Dad, Have You Met My Friend RALPH!

Well, Mr. Z's has a nasty stomach virus and today was all about puke, explosive diarrhea, and keeping Miss O away from said puke and diarrhea. It's amazing though -- I'm pretty sure this is the first time Mr. Z has ralphed since age two. I'm not going to jinx it by saying that the boy never gets sick, but he sure as fuck didn't inherit my enfeebled gene pool.

Poor dude, though. He started yookin' after breakfast, this morning, and didn't stop until mid-afternoon, when he decided to start blowing chunks out his ass instead. I really freaked out at one point, after he had a particularly heinous ass-pulsion episode on the crapper. He was starting to look really pale and I asked him how he was feeling. He said, "Perfect!" and then stood up to wash his hands. He literally turned white and passed out -- luckily, I was right there and I caught him as he fell into the hallway. He was only out for a couple seconds and then he opened his eyes and said, "What am I doing on the floor?"

We got him back into bed and, over the course of a very long afternoon, he started bouncing back. By tonight, he managed to choke down some popsicle, banana, toast and some saltines, so hopefully, he's on the mend. I hope. My nerves are fucking shot.

He and I did manage to have a little fun this afternoon, in between ice-chips and head-in-the-trashcan moments. We played a buncha games of Hangman ("pooh bear," "diarrhea," "constipated," "Uranus," and "Kerplunk) and he came up with this game where he would come up with a definition of a word, and together, we had to think of a word for the definition. Here are a couple of the better ones:

"kerplisten" -- to poop while someone is talking to you

"nintentoot" -- farting while playing a video game

"bookie woogie" -- to read a book while listening to jazz

"Bearger King" -- a bear who frequents fast-food restaurants

"bone voyage" -- a skeleton who's going on a trip

"chow mane" -- feeding dog food to a lion

"poobsly" -- a slang term for a Teddy Bear

"noobsly" -- playing a computer game you've never played before with you poobsly

"boobsly" -- breast-feeding your poobsly

I don't know... they were funny at the time. I do know that I need some fucking sleep. Who knows what fluids await me tomorrow morning.

You're My (old) LAAADDYYYYY!!!

I don't write about the Old Lady very much... mostly because she reads this from time to time and I don't need to give her any more reasons to be fucking annoyed with me. She's a very interesting lady, the Old Lady, and the stories I could tell you... shoo-doggies! Let's take a peek into the life of this fascinating woman, this brilliant she-goddess, my... LOVUH!

Now, she's a professor so she works within the "theatre of the mind." Granted, she only teaches, like, one class a semester, but her main focus is on doing research and getting articles published and scoring grants and shit, so it's pretty high-pressure stuff. And she's not the kind of person who kind of dabbles in one thing here, and then works on a little something over there -- she dives into shit whole-hog and bangs it out until she's finished -- which is what made her so popular with the fellas in college. Hello!

What the shit am I talking about?! Sorry... I had a big ol' martini before dinner tonight, so take all of this with a grain of alcohol.

Let's see... she works hard, kind of obsessive about getting things done... Oh yeah! So, when she's steeped in some sort of big project -- an article or a grant proposal -- she oftentimes looks for something kind of mindless to take her mind off all the stressful shit, so she can relax. Like the time she bought a Sudoku book, and then obsessively worked on those fucking puzzles every goddamn night for, I don't know, like four months. It was like, get the kids to bed, eat something and then MAINLINE SOME GODDAMN SUDOKU UNTIL 1:00 IN THE MORNING!!!!

The funny thing was, she didn't even know what Sudoku was a few months earlier, and if she did, she thought it was fucking ridiculous. It was like, puzzles?! Who has time for fucking puzzles. And then it's "I JUST NEED A COUPLE OF BUCKS FOR A NEW SUDOKU BOOK, BABY!!! C'MON... MAMA NEEDS A TASTE OF VITAMIN S!!!! PLEEEEASE!!!!"

Her latest addiction is Harry Fucking Potter. Now, I read the first couple of books a couple of years ago (which is big, mind you -- I'm the kind of guy who reads a book over the course of, say, 8 months, and then brags about it for two years -- "Hey, I read Harry Potter! Did you read Harry Potter? I did! All by myself!!! All the pages and everything!!!"). I'm pretty sure she mildly mocked me when I read them, by the way. Cut to a few weeks ago, and she decides to pick up the first book, because Mr. Z is a huge Harry Potter fan and she wanted to see what all the hubbub was about.

Of course, she's instantly hooked and proceeds to plow through all six books in, like three weeks. It was insane! She'd be up until three in the morning trying to finish a book, and then she'd be sitting there at breakfast grilling Mr. Z about the characters. "Do you think Snape is working undercover for Dumbledore?! I'll be he is! There's this Harry Potter forum I was reading online, last night, and they said they think Dumbledore WANTED Snape to kill him, so Snape could get closer to Voldemort and eventually kill him!!! What do you think, Mr. Z?!?!?!?!"

It's actually very cute, and she and the boy have definitely bonded over their mutual love for the bespectacled wizard man-child, so that's great. Tonight, though, there was a classic moment when the Old Lady was telling Mr. Z what she had learned about J.K. Rowling from her website:

THE OLD LADY: Mr. Z, do you know what the "J.K." stands for?

MR. Z: Well, the "J" is for Joanne, and I think the "K" is for Kathleen--

And here's where the Old lady exposed her true obsession with the young H.P.

THE OLD LADY: Actually, she told me that the "K" doesn't stand for anything.

And I had to jump in and say, "Wait... she TOLD YOU?! J.K. Rowling TOLD YOU that the 'K' didn't stand for anything?" Of course, she kind of hemmed and hawed and said that she MEANT that she READ it on J.K. Rowling's WEBSITE. I saw through it all, though, and was forced to call Jeff VanVondenvoondenven over at A&E's "Intervention," and set up a meeting.

Long story short, the Old Lady's off to the Hogwart's Center for Behavioral Health and Recovery, in Tarzana, California, where she'll deal with her inner Boggarts and hopefully return to us in a few months, clean and sober.

That is, of course, until her next obsession... Speed Stacking.

Camptown Erases...

Apparently, the spawn are really diggin' their summer camp, which is good, 'cuz now I feel like less of a turdfuck for sending them away every day of the summer. This week, Mr. Z attends the "Literary Academy" in the mornings, where he says he's been reading poems by Edgar Allen Poe, writing his own poems and crafting stories with the other eggheads there. Friday, they're having a little get-together where he'll read some of his works, which should be most excellent.

At around ll, though, he's dumped in with all the mouth-breathers for regular fun-time-Charlie camp stuff, which he also really seems to dig. At least some of his afternoon has been spent basically undoing everything he's learning in the morning, as evidenced by this Mad Libs I found in his backpack:



There it is, my friends -- the mind of an eight-year-old, in black-and-white. Which, coincidentally, is mighty close to the mind of a 42 year old. If I were to fill that page out, I think I'd only change one word. I would've changed "balls" to "nutsack."

Miss O, meanwhile, is having a jolly old time at camp, making new friends every day, making crafty shit and continuing her goal of bringing every scrap of paper in the world into our home. One cool thing she's doing, though, is writing things out phonetically, like she did in kindergarten. She's stopped asking us to spell everything for her and she's just trying to figure shit out on her own, which rocks.

Lately, she's just bringing home little, crumpled scraps of paper with mysterious sentences scrawled on them, like this:



I think that's my favorite droing she's ever mad.

Once... Twice... Three Times a-Crampy...

A new restaurant just opened up in the little Payless Shoe Shoppe/Freddie's Golf-o-Ramalamadingdong strip-mall down the road. I drive by it every time I go to the Y, and I thought that today, for some moronic reason, I'd give 'er a go for lunch. Now trying new restaurants in this town is not something that should be entered into lightly -- one's likely to get hisself kill-ted if'n he takes an ill-advised bite into the wrong gristle-ball.

So, I drive over there at around 2, because I often "forget to eat" while working in the basement -- remember, it's always dusk down there, and radon is a natural hunger suppressant. The place is called "3 Times Cafe," and it has a banner over the door proclaiming, "Grand Opening!" I tried to do a little drive-by first, to see if I could peer in the door and see what was cookin', but they had shitloads of posters for smoothies and coffee concoctions, so I was denied.

I parked and did the slow "potentially-soon-to-be-dead-man-walking" march toward the front door, and entered. Inside, it looked a lot like the last place that was there -- the place whose name escapes me at the moment, but that I'll choose to call "Johnny Pony-Tail's Week-Old-Soup Palace." There was a very nice Asian couple behind the counter who welcomed me as if I were the first, and probably last, customer to ever enter their establishment.

The menu was written on a blackboard that covered one wall -- lots of regular sandwiches and salads and coffee drinks, and a special circled area that said "Teriyaki." The woman, who seemed very eager not to blow the only potential sale she'd ever see in the place blurted out, "Do you like Teriyaki? It's very good!" I thought and responded, "Why yes... Yes, I DO like Teriyaki! I'll have the Chicken Teriyaki, as a matter of fact, nice lady! And make it to go!"

I guess that was the right answer, for she and her little man-friend started whipping together my order faster than you can say "Hold the ptomaine!" She asked if I'd like a smoothie to go along with it, and feeling like the one guy who could save their American Dream, I said, "Sure! Why not! Make it a mango!" They bundled up my grub, I paid for it, we smiled the shit out of each other, and I left, feeling like the nicest guy in the world.

Now, I'm not going to condemn this place just yet. It is, after all, the "3 Times Cafe." The first time... eh... not so hot. The special teriyaki chicken was basically a styrofoam container filled with plain white rice and about a pound-and-a-half of all-dark-meat (extra gristle!) laid atop said rice, with a tinkle-squirt's worth of teriyaki sauce dribbled over the top. I was able to choke my way through about half of it, but kinda felt like, if I ate any more, my bung-hole would stretch to "3 Times" its normal diameter just to expel the teri-yucky mess.

So, I guess I've gotta go two more times, just to be fair. I'm not completely thrilled about that. I do really want them to succeed though - they were very cute. Even their menu was cute:



If you'll notice, they're only open "Monday thru Sunday," which is a bummer, because I really like to go out for lunch on Sunday-and-a-half. Oh well. I do have to say that the mango smoothie was most excellent, however. Not an ounce of gristle! So, if all else fails, they can be my go-to bevvie shop.

I think my #2 Time there will be for breakfast. I'll try the #7 -- Omelet Plate (hold the beaks).

Aye, Tunes!

So, I'm trying to find the right songs to load onto my SwiMP3 player, and it ain't that fucking easy. When I tried it out on Sunday, I just had a random smattering of shit that I dumped on there, just to see if the thing would work. Some songs were great and some made me want to drown.

For example, Olivia Newton John and ELO doing "Xanadu," perfect. Black Sabbath's "Neon Lights," surprisingly, not so great while swimming laps. Bjork's "Isobel," ideal. "Bad Reputation," by Thin Lizzy? Actually gave me a mild case of "the bends."

So I iTunes-ed some shit tonight that I thought would perfectly soundtrack my watery workout tomorrow morning, at way-the-fuck-too-early-in-the-a.m. Here are the first 10 songs I loaded up:

1. "You Just May Be the One" -- The Monkees
2. "Twilight" -- ELO
3. "Awoo" -- The Hidden Cameras
4. Feelin' So Good (S.K.O.O.B.Y. D.O.O.) -- The Archies
5. "Knights of Cydonia" -- Muse
6. "The Golden State" -- John Doe
7. "Mrs. Brown, You've Got an Ugly Daughter" -- The Queers
8. "New Slang" -- The Shins
9. "Back of My Hand" -- The Jags
10. "Little Red Light" -- Fountains of Wayne

Holy fuckstain, looking at it now, that's the most random list of songs I could've possibly picked. It'll either be the greatest workout ever, or they'll be fishing a bloated me from the deep-end with the giant hook.

It's kind of exciting...

Bits-o-Tids...

I hate to say it, but this was practically a crab-free weekend. I almost didn't know what to do with myself. Sure, there was great potential for crabbitude, but somehow, it all ended up being narrowly crabverted.

Yesterday, I spent a good hour and a half inflating the new hippity-hops we got for Mr. Z and Miss O. I started out using our minuscule hand-held bike pumpette, but ended up blowing the things up with my now completely 'sploded lungs. I almost passed out about 80 times and I think I burned out about half of my alveoli and an odd O-ring or two. But seeing the spawn bounce around the yard, almost breaking every spindly limb on their bodies made it all worthwhile:



Then, I took Miss O to a birthday party at the zoo -- I know, HUGE potential for taint-rippage. But, it was pretty fucking enjoyable. The key was that the parents giving the bash ACTUALLY HAD A FUCKING CLUE HOW TO PARENT and, for once, I didn't have to end up basically hosting the goddamn thing myself. They kept things moving at a timely clip, they had food and liquid served at the right time, AND they offered me a big hunk-o-cake, which I gladly snorted. Oh, and another AND, they didn't give Miss O a godfuckingshitass goodie bag at the end of the party, thank Zeus, so I won't be stepping on plastic whistles and spider rings and tops and mini bottles of bubbles that would all be scattered all over the fucking house for the next month, if they had. It was the closest thing to a non-painful 6-year-old's birthday party that I could've possible hoped for.

And I got to pet a chinchilla.

What else? Uh... oh, I cooked a fucking incredible dinner tonight. Grilled Mahi-mahi (from the Fish Truck, no less) with garlic mashed potatoes and salad. A real grown-up family kinda dinner. It rocked the hizzy. The key was the Soy Vey teriyaki marinade. I recommend it highly for all you fish-grillers out there. My mom always uses that stuff, but I never imagined I'd find it here at the Kroger, which, strangely, I did. Didn't think they let "that kind" of condiment into the state of Michigan. Must've slipped by the ethnic food brown-shirts that rule this state with an iron oven mitt. Regardless, the food was tits.

AND, to top it all off, I tried out my new SwiMP3 player today at the pool, and the thing actually worked! First, I tested it out in a controlled, highly scientific test in the tub this morning, just to make sure. The SwiMP3 passed with flying colors, while I got water up my nose and bumped my head on the faucet.



But the thing is pretty fucking wild. As I mentioned in an earlier post, you don't wear it in your ears, but rather, the pads rest on your cheekbones, and the music is conducted through "the bone" into "the head." You can't really hear it until you stick your head in the water and then, presto, instant music, that kinda floats around your skull, right about here:



I was kinda flipping my lid for a few laps, thinking I was going to start convulsing and then all the bones in my body were going to instantly turn to powder, but I was able to chill and, eventually, really enjoy it. Listening to tunes while swimming... who'da thunkit?! Technology -- here to stay? I say "probably!"

And that's about it. I'll leave you with a conversation between Mr. Z and Miss O that I overheard as they were getting ready for bed:

MR. Z: Shut your pie-holes!

MISS O: Pie holes?! There's only ONE pie hole!

MR. Z: That's what YOU think!

Dun-dun-DUUNNNNNN!!!!!!!

Okay, I'm not a big Friday night poster. This week ripped my ass clean out and I have nothing left to give. But I feel like I've gotta post something. Now, I am SO NOT the "hey-check-out-this-hilarious-link" kinda site -- frankly, I've never understood the whole point of starting a blog just to post links and videos of other peoples' shit, but hey, who the fuck am I to judge?!

My point is, only one thing got me through this week... okay, two things: Miss O's new song and this:



I know it's everywhere and I'm sure you've all seen it a shitload of times, but goddammit if it doesn't make me laugh my fucking ass off every time I see it. It's so mysterious! What's it from?! Did someone film their pet prairie dog and just happen to catch this amazing moment and then say to themselves, "Wow, that's fucking hilarious! I'll bet if I dub in the music from 'Young Frankenstein' it'll be even hilariouser!" Whatever the motivation, I'm thrilled that it exists in this world and will continue to watch it every day until the day I croak, or until I get really fucking sick of it. Whichever comes first.

Until that day, however, I'm a-gonna watch it s'more...

Who Let the Riff-Raff in?

Well, the spawnage started camp this week, and, as is the law in all new situations, Mr. Z is having some trouble with a coupla punk-ass shitheads. Apparently, there are two brothers, both with buzz-cuts (surprise), who have been lipping off to the boy. According to Mr. Z, here's their very first exchange:

[Mr. Z walks up to the skinhead dickfers, as they're playing some game on a computer]

SKINHEAD 1: What're you looking at, Glasses?!

[MR. Z pauses, out of shock at their unprovoked cockishness, and then replies]

MR. Z: Get out of town, Charlie Brown.

"What're you looking at, Glasses?!" Who is this kid, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, Jr.?! What the shit?! But chalk one up for Mr. Z for the snappy comeback! It's random, it rhymes, and, frankly, it's very Fonzie/Richie Cunningham. I've taught the boy well. Actually, I've never uttered that phrase in my life. He birthed that baby all by his lonesome. I like it. It's got moxie.

Also, these cro-magfucks have a female confrere who's messin' with Mr. Z, as well. She, too, was playing some game on her Nintendo DS, when Mr. Z asked:

MR. Z: Cool. Are you playing "Chibi Robo"?

Fe-Magnon: No, I'm playing "Shut up!"

Nice mouth, Frida. Again, what's with the unwarranted lip?! I have half a mind to shove a couple of peanut-butter and sarcasm sandwiches up each of her fucking nostrils. The nerve of these dipturds. Oh, and did I mention that they're in fourth grade? And Mr. Z's going into fifth?! Granted, they're probably the same age, what with his skipping a grade and all, but still. Guess they're just angry they missed the evolution bus.

I basically told the boy to ignore them, but I did manage to float a few subtle suggestions his way, just for fun. I've started referring to the brothers as "the moron twins," and suggested that instead of using their names when speaking to them, he might want to use the collective "crewcut," as in "Blow it out yer ass, Crewcut." Of course, he's too sweet a kid to ever say that and, to tell the truth, the Charles Schulz references seem to be working for him.

Let's hope his next comeback will be "Bite my scroter, Schroeder."

She Don't Need Much...

There's only one thing that soothes the savage crab, and that's a smokin' recording session with the spawnage. Last night, I was able to get Miss O to record the song she was singing to herself while playing with her Groovy Girls. I stuck her in front of the mic and she belted it out in three minutes, tops.

Then last night, I added in the music. I tried to cram in all my fancy new toys, I played some drums, threw some horns in there, a wacky keyboard bass part and a completely moronic fuzz-guitar riff. I finished it tonight, and I present it to you, gentle reader. I give you "A Cool Pair of Shoes (Is All I Need)," by The Miss O Beat!


"A Cool Pair of Shoes (Is All I Need)" by THE MISS O BEAT

Tearing Myself a New (Hole-In-) One...

You know what? Fuck golf. And it's not the "Oh-it's-so-hard-to-hit-that-little-round-ball-into-such-a-tiny-cup" bullshit, either. There's no reason for me to get frustrated about that because I don't practice and, therefore, I have no reason to be good. No, it's the "who-has-five-fucking-hours-to-dick-around-in-the-blazing-sun-when-
I-could-be-doing-something-I-really-enjoy-like-I-don't-know-maybe-seeing-
a-movie-or-reading-or-recording-some-music-or-even-sitting-with-my-thumb-
up-my-tired-tired-ass.

Seriously, I can see if you don't have any fucking kids and you're just awash in extra time -- sure, go ahead and piss away a third of your waking hours. Go nuts, you irresponsible sack of shit. I used to do that myself, like, a million fucking years ago. But now, if I have even 20 minutes of extra time (which I don't) I use that shit. Extra time's like gilded-ambrosia with delicate wings of gossamer, and I seek it out like it's the holy grail.

But instead of savoring that five hours of "free time, "which I haven't had in, maybe, forever, I hacked my way around 18 holes of the narrowest golf course in the world, pulling every goddamn muscle and straining and/or tearing every ligament in my time-wasting body. And I lost six balls. Eight, actually, if you count the two that spontaneously combusted from the vapor-lock in my drawers.

The only thing that kept me from taking a mashie to my head was the occasional snippet of conversation I was able to sneak in with the guys from work who were golfing with me. It was basically: approach ball, grab wrong club, swing wrong club in general vicinity of ball, occasionally hit ball but no more than 35 feet, pull major muscle group in back, double over in pain, crawl back to cart, ask friend about his new basement redo, drive 35 feet, repeat.

So yeah, the golf clubs are going into a time capsule, only to be opened when I reach the age of 104... or if I see a rat in the basement.

Cicadeath...

I'm taking a trunkload of these fuckers back to Michigan with me. I forgot how much cicadas rock.

Trading One Ache for Some Others...

Well, my toothache seems to have vanished, which is good and bad. It's good in that... well, my toothache vanished. It's bad because now I will forget about it and do nothing to ensure that it doesn't start aching again in the near-future. Why? 'Cuz that's what we morons do, dad-gummit.

I'm sure the throbbing will resurface this weekend, however, as we're loading up the car and driving to suburban Chicago tomorrow afternoon to visit my folks. Just a quick jaunt before the spawn start camp next week. Enough time to completely fuck up their sleeping schedule and get them all unbalanced before tossing them into a completely new situation with completely new kids and completely new routines. I know... I'm part of the problem. I don't learn, see? That's the theme of tonight's post.

One potential plus -- it looks like I'll be golfing early Saturday morning with some work chums. First time in over two years, which will be nice, because I haven't pulled any muscles deep in my back for quite some time now. And I've had this urge to piss away a huge chunk of money and get heatstroke. So that should be fun.

But for now, I must sleep. The Old Lady went out to dinner tonight and I had to put both spawnages to sleep, which is always a taint-splitter. I did tell them a story tonight about how they battled a dragon that breathed fire, vomited lava and crapped out the "turds of 1000 deaths." They defeated it with a fire extinguisher, a bubbling cauldron of Pepto-Bismol and the world's largest diaper. The dragon eventually became their friend, and they named him Johnny Poopshooter. They seemed to dig the tale, but I'm gonna have to live with them calling everyone Johnny Poopshooter for a couple of weeks.

Again, I'm part of the problem.

The Deep Blue (Haired) Sea...

The fucking Y up and changed their swimming schedule, sans approval from this guy, I might add, and it's completely chunting up my routine, goddammit. I drove over there yesterday morning for my 7:30 drowning, and what do I find but ONE SINGLE LANE for laps and the other FIVE for six wrinkly members of the ramps-n-canes crowd doing what I'm guessing was some sort of water aerobics. What the shit?!

Now, I don't begrudge the elderly their splish-splashin' -- shit, when I'm that old I'm not going to want to stop moving either, for fear of my kids rushing in and tossing a shovel-full of dirt over my head, while grabbing for my debit card. But do they really need FIVE LANES?! It's not like the fucking "Cocoon" pods were floating in the deep end, for shit's sake. Cram Gramps and Granny into one lane, they don't give a shit. Hell, they've been through the Depression... they're used to scrimping.

Anywhich, there were already three people in that single lap lane, doing the fucking circle thing, which gives me a squirting ulcer every time I'm involved in it. You're either stuck behind some asswipe who's swimming too slow, or you've got fucking Mark Spitz breathing down your back and you've gotta swim your ass off. No sir, 'twasn't for me, so I went home.

So now, I have to either get there by 7 a.m. and be finished by 8, or I have to swim during lunch or late at night. Cocky shitfarts! I'm gonna try to get up early tomorrow, but it's going to suck dingle-doodies, I gay-rone-tee.

Oh, and to top it off, at around noon today, I got THE WORST fucking toothache of my life, and it's ripping me a whole gaggle of new ones. It's probably from this one molar on the top right side of my mouth that doesn't have an opposing molar beneath it, so it's kinda bent to the side like... well, like Mr. Z's neck, of late. The dentist told me I should have it pulled about 10 years ago, but there's only one thing I like having pulled on me, and it doesn't involve a pliers in my mouth (though strangely, it often does involve a bib and spitting).

So I had a bottle of Advil for dinner and we'll see how everything feels in the morning... when I'm swimming at 7 fucking a.m.

I'm sure it'll feel craptastic.

I TOLD You You'd Break Your Neck...

We got a call from school today that Mr. Z was in the office with a "sore neck." The old lady went in and there he sat, the ubiquitous, cure-all ice pack pressed to the neck/shoulder juncture. Apparently, it started hurting during computer lab, when he "turned his head to the side." The Old Lady gave him some Motrin, massaged his neck a little (actually, that's how she used to woo me in the old days) and sent him back to class.

Cut to after school, when I went to up pick the boy and his sister. He comes walking down the hall like Quasimodo with a broomstick up his ass. His head was tilted to the left, his left shoulder was a foot higher than his right -- the poor kid looked miserable. I got him home, sat him on the couch and put this microwave-heatable, buckwheat neck wrap thing on him. I flicked on this "Making of Star Wars" show I taped on A&E and let him steep for awhile.

Of course, the first thing I thought was that he had some sort of hairline neck fracture, or something. Yesterday, I took him to a classmate's birthday pool party, and Mr. Z was going nutso jumping off the diving board and bouncing around in the moonwalk thingie. I convinced myself that he cracked a vertebra and it was just a matter of time until he was a quadriplegic.

Needless to say, the Old Lady thought I was fucking insane.

He did seem to get a little better as the day went on, but I'm not convinced yet. The truth will be told in the morning. Will he bound out of bed in his usual, spaz-mo-dee manner, or will I walk into his room and find him all "The Other Side of the Mountain" and shit?

Stay tuned, gentle reader...

It's Not Like This Stuff Grows on Trees!

We're constantly inundated with paper from the spawnages' school -- tests, drawings, flyers, permission slips. Forget the fucking beef industry, the ones responsible for the deforestation of the Earth are the goddamn grade school teachers. Heartless bastards.

So we toss most of the shit, but as a major fucking pack-rat/sentimental dickfer, I have a hard time throwing a lot of it away. Anything that has even a mild stench of brilliance or cuteness, I keep. I just shove all the shit into these folders/drawer things we have, and continue wedging shit in until I can a-wedge no more. Luckily, the school year is ending, 'cuz I'm just about out of wedge.

Anywhich, here's a recent drawing by Miss O that I thought was fucking brilliant and so cute it made me want to shit. Her kindergarten teacher likes to have the kids try to write shit without any help, sometimes, just having them write down what they "think" the words should look like. A lot of times, Miss O is right on the money, but at times like this, I think her version is way better:



For those morons who can't figure it out, it says "Dolphins make squeaking noises. Most dolphins are pink."

And then there are a couple of drawings that I found at the top of Mr. Z's latest spelling test. The boy has been an unbelievable speller since, well, basically since he was three. He's literally never missed a spelling word, and he just knows how to spell pretty much all words. If I were an evil, selfish, unfit parent, I'd have him compete in that Scripps National Spelling Bee. So, yeah, he usually finishes his spelling tests really early and just doodles on his papers while the dumbshit kids in his class catch up. Here's one of his drawings:



Talk about great potential tattoos. Tibor! So yeah, that one was next to his name. And then, if his teacher happened to turn his paper over, here's what she would have seen:



Hah! You're doomed!

Another Steaming Pile of Blog...

I feel like my last few posts have really bit the ol' scrote-pouch, but I've just felt kinda frazzled, of late. I'm splitting my time between three to four projects at work, which always fucking blows, 'cuz it's hard to get any momentum on any one thing before I have to do a goddamn 180 and work on something else.

Plus, I've had to take the spawnage to three different doctors' appointments this week, which just rips my fucking anus clean open. Actually, I've taken Mr. Z to the goddamn orthodontist 4 times in the last two weeks 'cuz the piece-o-shit retainer they made for him keeps breaking into smaller and smaller chunks. We go in there, usually at 8 in the morning, they do some fucking half-assed retainer bondo on the thing and say, "There ya go! Good as new!" Then the boy takes a mouthful of applesauce, or a light breeze hits it and the thing shatters again. He thinks he swallowed a hunk the other night while he was eating ice cream. I'm telling ya, if that ortho-shard rips his colon open, some heads are gonna roll.

Today, I had to take Miss O to her eye doctor appointment, which is 45 minutes away, in the middle of the day. It turned out to be a pretty good visit, actually -- she only has to wear the patch on her eye three hours a day now, instead of four -- but it was still a taint-ripper. We made the most of it, though. She got a lollipop and a sticker, and I let her take a whiz in the men's bathroom, so that was a bonus for her. Some dude came in while she was washing her hands and she gave him the old evil-eye until he sheepishly secreted himself in the stall. She was basically telling him, "Don't even think of pissing in that fucking urinal while I'm standing here, home-slice." You had to be there, but it was pretty fucking hilarious.

So, yeah, that's why my recent posts have sucked donkeys.

Oh, here's an exchange Mr. Z and I had at bedtime:

MR. Z: I totally feel bad for this kid Elliot in my class.

ME: Why?

MR. Z: All the girls chase him during recess.

ME: Hm. I don't know if I'd feel bad for him. He might actually enjoy it. How would you feel if the girls wanted to chase you all recess?

MR. Z: I dunno... it might be kinda fun. [pause] Maybe I'll hang out with Elliot tomorrow.

ME: That's my boy.

Maybe I'll Just Hum...

I was so fucking jacked yesterday, 'cuz my SwiMP3 player had finally arrived and I was going to be able to aimlessly flop around in the water to tunes!!!

But I plugged it in and it was broken. Cheapass shitfuckers.

It's probably for the best though. That thing probably would've given me an aneurysm in the pool and the little girl lifeguard who listens to the radio and reads Lucky magazine and doesn't pay any fucking attention to the swimmers wouldn't have noticed and none of the grannies and grampas who swim there would have had the bone-density to make it to the bottom to pull me back up and I would've drowned, and eventually they would've pulled me out with that big-ass hook thing and they'd notice that ridiculous device strapped to my head and would've muttered to themselves, "I always thought that guy was an asshole."

So the bastards are sending me a new one. Maybe I'll try it out in the tub first, so if my brain pops and I die, at least it'll only be my immediate family calling me an asshole.

Hey... Wake up and Go to Sleep!

Is it wrong that every night, when I go to check on the kids before turning in, I kiss them on the forehead and then noisily stand there, watching, inches from their face, and wait for them to move or make a sound, just so I can assure myself that they're not dead? Seriously... I do that every fucking night. No, really... EVERY NIGHT.

I can understand why I did it when they were newborns -- they seemed so fragile and shit, and their noses were always filled to the brim with boogersnots and they had all that smother-y stuff in their cribs, like blankets and stuffed animals and plastic baggies. But they're five and eight now, and I still walk into their rooms under the assumption that they're deceased and I can't relax and leave until they prove otherwise.

How fucked up is that?! And when will it stop?! Of course, the answer is "never." They'll be visiting my dried-out, wrinkly ass with their own families 40 years from now, and I'll wheel my iron-lung into the guest rooms late at night to make sure they're still respiring. Holy crapturds, am I a fucking mess.

Do other parents do this, I wonder? I know the Old Lady doesn't. She's got herself one of them healthy brains. She even likes to close their doors completely, at night. I always have to leave them opened a crack -- you know, so I can hear the pending death rattles more clearly.

And you know the one time I forget to check on them, something awful's gonna happen. Like there'll be a bear in Miss O's room -- a bear that I could've chased away with my late-night noisiness, but NO, I HAD TO BE SELFISH AND GO TO SLEEP WITHOUT CHECKING ON HER, AND NOW HER FACE HAS BEEN EATEN OFF!!!! Well, that fucking bear ain't gonna be eating my kids' faces off... NOT ON MY WATCH, BUB!!!

I've gotta go check on the kids. I think I just heard a growl.

Dog-Tired...

Workee workee late tonight, so I don't have time for postee. Let's see... oh, on the way home from picking up the spawn at school, today, I heard Mr. Z and Miss O thinking up names for different dog combinations. You know, like Jack Russell Terrioodle or Schnaudle or Dobermeagle PinchBernard. Anywhich, here's what I heard from the back seat:

MR. Z: How 'bout something crossed with a Shih Tzu?

MISS O: What if it was a cross between a Shih Tzu and a Weiner dog? That would be a... (pause)... a Shit-Weiner!

MR. Z: (aghast) DAD!!! DID YOU HEAR WHAT MISS O JUST SAID?!?!

MISS O: WHAT? WHAT DID I SAY?!

ME: Never mind, Miss O. Hey, Mr. Z, just drop it, okay?

MR. Z: Oh man, that was hilarious!

Miss O: What?!

Shit-weiner. That WAS hilarious, Mr. Z.

Oh yeah, and the boy and I finished "Cheez Man 3: The Attack of Angry Pickle & Cassie Cucumber" over the weekend:



Enough chit-chat! Back to work!