What would we do, baby, without us?

Last year my wife bought some sheets and comforters for our kids by mail order. Ever since then we receive a lot of family-oriented catalogs in the mail in which we simply are not interested.

When my wife thumbs through the catalogs she finds it highly entertaining that many of these magazines seem to support a strange and (as far as we know) non-existent family value where families like to buy matching pajamas for the entire family:


Who are these people? What really goes on in their homes?

"If you're REALLY an ANDERSON you will march your butt upstairs and get your stripy jammies on NOW, Little Lady! THEN you will come back down and have some cocoa! WE'RE GONNA HAVE FUN FOR ONCE! As a family!"

"Hey, what's everybody doing in their stripes? I thought tonight was snowmen? Oh crap! Does this mean today was THURSDAY?"

"Family Meeting! Family Meeting! The pajama thing is off tonight. Dad's top is still in the dirty clothes hamper. It's just not the same when WE'RE all dressed up and HE just throws on a white t-shirt. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow."

I don't know. People who spend their time dreaming up scenarios like matching family jammies to convince themselves it will be a fulfilling experience really worry me. It seems like overcompensating in all the wrong places; places too much importance on sleepwear.

"How can Billy be gay? Didn't we do everything right when he was a kid? Didn't we buy him all those Baby Einstein videos? Didn't we do that thing with the pajamas? I just don't see where we went wrong?"



Don't worry about the rapscallion in the red there, I'm sure she'll be sent to one of those camps for bad teens if she doesn't straighten up her act soon.

I can't tell you how to make a family work but I can tell you that matching PJ's are not the answer.

Here's a funny topic that my daughter constantly brings up to my wife:

O: "Mommy, we're all Indians in this family. This is an Indian family."
Eleanor: "Really?"
O: "But YOU'RE NOT INDIAN. But that's okay. You can still be in our family."
Eleanor: "Thanks a lot."

Yeah, she's not Indian. She slipped in under the family Affirmative Action policy. But she's okay. We'll keep her. Provided she can adhere to our family clothing themes.

Sha-la-la-la

Take It On The Other Side

A little while ago I was watching that old 80's movie "Flash Gordon" with my kids. I thought it was funny AND disturbing that my daughter became more fascinated with the princess daughter of the evil Ming The Merciless who is very well defined as the slut of the movie even more than she cared about the main characters of the film.

When the slut wasn't in the scene, my daughter would constantly ask, "Where is that other girl? What's that other girl doing? Why don't they show her?"

And if I had to venture a guess as to what the slut was doing when she wasn't on camera, I would guess she must be... shopping for fabulous outfits?

I believe that this was actually the next scene with the slut after my daughter requested her presence:



If you ask most guys, there are likely to tell you that it is a no-brainer that slutty girls are vastly more interesting than conservative girls. It's a fast and easy answer but I don't think it's true. I think a girl needs to be MORE than just skanky to be interesting and fun to be around.

If the show "Elimidate" has taught us anything (which it probably hasn't), it's that the slutty girl rarely wins in the end.



So there is more to the evil princess than revealing clothing. In fact, if it wasn't for her than Flash Gordon would have been dead within the first 20 minutes of the movie. Thanks to her insatiable appettite for blonde meatheads, he saved every one of us!

I don't know what to tell my daughter about the evil princess. She's actually one of the good guys in the end.

The roof has a hole in it and everything is ruined by the rain

For the past three days we have been re-roofing my wife's parent's house. It's kind of hot and tedious but we've tried to make it as fun as possible without nailing ourselves to the plywood.

It makes me imagine the dawn of humanity when the very first people got together to take a vote. The elders said, "We are here to choose between a land of flat, level surfaces or this second option that we simply call, Slanty-World."

And even the Cro-magnons voted for the land of flat surfaces. I think it was a wise choice on the part of our ancestors because it would be really annoying to always be in a world of slants. For one thing, your tape measurer would constantly be rolling away. And it wouldn't be worth diving for. You'd just have to watch it roll and bounce down the slanty surface until it ultimately bounces into the wisteria vines, over and over again. That would be so annoying.

And when the wind picked up while we were laying some tar-paper I made up a new super hero (based on my brother-in-law): Eric, The Human Paper-Weight. Which also led to the creation of another super hero: Crabman/Paper-Weight Hybrid, which is pretty much just a Human Paper-Weight who occassionally crawls around like a crab and occassionally lifts his pinchers up over his head and claps them open and closed like that Zoidberg guy on Futurama.

An aluminum vent came flying at my head on a big gust of wind and I had to catch it like a frisbee. That was an exciting moment.

Now I bet you all wish you could come over and help us roof. But you can't. Sorry. It's only for off-the-wall super heroes.

Come On, Add It Up

My wife is always worried about our son not having any close friends. I told her I made my first best-friend when I was in second grade. She said it was the same for her. Now our son is in second grade and he doesn't seem to be hitting it off with anyone yet. We even tell him we'll buy him prizes if he makes an effort to be extra friendly to people (Just meaning he says 'hello' more and holds the door open for people and stuff).

He complains a lot about school being so boring, which we all know is true. And I tell him that that is why it's important to make some friends. I tell him that anytime you ever have to do anything in life that you don't enjoy, it's better to have a friend or someone to talk to around. I tell him that's my method of getting through working so much, because I certainly don't enjoy that.

But yesterday I walked him to school. I like to wait for him to enter the building before I leave but I told him, "You don't have to stand here with me. You can go play."

But he stood by me. And after a few minutes I started to recognize all the same kid faces from last year. And I noticed the only game that anyone plays here is the "kick and slap" game. There was one kid standing by himself against the wall near the door. I said, "Why don't you go stand by Skyler. He looks lonely." So Ethan did. He went and stood right next to him and waited patiently. Skyler was still lost in space and he stayed that way until the teacher came to collect them. I told my wife about that later and she told me that she has gone through the same thing a few times and that Skyler ALWAYS snubs Ethan.

Another kid eventually came and said hello to him but then he immediately got in a slap fight with a giant girl on the other side of Ethan. I looked around for anyone who I thought might be worth playing with and found nobody. Ethan didn't look sad but he stood there looking around like anyone who is forced to wait for something they don't want. I thought to myself, "What would I do in his situation?" And quickly realized, I would do exactly what he was doing.

It made me feel bad for him. If you want to find an upside, maybe this isolation-in-a-crowd will give him that good kind of cynical-salty-sea-dog personality and make him more of an individual inside. He just stood there that whole time, like he was doing his duty and I'm proud of him for it. At the last minute when they were filing inside he turned and waved to me.

After school, I went to the office to give them some lunch money. I took Ethan outside and asked him to show me where he had recess. They have to run to the opposite corner of the school. Which we did. We ran along the edge of a huge field of grass and Ethan did a hop, skip and jump thing across a long row of green plastic sprinkler boxes. When we got to the playground he literally DOVE into the gravel pit and tucked into summersault. He showed me each piece of equipment on the playground. He climbed to the top of a ladder and said, "This is what I like to do." And he jumped down like he was driving his fist into the ground, sending a spray of gravel everywhere. Like something The Hulk would do. He also showed me how he likes to "swim" through the gravel. I must say that he is a surprisingly CLEAN kid considering his playground habits.

The point is: He's a fun kid. I don't know what the problem is with those other kids. I guess it's his fault that he feels a moral conflict at the idea of walking up to another kid and slapping them across the face. You know, for fun. Like normal people do when they get together with their friends.

More Than Meets The Eye

I told you that I can't get "Transformers as drawn by girls" off my mind, so I took PsychoIntern's advice and looked some up on Deviantart.com. I'm sure there is art on there by girls much better than this but I liked scrolling through and picking out the ones that I could just tell were drawn by girls without checking:

(I tried to get links to each picture but Deviantart wouldn't let me cut and paste and when I typed the URL's out by hand and tried to re-enter them into the browser, it said the files could not be found. But the pictures are saved with the title and artist name so click on them and check the URL or hover over them and you should be able to get that info if you want to find the artist on Deviantart)

I feel a little better about things now. A weight has been lifted. Thanks for the idea Psycho.

What's Weak this Week (More Blabbing about Work)

A month ago, if you would have asked me, "Emmett, do you think that you will ever in your lifetime clean up a meth-house?" I would have laughed and quickly responded, "I would never expect to clean a meth-house within my lifetime." But, for about a week we spent our days cleaning up a meth-house (we refinished the cupboards). Now I can say I've done that. Cross it right off the list. It's done.

I start my new daytime job next week and I'm staying on part-time at the furniture store. Mostly for the money, but also because it's a low-stress insurance policy in case the new job isn't as great as it seems. But maybe there's more still.

Last winter, I talked about a guy named Isaac, who people called Lazik, because of his Coke bottle glasses. He bought himself season tickets to the Utah Jazz games and got a new job washing cars. But every couple of weeks he comes to the furniture warehouse just to hang out. He was there lastnight. We were eating dinner and one of the mofos says, "What's that kid doing here?"

I said, "He must not have many friends."

Another mofo said, "Maybe he just comes here to get treated like shit."

I said, "This place definitely has it's own unique flavor of treating people badly. It's the only place I know where you can flip someone off who you've never met before and it just means, 'Hello and how are you today?.'"

Here's another example:

We've been having wet weather in Utah the last few days. The other night I went into the office to give my bosses some information:

Me: "Hey, you guys left a big skylight open. I'm getting rained on in aisle 123."

And let me tell you that it's a strange experience to be comfortable in the knowledge that you are driving your stockpicker INSIDE a building, safe from the elements outside, and then for a stretch of 15 feet you are getting rained on from a hole 50 ft above you in the ceiling.

Boss #1: "There's a vent open?!?!"
Boss #2: "No, Emmett, you didn't see anything."
Boss #1 to Boss #2: "We'd better get up there and close it."
Boss #2: "I don't want to climb my fat ass up there in the rain. My shoes will get all wet."
Boss #1: "No, we'd better go close it. Thanks, Emmett."
Boss #2: "Fuck off, Emmett."
Me: "You're welcome."

Probably not the response YOU would look for from your boss at your job but it's actually kind of nice because you know that people aren't harboring bad feelings towards you. They have no problem yelling there bad feelings at you.

One time I did get worried because of this loud-mouth spazzy straight-edger kid because he came back from break and started yelling, "Fuck this job! This place fucking sucks and all you motherfuckers are assholes!"

That's pretty normal for him. You only have to worry about him if he STOPS yelling and cussing and throwing things around.

But at the end of that rant he looked over and saw me standing there and then he added, "Except for Emmett. He's cool!" And I worried for a minute about being singled out as The Nice Guy. But I think we've all learned to tune that guy out anyway.

I took pleasure in it lastnight. Zack-Morris-with-a-Lobotomy isn't allowed to work by himself. Which means EVERYONE takes turns working with him. He's worked with every single mofo in the place. At the end of the shift lastnight he came to me and said, "You know what I've realized. That YOU are the only person in the whole warehouse that people don't talk bad about. All of these guys complain about eachother all the time but nobody ever complains about you."

I said, "I'm glad to hear that." And I choose to believe it because it's not the first time in my life that I've heard that.

Then Zack added, "Not like me. Everyone talks bad about me here." He was smiling when he said it because we all know better than to REALLY value what the mofos think.

I said, "They like giving you a hard time. But they actually like you. They wouldn't have anything to talk about if you weren't here."

He said, "But they're laughing at me. Not with me."

There isn't a believable way to argue against that. I said, "It's an act, though. They all put up a front because they like picking on you. They like acting tough. They like you."

I even get asked on a lot of Man-Dates from a lot of different mofos:

Do you want to go hiking?
Do you want to go to the Waffle House after work?
Do you want to come to a poker game on Sunday?
Do you want to come over and watch movies this weekend?
We should go see Bourne Ultimatum.
You should get X-Box Live and play Halo 3 with us.

All of those things sound like fun but I'd rather do them with my family. No hard feelings. I told my wife's brother that my wife wants to see Bourne Ultimatum really bad. He said, "Did you tell her to shut up and get back in the kitchen?"

I joked, "Yeah, I did. I said, 'I've got an Ultimatum for you... my dinner on the table in one hour.'"

When I repeated that story to my wife later, she didn't find it all that funny.

I did go to the Waffle House with them on Saturday night. One of the guys started talking about buying some special green herbs. He said, "I've been meaning to ask Kwame where I can buy some."

Another mofo said, "Why are you going to ask Kwame?"

The first mofo said, "Because he's black and he listens to reggae music. He must know where to get some."

The second mofo said, "You can't assume he knows where to buy drugs just because he's black and listens to reggae music. Look at Emmett, he's Indian but that doesn't mean he's out hunting buffalo everyday."

I added, "And I don't have any peyote on me either, fool. But I bet any of employees at this restaurant could probably hook you up."

Mofo #1 gave me a black eye playing basketball lastnight. It's only the second black eye that I've ever had. The first one happened when I was in fourth grade and I was running with a bunch of kids, racing to line up at our classroom door after recess and a girl fell on the backs of my legs and knocked me down. When I got up, I had a black eye.

But try telling that story to elementary school kids. It translates directly to: EMMETT GOT BEAT UP BY A GIRL. So I don't really like telling that story. I also got accused of wearing lipstick in first grade cause I put on some chapstick in front of my classmates. I'm sure they were all just jealous and would have happily eaten that chapstick if I offered it to them though.

When the guy elbowed me in the face, I said, "You're a jerk if you make me show up to my first day at my new job with a black eye."

But here's a thing that I don't like about myself. I rarely get visible bruises. I get banged up and hurt all the time and I get stomping mad because I go to inspect the wounds and there's nothing there. I got hit right in the eye with an elbow harder than anyone has ever punched me and there is just a little red mark under my eye. If it was impressive at all I would post a picture but it's less of a blemish than most pimples I get. Yet, it still hurts when I talk or open my mouth.

So it's not much of a black eye. I'm glad in regard to the new job but I feel like I should have more of a battle scar to show off.

How was work for you this week?

When you're riding home tonight, make for the bridge with all your might

I was hoping for another month of Summer but it looks like winter is at our door instead.

The best part of school picture day: FREE COMB!

Some terrific radiant humble thing-a-ma-jig of a pig

The latest thing I have been doing to drive my wife to her wits end:

Talking like Templeton the rat from Charlotte's Web



My favorite line to quote is: "It says crunchy."

I think it mostly annoys her because she thinks my impersonation is lousy. But I think it's

T
Double E
Double R
Double I
Double F
Double I
Double C, C, C

Hey, what's that sound coming out of the hole in the wood?

A couple of days ago I thought I would commit to a blog project using a minimum of 51% of my ass. I thought I would write and perform a "Hey There Delilah" spoof for the people in blog-land.

So I pulled out the guitar for the first time since last winter and figured out the chords for the song (D, F-minor then G, A, Fm, A). I even wrote out some lyrics. I didn't finalize them but here is what I was playing with:

Hey there, Delilah
Are you tired of hearing this song?
It was cool when I first wrote it
But now it seems its dragging on and on
and on and on and on and on
It's my only song

Hey there, Delilah
I guess I'm sorry about the instance
When I tried to teach your cat to swim
Despite all his resistance
In the pond out back
It was wrong of me to use a gunny sack
And that's a fact

Chorus

Hey there, Delilah
I know times are getting hard
And I hope that you don't freak out
When you get the bill for this guitar
I used your credit card
I found it in my wallet
Isn't that bizarre?
Yes, how bizzare

Change

You can run to any town
And I will come and track you down
I'll walk to you and live in your crawl space
And I will build a shrine to you
with jelly beans and crazy glue
A tribute to your smiling angel face
Your tasty faaaa-ah-a-ah-ace

Anyway, I didn't have much time to practice and it was hard to remember all the new words. I also realized that if I did this, then this is the kind of company I would be keeping on Youtube:



I decided I would pass on that idea. So don't ask.

But a day or two later my 2 and 4 year old kids knew I had the guitar lying around and they came busting in and demanded that I play it. The 2 year old seemed to want it the most and he made me finger the chords for him while he slapped the strings.

Then my 4 yr old daughter said, "Play a song, Daddy." And, of course, I started playing "Hey There Delilah" and my daughter got all excited and said, "Daddy, I like that song. It's the song where the guy sings all the OH's."

Then she asked about the guitar that I was playing. She said, "Is this Ian's guitar?"

I said, "This is grandpa's guitar. Ian's guitar is that blue one over there."

She said, "Where is your guitar, dad?"

I said, "Mine is that pile of junk sitting over there."

She walked over to my old beat-up guitar and put her hand on it lovingly, "I like this guitar, Dad. It has good songs on it."

Maybe that's why my spoof didn't sound right. Maybe it was waiting to come out of the old clunker.



P.S. I don't know why but I also wrote the first couple of lines for a Kelly Clarkson parody:

Here's the deal
We're not even friends
You changed my diapers
Now I buy you Depends
Yeah, yeah
Since your my mom

But to write more I would have to learn more words to the song and I doubt I would even learn the music for this one. I guess I figure if I write about it here then these weird ideas will stop floating around in my head.

Horrible, Horrible Freedom

I'm ripping this off from another blog but it's too funny not to share with my friends. It's "Choose Your Own Adventure Books" that never made it.

Not all of them are funny but there are some good ones, such as:

What did one astronaut say to the other astronaut?

We like Ethan to talk to us about school so we ask him basic questions everyday just to see what stories he'll tell us. I don't know if he just likes messing with us or if it's just his personality but this is the kind of answer he usually gives:

Me: "So what did you have for lunch today, Ethan?"

Ethan: "Today we had a choice of Riblets or Chicken Drummies."
(He ALWAYS tells you the options)

Me: "So what did YOU eat?"

Ethan: "I had a hotdog. They were out of Chicken Drummies."


He cracks me up.

Rub-a-dub-a-tub-fish

Our family is in disarray still between school starting and me switching up jobs. I currently have 3 jobs. Anyway, things seem to be changing for the better. Gradually. Very gradually.

Do you know people who just sort of hick-up out of nowhere? Just one little hick-up in the middle of when they're talking to you and then you don't hear it again for a couple of days? That's how our daughter is, except she throws up. Just here and there, when the moment strikes her.

I asked Ethan, "What's your favorite thing about school?"

He thought about it. Hmmmm. Then he turned to me and said, "Getting up to get a drink of water."

I said, "You can take a water bottle to school if you want to."

He said, "Nah. I like getting up."

It must be hereditary or something.

Anyway, things haven't quite improved yet but they are bound to improve at any second and this inspires me to give the world a bunch of advice that it didn't ask for.

Advice #1: The importance of bathing and showing up to work.

It doesn't sound like much but I think this piece of advice is the primary component of what separates winners from losers in Western Society. To most people it sounds simple and unhelpful. Almost like COMMON SENSE or something. But there are many people skulking around who have heard of these things.... "bathing" and "showing up to work".... and they think they SOUND LIKE good ideas. But at the same time, it's just not a lifestyle that interests them. They think of these habits as details. In significant details.

I've mentioned several times throughout my blog that I hate empty promises. But I PROMISE people this: If you CURRENTLY are not bathing and showing up to work regularly and from this day forward you BEGIN to do these things, your life will improve by leaps and bounds. You have my word.

Advice #2: Recognizing a bad date.

I know a guy who has yet to realize the benefits of Advice #1. One day he was telling me how excited he was for a date he had arranged that evening. I remember how he looked. Grinning and stinking. It's the happiest I've ever seen the guy.

The next day I asked him, "So how did your date go last night?"

He said, "Hmmmmm. I think she might be a lesbian. She didn't come right out and say it, but she mentioned 'her partner' a few times."

Knowing his fragile emotional state due to his avoidance of Advice #1, I decided not to heckle him. I said, "Oh. What did you guys do?"

He said, "We went to Barnes&Noble and looked at art magazines. She's an artist, too. But she says that ever since the 'Transformers' movie came out, all she draws is Transformers."


People. I would love... I would PAY MONEY to see pictures of Transformers as drawn by a girl, letalone a lesbian. Ever since I heard about this I've felt like I've been missing out in life by not seeing these pictures. But part of me knows it will never happen.

I told my wife about it and said, "Maybe if I asked Holly, she would draw me some Transformers. I would pay her." (Holly is one of my wife's dearest friends from childhood and a bang-up graphic designer. And I should probably clarify that she is NOT a lesbian even though my friend Sandskier jokingly accused her of such the first night he ever met her.)

My wife forbade me, "You can't go bugging Holly to draw you Transformers. She's busy and it's a dumb idea."

She's right and I wouldn't want to pressure Holly to waste her time on me but, you know, if Holly is reading and ever gets bored between now and the day I die and ever thinks to herself that she would like to give me a heartfelt Christmas gift and can spend an hour doodling a Transformer... I would love that. But I would never want to pressure her.

I just said, "You know they would be CUTE if she did, though."

Now I'm WAY OFF on a tangent. The point is, if you would like to settle down and start a family some day, and you are heterosexual, then avoid dating homosexuals. And come up with a better date than looking at magazines at a book store. But first and foremost, you should bathe and show up to work.

And given how hip gay people tend to be, why can't they think of a better term than "My Partner?"

Next In A Long Line of Easy Posts

Check it out. Aunt Dianne came through with that picture of our camping trip where Jonah made me ride him around on my bike the entire time. Sorry if you can see the dust. The scanner works greats on all those imperfections.

Have To Believe We Are Magic

And While I'm hanging out on Youtube, here's a little something:

Rose said, quote: My Time Has Come At Last

I realize that I talk a lot about music that probably isn't worth mentioning while all this time I've never mentioned one of my favorite bands.

They are called dEUS and they are from Belgium, I believe. They don't sell their records in America so they don't get any exposure on our side of the pond. But if you like good music please check them out. They have a variety of styles and they are kind of artsy so they are bound to have something you love. And hate. Give them a listen:

Say to yourself, "It's just a show. I should really just relax."

This is just a public service announcement to let the world know that the cast from "Mystery Science Theater 3000" is still trashing movies for the masses at Rifftrax.com. I thought their samples for "Point Break," "Top Gun," and "X Men" were pretty good.

They are also riffing TV shows like "Lost" and "Grey's Anatomy." Here is the sample from "Heroes."

This is OUR hill and these are OUR beans

For some reason summers are always hard on our family; Especially August. I guess there is always so much to do and so much change for people when August winds down. This last month has been really hard for us with more obligations than any two working people could ever be expected to handle. Along with the little jabs life throws at us like the bad wind that came and blew down my gazebo:



I guess that's what I get for shopping on clearance.

My big announcement is that I have a new job. A good job. It pays better than my old desk job. And I get to buy new tools. Soon I will be one of those special people with Health Insurance again. And I won't have to pay a dime for it. Health Insurance doesn't make you feel so special when you have it but it's a pain when you don't have it. People look at you as if you're telling them you're heading across the Sahara Desert with no water when you tell them you have no insurance:

"What insurance do you have?"
"None."
"NONE?"
"None."
Paaauuuuusssssseeee. Beads of sweat. Lowered voice, "How are you going to pay for this doctor visit?"
"The kid was fine when I brought him in for his check up. What are you planning to do to him while he's back there? Will I need a loan?"

Anyway, the Brotherhood has eyes everywhere and I finally have something to lose again so I'm going to avoid talking about the new job as much as possible. But I will say that people who administer drug tests for a living shouldn't make small talk. And while they're making inane small talk, they shouldn't interrupt themselves to bug their eyes out and say things like, "Wow! It looks YOU needed to go more than you thought."

The ray of light in our life has been our family. Our parents have done all they can for us and our kids have been almost just as helpful. They are funny and sweet. Jonah jumps on and off of everything. He even goes out of his way to create a reason to jump. And with every jump he opens his little two-year-old mouth and releases a, "Hup!" It's funny.

Olivia is hilarious. The other day I asked my wife if she had a dollar so I could buy myself a drink from the vending machine at work later in the evening. My wife said, "Here. Just borrow a dollar from Olivia." And she took a dollar out of the soup bowl that Olivia uses as a bank.

A few days later I gave my wife a dollar and said, "Here, give this back to Olivia for me." My wife went into my daughter's room to return the borrowed dollar and Olivia saw her and asked what she was doing. My wife explained that I had borrowed the dollar and was now returning it.

Upon hearing this, Olivia jumped up and yelled, "Yes! I knew it! I knew I had more money than you guys!" The sad thing is, depending on the day, she was probably right.

A little later, my wife were in our living room and our daughter came into the room with her soup bowl full of money. She said, "Here you guys. You can have it."

I said, "No. That's your money. You should keep it."

She said, "No. I don't want it. I want you guys to have it."

And I pulled rank as Dad, "Go put your money back in your room."

She went and put the money away and it was a little while before we saw her again. Then she returned with THIS PICTURE SHE DREW:


Olivia drew a picture of her parents. Look at them, they are elated. They are ecstatic. They are beyond themselves with joy because their daughter has given them all of the money in her soup bowl. Look at all of those coins on the ground. She even gave them the green rectangle dollars. Have any parents ever been as happy as Olivia's parents? Probably not. Olivia's parents are so happy because she has bestowed them with her boundless treasure. She knows it and she is proud of herself.

Here is something that Ethan and Olivia made together. It's an American Robin. Ethan made the bird using paper, Scotch tape and scissors. Olivia colored the bird. Both sides. And pretty accurately.


They have drawn some other awesome pictures that usually include princesses locked in towers, dragons, skeleton witches (because everything is in its ultimate form of scary when the word "skeleton" preceeds it) and ninjas.

Ethan has his way with words. He says to my wife:

"I love you like I love Zonk (his salamander)."

My wife, "Really?"

Ethan, "I will ALWAYS love you like I love Zonk."

My wife, "Thanks."

Ethan, "Do you love me as much as the bunnies?"

My wife, "I love you more than the bunnies."

Ethan, "Do you think Zonk would cry if I died?"

My wife, "I would cry if you died."


Last night Ethan called me at work. He said, "I miss you. I want you to come home."

Thinking out loud, I said, "I might be able to." Because it was my day off.

Ethan said, "Good. Go tell your boss."

Then I had to say, "No, I'd better stay till we're done working. I'll stay home tomorrow night."

Ethan said, "Okay. But I wish tonight was short-day at your work."

I said, "Me too."


I woke up one day and it was the quiet of morning. The curtains were closed and there wasn't any noise. I found Ethan sitting quietly on the couch. I couldn't tell if he was half asleep or pausing in cosmic reflection. I sat quietly, too.

After a minute, Ethan turned to me and said, "One day you are going to get really old and then you're going to die." It was a hard thing to argue with so I just said, "I know."

Then Ethan said, "And then I will live for a long time and then I will get really old and die, too."

I said, "Yup."

He said, "After I live for a long time and then die, I'll come to Heaven and look for you."

I said, "Okay. Do you want some Fruit Loops?" But I was really wondering if a day would ever come that he would ever think to say that to me again. Because deep down I think that is what every parent wants to hear.

I don't think he'll ever say it to me again so I'll just remember it as it was that day, in that dark and funny way. Maybe one day I'll remember it and it will make me laugh and cry. Maybe when I'm older. Right now, a bowl of Fruit Loops sounds pretty good. But damn if little kids can't drive daggers into your heart. He always tells me he misses me and that he worries about me when I'm gone. Feels like he's stealing my lines as the caregiver.

The point is: My kids are cool. A lot of people can't even begin to grasp that concept.

Riding the train down from El Barrio

There is a guy at work who looks like a hispanic version of the "Soup Nazi" from Seinfeld. He is the first generation of his family in the United States and is very proud of his mexican heritage.

He's funny because he likes to have deep, meaningful conversations even when nobody is willing to listen to him ramble. And he chooses to talk about things that most people aren't interested in. Like tortillas. He'll talk for hours about tortillas. He says things like, "It's a sin to cook a tortilla in the microwave." I don't prod him for more information but if that is true than the catholic church is even stricter than I previously believed.

He also talks about "Spanglish" a lot. It sounds like this when someone speaks Spanglish, "Ba la da la ba CAR INSURANCE. Ba la da ba la da BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO." He says that when people speak Spanglish it is because of their own ignorance. He says there are words in the spanish language so you can say practically anything but people aren't willing to learn any words they don't already know and they end up speaking Spanglish. Lazy and ignorant, he says. He tells me, "You will never, EVER hear ME speaking Spanglish."

A little while ago I was working with a temp from Mexico. He spoke very little English and I speak very little Spanish but we still seemed to get along pretty well. When I work with mexicans I try to speak in Spanish and English just to make sure things are getting done right. This temp starting teasing me because he heard me say "kwa-chro" instead of cuatro (which should really be said more like kwa-throw) and he started speaking in ebonics, saying "fo'" instead of four. After that I kept saying kwa-chro on purpose and then adding little touches like saying "Uno-cientos" instead of "cien" (one one-hundreds instead of one hundred).

We saw the Hispanic Soup Naze while we were riding around and I explained how he felt about Spanglish. The temp agreed. He said it is a dumb way of talking. He said he's heard guys on construction sites using words like "truckay" for truck and "rightay" for right (as in, right-handed).

Later, I was still working with that temp and I was yelling out instructions, using words like frente, en medio y atras (front, middle and back) and the Soup Nazi heard me. His face lit up and he yelled, "Emmett! You're learning Spanish. That's great!"

I said, "Yeah. This guy is teaching me all kinds of stuff! He taught me TRUCKAY, he taught me RIGHTAY..."

The Soup Nazi didn't saying anything to that. He just shot me an icy stare with those spanish eyes that seemed to say, "NO BIRRIA PARA USTED!"

We've got to move these refrigerators, we've got to move these color TVS

I move a lot of televisions at work and the pictures used by Samsung on their LCD televisions strike a nerve with me:



This is the main picture but there are others that go with it that show the rest of this ladies ultra-modern bedroom.

First off, why in the world would you spend thousands of dollars on a fancy television and then READ THE NEWSPAPER? Right next to the TV as if to rub the newsprint right in the TV's face? I guess the newspaper thing is to suggest that this lady is smart and on top of things.

While I'm driving around staring at this lady, I wonder what it would be like to hang out with her:

"What are you doing!"

"Uh, I was just setting my car kers on your nightstand here."

"Insolent bug! That isn't a nightstand... nor a bench nor a stool. It's art! And you can't just put your keys where ever you want. You are ruining the effect of the super-sterile and confusing environment I've created here."

"Oh, sorry. Can I eat one of these apples?"

"Noooooooo! Those are ornamental. If you want to eat, you'll have to go out in the hallway."

"Can I have my candybar back? I think you might be sitting on it."

"AAAAaaahhhhhhhh! This is my third pair of white pants destroyed by chocolate this week!"


I imagine something like that anyway and none of it makes me want to hang out with that lady nor buy a TV. But I do want to win peoples respect and if buying expensive crap is the only way to do it then so be it. I will take advantage of my work discount and get that $10,000 Sharp Aquous for the killer price of $6,900.

Little Boy Blue and the Man on the Moon

My oldest son just started second grade at the local elementary school. Yesterday I was describing our typical luck in preparation for the first day of school to one of my fellow painters:

I said, "We've bought him new school clothes already but we haven't found any shoes that we like. He still has two pairs of shoes from last year. One pair is old and ratty but the other shoes are still in good condition so we figured he would be okay until we find some new shoes that we like..."

I continued, "...but our two youngest kids have had some kind of walking flu or something lately. They'll throw up and get diarreah for a couple of days and then they'll be fine for a couple of days and then out of nowhere they'll throw up and get diarreah again and then they'll be fine for a couple of days..."

The painter said, "Dude, you totally just described MY life."

Ew. Anyway, I said, "So we come home late Sunday night and I set our two year old on the couch for a second. My oldest son pops his good shoes off in front of the couch. Then the two year old suddenly leans over the edge of the couch and throws up into both shoes...

...so Ethan had to wear the old ratty shoes on his first day of school...

...but there are a couple of trailer parks in our neighborhood, so I doubt anyone will think anything of it but we really need to find him some new shoes today."

I hate to be hard on teachers because I know a couple of teachers may be reading this site, but I think teachers are aware that parents are judging them harshly. When we took Ethan to school in the morning, they had four different classes line up or cluster around one entryway. We know his teachers name but have no other knowledge aside from that. Four teachers came to collect their classes and there was much confusion. The lady that I assume was Ethan's teacher stood in front of the door and said, "My class, come with me." And then she walked inside. She didn't introduce herself. She didn't give us any idea who might be in her class. She just said those words and walked off. But we saw other kids from Ethan's class following her so we sent him in.

It's not a big deal. But in the back of my mind I'm thinking, "Strike one, lady."

And I'm probably polluting Ethan's mind when it comes to school. I keep telling him things like, "If I didn't have to make you go to school, I wouldn't." I tell him that going to school is his responsibility like going to work is my responsibility. Then I ask him if he would rather go to school or stay home and never be a second grader. He told me he wants to finish all the grades so he can be a doctor some day. Or a fry cook.

Last year he got 100%s on almost all of his spelling tests so we started paying him $1 for each test that he aced. This year he has his pet Tiger Salamander, Zonk, and it costs $1 per week to buy the crickets we feed to the amphibian. I told Ethan to tell his new teacher, "If you don't give me 100's on all of my tests my salamander will die!"

Another funny thing about Ethan is that he is already into Heavy Metal. I never tried to teach him that hard rock was the best. Virtually EVERY song that comes on the radio and even most of my CD's are boring to him. We'll be driving in the car and you'll just hear a loud "Booooooooooooring!" float up from the backseat. He only likes stuff like Boston, 3 Days Grace, Megadeth and Linkin Park. If it doesn't have in-your-face guitar shredding then he doesn't like it. I got the new Smashing Pumpkins CD for my birthday and that BARELY got a nod of approval from him. It sounds cool that he likes hard rock but it's difficult to consistently pump out songs with that much energy in them.

After riding in the car with him it's hard for me not to imagine his teacher in front of the class saying, "Okay children, let's all count to 100 by 5's." and then his patent "Boooooooring" comes wafting up from the back of the class and then the teacher sits quietly dreaming of all the ways she's going to mess up his permanent record.

But I told him that his responsibility is to go to school, learn, make friends and have fun. I'll tell you how it goes.

'Cos everybody hates a tourist, especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh

I'm not dead. I'm just working a lot and school is starting and my birthday is this week and my sister-in-law is getting married next week and it's our wedding anniversary and I'm broke as all get out. All I do is work so I'm not interested in talking about work right now. Instead I will talk about the rare and simple moments that I don't work:

Last week we took our lunch break from painting and got some chinese takeout. We went to my wife's aunt Dianne's house to eat it (She is the one I accused of having "noxious breath" when Ethan went to the emergency room last December). Every year my wife's extended family all gets together for a campout in the high Uintah Mountains. We went a couple of weeks ago but I was too busy to blog about it. But here is a picture I took on the way there:



If you are going to have a Nudist Ranch in Utah then you should definitely pick a place with an apt name like Beaver Creek. And you should also have a cool mascot like a bear wearing nothing but chaps, a pistol, a cowboy hat and a grin. If you would like to go, there is a chance that they are no longer "closed due to mosquitos." When I stopped to take the picture I noticed a trampoline behind the main complex so these people seem like they know how to party.

But back to the real story... When we got to Dianne's house with our chinese takeout she was excited to see me and told me she had the cutest picture of me and my son Jonah. I said something dumb like, "Does that mean it's a cute picture of me and Jonah happens to be in the picture?" and anyway she handed me a bunch of pictures and she did have a cool one of me riding my mountain bike with Jonah riding on the handle bars (which pretty much describes the entire camping trip because 2-yr-old Jonah wanted to ride on my handle bars 24 hours a day). I asked for a copy of the picture but she hasn't given me one yet.

Then I was talking to Dianne's daughter about how she was moving up to Logan, Utah to start college at Utah State. That's where I went to school for a spell. Then I asked the daughter what apartments she would be living in. When she told me the name of the apartments I said, "That's where I lived!" (along with Slimysculpin and Sandskier) when I met her cousin and married her. I told her not to makeout in the hot tub because the apartment manager would kick you out of the hot tub for that. I added, "...and you probably shouldn't mention to anyone around there that you know me."

Dianne told her daughter, "You see... you might meet the boy of your dreams up there." I briefly retold the story of how Eleanor and I met and emphasized that it definitely WASN'T love at first sight. Dianne told me the story of when she met her future and husband and how it WAS love at first sight for her. They were engaged within a month of meeting. And then she added, "... he told me later that part of the reason that he proposed so fast was because he was trying to decide whether or not he should sell his Chevy Caprice and getting married would affect his decision."

See girls?!?! You always THINK you want to know what's going on inside your man's head... it turns out that it's always much stupider than you thought. Uh... yeah, yeah, I could get married or I could not get married but I REALLY NEED to get this cosmic car situation sorted out and fast. I shouldn't knock Uncle Jeff. He is very smart and a great person. I just use that as an example as to why girls should just let guys keep quiet.

By this time, I still had half of my lunch left and my brothers-in-law and their cousin started griping, "This lunch break is taking way too long." Dianne started apologizing, "I'm sorry you guys... I just never get a chance to talk to Emmett and I had this neat picture of him..."

I feigned anger, "YEAH, YOU GUYS! DIANNE AND I NEVER GET ANY QUALITY TIME...!!!" I threw my food away and I said, "We'll come back again for lunch tomorrow, Dianne." We didn't go back, of course.

But that was probably the most fun I had all week. Sound fun to you?

If Prime can't laugh at himself then who can he laugh at?

No time to chit chat. But I thought I would present this tribute to one of the coolest movies of the summer. It's a re-dubbed version of Transformers. It's funny but don't watch it if you don't like trash talkin', potty-mouth robots.

Paralyzer Guitar Rip

I'm sorry, it's a sickness I can't help. It bothers me to see the Finger Eleven song "Paralyzer" at the top of the charts when the soul of the song is ripped off straight from a better band. Here is Paralyzer:



Compared to Led Zeppelin's "Trampled Underfoot":



Yes, all rock is ripped off from old school blues and jazz but Zeppelin at least established themselves as having actual talent for songwriting. I have a very strict rule about avoiding bands that have their first hit song be a cover song or obvious theft.

Paralyzer is as original as the idea of playing on a rooftop. It feels good to have that out of my system.

More Than A Feeling

Everyone knows that ladder makers always place a warning on their products that the top step is NOT A STEP. And, of course, most people think of those words as "just a suggestion." But a few weeks ago we were painting and we were running out of CD's to listen to so I popped my wife's copy of "Boston's Greatest Hits" into the player.

When they sell copies of Boston's Greatest Hits they should include a warning that air-guitaring is immenent when played at a loud volume. Anyway, based on my experience, I think ladder makers should take things a step further and include this type of warning on their products as well:



You might be thinking I'm wrong about Boston but you don't have to take my word for it:

Burning in a lake of fire

It finally feels like summer is kicking in for me. I haven't been doing much blogging but I've been out enjoying life now and again. For instance, we took our kids to Lagoon (Utah's sufficient arcade/zoo/theme park/roller coaster park/waterslide/historic site and purveyor of pioneer history). The furniture store gave us free tickets but we weren't going to go because we thought it would be torture standing in lines in crazy heat watching our kids have all the fun. But at the last minute we went anyhow and we all had a good time. So much fun, the kids all pitched a fit and cried the whole way home when we made them leave. For being a local gig, Lagoon is pretty impressive. It has decent rides with a lot of quiet areas tucked around. We went and found a quiet place to hang out in Pioneer Village and didn't see a soul around. When we bought some corn-on-the-cob we ate it while watching a family playing make-shift baseball in a small field of grass. I've decided I like Lagoon. It's a lot more relaxed than DisneyHell and all those others.

I've been dying to get back to Flaming Gorge and I missed my chance at the 4th of July because I thought my dad was coming to visit (he didn't), so we headed out there for the 24th of July, Utah's "Pioneer Day," a celebration of mormon's thinking they finally found a place where they wouldn't be run out of town. It's pretty much just a second 4th of July with more girls than usual walking around in bonnets.

I called up my old friend Geppetto to see if we could stay at his house. He said we could and that he also had full access to a Lotus Elise. And I had thought my trip would be cool because I was vacationing in Chaco sandals with a back up pair of Tevas.



I told my wife how I would love to move back to the Gorge. She said MAYBE should would consider moving to Vernal. What the...? Don't even compare the two. They are a world apart.

I have always felt like a superstar at the gorge. I am on familiar terms with all the local business owners, sheriffs, bishop and other members of the faculty. I show up and people hug and kiss me. They tell me they love me. Everyone wants to meet my kids and know how my family is doing. Every spot has a memory tied to it. I know as much about the dam as nearly any tour guide. I get invited to fish with river guides for free. I helped the Forest Service fix up the Swett Ranch. Like Butch Cassidy, I've been to Brown's Park 1.5 million times. I've caught frogs and snakes along the Green River. I've rafted to the islands and camped on them at night. I've sat at the top of the Cart Creek bridge in the moonlight. I've stared down and rappelled into more of those canyons than I can name. I know what many of the trails look like by mountain bike and cross country skis. I've watched the Kokanee salmon head up Sheepcreek Bay to spawn and die on more than one occassion. The list goes on and on...

My wife thinks all of that is nice, if those are your priorities in life. The real problem is... if she lived in Flaming Gorge she couldn't go to Target everyday. She couldn't buy 5 pairs of shoes and then return 4. It just isn't realistic.

I also got to go to Mustang Ridge and jump off the cliffs. This picture is of my favorite cliff in the world.



This picture was taken several years ago. That cliff no longer exists. It was smashed off the face of the earth. So now I have to settle for jumping off the next highest cliff. It's still fun and gets your blood pumping pretty good. I haven't been to the gorge since our latest kid was born and then we were in drought for years before that and these cliffs became SUPER high with the low water levels, so it's been a LOOOONG time since I've had this chance. Everyone says there are strict new rules about cliff jumping, something like you can't jump off anything over 12 feet high, but I think I should be grandfathered into higher cliff jumping rights because I've been doing it all my life. And those laws are only in place so big pussies don't have to make excuses for not jumping anyway.

I told my wife that as long as I am physically able to haul my carcass to the top of the cliffs and toss it off, I will continue to do so. She's glad the tallest cliff is gone.

It's been a good week.

I am a snake head eating the head on the opposite side

My son has a way with words. I hope that he gets it from me because it makes me laugh.

Ethan: "Here Olivia, I'll take the trash out of your monkey's ear."

(Translation: "I will remove the pricetag from your stuffed animal.")

So what if you can see the darker side of me

I've had an ongoing struggle with that 18 yr old guy from work. He tells me I'm the only person he can stand to be around. He says, "I'm an asshole, but this is the NICE me at work. I'm worse when I'm not here."

I tell him that he's an angry loner. And he says, "What's wrong with Angry Loners?"

And I say, "Well... they're angry. And they're loners..."

One night he pulled out a light-up keychain and said, "Check this thing out. It's cool."

I said, "Where did you get that?"

He said, "Walmart. Lastnight. At 3am."

I said, "Why were you at Walmart at 3 am?"

He said, "Because my life sucks. There is nothing to do." Later he explained it this way, "I'm 18 and I can't do anything except go to strip clubs." He is actually trying to spend his time doing worthwhile things but he can't figure anything out in that falls in that category. He doesn't want to spend all his time drinking like his friends and he already quit playing World of Warcraft.

I told him, "You really need to ask that girl out from the restaurant we go to for lunch."

Did I mention he hates girls? And kids? And pretty much everyone? But he especially hates girls. And kids. He sees them as financial death and endless nagging. It's hard to pose an argument against that. But he seems to be incapable of seeing an upside to hanging out with girls.

He asked, "Why would I want to do that?"

I said, "I don't know. Because you hang out at Walmart at 3 am FOR FUN. If you asked her out, she might at least hang out at Walmart with you."

I told him, "You two kind of look alike and they say people are often attracted to other people who have similar traits." I said, "You're both tall and skinny, you have the same kind of nose, you both seem to like wearing baseball hats..." (the girl has to wear a work hat)

He said, "We both have the same size of boobs."

I said, "So what about boobs?"

He said, "If a girl doesn't have boobs its like having sex with a man."

I said, "Don't worry about boobs. At some point in time, EVERY girl asks her boyfriend if he likes her boob-size. When she asks you that, you just say HERE ARE SOME PAMPHLETS YOU CAN READ ABOUT BREAST AUGMENTATION."

I told him that having a cool personality is much more important than boobs. He was just using boobs as an excuse. And I knew I was breaking through his shell when he asked me how much boob surgery costs. I told him that he should just ask her if she has seen "Clerks II" (one of his favorite movies) and if the answer was YES then he should ask her out.

But then he sprang back at me... "Why would people be attracted themselves? Would YOU want to have sex with someone who looked just like you?"

And I reminded him about that "Silence of the Lambs/Clerks II" line:

"I'd F*** me. I'd F*** me hard."

But then I told him that my features are much too masculine for me to ever pitch woo to my own twin.

Anyway. I'm still trying to get him to ask a girl out. So he won't be so angry. And alone.

Pnutz

I saw this on someone else's blog and thought it was worth copying.

Would you hold it against me?

I've been painting the ceiling at a big house all week. There is a girl who lives in the house who looks 16 but she's actually 21 and trying to become a nurse. I pretty much haven't talked to her at all until today...

Me: "Hey, if you were a booger I would pick you first."

Girl: "..."

Me: "Have you heard that line before?"

Girl: "No."

Me: "Is it doing anything for you?"

Girl: "Mmmm, not really."

Me: "A guy at work told me about that line lastnight. He said it works EVERY TIME."

Girl: "It's funny..."

Me: "Yeah. It actually sounds like a line that would work a lot better on a guy than a girl. I bet a guy would like that line. You should try it. But, then again, maybe not because that guy was giving me questionable advice on how to pick up girls."

Girl: "Like what?"

Me: "Well, he also told me it's best to pick up drunk girls. He said if you go up to a girl who's been drinking and ask her, 'what's your name?' and she answers, 'Huh?' then she's good to go. It might be good advice. I don't know. I probably wouldn't recommend doing that."



And just for all those people who freak out about it, YES! I TOLD HER I WAS MARRIED... but only after I used the line on her because I wanted her response to be genuine.

Use this advice at your own risk.

THE BLOG ISN'T LETTING ME LEAVE TITLES FOR SOME REASON. STUPID BLOG.

Lastweek I went to lunch with one of my fellow painters. The cashier asked me for a name so they could call me when my food was ready. I gave her the name Chase. She said, "What?" And as loudly and clearly as I could, I said Chase again. I watched her write it down: S-H-A-N-C-E. I don't think I have a speech impediment but I could be wrong.

I explained to the guy I was with that I give my last name, Chase, because it causes all sorts of problems when I try to leave my first name, Emmett.

Pretty soon, I heard an old man behind the counter calling a customer to come get their lunch. He yelled, "Shawn-say! SHAWN-SAY!"

I asked him, "Is it possible that that food is for Chase?"

The old man (who I believe was the owner of the restaurant) glared at the girl behind the cash register. He said, "Damn you, you had me over here thinking I was looking for a woman!"

I sure am glad I didn't try to give them my first name. I would probably be better off to revert to my teen-aged ways and leave names like Iceman, Uncle Fester or Monkmeyer.

Once I was in a fancy store and tried to leave the name Iacocca on a whim. Then the lady asked me to spell it and totally busted me. It's quite unconvincing when someone asks you to spell your name and you respond, "I...um...A...uh...C........I think."

I mentioned earlier that I have to do testing for a job I'm trying to get. I probably don't need to study but I am anyway because I want the job. After doing some studying I've found that I still rock at algebra. I do find little things that I never seemed to have learned before, like how to turn a repeating decimal into a fraction. So that's good.

The other part of the test is Reading Comprehension. I have to say that there isn't really a way to study Reading Comprehension. And, in my opinion, the questions they ask don't actually test your comprehension, rather, they test your ability to feign interest and hang on every word of a boring, boring story.

Here's an example:

Pretend I have just told you a long, tedious anecdote about a week I spent at my Aunt Alice's farmhouse last summer. Now answer these questions...


Q. What were the names of the four kittens living in the barn?
A. Ruffles, Whiskers, Socks and Puff Catty. Okay, that was an easy one.

Q. On what night were the cats fed fresh entrails?
A. Tuesday nights, because Aunt Alice makes fresh kidney pie to serve at the local VFW hall every Wednesday. Duh!

Q. What brand of tractor does uncle Remis use on the farm?
A. Trick question. Uncle Remis only uses mules.

Q. What day did Uncle Remis plan to harvest his crop?
A. Normally, it would be under September's full moon BUT THIS YEAR Mars would be in the night sky two days previous on the same weekend Remis Jr. would be in town, plus Uncle Remis was due for surgery on his bunyon on the night of the full moon, so the answer is... September 12.

What? You didn't absorb all of those details in the 5 minutes you were allotted to read about the most exciting week of my life? You don't care?!?! Sir, if this were the 1800's I would challenge you to pistols at dawn!

So boring. They could try to spice it up a little...

What satanic cult did Aunt Alice regularly attend?
Which visitor slept with the farmer's daughter?
Which organ did the farmer remove as punishment?

Reading Comprehension is more like a test of tolerance and one's ability to pretend to care.

Glistening white, triangular tooth, open up a can of tomato juice

I can't afford a monstrous playground for the kids to put in the backyard, but on the 4th of July we did buy them a tire swing to hang from our apricot tree. The ropes that came with the swing were short, so I bought an extra 12 feet of rope so we could hang the swing from a high branch.

When I got the swing all put together we had one of those rare moments where my wife is impressed with my abilities as a dude.

She asked, "Where did you learn how to tie these knots?"

And I got to give a manly response, "That's a rock climbing knot."

The sweet, innocent Utah-girl in my wife goaded her to ask, "You didn't learn that knot in the Boy Scouts?"

And I got to give the super-manly response, "No. I got kicked out of the Cub Scouts when I was a kid, remember?"

They said it was because I missed too many den meetings but I like to believe they kicked me out because I looked sooooooooooo bad.

I like what you've done with the place

We were painting an office building the other day:

Adam (my brother-in-law): "Have you been in the bathroom here? It's awesome."

Me: "Really? What's so great about it?"

Adam: "They have a toilet plunger and a can of air freshener... anything you can think of. They thought of everything."

Me: "Either that or they've just learned from experience."

So the people have spoken. Why is it so hard to find a stainless steel or jewel-encrusted plunger THAT WORKS?

Give me convenience or give me death

I am really sick of working all the time. My feet hurt. My neck hurts. I lay down anytime and anywhere that I can. Even in public.

It was Ethan's 7th birthday the other day. We bought him a Tiger Salamander whom he named Zonk. Don't even try to call it a lizard because Ethan will be quick to tell you that Zonk is an amphibian. Just like he goes around correcting his family on other daily misconceptions: "Mummies are NOT covered in Band Aids; they are covered in gauze."

We also took the kids downtown to the Kids Discovery Museum. That place totally sucks. There is nothing notably educational in the entire place. It's kind of like a big place you can take your kids to play with someone elses toys. The coolest thing in the entire place was a book that told you how to make paper airplanes. I'm sure that's a skill teachers love their students to possess. Not only that, but I sat down and it took me ten minutes to make one of the airplanes, because how would you write down the instructions to folding a paper airplane? I don't think any kid in the place could have done it. The best part of the museum was the first 5 seconds we were there when I actually thought there might be SOMETHING interesting inside. I was wrong. The second best thing about the museum was that there were plenty of places for me to lay down my weary body. The worst the about the museum: Kids. The second worse thing about the museum: Their parents.

We had to go through the entire museum, just to give it a fair chance that there might be something cool inside, and it took a long time. After that, we went to the mall food-court to get some lunch. When we were leaving the food-court I opened the door by pushing it with my back. Then I held it open with my back while I pulled our stroller through and then I held it so the rest of my family could come through. While I was holding the door open with my back, some lady wanted to go in through the door and she put her hand on the door while she waited.

When my family was out, I let the door go and walked away with my family. But the lady who had her hand on the door looked at me and spat, "YOU'RE WELCOME."

Apparently I only need to hold the door open for my family to leave a building for people to think I'm a jerk. When she said it, I thought of how satisfying it would feel to backhand her across the face. But I think that was just my impulse as a very tired person. Instead I walked off without any response and I told my wife, "I don't think I can be around people today."

Noting exciting has happened at work. A few different people told me stories about how money from their dead grandpas has ripped their families apart on account of people's willingness to get stupid and stubborn over money, so my earlier advice for people to get rich by waiting for their wealthy relatives to die may have been given in haste.

Maybe we should think of things like this:

The other night at work, one of the mofos came over to the table and said, "Wow! I put my dollar in that Coke machine and it gave me a Coke and then it gave me my dollar back."

One of the other mofos said, "I put my money in that machine earlier and it kept it and didn't give me a drink."

I said, "Uh oh. That Coke machine must run on KARMA. It gives you drinks and money based on what kind of a person you are."

And the second mofo said, "Damn! So that's why it took my money."

But he wasn't playing along with the joke. He said it as though he REALLY deserved to have his money taken.

Sometimes its not so easy to be the Teacher's Pet

The other day we decided to turn the beds in the boy's room back into bunk beds. We couldn't find two of the wooden dowels we needed so we headed to the local Big Box hardware store to buy a long, round stick so I could cut some new ones.

After we bought the wooden rod, we went nextdoor to the Big Box book store because I have a job thingy coming up where I have to take a timed algebra test and I wanted to buy a workbook so I could practice my math speed.

As we were heading out of the store we were walking past the tables in the center aisle where the bookstore puts all of the books they recommend to browsing customers.

I said, "I like this book. I like this book. I like this one. I like this one..." And I was tapping each of the books with the stick as if it was a 40 inch magic wand.

My wife snapped at me, "Would you knock it off? Put that stick away!"

Barely acknowledging her existence, I said, "No. Pointing at things with sticks is fun. I'm starting to think that the main reason that people become teachers is just so they can point at things with sticks."

At that moment, an old man who was looking at books on the table in front of me started busting up with laughter. I looked at him and realized he was laughing at my wife and I. It's one of those moments where you want to bow and say, "Thank you, thank you. I'm weird and annoying ALL OF THE TIME."

But if it wasn't for that old man then I wouldn't have realized I was being funny and I wouldn't have typed this. And it's important. Because a lot of my friends teach classes. And if they haven't felt the joy of pointing at things with sticks then they have been missing out in life and the emptiness might have continued forever, had I not said anything.

Laser pointers are so gay. Stick with the classics.

Wakey, Wakey

This is why it isn't fun to wake me up in the morning. It's the price my wife pays for staying home all summer.

This morning my wife tried to wake me up. I told her I wouldn't get out of bed until I knew which house I was painting today. She went and called her dad on the phone and then she came back to get me.

Eleanor: "I know where you're painting today...

...

...

Okay, Pop!"

Me: "Okay, Mop!"

Eleanor: "Did you just call me Mop?"

Me: "Did you just call me Pop?"

Eleanor: "I was saying you should POP out of bed."

Me: "I was saying you should go MOP the kitchen..."

Brother from another mother

Doing this painting job in the daytime has given me time to hang out with my wife's little brothers. It's nice to hang out in a crowd that isn't going to accuse me of being immature.

At lunch the other day I was asking her brother, Eric, if he was saving any money this summer. I asked, "...Or are you spending it all on your X-Box?"

Eric said, "I haven't really saved any money. But me and Adam (the younger brother) bought our X-Box TOGETHER. And he actually paid for most of it."

And this line of questioning brought the details of their financial situation to light. I recapped the situation to Eric, "...So Adam paid for MOST of the X-Box, buys ALL of your games, puts MOST of the gas in the car you share AND has MORE money in the bank than you?"

Eric stared at me but didn't respond. I continued, "And he gave you his tomato so you could put it on your sandwich and then you COMPLAINED about it ("There's KETCHUP on this tomato!"). You should be ashamed. Taking advantage of your little brother."

It probably doesn't read funny but Adam had several bursts of laughter over the next couple of minutes over that conversation. A small reward for being generous. Later that night, my wife was talking to her sister. Her sister is debating whether or not she would like to marry her boyfriend. The sister said, "There are just a lot of weird things about my boyfriend. Sometimes he embarrasses me."

To which my adoring wife responded, "LOOK WHO I MARRIED."

My wife told me that Eric jumped into the conversation at that point, saying, "I'm glad you married Emmett." And then he related the "tomato" story to her. Apparently he likes it when people keep him in check.

My wife's cousin also paints with us. He is entertaining. He's one of THOSE kids. For instance, we were leaving the restaurant and we all got refills on our drinks. I guess there is some new health code where they just give you a whole new cup instead of refilling the one you already have. Adam told the cousin, Daniel, "Take the straw out of your old drink and put it in your new drink."

Daniel became defensive, "Duh, Adam! I'm not stupid... oh shoot! I just accidentally threw my straw away." He threw the straw away WHILE he said it. It's funny hanging out with him.

I've been calling Daniel "Pig-Pen," because he wears the same clothes to work everyday and the clothes are completely saturated with drywall dust. Daniel sat on the black leather seats in my car for two seconds and then stood up again the seat was almost completely white. At lunch today, daniel coughed and a giant cloud of white dust billowed up from his shoulder. I just said, "See. You're Pig-Pen."

Yesterday morning, the shop that sells us all of our paint was having a free breakfast for all of the contractors they sell to. For some reason my father-in-law really wanted me to go so I had to wake up an hour earlier than usual to eat with the crew.

While we were eating, Daniel dropped his toast. He said, "Whoa. That's weird. I just dropped my toast facedown on my lap and it didn't even get any jam on my pants."

I said, "That's because your pants are so dusty that it's impossible for them to get any dirtier. You dropped your toast on them and all you did was get the jam dirty."

Maybe it's only funny to me. That's okay.

Where it's too cold to swim and too hot to ski

Here is a glimpse of our lazy Sunday.

It's always funny until someone gets hurt... Here is a good example of my annoying laugh. I don't even notice until I hear myself on camera.

Why use a wagon when you have a perfectly good sled handy?



My wife thought she was taking a picture of me. Nope. It's a movie.

All I can say is that my life is pretty plain

This blogging thing was a lot easier when I got paid to be bored out of my skull on the internet all day and all week.

It's summer now. Which means the grass is tall and green and my cherry tree is full of bugs and birds. Summer also means that my wife, who works for the local school district, gets laid off for the season. Having a wife who was made redundant means that I get to double my pleasure by working two jobs. I wake up, paint in the morning, move furniture at night, then I fall asleep. Then I do it all again. And again. So I just finished a long week of nonstop work and the first thing my family tells me when I'm finally home for a few minutes is that the computer is broken.

Don't expect much from the blog because it will be like this for months. This also means that I'll have very little time to take trivial things and rant about them like there is some profound meaning to it all. I expect most of my posts will just be a review of my week. But maybe not, because one of the most difficult things for me to do is tell you the difference between yesterday and the day before. It's all a blur.

At work, the basketball hoop is busted so we can't play. There was a guy at work that bragged about being an undefeated chess player and a chess club alumni and tried to force everyone into a game so he could school them. Then he challenged me to a game. I haven't played chess in over ten years and he beat me fast with a move that I accused him of learning from a book. Then I beat him by modifying his move a little. He said I was lucky so we played again and I totally gave his king an atomic wedgie. He got so mad that I beat him again that he got up and stormed out of the room. While he was walking away, I cleaned up the chess board and yelled at him, "I'd better not hear you telling people you're undefeated anymore!" He didn't talk to me for a few days.

Then I played foosball and I've won more games than I've lost but it's not the same without basketball. Without basketball, I realize how pointless the job is and I'm working on switching employment soon. But one endless source of entertainment is that one guy, Zack Morris with a Lobotomy.

Chad (of Jamming With Chad fame) came up to me and said, "Did I tell you about my idea for a reality television show? It could be about this entire warehouse and all the crazy stuff that happens here but mostly it would just be to follow around Zack Morris with a Lobotomy all day."

I said, "The thing is, that show would be really funny for a few episodes but after a while it would just get depressing. It would get to the point where everyone is sitting around thinking CAN'T THIS GUY EVER WIN? Just like in real life."

One story I forgot to tell about him was how he once overheard the bosses talking about pornography. They told him that if you started looking at internet pornography you would end up online for a long period of time. He told them he didn't understand why and that he didn't believe them.

Feeling secure in his mormon righteousness, he came back to work a few days later and admitted to the bosses, "You guys were right. I went on the internet and did a search for pornography and I ended up looking at it for 3 hours!"

The mofos gave him a hard time about it, "3 hours? Geez, Zack! Why didn't you just touch yourself and get it over with?"

Zack said, "I don't do that. That's sick."

The mofos went on, "I can't believe you wasted 3 HOURS looking at porn."

And in a poorly worded attempt to tell the crowd how he finally turned off the computer in disgust, he said, "I looked at it for 3 hours but then some gay stuff came up and I got off on that."

Laugh. Riot.

He also had another of many fender benders in his car. One of the mofos asked him, "Did you SPRAY PAINT the grill of your car, Zack?"

Zack's response, "Yes. But it's not noticable."

And Zack is practically a Jedi so the mofo went off mumbling to himself, "Then why did I ask?" Everytime Zack has a fender bender, he starts the story by saying, "I have the WORST luck."

The funniest thing I saw all week was when that mofo who likes to listen to police scanners (let's call him Escobar) was giving Zack a bunch of crap because Zack lied on a recent job application. Zack wants more out of life and has been applying for a lot of other jobs. Zack applied for a position at a retail store but he has been frustrated by the lack of interviews he's received considering how many places he's applied. So at this particular store, Zack wrote on his application that he holds a 4-year degree in Computer Science. Of course the store called him up and interviewed him right away and he was forced to do a lot of back-paddling and finally admit that he only took a couple of computer courses in high school and that he does not have a 4-year degree. I don't believe a second interview will be forthcoming.

So in the process of razzing Zack about lying about his education, Escobar breaks into a full on imitation of Zack in a job interview. In my opinion, the hieght of the performance was when he said, "Would you like to hear about my accomplishments? Good! Get ready for an ear-full because I never shut the f*** up!"

It's probably funnier if you know the guys and if you are aware of how often people unsuccessfully beg Zack to shut up. I would love to hear someone use that line in an actual interview though. I felt bad laughing so hard right in front of Zack at his expense. But he's a good sport about it. And he doesn't ever shut up. And he lied on his application.

One night, I came home from work and I pulled my car into my driveway. I liked the song that was playing so I listened to the end of the song. It was a good CD so I listened to the next couple of songs as well. I saw my neighbors dogs in the next yard and I saw the owner lurking around in the shadows but I didn't think anything of it.

When I got out of my car to go to the house my neighbor started yelling at me at the top of her lungs. "What kind of a person would listen to their music outside my bedroom window at 1 a.m.! Why would you do that!"

If it was daytime, the conversation would have been MUCH different. This lady has NEVER talked to me but she did come over at yell at my sister the first month we moved into the new house.

Since it was the dead of night, I just said, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was bothering you." I don't have a subwoofer in my car or anything and I certainly don't know where her bedroom is located but I wasn't about to start that conversation with her.

But the batty lady just kept yelling, "I have to be awake in 3 hours and now I'm wide awake!"

I said, "Sorry." Again. For good measure. I get the feeling she was wide awake well before I got home and that she was bored. Very. Bored. And I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it was very difficult for me to resist the temptation of pointing out the irony that she was in the darkness of her backyard screaming at me AS LOUD AS SHE COULD about what a jerk I am for not respecting people who are trying to sleep.

At this point my ears still weren't dripping blood, so she continued, "But why would I expect YOU to notice. YOU don't even notice when your own dog is barking!" For the record, her dogs are twice as loud as my dog. When I hear my dog bark, I go outside to tell her to quiet down but I don't tell her to quiet down when weirdos and mexicans are climbing around on my back fence. That's her job as a dog. I regret nothing.

I could tell that the neighbor was not interested in making peace and I have a strict policy of not arguing with people unless some good can come of it. This lady obviously just wanted an audience and nothing I could say would ever appease her. So I walked away and went to bed with her out in the night, still yelling at me.

I started painting with my in-laws as a daytime job. Painting houses for wealthy people. My father-in-law is easy on me as a boss. It's been good so far. It made me feel better about life. I went to work to find the richies eating bagles and cream cheese for breakfast just like I eat. They have the same chairs in their kitchen as we do. Their boys have the same bunk beds that our boys have. And my kids are better than their kids.

These people try to be super-parents. Almost to a smothering extent. The kids go to private school, they take swimming, piano AND guitar lessons. Even though school is out, their parents make them have two hours of "school" everyday. But every solitary second that the kids can get away, they go and play video games.

One of the boys was supposed to be reading for "school" but his mother told him to go practice the guitar. His father came in and lost his cool. He yelled at his son, "What are you doing! You're supposed to be reading! This is your future! YOUR FUTURE!" But the dad can loosen up. He came out and played tennis on their Nintendo Wii for a little while. Until he ended up punching his 6-yr-old daughter in the face and giving her a gushing nose-bleed.

There is stuff about U.S. presidents everywhere in the house. I was getting the boy's bedroom ready for paint and he had a strange assortment of videos on his dresser, including "Great Generals of the South." I asked the 8-yr-old, "Have you watched this movie? Great Generals of the South?" And he looked at me as if I was the craziest person alive. "No."

The mother is odd. Overall, she's a mormon-stepford-mom but she really is a pretty nice lady. Obviously a trophy wife but she still has a good head on her shoulders. I met her briefly on my first day of work in her house. She saw me on the second day of work. I thought she was going to ignore me but she suddenly turned and said, "Hi. Are you behaving?"

Am I behaving?

A million answers ran through my mind and all of them seemed inappropriate. That's the kind of question I might expect to hear at a parole hearing but it was very strange as an ice breaker with a professional acquaintance. I just said, "Yes."

I told my brother about it at lunch and he laughed. He said, "When we go back you can tell her you ate all your brocolli all by yourself."

My daughter also had a dance recital this week:



I was busy working so I couldn't go, but I went to the rehearsal and that was pretty good. It's kind of fun to watch them do it with the mistakes and then have the instructors say, "Do it again."

This time they had a boy dancer with a solo performance. He's a boy. A dancing boy. So in contrast to ballerina girls in wispy dresses that don't conceal their nipples, the boy was wearing a loose spandex suit of black with red slash marks all over it. Like he had been clawed by a giant animal. He did an aggressive dance to a classic song, "In the hall of the mountain king." But classical music is sissy so they toughened it up by playing it on buzzy guitars.

None of the dancers are perfect. Most of the time you feel like you could dance as good as they, but you're probably wrong. Anyway, I believe the best way to describe the boy's dance would be: COURAGEOUS.

I like these recitals though. I've been watching girls I have never met give their all in these dance recitals for two years now. I feel like I know them but they would probably yell at me "Get away, Creep!" if I ever tried to talk to them if I bumped into them at Target. Oh well.

So I finally got a day off today. I fixed the computer and took things easy. It was nice not to have any obligations for a few hours. We played with the kids for a long time in the backyard. I posted some videos on Youtube but they are slow at "processing" them so I can enter them here.

I'll put them up later. When next we meet.