Battered Randomness

A smattering of events in the past 48 hours:

Oh No...Not Another One

I hate that I watch reality TV, and even more, I hate ADMITTING that I watch reality TV. It's like driving by the scene of an accident: you really don't want to see the blood and gore, but you can't help but rubberneck as you drive by. I blame Diane. She's a reality TV junkie. Quick, somebody organize an intervention. Current shows that we watch fairly regularly are Top Chef, Little People, Big World, Dog: The Bounty Hunter, and Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List. You have no idea how painful this is for me. Please bear with me as I cleanse my conscience as well as my soul.

Sunday night we added a new show to the list (please forgive me, Lord): Scott Baio is 45...and Single. What's worse is that we stayed up until 11:30 to watch it when we knew we had to get up EARLY the next day to get the girls off to school. Scott (don't call him Chachi) has hired a life coach to help him get through his mid-life crisis, and we get to ride along as he tracks down old girl friends who confront him and tell him EXACTLY what's wrong with him. It's too delicious to pass up! I need serious counseling.

Reading is Fun

Kailey picked this book to read last night before bedtime, and we had a lot of fun with it. The book is Smelly Socks, by Robert Munsch, and it chronicles the adventures of Tina who vows to "...NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER...take them off." You can just imagine some of the chaos that ensues. Kailey and I shared several laughs as we read the story and enjoyed Michael Martchenko's illustrations. Several of the illustrations totally cracked us up prompting Kyra to yell from the other room, "Hey! Keep it down!" If you're looking for a good, slightly gross book to share with your kids, give this a shot.

Life as a Not-So-Handy Handyman

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon, OK, ALL of yesterday afternoon repairing the leaky shower head in our master bath. Since I usually have no idea of how to fix stuff, and I'm too prideful to call my father-in-law to come over and fix it, I jump on the computer and surf the net to read various do-it-yourself articles until I'm sufficiently satisfied that I won't completely screw up the house by venturing out on my own to do the job.

Two trips to Ace Hardware, two faucet cartridge installs, and several hours later, the repair was complete and the shower head no longer leaks. I ROCK! Sorta. If I would have followed some of the instructions I read online I would have been done much, much quicker. I stretched what should have been a 20 minute repair into a couple of hours. Oh well, live and learn. No sooner had I finished my shower head repair than I noticed one of the zones in our backyard sprinkler system wasn't working. I guess a handyman's job is never done.

Happy Tuesday.

Back to School

No, I'm not talking about Back to School sales or getting ready for Back to School or even the Rodney Dangerfield movie, Back to School...this morning, the girls are officially Back IN School. WOOHOO!

Their school district functions on more of a year-round schedule, which I think makes sense here in Southern AZ. Who needs a 12 week summer vacation in 104 degree heat? The girls enjoy a six week summer vacation, then three weeks in early October, two weeks at Christmas, and three weeks in the spring. Vacation time is spread throughout the year and it's nice to be free to take take some vacation time outside of summer.

So this morning we (and by "we" I mean Diane) shook the girls awake a little after 6:00 to begin the morning routine. Kailey and Kyra love school, so today wasn't much of a problem getting them motivated. They were excited about their new classes, new teachers, and reuniting with old friends. Kyra cracked me up with a happy little High School Musical-esque ditty she made up: "I can't believe I'm going to school today..." They put on their new school clothes, packed their new backpacks, posed for the obligatory first-day-of-school photo op, and then we were on our way.

The first day of school is a madhouse. EVERY parent feels the need to accompany their child INTO school. The parking lot is overflowing as are the streets, so we decided to walk the girls to school to avoid the clutter. This year was no different and we were glad we abandoned the cars at home. We walked Kailey to her section of the school and I was fully prepared to drop her off at the gate when we noticed parents walking their 8, 9, 10, and 11 year-olds into the playground. So we followed suit. Kailey was fine on her own, though, as I knew she would be, and she soon left us behind. We waved goodbye, then twisted our way through the maddening crowd of harried parents and children toward Kyra's classroom.

I was surprised to see that the side of the school that housed the younger grade classrooms seemed to have fewer parents and less craziness than the older side. Perhaps that was because everyone was standing around waiting for the bell to ring. Anyway, we met Kyra's teacher (who was Kailey's first grade teacher), talked to her for a moment, gave Kyra a hug goodbye, and skipped our way off of the school grounds. FREEDOM!!

So what did we do with our newfound freedom? Diane and I went on a brisk walk around the neighborhood, came home, flipped on Regis & Kelly and promptly fell asleep. Oh well, we have the rest of the school year to be productive.

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!