window, we had actually been in bed for three hours. That little revelation took her to a dark place because she unleashed a torrent of profanity that would have been worthy of an HBO special. She then added a little wrinkle to her story. Apparently she is also a photographer, because she explained that she was in her dark room with the door closed and she could still see us shining lights into her windows. Putting aside the need of x-ray vision to see us shining lights in her windows through the closed door of her dark room, I am intimately aware of the confines of these little condos and there is no place to even set up a dark room. If she has a dark room then I’m Abraham Lincoln and I have neither the height nor the capacity to grow a beard like our sixteenth president.
At this point my wife transforms from the mild mannered housewife that you all know and love into the proverbial momma bear who’s cubs are about to be awakened by this crazy, delusional, paranoid, insomniatic, crack whore (the first). I am now forced to place myself in between momma bear and the woman who keeps poking her. This is not a place I want to be. On one side I have the aforementioned harlot and on the other I have my beautiful wife turned angry mom transitioning from defense to offense. One ear is being filled with every foul word (and maybe a few she made up) known to man and the other a series of quick retorts that made me flush with pride. Eventually this woman needed to return to her crack den (with a dark room) and refuel because she stormed off angry. My wife and I returned to our bedroom and tried to go to sleep.
The next morning we called the police just to get on record that we had a crazy neighbor (it came as no surprise to the cops), lest we find our tires slashed or a horse head in our bed. However, later that day as I returned home from work I found a note stuck to our door. I fully expected it to be a ransom note for our cats or the plants on our porch (she was that unstable), for which I was not willing to pay a red cent. Instead, it was an apology note stating a list of reasons why we should forgive her behavior, although not once did she mention withdrawal or acid trip (two of my prime suspects in the case of the crazy, paranoid, crack whore the first). She basically listed everything that went wrong in her life and said that those things were to blame. I wanted to assure her that I know we all have struggles the rest of us just choose to deal with them in a more dignified less psychotic manner. My wife was largely unimpressed with this apology and figured that if she can wake us up and cuss us out in person than she should have the decency to apologize in person. I tried to explain the disconnect between decency and crazy but she was still in momma bear mode and would not be dissuaded. From then on, every time I saw the woman, I was as pleasant to her as possible. I am not sure if crazy people can be killed with kindness but I felt it didn’t hurt to try.

That is why we are pulling up stakes and moving out. Between the photographic crack den next door and the Sopranos up stairs, we have had our fill of condo life. We are looking for a nice little house with a back yard and no adjacent buildings. There’s a nice one we’re looking at on Elm Street. After the neighbors we’ve put up with we feel that even Freddy would be an upgrade.

My Culture Clash

I know what you're thinking. Two blogs in just as many days, is it even possible. Well, I assure you that it won't become a habit. But I experienced something so wonderfully entertaining that I thought I should, nay, I felt compelled to share with you.

Last Friday evening, I took my beautiful bride of ten years, three weeks and five days to the Hollywood Bowl to see the world renowned and academy award winning composer John Williams conduct the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra. The theme of the show was "The Music of the Movies". It was a wonderful delight. John Williams was engaging and incredibly talented. The Concert Mistress was exceptional and her violin solo in the theme to Fiddler on the Roof was nothing short of brilliant. I was completely inundated with culture.

I am not opposed to culture. I just don't find it as entertaining as some people do. But this was spectacular. Even though I am not a musical person in the strictest sense (I don't play an instrument or even read music for that matter), I was able to appreciate the difficulty of the performance before me.

But that isn't what I wanted to share with you today. I would rather instead share with you the counter-culture. I knew going into this that there was going to be some people here that I, under normal circumstances, wouldn't spend time with. But I was woefully unprepared for the experience with which I was confronted. I am a fan of the movies. I loved to be entertained. I love to entertain. I would have loved to be an actor and take any chance I get to be one (which usually means Church Christmas plays and the annual comedy night fundraiser I used to run as the youth pastor). But while I am a fan, I am not fanatical.

One of the souvenirs you could purchase was a light saber. They were available because John Williams, of course, wrote the music for Star Wars. But the people I saw weren't going to waste their money on those. Not because of some sense of fiscal responsibility, but because of a lack of authenticity. That's right, they weren't real enough. As we milled about in the lines for entrance and snacks, I noticed an incredibly high number of people with their very own light sabers. Some had the ones you build yourself at Disneyland or some other star wars shoppe. But some had very expensive looking replicas. I laughed to myself because I thought it was a little comical, not that they owned those things, but that they brought them. But those people were the sanest ones of the bunch.

As we progressed toward our seats, I saw a woman with a t-shirt on that had the picture of a woman's body decked out in the Princess Leia/Jabba's palace prisoner outfit. She had her hair done up in the same way that Leia did in the Return of the Jedi. The guy with her (who I can only assume was a relative or gay) was wearing a t-shirt that resembled Darth Vader's breastplate complete with light up panel and glowing tubes running over it. I thought okay, the light saber was cute but that this was over doing it a bit. They didn't prove to be the craziest of the bunch.

Then I saw a guy dressed just like Indiana Jones. I thought that was too far. However, I rationalized in my mind that I also own a pair of khaki pants and a white shirt and while I possess neither the hat nor the satchel, it wasn't unreasonable to think that someone may own these things separately and threw them together as a laugh. But this was just the tip of the weird iceberg.

I then saw a guy who defied rational thought. He was dressed as a "Padawan apprentice" (if I misspelled that-I am glad I don't know its proper spelling and couldn't care less). If you are going to dress up as a movie character, how low must your self esteem be if you are willing to be the guy who doesn't have any cool powers or know anything? That just screamed pathetic to me. But this guy wasn't even the worst.

While one of the three Star Wars songs was being played that night some guy dressed up like a storm trooper jumped up in the aisle and began to dance up and down the stairs. He was comical and entertaining but I thought it was appropriate for him since he no doubt was laughed at a lot when he was a child (which he probably still is, at least maturity-wise). But this guy still wasn't the main attraction.

No that spot is reserved for the guy who showed up in a complete Jedi outfit. From the boots to the belt to the long grown out hair (a la Liam Neeson's Qui-Gon Jinn-again if I misspelled, I don't care). But the piece de resistance was his hand made custom light saber. I have read a Star Wars book or two (I'm not drinking the kool-aid, I just enjoy good FICTION!) and I learned that part of a Jedi's final training is building his own light saber. I have no doubt that this is exactly what this guy did. The best part was how he stood at perfect attention, light saber in hand and held perfectly straight in front of him. The devotion and reverence which he displayed would lead one to believe that John Williams was at the very heart of the rebel alliance.

I laughed within myself and out loud on quite a few occasions as the ridiculousness struck me repeatedly like a speeder cruising over a womp rat. But the thought that struck me the funniest and what I will leave you with now, is this: Between all of the Star Wars geeks, err...fans and the gay guys that flock to musicals like the "salmon of Capistrano", I was very confident that I was one of the only guys in that entire crowd who has actually kissed a girl!

My Knott's Bloggy Farm

As I've mentioned in the past I'm a youth pastor, or at least I was- until August 1st at which time I relinquished my title as Supreme Commander of the Youth Group and returned to civilian life. But while the title yet remained, it was incumbent upon me to do various things with my teenagers, not the least of which was taking them on our yearly trek to Knott's Berry Farm, this being one of our final activities with the teens.

Now I'm more of a Disneyland man (not sure if those words are often said together) myself, but in the interest of equal time I do attend other amusement parks. Such was the case on this beautiful summer day. We loaded up the bus with thirteen teens and two leaders and went to the old berry farm once owned by the Knott's family.

I've got several rules I implement when taking my teens to an amusement park. Some youth guys force their kids to stay with them the whole day. I do not. I feel that if they don't want to be around me then I don't want to be around them. I let them go off in groups of no less than four. If they get stuck with a kid they don't necessarily want to hang out with all day then they cannot ditch them. By the same token the loner kids cannot allow themselves to be ditched. Both instances will find all parties involved facing the wrath and judgment of their youth pastor, who can be pretty mean when he needs to be, or so I'm told-I generally blackout for brief periods of time after someone upsets me. When I awake I find my shirt missing, my pants ripped and turned purple and the faintest hue of green ebbing from the surface of my skin). I also do not tolerate tardiness. If you force me to wait more than 5 minutes, I will force you to walk the whole way home (which is a real bummer when we go to college days in OKC).

Once I send my kids off to go play (inevitably some will stick around because I am that awesome) I turn my attention to the flotsam and jetsam of theme park attendees.

This day did not disappoint.

One of the attractions common with all parks (whether they be theme, amusement or carnival style) is the opportunity to try your hand at some random game in the attempt to win a small, medium or large plush toy. Firstly, their games were pretty dumb. You could try your hand at a basketball game where you attempted a three point contest with extremely over inflated balls and a rim that was half the size of a standard rim (although I must confess it is hilarious to watch some punk who thinks he's better than Kobe make fewer shots than a little girl who uses every ounce of strength just to get it close). If that doesn't do it for you, you can try to kick a soccer ball into a small net that is being guarded by a comical (if not somewhat stereotypical and racially insensitive) cardboard cutout of a Mexican goalie that is bigger than the goal! As terrible as the games are, they are surpassed by the prizes you could win. Most of the plush toys were versions of various South Park characters. I don't really see this appealing to anyone but stoners and very immature guys who think that sort of thing is funny enough to watch more than 30 seconds. As you may have guessed I'm not a fan of the show nor do I think anybody should watch it. But I certainly think it's inappropriate to serve as a prize that your kids will want you to win for them. If you play some of the more expensive and thus more challenging games, you could win an electric guitar. Really?! As if it wasn't difficult enough to lug around a giant stuffed animal, now a kid has got to potentially carry around a musical instrument like he's waiting for a music producer to spring from the bushes and offer him a recording contract if he can play a song for him in the next 30 seconds.

The park workers also seemed to enjoy their jobs significantly less than their Disneyland counterparts. They walk around like zombies crashing after a red bull high and if they happen to engage you in conversation it is the weirdest thing you'll hear all day.

Allow me to illustrate. I went on Boomerang with one of my seniors and while standing in line, a rather portly park worker approached us and stepped inside his little area with a small control box. Once safely inside his outlined square of caution, he proceeded to lift a chain across the opening and latch it. It struck me as funny, being a large man myself, that this tiny wisp of a chain (that somewhat resembled the chain of a pocket watch) would securely hold him in place should he lose his balance and tumble towards the opening of his box o' safety. So I said, "There, now don't you feel safe?” Now there are two types of fat people: the ones who are jovial and love to laugh as much as they love deep fried everything (see my previous post for more on that) and there are the ones who live in their mom's basement. They usually exhibit a lack of social skills and/or anti social behavior and carry with them an in-depth and intimate knowledge of role playing games and World of Warcraft. My friend the park employee was the latter which was obvious when he replied thusly, "It's a safety measure, sir." Really, I didn't realize that, I thought it was a barrier to keep out the tens of people who want your job!

I happened to be wearing a Batman shirt and this sparked his interest greatly. He asked me (in more of a statement) if I was a DC comics fan, being sure to add that he preferred Marvel. I am a fan of Batman and Superman (my personal favorite is the Green Lantern) but I don't choose sides. So I said, "I don't get caught up in the whole east coast/west coast thing" (A reference that sailed over his head by three or four feet). Undaunted by my reference to pop culture, he then said, "Okay, then, who do you think would win in a fight: Batman or Superman?"

I was taken aback at first as I stared unblinking trying to figure out if he really just asked me that. I was looking for the worm hole to Jr. High and the Van Damme vs. Seagal debate. I'm not sure if I'm more surprised that I answered him or if my answer made a compelling argument. I said, "Batman! Superman may be supernaturally strong but he has a weakness that makes him mortal and when he's like that, he's kind of a wuss! Whereas, Batman has proven that he can endure getting the crap beat out of him and still rise victorious." He didn't say much, just, "I've never thought of that." He then told us to keep our hands inside the car and enjoy the rest of our day at Knott's. As the coaster left the platform he had a look on his face as though his entire world paradigm had been altered. When we returned to the platform he was nowhere to be seen and his replacement said he muttered something about the foundations of his life being shaken and needing some deep fried butter. He's probably in his basement abode on his inflatable couch curled up in the fetal position desperately clutching his superhero dolls-err-action figures to his chest.

At lunch, I returned to the park entrance to meet with my teens. While waiting for the waifs to arrive I noticed a commotion at the turnstile. A security guard was standing there with arms folded looking down disapprovingly as a Brazilian man argued his case. One of the rules is that no outside food is allowed in the park. This man tried to circumnavigate this rule by hiding a bag of Doritos and a tray of Chips Ahoy cookies in a Brazilian team soccer jacket. While I feel that the greater offense was desecrating the snack foods by concealing them in soccer paraphernalia, the park takes a dim view of rule breakers. It seems that when the ticket checker discovered the food she accidentally dropped his jacket on the ground. He decided that this was the most egregious error of all and attempted to deflect attention from his crime by asking to see as many park officials as he could to whom he could plead his case. One by one they came all the way up the chain of command and as they did he demonstrated what happened to each one of them. He would tell them how angry he was that the bag checker dropped his jacket on the ground and then he would act it out. He must have rubbed that jacket on the ground no less than 10 times in demonstration. His chief complaint was that they soiled the collar and that it would need to be dry-cleaned. He demanded that Knott’s pay for it. From my vantage point I could clearly see the stain on his collar and I am convinced it was nothing more than sweat. The park attendants held their ground on the jacket and eventually gave in on the snack food allowing him to keep it as long as he didn't eat it and find a respectable sports jacket in which to hide them. I was a little disappointed that they acquiesced so easily but perhaps when dealing with someone as unstable as a soccer fan one must be as cautious as possible.

There is so much more I could bore you with but not much of it compares to the plump park person or the furious food hiding foreigner. So I leave you with that and set out on my next blog. Tonight I go to the Hollywood Bowl to see John Williams conduct an orchestra playing music from the movies he's scored. Maybe this one won't take me two months....but I wouldn't hold your breath!

My Fair Review

I know that it has been a while since my last blogging. I want to be honest and tell you that I have not been able to post a blog because I have been extremely busy. However, I can't be honest and tell you that so I'll just lie to you instead. I haven't posted a blog in a while because I have been extremely busy. In the past month or so since my previous posting, I have been working as a fry cook in a dive of a restaurant. My boss was an extremely tight-fisted old crab. The other guy on my shift was a cashier who approached his job with the same consideration that a bear has for toilet paper (not the ones in those creepy Charmin commercials either). I have been living in a pineapple shaped condo next to a friendly yet completely stupid guy who only wore swimming shorts and despite his unattractive physique, never wore a shirt. I did hang out with a squirrel-ly girl who taught me a great deal about martial arts.

At any rate I won't bore you any longer with the details of my summer. In all of the busy-ness, I did manage to break off a day to spend with my family at the Del Mar Fair. We had an enjoyable time there. We ate all manner of inappropriate foods; we saw all manner of livestock and various things that we put on display just before we turn them into food; and we laughed at the many people who really make you wonder why there aren't greater restrictions on reproduction.
I shall turn my attention first to the fair fare. It is no secret that the true meaning of Christmas is not found in the commercialization or the gifts given and received (something I learned while spending time with a group of neighborhood kids including a pushy know-it-all, a piano prodigy, a wise yet blanket-addicted little boy and my faithful beagle who always seems to be more popular than me). In the same sense, it is no secret that the true meaning of a fair is not the awards for best farm animal or craftsmanship, but rather it is found in the food that is offered up at the fair. What would a fair be without the deliciously unhealthy aliment? It would be entirely populated by future and past farmers and that's pretty much it. While there are different things to try, the theme of a fair's food is "fried". They have all sorts of fried foods to be had. I think it is a little ironic to take something healthy like zucchini and drowned it in oil until every last vestige of nutrition is gone and then serve it with a generous portion of ranch dressing to be sure to mask any of the actual taste of the vegetable (which when you think of what it really is, the swollen ovary of a zucchini flower, is not so palatable anyway). I decided to go with something that didn't at one time resemble something healthy and ordered up a deep-fried Oreo. Basically, it tasted like an Oreo wrapped in a donut. It may not be overly healthy, but it was delicious. There were many other deep-fried options from which to choose: twinkies, snickers, hot dogs. Deep-frying even found it's way into the beverage category with one kiosk offering deep-fried Coke. I can't even begin to wrap my brain around how they accomplish that but suffice it to say if the chemical make up of your drink is such that it can survive being plunged into boiling oil you may want to rethink your beverage choice.

Believe it or not, there are rules when it comes to consuming fried foods (or at least I have rules). My main rule is: "I refuse to eat anything fried that I wouldn't eat un-fried." What I mean to say is that if I wouldn't consume it under non-fair conditions, then I won't have it fried. Which is one reason why I avoided the deep-fried...wait for it...sticks of butter! That's right you heard me. If you didn't make it to the fair this year then you missed out on the kiosk that was selling deep-fried butter. Now there is nothing I enjoy more than relaxing at the end of the day with my remote in one hand and a stick of butter in the other- whatever, I don't even like to eat my toast until all the butter is melted. But that wasn't the only thing stopping me. There were a few other omens that deterred me. One was the fact that the name of the kiosk selling these items of coronary ignorance and apathy was "The Heart Attack Cafe". While I give you a point for truth in advertising, the only type of people you'll attract with that kind of name are the mullet wearing, denim shirt with the sleeves cut-off and their name on a patch across the front Billy-bob's who's last words are generally, "Ya'll gotta see this." Another reason is the other things this particular kiosk sold. Namely, Chocolate covered Bacon. Now I love bacon, and I like chocolate, but somethings are just not meant to go together. Just because two different things taste good doesn't mean that they taste good together. But perhaps the most compelling deterrent for partaking of this schlock is the fact that the authorities saw fit to set up a triage station (which always seemed to be busy) no less than 30 feet from this outfit.

But enough about that. This post grows longer and I haven't even begun to discuss the denizens of this open air agoraphobic nightmare. There really are just too many weirdos at a fair to cover them all and do the subject any true justice. So I will select one particular group and conclude my review with a brief discussion on the failings of this particular set of people. The group I wish to discuss is one that is close to home because I have a member in my family that fell prey to their worrisome ways. I am referring to the "fanny-pack" people. I am not going to give any names but one person in our family wears one of this atrocious oddities every time we go to a public place such as this. We, and by we I mean every other person in her family, torment her mercilessly in hopes that she would finally acquiesce and discard that public eyesore. This time we decided to hold up a proverbial mirror and show her what sort of people generally use this derriere accoutrement. So we began to use our phones to discreetly snap photos of people we spied sporting these hindquarter habiliments. There was the corpulent woman with the stretchy pants and ripped sweater over a tank top, with a head band and thick socks looking like she stepped out of a Flashdance themed Jenny Craig meeting. There was also the guy in the black t-shirt with khaki shorts, black socks and dress shoes whose fanny pack I'm sure contained the key to his bicycle lock and his velcro wallet. Well, my mother-in-law finally gave in and bought herself a new shoulder bag to carry around with her. Her chief complaint is that a fanny pack is infinitely more difficult to steal from you than a purse or wallet. While I agree with her argument, I think we have all learned a valuable lesson from our trip to the fair. People may sometimes steal your wallet, but fanny packs will always steal your dignity!

My Pomp and Circumstance

There are many things that I enjoy doing in my job as a Youth Pastor. I get to work with teens and spend time doing silly things that most grown adults wouldn't think of doing. Well, they might think of them but they would never act on those thoughts. I, on the other hand, have what most people would consider a natural handicap but I feel that my immaturity serves me well especially when it comes to unashamedly acting like a goofball. While I enjoy most things about my job, I don't particularly like everything. One of my requirements is attending various events for my teens. I (only half) jokingly refer to this as torture time. It can be a rather lugubrious task to be sure. Even though I would rather be water-boarded (or at least try it once), I went to a graduation ceremony. This is one of my least favorite torture times. Mostly because I am at the mercy of an entire faculty and graduating class and as such am subject to their inanity. I love my teens and am extremely proud of them and so torture or not I go.
I chose to go "Bro. formal" with a nice pair of jeans and an untucked collared shirt and found that I was still over dressed compared to most in attendance. Let me take this moment to say that I despise the recent trend of guys growing their hair out like they are all trying out for the role of the annoying loud mouthed kid in the original Bad News Bears. Especially with a cap and gown, you cannot possibly tell the boys from the girls. Not to just pick on the boys, I would like to inform the girls that there is such a thing as too high-high heels. If you look like you're walking on stilts- they're too high. If you almost fall three times during the processional and once on your long awkward walk to give the student address because you tried to walk normally-I think you get the idea.
Now comes the continual parade of cliches': Graduation isn't the end it's only the beginning; you have your whole life ahead of you; let your light shine bright; you've accomplished a tremendous thing and now you're ready for the real world (I'm pretty sure that from the looks and sounds of these graduates they meant the MTV version); this is the last time we'll all be together; blah, blah, blah. There were more but to be honest I wasn't paying attention. All I am certain of is that at some point someone quoted the Irish Blessing: Road rise up; wind at back yadda yadda! At least no one tried to attribute it to the book of Proverbs at this commencement.
They sang the Star Spangled Banner and while I love the song, I hate that people feel the need to pretend to be Whitney Houston trying out for American Idol (the Super Bowl Whitney-not the drug addicted Whitney that has become an E! News staple and is often featured on The Soup). Will someone please put an end to this?! (the singing not Whitney Houston...I think)
When did it become necessary to show a picture slide show depicting the journey from infant to pre-adolescent to "young adult". If you want to look at each others baby pictures, fine! But I'm pretty sure that's why they made Facebook. Why must I be subjected to this? I neither care how cute/ugly you were as a baby nor do I care to revisit the ugly/awkward stage every teen goes through. And can somebody please select some song other than the Friends theme song?
Next on the agenda are the speeches. An interminable lineup of students and teachers crying and telling each other how much they love and will miss each other despite the fact that they have spent the last four years as adversaries. Kids sobbing about how much they're going to miss spending time with each other. Which is a crock because you would only miss them if you sat in your room and never attempted to make a new friend. I was very close to each one of my fellow graduates (when there are only 7 of you and one of those is your brother, it's hard not to be) but I don't pine for them or miss them or really think about them very often. Life is way too busy to spend time missing your high school chums. Besides, now adays with Facebook and twitter and the such, are they really ever gone?
I now turn my attention to the awards. Every year in every high school they recognize the two smartest kids as the Valedictorian and Salutatorian. Then these two usually get up and make us all wonder- "If these are the best and brightest, how imbecilic must the rest of the class be?" I would like to express my pride and utter delight that my very own Brianna Pixomatis received the Heritage Award for Virtue for displaying a life of integrity and character and being an example of virtue to her fellow classmates. Way to go Bri, we love you. I would now like to present an award of my own to one Kirill Gamaley. You deserve something after going through childhood with a name that sounds like it was ripped from a J. R. R. Tolkien book.
Pretty soon they will hand out all of the diplomas and the kids will switch their tassels from the right to the left side of their caps and the principal will announce them officially as the 2010 graduates. At this point they will all toss their caps in the air. I am not sure who started this tradition or how many eyes have been put out by it. I wonder how many young and promising lives have been cut short because somebody decided to hurl a pointy object into the air.
Well, the ceremony is winding down and my ears are about to burst from the whooping and screaming every three seconds (if that last line made me sound old then I don't care! Just leave me be and let me eat my bran in peace). I must go home and rest up because it's more of the same tomorrow with graduation parties to attend. Yeah me!

My Conversation with a Musical, Christmas Pirate

Have you ever been watching a TV show when the local news interrupts with a breaking story? Just as Vanna is about to reveal that all- important letter that you need to be able to solve the phrase, a bulletin comes across the news desk and they feel compelled to stop you mid-entertainment and tell you that there is yet another high speed chase in Glendale. You would think eventually these things would stop becoming breaking news since they happen as frequently as Hollywood stars enter rehab (hmm...I wonder if there is a connection, nevermind). Anyway, they eventually go live to the scene of whatever crime is being committed and inevitably they find some kind of eyewitness to interview. However, they never find Joe Normal to give an accurate account. No, they interview some crazy person who prattles on for five minutes without ever accurately describing what they were believed to have seen. It is at these moments that I begin to wonder: a.) Why all TV news reporters, even if they're not Hispanic feel the need to say their name with a Hispanic accent; and b.) If these type of crazy people really do exist, then why have I never met one in person?
Well, I will wonder that no more (I here refer to part b of my previous query-I may never understand a TV journalist's need to be Latino). I have met one such person who would fully satisfy all of the requirements of a TV news interviewee. He dressed weird, drove a weird car, and talked all sorts of nonsensical gibberish. He was perfect.

I was at a Jack in the Box in Fallbrook yesterday and while I was in the dining room I happened upon a creature so unbelievable I am certain many of you will accuse me of concocting this entire story just to have something about which to write. He was unimaginable in all aspects of his appearance. He was wearing a pair of capri pants or at least that is what I thought at first. He was actually wearing a pair of black docker style pants that had been cutoff midway between his knee and his ankle. It was a rather poor job leaving the ends of the pants somewhat frayed. He was wearing a white linen blousey shirt that looked as though it hadn't been washed or mended since the last time he was in port. This shirt had long billowy sleeves and a lace up front. That's right, he was wearing a pirate shirt. Not a fancy one like on Seinfeld when Kramer's date the "quiet talker" tricked Jerry into wearing one in a TV appearance, but one that looked as though it had seen many days swabbing the deck. He had long, stringy hair that hadn't been washed for a while either. His face was twisted in a perpetual squint with the right eye just slightly more squinted than the left. He was unshaven (in true pirate fashion) and had a hoop earring in his left ear. He had a fanny pack on but his shirt was so blousey that you couldn't actually see the pack. It just made it look like he was wearing a belt on the outside of his shirt (again, in true pirate fashion). I looked to his feet and was slightly disappointed not to find a pair of black loafers with great big silver buckles. Instead he was wearing a pair of sensible shoes. If he had striped socks and a cutlass at his side, he could have been mistaken for the animatronic pirates at Disneyland. When he spoke he had a gravelly rasp in his voice reminiscent of all good pirate captains. He truly was a buccaneer.

I needed to retrieve something from my vehicle and while in the parking lot I spied the vehicle in the pictures you see on this page. I am sorry if you can't clearly seem them, and even if you can I am afraid that they still don't do justice to this sight. I assure you it is something altogether different to behold in person. It is an '88 or '89 Dodge Caravan that has been completely decked out with various Christmas ornaments. There is only one Santa on the van (you can see him seated in a vehicle that is situated just above the driver) because he is really "Satan Clause" and is really too much of a "wicked sinner to deserve any attention during the holidays." You can't really tell in the pictures but the inside is just as crammed with Christmas decorations as the outside. Once I returned to the dining room to complete my work, the Christmas Pirate struck up a conversation with me by asking me if I was the one who gave the piano lessons that are advertised on the back of my van. Fearful that he would be interested in piano lessons and concerned with exposing my family to this man, I simply told him that I was not the teacher but that there were no openings that I was aware of. The reason that he wanted to know was that he was hoping he had found someone to answer a question that had been bothering him for a while.
The question: Can someone who plays a piano play a harpsichord?
Harpsichords, which I assume are more prevalent on pirate ships than pianos, had held his interest for many years. But his true passion was to learn how to play the organ. He asked me if I ever went to church to hear an organist play. I told him that I was actually the music director at my church but that we no longer used an organ in our services. That was all he needed to hear. He immediately began (and I am not exaggerating for comical effect) a 15 minute monologue on music and religion. Not music's role in religion or vice versa, but a short amount of time on why he was no longer a christian (I figured it was because it's hard to find a good preacher out on the briny deep), and the rest about Christmas music, even singing me a few bars of several songs he wrote.

I wish I could share everything he told me with you but I will be forced to just hit the highlights. First, I learned that the best Christmas music in the world is South American Christmas music. They have many songs dedicated to the season (all I was aware of was Feliz Navidad) but the government won't allow the radio stations to play them because of the political differences between our democratic republic and their dictatorial/drug cartel leadership. Second, I learned that the Oakridge Boys are the only country music group with a decent Christmas album. Third, I learned that he likes to write his own Christmas music. Nothing original mind you just taking some old standards and retooling the lyrics to suit him better. He sang "Santa Clause is coming to Town" but changed the lyrics to Jesus Christ is coming to earth (and is going to destroy everyone except Christmas Pirates with hell fire); "Jingle Bells" was swapped out for Hell's Bells; and my personal favorite "Sinners roasting over Hell's Fire, Satan cutting off their toes".
It was a remarkable experience and the whole time I was pinching myself because I couldn't believe that this was actually happening to me. It was amazing and awesome at the same time. I kept waiting for him to call me a "bilge rat" or threaten to cut out my gizzard and have it for his supper. There is so much more I could share with you like the fact that he was a famous city bus driver in Phoenix but that will have to wait for another time.

I hope that all of you will someday meet your own musical, Christmas pirate. But until you do, feel free to live vicariously through my experience.

My Disneyland-Banned

Ever since I was a kid I have loved to "people watch". If it were a sport you could be sure that I would have turned pro out of Jr. High and by now would be one of those egomaniacal jerks who refer to themselves only in the third person. It has always entertained me. The weird things people do, say and wear have brought me endless hours of amusement.
Just like any sport there are proper places to play it. Sure you can play football in your living room but it's so much better out in an open field. The two best places to people watch are stores and amusement parks. In the category of stores there are two elements: you have the trendy spots like malls where everyone is simply there to be buy something to impress others or to show off the things they already purchased in order to impress others; you also have the other places where people have to go and don't necessarily care what they look like. I call this place Wal-mart. Since, however, there is already a whole site dedicated to the denizens who troll this wonderland of rejects, my blog must focus on the other option-amusement parks-Disneyland in particular.
I returned to the so called Happiest Place on Earth with my lovely bride in hand to enjoy an afternoon of frivolity without our children (thanks again, Grandma). While we rode rides and experienced all sorts of enjoyable memories, we were subjected to an abnormally large quantity of odd people. As I began to notice the increasing number of troglodytes, dolts and ne'er-do-wells I felt compelled to keep track and develop some sort of system for culling the undesirables. So I came upon an idea to: a) let people stay and enjoy themselves; b) kick them out of the park for the day (and any subsequent day I would be in attendance); or c) ban them for life. The last was my favorite option.
As we arrived at the park I quickly noticed that a lot of people, young and old alike were wearing Ed Hardy T-shirts. BANNED! If you disagree with my decision allow me to inform you of two things: 1) I don't pay for this site, it's free and you can start your own pro-Ed Hardy blog anytime you want to do so; 2) you are now dangerously close to being banned as well.
While standing in line for Tower of Terror I came upon a scene I had not been witness to since leaving the relative "ghetto" of Vallejo, Ca for the valley. I'll try to be appropriate here and not be too descriptive but she literally (and I use that word literally, not as a hyperbole), I repeat literally had a shelf extending from her lower back to the furthest point of her booty. She made J-Lo look like an old man who can't keep his pants up. I don't wish to ban her however; I don't wish to see that ever again. So she will be asked to vacate the premises for the day. Please feel free to come back any of the other 195 days of the year that my season pass is blocked out.
Allow me to preface these next comments by stating that I am not a hugger. I much prefer handshakes. I certainly don't like hugs from other guys. That being said, I will give a lifetime pass to the guy who wore a t-shirt with a picture of two hands shaking and underneath it was written say no to hugs. I am definitely in favor of that sentiment. I don't do this sort of thing but if "say no to hugs" had a Facebook page, I would become a fan.
There was only one long line-Toy Story Mania, well worth it to be sure and it afforded me an extra amount of time to people watch. If I had my way, the line would have been much shorter as many of those standing in queue would have been banned.
Not too far from us in this line was a veritable treasure trove of degenerates. My favorite was the next generation of the jersey shore cast. With their over pomaded hair and apparent lengthy sessions in the tanning bed, they were just the sort of falderal to be banned. Nearby them was a guy wearing a t-shirt that had different types of martial arts written on it. It was a championship shirt. It listed all of the different tournaments he had won. BANNED! A real ninja doesn't advertise. Directly across from us was a guy wearing a shirt that had "streetwise" written across it. If you wear a shirt that says streetwise, I think that is a pretty good indicator that you are not "street" and far from wise.
There was also a guy who was wearing a Dodger hat, now normally that alone is not enough to get you banned for life, just the days I am there (I have no desire to hobnob with Dodger fans-and yes I realize my wife is a Dodger fan, but to every rule there is an exception). The reason I wish to ban him is that he was trying to look all thug or gangster...errr...gangsta or ghetto or whatever adjective best describes someone trying to intimidate and stare down the other people in line with him waiting to shoot a cartoon canon at virtual midway games.
Also in line to shoot imaginary eggs at imaginary farm animals was a real desperate orange county housewife. With her white, linen pants, air of entitlement and over-applicated spray on tan, she gets to stay-mostly because I think it's hilarious to imagine her sitting in the Toy Story buggy with legs crossed and arms folded obviously too good for such childishness.
I would like to inform the girl with the Flashdance, off the shoulder sweater and headband that she is not Jennifer Beals and this is not 1985. BANNED! Speaking of the 80's, we took in the Captain EO tribute that is playing in tomorrow land. It would be better if it were playing in yesterday land. What was once groundbreaking, state of the art film technology is now worse than a movie you would see on theSyfy channel (and subsequently The Soup). The costumes were horrible and, despite the raucous cheers of the people behind me, Michael Jackson was laughable as the far out space captain. Every time he spoke I just wanted to laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of this soprano voice in the white, bedazzled space suit. I have to say that I think Dule Hill (better known as Gus from Psych) does a way better and infinitely more entertaining Michael Jackson than Michael Jackson.
I saw an extremely corpulent woman with a RUN DMC t-shirt on. I would just like to add a comma to that shirt and say RUN, DMC for your life! Then there were the two guys scooting around on electrical convenience vehicles. They both looked like they were just fine and they both were with their respective spouses who were left to wrangle the millions of kids and they had with them. You lazy punks need to get off your butts and help your wives. I am not sure what great evil these women committed to be saddled with these two but it must have been pretty bad.
To the pot-bellied man in the shape-ups: Do you always believe everything you see? Oh, and no pair of shoes will be able to fix what you got going on there. BANNED! Also banned for life are the people who wear ponchos on a water ride. Either don’t go on the ride or take your chances and pray you don't get wet. If you want to enjoy the ride, then enjoy it as it was intended. If you want to stay dry then go play in the desert.
So that you don't think I am only a hater, I would like to offer a lifetime pass to the family in front of us. When their little boy wouldn't behave, they followed up on their threat to leave the line that they had been waiting in for 20 minutes. I applaud you and if I ever see you again, I will be happy to let you take cuts in front of me.
But I would be remiss if I didn't include the best spectacle of the day before I closed these observations. I am referring to the Mexican Elvis cruising Main Street. Complete with Elvis shades and huge pompadour, he was wearing a black trench coat and trying to look incognito, just like the real Elvis (who is currently in witness protection). He was hilarious, trying to pass himself off as the real Elvis despite the fact that the real Elvis is neither Mexican nor in Los Angeles (my sources tell me he is managing a Piggly-Wiggly just outside Mobile, Al).
We had a good day and enjoyed ourselves immensely. On our way out we were treated to the overzealous hand gestures of the crowd traffic controllers (distant cousins of the parking lot attendants) but that's a different rant for a different day.

My Soccer Story

I would like to start off by saying that I hate soccer. You may think that hate is a strong word, but I assure you it is an accurate word. I hate soccer-I really do. I don't have a personal reason to hate soccer. It never "wronged" me. It didn't push me down in kindergarten or make fun of me in middle school. I just think it is a stupid sport.
I don't get the attraction. Running all out for 90 minutes with a very real chance of not scoring any points at all just seems to me like an effort in futility. If I wanted to run that much, which I don't, (a revelation that probably surprises no one!) I would run a half marathon. I probably wouldn't finish it in 90 minutes or without some type of mechanized conveyance but at least I would have something to show for it at the end. I'm pretty sure every participant gets a ribbon of some kind. At the very least you get to keep the fancy number sign they give you to pin to the front of your clothes. Plus they have all of those water stops. Soccer-you just run around a small area, get kicked in the shins a hundred times and look stupid whenever the ball does come to you and you misjudge the distance and whiff so hard you fall over.

I have heard the legends of how all the great sports were started, but I have never heard how (or why for that matter) soccer began. I imagine that it all began when a couple of phys. ed. drop outs got too tired or bored to watch their P.E. class so they devised a way to keep their charges in a confined area whilst simultaneously bringing them to the point of sheer exhaustion. As their slacker minds began to whirl they drew a large square in a field, threw in a ball and voila, you have the bane of society. I say all of that in order to set the record straight from the beginning. I hate soccer and so my commentary on the sport is going to be seriously biased. I don't wish to conceal that fact or mislead anyone in any way. So you may wonder how I found myself at a soccer game the other day. Well, you see besides being a soccer-hater, I am also a Youth Pastor and one of my responsibilities is attending various sporting events, a task which I rather enjoy.
This day I found myself at a small park following a couple of my teenage girls around the pitch (why they can't just call it a field like football and baseball I'll never know). Now these girls did an excellent job and I am proud of the way they handled themselves on the field. I am not here to rip them for playing a dumb sport. I wouldn't do that to my teenagers. No, the problem I have with the game I was watching had everything to do with the stupidity of the opposing coach and his team.

Apparently, there was one really good player on the other team. As a matter of fact, he was very accomplished. I learned that he plays on his high school varsity soccer team, and also plays club ball. I am familiar with what varsity represents, and I have to guess that playing club ball means something similar. At any rate, he was an excellent soccer player (which to me is the same as being an excellent paper airplane-folder. A talent to be sure but not one which will serve you well beyond the third grade). Anyway, here was this very good player in the same game as a bunch of girls and boys who were not horrible but definitely inexperienced. It was quite ridiculous. When I arrived late in the first half, he was playing the position of goalie. What I mean to say is that he had on the goalie gloves and special yellow shirt. He was not, however, anywhere near the goalie box. He was all the way forward. He was a one man team and he was in there pushing around the kids and scoring goals left and right.
When the second half rolled around he gave up the yellow jersey and all pretense that he was holding back any part of his game. He would dribble the ball around the lesser players and score a goal. All the while his team's parents were cheering him on wildly. They were whistling and hooting and hollering like he was accomplishing some great task. He not only (with the apparent approval of his coach) ran the score up on the other team but he demoralized them as well. This is a practice that is acceptable in the pros. They get paid to play and I feel if you can defeat them utterly then go right ahead. But in a kids' league game with a sign posted that admonishes people to remember that this league is all about fun, he should have not been allowed to be on the field with them. If you want a good idea of how ridiculous this spectacle was then just try envisioning Kobe Bryant showing up to a high school game and just going to town dunking over kids and swatting their shots out of the gym, all while Phil Jackson whoops and cheers him on. It was that stupid. One of the parents on our side called out to the kid and told him to let the rest of the kids play. His reply was that he "played to win". This is one of the things I find wrong with the entire sport. You don't see high school baseball players tearing it up in little league, and you won't find varsity football players destroying fools in pop warner.
The parents and the coach should be ashamed of themselves for not only allowing this to happen but encouraging this behavior. If it really is about the kids, why would you let someone ruin the game for them?

I will never be a fan of soccer. I don't say that you have to agree. I won't think less of you if you like it (I'll try not to anyway). If you are a fan and ever desire for it to be anything other than the brunt of jokes and a bad excuse to have orange slices and capri suns, then I suggest you govern it better and not let these things happen.

My Maternity

For the past five years during the first two weeks of April I have had the same dream. It has changed slightly over the years but it is fairly the same.
In my dream I spend the entire day with my boys at Disneyland, the zoo or some other place where children are often overly stimulated by an inundation of sights, sounds and grown-ups wandering about dressed as a variety of enormous woodland creatures. We are all exhausted and a little bit terrified by the day's proceedings and are loading up in the car. I'm careful to pack the stroller and setup the DVD player so the kids are sufficiently entertained (I say setup because we don't have a mounted system like those people who put on videos even though they're just driving to the store for milk. I feel this is poor parenting. Try engaging your kids, not ignoring them). Anyway, I start the movie and head home. The boys are quiet and well behaved and I decide to stop and get them a soft serve cone from McDonalds. When I pull in to the drive-thru and turn to tell them that Daddy, because he's such an awesome daddy, is getting them ice cream, I realize to my utter horror that the video is playing to a couple of empty car seats. I can only imagine the two little boys standing all alone in the Disneyland parking lot being comforted by Geppeto. It's at this point that I wake up in a cold sweat, breathe a sigh of relief and realize that it must be time for Nicole to go to the ladies retreat again.

Please don't get me wrong, I am capable of watching my boys by myself. It's just that in every parenting relationship, there are usually two kinds of people: the stalwart who is fazed by nothing and the worrier who manages to see the potential danger in every situation. I am the latter. When the boys are wrestling, I don't see two little guys horsing around and having fun. I see the much bigger one accidentally crushing the smaller one or Bryce hurling Henry into the corner of the piano bench, hitting his head and rendering him unconscious. So whenever Nicole leaves for a couple of days or even if she just goes to the store, I have to resist the urge to strap them to the couch with bubble wrap.

Well, after dropping Nicole off at the church I returned home (with both boys, whew!). I walked into the house, kicked off my flip-flops and promptly stepped into a gift that my dog left for me in the living room. Why is it that the dog never poops on the tile that is easy to clean? I immediately cordoned off a 10 foot area to try and keep Henry from playing in the offending substance. I then threw up, showered, soaked my feet in Purell, threw up again, showered again, and threw up again for good measure. You may think that I am acting like a wimp or a little girl even, but I don't care- you have your dog's diarrhetic poop squish between your toes and then we'll talk. (See! How many of you want to vomit now?) Speaking of diarrhea, Henry isn't feeling well. So that's good, yeah for me! Now, I didn't intend for this to be filled with potty humor so I will change the topic.

One of my favorite times of the day is "almost bedtime". About the last half hour or so before bedtime (hence the name "almost bedtime") is when we begin to wind down for the day. Usually this entails cleaning up a little (something we won't do until "almost pick up mommy time"), sitting down and turning on either Spongebob or the Upside Down show (I love having little boys that give me a great excuse to watch the shows I want to watch. Although I would watch them either way, having little kids makes it socially acceptable). This is my favorite time because Bryce is calm and happy and Henry, once I put Bryce to bed, eventually crawls up into my lap lays on my chest and rubs his hand on my stubbly chin. Once both boys are down for the night, I begin my solitude. As you could have probably guessed, I thrive on an audience. This usually means my wife bears the brunt of my feeble attempts at entertainment (no doubt boring her to death). But since I am alone, I am forced to try out my witty commentary on the cat (I would normally say the dog, but she and I are not on speaking terms until she learns to say "I am sorry" in perfect english). My cat is, as one might expect, unresponsive. I feel this is more a commentary on cats than the material I feed her, or at least I hope this is the case. Such great comedy fodder wasted on a stupid cat.

Bed time went well Thursday, for the boys anyway. I can never seem to sleep well when my better half is off somewhere else. It's kinda of bittersweet. On one hand I look forward to being able to sprawl all over the bed without a thought of infringing on someone's personal space. But on the other hand I have gotten so used to sleeping on the very edge of the bed while my lovely takes as much as she "needs". That and I can never seem to get to sleep without her there. Staying asleep isn't a problem. I just can't fall asleep. It may be that I have grown accustomed to our day-ending conversations and I need her to tell me about her day in order to fall asleep. Not that her day bores me to sleep or that her voice puts me out...I believe I'll stop there before I get into trouble.

Friday brought school and a speech therapy session for Bryce. Following the extremely short nap Henry took we went to the park and the Library (which has a very poor selection of kids videos). For the sake of brevity I'll just skip to the events that I really wish to discuss with you. Just before bedtime I asked Bryce to help me clean up the toys in the living room. He walked over to the couch, lied down and pulled the blanket up over himself. I asked him if he felt okay and all he said was, "Bryce is happy". I asked him if his stomach hurt and he said yes and, "need to spit". Which is "Bryce" for throw up. So I took him to the bathroom to give him a chance and all he did was actually spit. He turned around said, "go lay down" and went back into the living room and his perch on the couch. I kept an eye on him and cleaned up the living room. I am not sure if he was really sick, or just acting like daddy and trying to get out of cleaning up by feigning an illness of some kind. At any rate, he was fine by the time I put him to bed. Either way, I am just glad he didn't actually "spit". You see I am a sympathetic "spitter" and it wouldn't have been pretty.

Let's fast forward to 2:00 am. I had been asleep for two hours when I heard Henry fussing. My main objective was for both of us to return to sleep as quickly as possible. I brought him into the bed with me and after some tossing and turning and pushing me to the edge of the bed (not unlike mom), he finally settled down. Just as I was dozing myself, Henry began to cry. Now, when you become a parent, you are giving the ability to interpret your children's cries. You can rightly discern the difference between hurt and anger, hunger and a diaper change. There is no mistaking the cry of fear. I can't really describe it to you. Parents will already know exactly what I am referring to and those without kids, just be glad you haven't experienced it yet. Anyway, Henry's cry was one of sheer terror. This immediately sent my heart racing and adrenaline flooding through my body. I couldn't seem to wake him up as his cry got more and more terrified. He was having a bad dream and I drew him close to me to calm him down. It worked but not like I would have hoped or preferred. Note to self: wear a shirt to bed, especially if you are forced to comfort a freshly weaned baby after a bad dream. He will regress immediately. Awkward! Well, after calming him down, putting on a shirt and getting him back to sleep, I am stuck awake again. I tried to turn my brain off again (a task some of you would no doubt question its necessity, but I assure you I do use it occasionally) but it was difficult. Finally, I fell asleep at 5:00 am.

I now am getting ready to drive to Ironwood to get my wife who developed the stomach flu last night. I am sad because: a.) my baby is sick; and 2.) this means that even though she will be home, I will still be largely responsible for the children as she rests and recovers. Oh well, what's a couple of more hours as a single parent.......get well soon, baby! Please!...where's the bubble wrap?