I Can See Clearly Now

Every once in a while, I have an epiphany. OK, every once in a GREAT while. I don't know whether it's because the stars are perfectly aligned or just something I ingested, but when it happens, I feel stupid because it seems as though what has been unveiled from my limited understanding is so obvious that I can't believe I didn't see it before.

Tonight I had an epiphany.

I was doing the dishes. But I don't think that had anything to do my epiphany. At least I hope not because I hate doing the dishes almost as much as I hate doing pinks. And I would hate to think that my epiphanies are directly linked to doing something I hate. That would suck. So I'm doing the dishes AND listening to Diane talk to her sister on the phone. I do like eavesdropping, so hopefully that's linked to my epiphanies, but probably not. I'm done trying to discover my epiphany trigger, I promise.

My sister-in-law is single and has a less than stellar track record in the relationship department, which really stinks because I believe that she's an amazing person. So while she was visiting last week, Diane decided she was going to hook her up on eHarmony.com. No more talking to guys in bars or receiving unwanted advances at the airport or the grocery store. This way she could at least investigate some relatively normal men and communicate with them before deciding to meet them. I guess she had thought about registering at eHarmony, but felt weird about filling out all of the questionnaires. Tired of her sister's lame excuses, Diane took action and decided to register for her. Talk about the blind leading the blind. What these two don't know about computers and the internet could fill a set of Collier's encyclopedias, God bless 'em. But where my wife lacks in computer knowledge, she makes up in initiative, and she set herself to the task of creating an eHarmony account for her beloved sis.

Since deciding to do this for her sister, Diane has been on the computer for TWO DAYS STRAIGHT. No, she's not stupid. It didn't take her that long to set up the account. She did give me a call at work last night to get help uploading a picture, but other than that, she did all the work herself. But now that she's set up the account, she's been checking out the guys that are "compatible" with Debbie, then calling her and scrolling through the list of possible suitors with her FOR HOURS. Before this dating service fiasco began, the longest Diane spent on ANY computer outside of work is TEN MINUTES, usually to read my lame blog to make sure I'm not libeling her or the girls.

So what happened? Enter my epiphany. Hello.

So I'm standing there washing my dishes and listening to these two women dish on the different guys that have been matched to Deb's account when I remembered something I heard several years ago about how to get women involved in something they're not naturally inclined toward. In this particular case, it was sports. It was just before the Super Bowl and there was a discussion on how to get your wife more interested in watching the game. For guys, there's bone-crushing hits, receivers going long, fast play, violence, cheerleaders...what's not to like? But since women tend to be more relationship-oriented, it was suggested that husbands should talk to their wives about the PLAYERS to get them more interested about the game. "See that guy? His name is Jim Kelly (like I said, I heard this years ago). He has a son with an extremely rare disease, so he spends much of his time in the off-season raising awareness and funds for research. That guy on the other team? He just cheated on his wife and left her with the kids. He deserves to get crushed." Blah, blah, blah. To a certain extent (in our case), it worked.

So what was the impetus for Diane's new interest in computers? RELATIONSHIPS! She went from a computer illiterate to a, well, slightly LESS computer illiterate because she wants to help get her sister a man! I've been trying to get Diane more interested in learning about computers for years! Little did I know that I would need to start a dating service to rouse her interest. Now I can't get her OFF the computer. I practically had to wrestle her out of the chair just so I could type this entry. OK that's not true, but earlier she JOKED that we would have to wrestle over computer time.

Wait. I think I just had another epiphany. I'm not sure how in love I am with the idea of my wife spending hours on the computer looking at other men "for her sister".

Epiphanies suck.

My New Weekly Ritual

"I'm not stupid...I'm an idiot!"

This was recently quoted to me by one of my co-workers, and it's been banging around in my head all week long. He basically was commenting on how he didn't lack the mental fortitude to analyze information or situations and come to a rational conclusion (i.e. being "not stupid"), but rather lacked the moral fortitude to do the sensible thing with that information (i.e. being "an idiot"). He's going through some relationship issues which would make idiots out of most of us.

I think this is going to become my new mantra. Say it with me: "I'M NOT STUPID...I'M AN IDIOT!" Case in point, my new weekly ritual. For the past few weeks, I've been watching movies on Saturday nights. Well that's not so bad, you might say. Only "Saturday nights" are really "Sunday mornings". I've been staying up until 3 am watching "stupid" movies (Diane says they're "stupid". I say they're "stupid AWESOME").

I am a Dad, and Sundays are family day. It's the one day of the week where our family is able to spend the whole day together, yet I stay up until 3 am the morning before. That makes me an idiot. I don't care. It seems like that's the only time of the day where I get to watch what I want to watch. No Toon Disney. No Cartoon Network. And as long as it doesn't inhibit me from fully engaging in family day, I'm gonna keep doing it.

My new movie ritual began a couple of weeks ago with Braveheart. I think it was on Bravo, but what do I know; it was frickin' 2 o'clock in the morning. I was flipping through channels when I came across Mel Gibson rallying the Scotsmen for the first major battle scene of the movie. I've seen Braveheart hundreds of times, but I watched it anyway.

Last week's movie was The Dirty Dozen with Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, Telly Savalas, and a very young Donald Sutherland. And last night I watched Paul Newman's 1977 hockey classic, Slap Shot. It's been probably 20 years since I saw this movie, and it did not disappoint. Slap Shot isn't so much a hockey movie as it is a fighting movie. As the old saying goes, "I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out." That's Slap Shot in a nutshell. My favorite scene in the movie is when the nerdy trio of Hanson brothers finally get their chance to play and hit the ice for the first time. They are hell on ice, chucking guys into the boards, low-sticking the refs, and high-sticking their opponents. All three are ejected after a couple minutes of play and exit the ice to thunderous applause. I had to stifle my laughter for fear of waking up the house. I may be an idiot, but at least I'm considerate. That rhymes.

So here's the considerate idiot looking forward to next week's movie.

When Stuff Slips Through the Cracks

Continuing with the cleaning theme of a couple days ago, I need to preface this entry by saying that we are not complete slobs. I will also preface this entry with an explanation for what I am about to show you, and it is simply this: life tends to be busy and fast paced. We do have a regular cleaning schedule (sort of), but it is usually limited to what is SEEN. Great periods of time can pass by before we get around to cleaning the UNSEEN: e.g. the top of the fridge, behind the TV stands, under the beds, and, um, under the couch cushions. Forget about dust-bunnies; we're breeding full fledged dust-warthogs in some of these areas.

You may recall that we recently bribed the girls into collecting an allowance. The other day, Kyra was performing her duties vacuuming in the living room while I took a shower. I was toweling off when she burst into the bathroom. I really need to start locking the door. "Daddy, I have a surprise to show you!" she sang.

"I'll be there in a minute!" I sang back.

She turned to leave, pulling the door closed behind her when she wheeled around and thrust her face into the crack of the door. "By the way," she informed me through a toothless grin, "I saw your privates." And with that she disappeared. The girls have a disturbing infatuation with seeing my privates. I need to find a way to remedy that. They need to know that male genitalia is a bad, bad, bad, bad thing, and should be avoided until they're 30 or so. Maybe 40. Actually until after I'm dead.

So I dry off, throw on some shorts, and head out to the family room fully expecting Kyra to show me an amazingly clean room. Instead I walk in to find her and Diane standing in the middle of a floor littered with cushions from the couch and love seat. One half of the couch had a blanket draped over it. Kyra's face lit up when I walked into the room. She grabbed a corner of the blanket and, in her best David Copperfield impersonation, yanked the blanket away to reveal what hid underneath. "TA-DAAA!!!"

Please don't judge me for what I'm about to show you.













Go ahead, click on the picture and investigate what's been hiding out on the lam underneath our couch cushions. There are candy wrappers, pencils, a back scratcher, a pair of scissors (I wondered what happened to them), loose change, hair scrunchies, and various other crap. Initially I was shocked at the sight underneath the blanket. How could we let it get this bad? Then I did what any rational, responsible adult would do in this situation: I ran to get the camera. Diane was horrified. "You're not going to post this on your blog, are you? It's so embarrassing!" She knows me too well.

So before you cast judgment on us, take a look under YOUR couch cushions. If there's less crap (and you have at least two children under the age of 8), then JUDGE AWAY!

I Hate Pinks

I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but I've become the de facto laundry-doer in our household. That's not to say that Diane doesn't contribute in this department; it's just that she deals with clothing at her "day job" and on a "subconscious level" avoids dealing with clothing at home, if at all possible. So the chore of laundering our garments falls into my hands, which is fine. Laundry is simply one of those necessary evils in life: the job that's NEVER done.

I have my laundry routine down to a science. Perhaps that's another reason why I've become Laundry-King of our household. I sort our clothes into six piles, yes, six. First I have the traditional dark and light piles. Then I have separate dark and light sock and underwear piles which I wash in hot water. It's underwear, people. Lord only knows what's growing in there, and I want them DEAD (the things growing in the underwear, not the underwear themselves...they're already dead). I also have a black pile since black is the only color Diane will wear. No, she's not a Goth and she doesn't have a fixation with death; she just likes black. And trying to get Diane to wear color is like asking Sunni's and Shiite's to get along: it's just not going to happen no matter how hard you try.

Because I have two young daughters, the last pile I sort is pinks. Sure there is an occasional purple or even an orange that sneaks into this pile, but for the most part, this is a big, heaping pile of pink. I hate doing pinks. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. Not because they're pink, but because of what's CAKED ON the pinks. As precious as my girls are to me, they are...how do I put this gently...messy.

The pinks are the most laborious of my laundry loads. I have to inspect each article of clothing, searching for food stains (usually chocolate or ketchup), grass stains, dirt stains, or "what the hell is that?" stains. Then I pull out my faithful bottle of Shout and go to work. But it's not enough to merely SPRAY the stain; you have to work the Shout into the stain, vigorously rubbing the fabric together so that the cleaning agents can penetrate to the very heart of the stain. I do this with EVERY ARTICLE OF CLOTHING belonging to my beloved daughters and it takes frickin' FOREVER. And no matter how meticulous I am in inspecting their clothes for stains, I always seem to miss one smudge of chocolate or a dollop of spaghetti sauce hiding in an inconspicuous location. Always. It's maddening. I mean, how in the world do you get food stains in your armpit?

I can't wait for the day both girls to outgrow their affection for pink. Not that the color pink is necessarily the problem. I just now associate that color with food stains and the smell of Shout. I'm like Pavlov's dog: every time I see the color pink, I get the urge to clean. One possible solution is to reintroduce the girls to a handy little gadget called a bib. Yeah, like that'd go over well. The REAL solution is for me to shut up and and grab the Shout.

Has It Really Been That Long?

My best friend from high school called last week to inform me that our twenty year reunion had been scheduled for the end of September. Twenty years. Ho-ly cow. I know I'm not the first person in the history of humanity to ask the question, "Where did the time go?" but it feels unique to me. I can't be twenty years older. My body may feel the effects of nearly 40 years on earth, but in my mind I'm still a spry 25.

I haven't attended any of my previous reunions for various reasons. Either the timing was bad, I had a conflict in scheduling, or was simply disinterested. But there's something different about the twenty year reunion, and I've experienced a change in attitude. I recently reconnected with my best friend from high school after over ten years, and we've kept in good contact since then. Now I'm genuinely interested in returning home and catching up with several of my classmates. Perhaps that's the difference between being 25 and nearly 40. The 25 year-old is in process of establishing himself in life and is inwardly focused, while the 40 year-old has gained a little more perspective and is more able to see the big picture, focusing on things that are truly important like friends and family. At least I hope this is the case.

I don't think I'm going to be able to attend my 20 year reunion, and for the first time in my high school reunion history, I'm bummed. We already have vacation planned the week before, and I'm not sure that I can swing the tight turnaround. I'm looking into the options, but it's not looking good. It sounds like things fell through the cracks in the organization of the 20 year reunion, but should be more in line for the 25 year, so perhaps we'll shoot for that.