Ah, April.  The time of year which brings many things — including the trasition to the spring season. It’s also the homestretch for the rest of the school year, and plans are often cemented for next year.

April is traditionally the time of year that colleges and universities send out their batches of letters (and now — emails) declaring acceptance to students for the fall semester.  I’m sure that many of you have the similar experiences, whether it was you or a child of yours.  The anticipation of that envelope which might have a carefully written rejection letter, or the packet with admissions information.

Would you like to read an exciting story about my college admissions experience in the Spring of 1990?

Well, tough.  This post has nothing to do with that. Instead, you’ll be forced to read about urination. Namely — the experiences of having someone urinate on you.

No, the picture above has nothing to do with peeing. I just decided that it would be a good, cheerful diversion for those of you who expected something of a less excretory nature in this blog post. You can feel free to bail now. (Also, please notice that I decided to use the picture of the original Dora rather than the “tween” Dora which has caused some controversy lately.  I offer this image as an olive branch to mommybloggers everywhere. Please stay and see what I have to say.)

Yesterday started very early for me. I had to be on a working conference call at 7:00 am.  I used my work laptop with its VPN connection. When Av came downstairs, he could play on our desktop computer. No problem.

When I finished the conference call, we played some games together on the computer. Usually I sit in the office chair while he sits in my lap. We make a pretty good team for driving games, as one of us can take care of the car’s speed while the other one steers.

I was still a bit grungy at the time, as I had fully expected the conference call to be much shorter. I was going to finish it and then take a shower and start my day. So I was still in my footy pajamas sleepytime clothes. Midway through one of our games I noticed that either he or I smelled slightly… ripe.  Not something which was incredibly foul, just a trigger to a nose twitch and a “what’s that smell?” curiosity.

And then I noticed him squirming around a bit.  I asked if he needed to go to the bathroom. He said he was fine.

He got up. His pajamas were wet. My pajamas were wet. And I know that it wasn’t my doing.

I was upset. I told him to go to the bathroom NOW.  I decided to take action as a responsible parent — the secret of which is, apparently, to get pissed on, then get pissed off, then storm upstairs and tell the other parent that the kid is his/her problem. And then take a shower.

Here’s his deal over the past six months or so:  He’s six. He doesn’t have accidents very often at all. He gets it.  But when he does have an accident, it’s usually because he’s so immersed in playing a video game on the computer that he simply doesn’t want to get up.  Our rule has been one to fit the issue at hand: no more computer for the rest of the day. He doesn’t like that, and there can often be tears.  I think the tears also stem from being disciplined — he’s really a very, very good kid who follows instructions and behaves. When he does something wrong, we call him out on it. For him (and for his parents) that’s a pretty emotional situation.  When the situation has been diffused, he knows that we still love each other even if we’re angry at each other for the actions which have taken place.

This time was no exception: Disappointment. Judgment. Tears. A debriefing period. It was over soon enough with him playing with his trains and being back to his normal self.  We were all in a cheery mood when we got in the car to go to Maryland to visit my Dad and his girlfriend.  They were pleased to see us and him. While the adults were talking, he made himself at home playing with some toys and watching a “Bob the Builder” DVD in the other room.  Every so often he would come back out and say hi and engage us (and vice versa).

My dad’s sister was also over to see us. She hadn’t seen Av since he was a toddler.  She left earlier than we did, so we asked Av to come back out to say goodbye to her.

And, sure enough, the crotch of his pants were visibly wet.

Now — he wasn’t playing on the computer at the time.  Although he’s been to my Dad’s place many times (and knows where all of the bathrooms are — he’s slept over there for a few days at a time!), maybe this was him feeling intimidated in a new environment. This could have truly been “an accident” rather than him being so engrossed with one stimulus that the whole “stop what you’re doing and proceed to the nearest toilet” message didn’t register seriously.

We were going to go out to dinner soon after (my Dad’s treat — woo hoo!), but we didn’t have a change of clothes for Av. He’s six. We couldn’t go out to dinner with him in (visibly) wet pants. So we just went home, all of us kind of bummed.  By the time we got home it was time to eat and then get ready for bed soon after.  He promised that “tomorrow will be a better day.”  And you know what? It was.  No accidents. True — we held a birthday party he attended today over his head, but it seems to have worked.

For him at least.

Because Friday night one of our cats (the older one who’s been with us for the long haul) decided to pee all over our comforter. We washed it. And it got peed on again.  The last time she exhibited this behavior she had some health problems; socKs will be calling the vet tomorrow to have it all checked out.

Maybe we have to limit computer time for the cats as well?

Apparently the audio daily double in yesterday’s post was a bit too challenging.  Some of you are wonderful 80s music experts like myself — that is, if you’re not listening to a three-second snippet of eight songs simultaneously.

So — I’ve decided to be a bit more generous.  Instead of putting all of the songs on top of each other for three seconds, I’ve divided them up into two groups:  Now you have six seconds of pure music enjoyment. Each three-second snippet now only contains four songs.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

   Download MP3 OGG

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

   Download MP3 OGG

Good luck again!  (Please don’t make me expand this to a full twelve seconds…)

I’ve been going through a bit of a tough time lately.

I’d like to think that I’m normally a happy, well-adjusted guy. Someone who can see the good in things and people and places and television shows on the CW. Someone who has a good sense of humor about things at least 99.44% of the time, and who can see the lighter side of life more often than not. I feel that I learned this from the family and friends with whom I choose to surround myself.

Lately, however? Things haven’t been so hot.  Work has been a bit tense — with fewer people to do the increasing workload we have due to “the economic climate lately.”  I suppose I should count my blessings that I still have a job which pays me for doing things which (a) I’m good at; and (b) I find to be interesting (most of the time).  But as with any job — there are those days and moments and people which can simply get to you. And when they do, it’s hard to let one’s emotions break free from that downward spiral.

The weather changes haven’t been helping, either. We’ve gone from a snowstorm to 70 degree weather back to snow back to 70 degrees. And now it’s just plain gray. I’m waiting for spring to just come and stay with sure footing instead of jumping back and forth across an imaginary line like [Similies and Metaphors 2.2! You have exceeded the 30-day limit for this trial version.]

I’m beginning to realize that much of March has been a total roller coaster for me! And I’m trying to pinpoint what may have changed during this time which would have brought upon a less stable emotional environment for me. I refilled some prescriptions in March, but there were no changes in dosage.  Perhaps I exercised a bit less than I did in February (thus far) — not something I’m proud of, but likely more of a symptom than a cause.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to assign causality beyond a shadow of a doubt for the change of my state of mind. But I do have a pretty educated guess:  this may be due to a chemical imbalance.  The composition of certain substances in my body has been a bit out of whack over the past few weeks.

Namely — I haven’t been able to purchase this substance lately:

It’s a bizarre phenomemon:  In all of the supermarkets I have frequented over the past month, I have not been able to find these Rold Gold hard sourdough pretzels.  It’s as if they’ve been recalled off of all of the shelves in Northern Virginia (and, perhaps, beyond).  Sure — the other regional brands of hard pretzels (Synder’s of Hanover, Utz) are okay. But these pretzels? They set the *ahem* gold standard.

Yet I continue to find the other brands and not these. It’s not as if Rold Gold has disappeared altogether.  They have plenty of other varieties of pretzel snacks out there. I’m one of the 53 people in this world who can stomach their honey mustard minis.  They still have their pretzel thins and pretzel rods. (I never understood pretzel rods.)  But still — I can’t find the Rold Gold sourdough.

You know the flavor of a hot pretzel from one of those vendors? Where you can get it with that perfect amount of mustard to complement it?  Not too salty — glazed just enough with the right, subtle amount of egg?  Rold Gold did us a service with their hard sourdough pretzels — in that they gave us that experience of being at a ball park. But in a non-perishable package. And without the creepiness factor when the pretzel guy would stare at your sister.  It simply made me think fondly of the entire hot pretzel experience — while allowing it to age properly in a cellophane bag.

Where did these pretzels go?!?

I’m not trying to correlate the absence of these pretzels to my tense experiences at work over the past few days. But I will say this: If we had more of these pretzels around — more specifically in the Washington, DC metropolitan area — I think the world, in general, would be a happier place. Spring would arrive boldly and stay. Work wouldn’t be so bad.

The imbalance would be balanced yet again.

(Note: I am not writing this in a capacity in some way related to Rold Gold and/or the FritoLay brand name. I’m not writing this as a paid advertisement to promote any product through placement on my blog. However — if the appropriate folks happen to send me a case of Rold Gold hard sourdough pretzels anyway — I’d be more than happy to oblige in this fashion. Thanks!)

—

Totally Unrelated Aside: (Yes. I know that’s not original.)  My new buddy LeSombre wrote a very nice piece about me on his blog. He uses words like “awesome,” “curious,” “piques,” “re-purposed” and “pretentious” in his entry about me. Please visit him and chastise him thoroughly. Thanks.

I think I’ve become kind of a prick.

I know, I know.  Half of you are probably dismissing this claim.  I’m such a nice guy, you may be thinking. What have I been doing which has been, in anyway, prick-like behavior?

And the other half of you are probably rolling your eyes and saying: “What do you mean kind of?”

Here’s why: Recently I’ve seen some mention across the blogosphere of those who are simply addicted to their cel phones and mobile internet devices. (Here’s one well-written post on the subject.)  The notion that there are some who simply can’t go out to dinner with friends without whipping out their iPhones and Crackberries is annoying at best. I was one of those who jumped on the bandwagon in agreement with this sentiment. I truly value the face time I have with others around me. Most of the time.

Yet when I was with my son at a birthday party for one of his friends from school — at which there were many parents with whom I had a decent share of conversations, I found myself checking my email and my Twitter feed at least four times. Mind you I wasn’t doing this while someone was trying to talk with me; it was simply something to fill the gaps between conversations. But still –  I had this compulsion to be connected.

Part of the allure of Twitter has been its accessibility through portable devices.  You can quickly send out a tweet from places formerly seen to be inaccessible without a computer.  Whether you’re at an airport  in South Dakota or a weather station in Iceland or orbiting one of the moons of Jupiter — you can use Twitter to shout something “quick n’ dirty” to the world.  And chances are that you won’t get caught in the middle of those 140 characters.

Which is why there has been scrutiny about the way people have used Twitter and the potential impact such usage can have to our security and way of life. Example: Congressman Pete Hoekstra using Twitter on his trip to Baghdad which was perceived to comprimise national security.  There are certainly times and places during which using Twitter is inappropriate, but it’s a subjective call as to what those times and places may be. Twittering is kind of like farting: there are places where it’s simply not cool to do it.  But you can probably get away with it and nobody will know. At least — not until it’s already out there…

One of these taboo places in my life has been the synagogue during Shabbat (Saturday) morning services. Our rabbi is a stickler about this: the weekly announcement sheet regularly states that “God is taking all calls today – cel phones are not required!” And then more of a stern prohibition that cel phones be silenced on the synagogue grounds on the Sabbath. Not a bad rule at all — many traditional Jews abstain from using any telephones or electronics on the Sabbath; this really isn’t an environment for cel phones.  Every so often (maybe once every three months) someone’s phone will ring in the middle of the service; the deafening silence which accompanies it is enough for that person to quietly die of embarassment for a fleeting moment before switching it off for all eternity.

I leave my cel phone in the car. (Yes — the notion of using a motor vehicle on the Sabbath is also prohibited by many traditional Jews as well.)  And I’m realizing it’s probably a good thing: For me, Twitter is a means for me to spout random thoughts in the ether for everyone and anyone to hear.  What would happen if I were to do this in this community setting?

This weekend I started to think of the type of way inappropriate tweets one would see coming from a synagogue on the Sabbath:

mr_shiny: Anyone out there know what page in the prayerbook we’re on?

mr_shiny: Really? You’re actually wearing blue Crocs to synagogue? If you were seven I’d let it slide. But you have a wife and two kids!

cantorstein: Let’s get a move-on with the Torah scroll already. WALK FASTER! I’ve already gone through two rounds of Oseh Shalom Bimromav…

redseapedestrian: OMG the kid who they picked to lead Ashrei sounds like Chris from Family Guy! I wonder if I could get him to do the message on my voicemail…

shulpresident: RT @rabbishapiro Shhhhhhhhhhh!

imadeaminyan: Longest. Haftorah. Ever.

knishfan1974: They have the fancy sponge cake at kiddush! NOM NOM NOM

anothercohen: @cantorstein Amen.

Let’s face it: would you be interested in reading this crap on a Saturday morning?  Didn’t think so.  (I’m happy to explain any of the tweets above if you’d like, but — believe me — you’re not missing much humor here.) Maybe it’s all for the best that we keep our services out of the Twitterverse…

ADDENDUM: A quick Google search picked up a site at http://www.jewitter.com/. Take a look — it’s clever and far more succinct than my blog post.

You know what my favorite recurring theme from the long running television series Cheers was?

It was when they would involve a not-so-friendly rivalry with the other bar in Boston — which happened to be Gary’s Olde Town Tavern.  It was nice to see some competition between the two establishments and the camaraderie that everyone would have — even characters like Cliff — when it came down to defending the honor of Cheers. But I always just got a kick out of how everyone at Gary’s would, when he entered their bar as well, shout out “NORM!” in the same way that they would do at Cheers.

Today I got my first taste of what could be described as my own Cheers / Gary’s Old Towne Tavern rivalry.

It’s not really a rivalry as much as another entity. And by entity I mean someone else’s blog.  Someone of whom I’ve heard around the blogosphere but never got around to adding to my feed reader. Someone who everyone thinks is witty and clever. Someone whose name was mentioned in the same sentence as mine, in fact, of people to follow on Twitter who can make you laugh.

I simply had never gotten around to following the tweets of or reading the blog belonging to LeSomber.*

Until today. After some coaxing from a blog buddy who told me how much we were alike and how I would love his blog so much. (If I could find it. He has decided to forgo the “.com” suffix in favor of something far more obscure.)

And you know what? After reading more about him, I discovered that we are eerily alike in many ways!  For example:

• Both of us are called Mike
• We both live in capital cities of our respective countries.
• Both of us absolutely despise loud chewers
• Favorite song for both of us by 80s pop group Nu Shooz — “B-b-b-b-baby, I-I-I Can’t Wait.”
• We both like to relax in front of a nice fire, snuggled under a blanket — with a Tim Horton’s cinnamon cruller in one had and a piping hot prostitute in the other.
• We concur that Rick Mercer has a slightly abnormally large head.

I was a bit taken aback, however, when I looked at his blog — because I found that he had many readers who reply to his witty blog entries with comments. And those commenters? Many of them are the same folks who comment on my blog! (Which you can read at http://www.shinystakeout.com.)  I feel like you’ve all been spreading your allegiances. You have two communities yelling “NORM!” when you enter their domains. The analogy, in fact, is just like Cheers — in that he provides a slightly more upscale environment where he blogs more frequently and takes the time to respond to your comments, and I simply have a Woody.

Perhaps it’s simply an awakening for me: I had heard that this other Mike was great. Great writer. Funny. Friendly.  Consistent. Is this someone with whom I can keep up? Now that I know that you all are shopping around for your blog content needs and I see the quality which LeSomber provides — will my content pale in comparison?   Will I, in essence, simply become a redundant Mike who blogs?

I can tell you this much: Not on my watch.

Consider this an open declaration, Mr. LeSomber: I will not let you make me redundant.  I will read your blog regularly. And, in doing so, I will motivate myself to bring more of the funny to my blog. I’ll even try to reply to comments more often.  We’re living in a trying time where people have to make tough choices, and I’m not going to let me be decided out of the blogosphere.

I will not let me become the redundant Mike.

I do have to give kudos to this LeSomber fellow, though. He doesn’t stoop so low as to fill the content on his page with witty sitcom clips off of YouTube:

Direct YouTube Link

___

* I am aware that he spells the name of his blog differently. Out of respect for my country, however, I have decided to use the traditional United States of American spelling.

You know what I think is entertainment?

The part of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (either in radio, book, television or film format) where the two guided missiles aiming for the Starship Heart of Gold spontaneously (and improbably) turn into a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias.  The bowl of petunias simply says “Oh, no — not again” before it hits the planet’s surface (explanation comes in the third book of the series). The sperm whale has a nice three-minute monologue of happy self-awareness before it explodes on impact.

Douglas Adams decided to put the whale in there for comedic purposes. His thought was that we often focus on the main story without even thinking about the repurcussions which occur when something remarkable happens.  So he lingered a bit on this utterly pointless sperm whale which suddenly pops into existence and dies moments later. Just to be different.

Which is also why I find Monty Python and the Holy Grail entertaining. A documentarian is killed by a knight early on — and they cut back to it as the police come in and investigate the death of this insignificant character.  Even a cheesy film like Airplane! where they cut back to the guy waiting in the taxi in front of the airport a few times during the movie — I just happen to like that stuff.

I also liked Mystery Men with Ben Stiller, Janeane Garafolo, Wiliam H. Macy, Hank Azaria and quite a few others. I had never read the comic book (or “graphic novel” for those of you who feel the need), but I liked that these superheroes were simply minor league schlubs in life. “The Blue Raja” still lived with his mom. “The Shoveler” was a devoted dad or completely whipped by his wife — or, perhaps, both. I liked the randomness of it all.

I also enjoyed Back to the Future II. Hell, give me a time travel story of any kind where someone tinkers with the present and I’ll watch it. Even Timecop. Just about any episode of Sliders before it started getting weird.  I like the alternate reality of it all.

Which is why I decided to plunk down more than ten bucks to watch The Watchmen this evening. On an IMAX screen.  For those of you unfamiliar with IMAX, it’s a Slovenian word for “the sound is really fucking loud.”  I felt that the film would have all of the hooks which I mentioned above: it deals with an alternate 1985 where Nixon is still the president. It has superheroes I had never heard of — some of whom with questionable super powers. (Like pointy ears.)  And it certainly focused on the aspects of the superhero story that you don’t see often.

One thing to point out here –  I knew nothing of the backstory. I never read the graphic nov comic book. I knew only two of the performers in the movie. And although I had seen some great Internet publicity for it, I honestly didn’t know what the movie was going to be about.

Here are a few of my observations (without giving any of the plot away):

* Large soda: $5.75.  Large Popcorn: $5.75.  Their Value Combo #1 — which consists of a large soda and a large popcorn?  $11.50.  Where’s the special value in that?  (I opted for the medium – but was asked if I wanted to purchase the combo. Sneaky…)

* The previews were all IMAX previews. Which was kind of cool for the Star Trek one — even though I had already seen that preview on the computer. If anything, the IMAX previews made me feel more reassured in my decision to never, ever watch the second Transformers movie.

* The movie was very long. Close to three hours. I usually love this — it means more bang for my buck.  But after the two hour mark, I was looking at my watch.  And kept looking at it. I think we’ve been conditioned not to pay attention for more than 122 minutes at a time.

* I recognized Malin Akerman right from the start — from, embarassingly enough, her role on the HBO short-lived Lisa Kudrow series The Comeback. Hot.  Knowing that this was an R-Rated film with a rather high concentration of gratuitous blue penis scenes, I was relieved that she, too, helped make this film ripe with adult content.

* Matt Frewer?  Love you, buddy. I’ve adored you since your Max Headroom days. But honestly? You’re really scary looking. Have been for quite a while now.  You continue to be fun — like your dog-catcher role on Eureka. But still a bit weird. And the fact that they gave you pointy ears in this movie? Didn’t help your cause, bro. Made you look like Spock undergoing chemo…

* I’m a sucker for flashbacks. Seeing the same character progress in age over 40 years is pretty impressive. And they did that quite well here.

* And character development? They truly focused on just about every single character. Everyone had to say his piece.  Everyone had to tell his backstory. At first I found it brilliant. Detailed! Truly exploring the depths of what made each superhero tick!

And then after about an hour of it I found it kind of annoying and whiny.

* You know how when you leave a sci-fi  or fantasy movie, you’ll have a bunch of geeky folks passionately discussing the message of the movie, arguing if the point was made thoroughly or not? Well – the last half hour of this film was the main characters (all geeks in their own right) debating the message of the movie, interdispersed with loud special effects and fighting! It’s as if they already anticipated that everyone would talk about it — so they decided to jump the gun!  I really wanted to give these main characters a serious wedgie. And I would have — if I wasn’t so scared that it would expose more gratuitous blue penis.

Mystery Men was funnier. I would recommend waiting for it to come out in IMAX.  I’m glad I had a chance to see Watchmen, though –  and I’ll probably catch it again on basic cable.

Just a few quick notes before the weekend officially ends. I mean, it’s really about time I posted. A while back I promised pictures from Purim and I haven’t paid up.  Don’t worry; I’ll leave those to the very end.

* Purim went quite well. Our synagogue had a new tradition this year — in which the Megillah reading (the chanting of the entire Book of Esther in Herbew with a specific cantillation) was done using specific character roles.  So, for example, the person who played Queeen Esther would chant all of the lines that Queen Esther uttered in the scroll. And so on.  I was one of the participants; you’ll see pictures at the end.  We all had a good time.

* Pussy Party: It’s now been a week and change since the new cat, Lexi, joined our family.  For the first week she slept in my office so there would be a sense of ownership for her. And so the two cats wouldn’t kill each other while we slept.  I think things have been working well with them — with perhaps only one episode of screaming/howling/hissing per day. But they’ve learned to co-exist — even within the same room. Of course, there was the one incident involving one of the cats “spraying” the other one to mark her territory. But I suppose it’s something to be expected. I remember fondly when my brother and I were in our mid-teens and enjoyed our occassional urine fights. Good times…

* Flats. As it was revealed on the weekly radio show hosted by Avitable and Miss Britt, I have deemed Nazis with maxipads as my own personal kryptonite. That is — when you take two specific items which make me shudder (one understandable and one ridiculously) and put them together, I’m made to feel quite uncomfortable.  A close second could possibly be when my vast ignorance about all things vehicular becomes apparent.

Which is why I’m quite proud of being able to change my flat tire on Friday on my way to work.  On the side of a busy highway. (Fortunately it was on the right side.) I’ve changed many tires before, but this was the first time that the whole experience went extremely smoothly — i.e. the car didn’t fall off the jack; I loosened the lug nuts while the tire was still on the ground; I got just the right about of grease on my hands, arms, elbows, pants and forehead.  I’m still a bit annoyed that the price of tires is steep — especially for a car which is pushing thirteen years old.

* I still think that the “Shazam” app for the iPhone is pretty frickin’ neat. It’s a free application which you can use to wow certain people who get amused easily.  The idea is this: A song is playing at the hip, trendy establishment that iPhone owners like you choose to hang out at.  You whip out your phone and allow it to “listen” to the song — and after fifteen seconds, it identifies it for you! And, of course, provides a link to the iTunes store in case you decide you want to buy it sometime. I’ve used it quite a bit since I got my phone, and I occasionally test it out — kind of like a spot check — to see if I can stump it.

Today I stumped the iPhone app.  It didn’t recognize “Show Me” by the Cover Girls when it was playing on the local radio station’s “All 80s weekend.”  Which means that (a) the app isn’t as good as I am at identifying songs; or (b) the app isn’t as much of a loser as I am.

* I’ve noticed. I stumbled upon a random episode of “Burn Notice” today. I was impressed. So much so that I found the episode online to watch from the beginning. I may also get the first season on DVD to catch up.  Truly a quality show.

Which is fine — because I’ve cleared out a bit of my TV watching schedule anyway. I’ve officially broken up with Chuck, Heroes and My Name Is Earl this season. With Leverage done for the season, it gives me more space to watch Burn Notice and Breaking Bad. (Oh — and the Israeli version of The Amazing Race — which, I’ve determined, is like the American version on steroids.  There’s a “pit stop” every two episodes — and the past two weeks have aired two hour-long episodes per week!)

* Shamrock? Sham-WOW! Last year around this time I devoted some blogspace to my obsession with McDonalds’ Shamrock Shake — the minty shake which rears its head once a year around this time.  I wanted to let you all know that this year I got it out of my system the week of Valentine’s Day. My beloved Shamrock Shake was waiting for me at a McDonalds in Broadlands, VA.   For those of you looking for this green manna from heaven, check out http://www.shamrockshake.com.

* Big Dance: My alma mater (Maryland) is a 10 seed in the NCAA basketball tourney. Which makes me happy. But not super-excited; it’s not as if they’re not there almost every year lately.  The local team I’m watching? The American University. It makes me proud to see a team with such a small, cute basketball team making it big. Kudos to you all, American. And I’m not just saying that because I hooked up with three women in Letts Hall during my undergraduate days…

* Purim was a drag. Pictures! First of all, Avi was Perry the Platypus / Agent P from Phineas and Ferb. SocKs did a great job with this – she even wrote up a piece about exactly how she made the costume.  And here he is:

As for me?  Well — my transformation took a bit longer.  I have to admit — I was a bit shaggy over the past month or so. Here’s a picture of me from Sunday evening:

So — yes. I shaved the beard. A requirement to pass as the Biblical character whose lines I was reciting on Monday night.

It took a while — but Monday evening had me putting on a tiara and becoming a literal old queen:

The dress was a recycled bridesmaid dress socKs hadn’t worn more than once, The cape, wig, tiara and false eyelashes came from a costume store which was going out of business.  The purple disco ball earings, I believe, came from Ross.

I was amazed that I could fit into socKs’s pink crocs.

Thank God we don’t have any dress-up holidays for a long time…

Tuesday on my blog was a day of tribute to my one and only cat, Fyona.  Having never owned a pet growing up, it was quite an experience inheriting responsibility for a cat who already had it in for me. But I survived. Almost eleven years later, in fact.

Wenesday was the day that Lexi came over.

She’s seven. And pictured above. Her owner, Becky, had made plans for her to live here a while back — as her soon-to-be finance is allergic to cats. We didn’t know when that would be, but the schedule kind of fast-tracked on all of us. It brought up questions: how would these two cats get along? Would there be an issue with the 7-year age difference? What about the fact that Fyona is blind? Or that Lexi has claws? How long will it take for the two of them to get acclamated to each other?

Will these two cats learn to communicate and rise up against the house humans?

So far we’ve planned (over-planned?) a regimen to get Lexi feeling welcome in our home — and to get both her and Fyona used to each other. Yesterday she spent the night here in the office with Becky sleeping on the pull-out couch.  She spent the day in here — most likely playing Crazy Taxi and looking at lewd, scantily clad masters degree seeking students on the internet. Tonight while we were home we gave her some time to explore.  The dynamic between her and Fyona was not unlike the postitioning of girls and boys at a fifth grade dance. Both of them treaded with extreme caution.

Until, of course, the rumble occurred. Lexi figured a way to get her larger self through the baby gate and into Fyona’s personal space — under our bed. There was a lot of meowing, hissing and growling…

And tonight? I’m having a sleepover here in the office with Lexi. Just the two of us.

Yes. The above paragraph is grounds enough to revoke my man card for the unforseeable future.  But this is a great way to get used to me, right? She’s been rather skittish about being locked up in a stranger’s house so far; might as well at least spend some time with the person who owns that office.

And so far? It hasn’t been bad! Although I must admit — Lexi is quite the bed hog…

I’ll keep you all posted. Hopefully she doesn’t pee on my head while I sleep. Or look through my wallet. But we’ll see…

Just a few thoughton a snow-covered evening…

* Snow Day: I think I truly have one of the weirdest kids in the universe. We knew last night that today would be a snow day — that is, the school sent us an email declaring no school today. Which meant me waking up early and working from home beginning at 7am so I could log a good amount of time of work to help out those who came to work throughout the day. This was fine; he opted toveg out in front of Phineas and Ferb on DVD for a while.

But after I finished four hours of work and wanted to go outside into the snow? He was perfectly content to stay inside in his pajamas. Did I mention that we had his inflatable toboggan? And that the snow was just the right consistency, and the hill was just the right slope? It took some coaxing, but eventually we were able to get outside…

… where he decided that the toboggan wasn’t nearly as much fun as shoveling the steps and sidewalk. He did, perhaps, four runs down the hill before just being tired of it. And after the steps were finished and I suggested more toboggan action?  He was raring to clear snow off of the car. What kid does this?

I don’t know. I sure as hell took advantage of his help, though…

* jPod: About ten months ago I posted a blog about an amazing Canadian show based on the Douglas Coupland nover jPod. I was explaining the premise to someone the other day, and I decided to check an online rumor which I had heard about several months ago — that the entire series of  jPod was available for viewing online!

The premise: five characters work in the basement of a video game company in Vancouver. Their mission: to create BoardX, an extreme skating game which has enough stunts and carnage to make it a hit. Coupland’s character development is quite wonderful, quirky and geeky. The main character, Ethan, is looking for some meaning in his life while helping to clean up the messes of his mom, a happy homemaker who happens to grow pot out of her basement, and his dad (played by Alan Thicke), a civil engineer turned aspiring acting extra who has a love for decadance and competitive ballroom dancing.  The series reminds me a bit of a dramatic, internet version of How I Met Your Mother. It even has the Canada vs. USA struggles we know and love.

Anyway — you can now watch it for free!  http://www.thewb.com/shows/jpod

That didn’t stop me from purchasing the Season 1 (not that there’s a second season in the works or anything) DVD from Amazon.ca. It felt so dirty using another country’s Amazon.com — and I liked it!

* Purim is coming up in a week.  Don’t know what it is? Look it up. I’m looking for costume ideas. Anyone have any?

* Tonight is the premiere of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon! Who here is going to watczzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……

That’s all I’ve got for now. There’s more to share at a later time, I assure you…

“Do you have a step-brother?”

This was a weird question to get asked while driving Av home from school the other day.

A bit of background: I have one brother who is three years older than me. His name, as revealed here previously, is Captain Awesome. (Also revealed previously: I gave him that name on my blog before  the pilot episode of Chuck aired.) After I was born, my parents decided that life was now perfect for them and decided not to have any more children. Or, more likely, they realized what a pain I was as a kid and used that thought as an impetus for birth control. And that was it.  No step-siblings, no half-siblings. Just CA and me.

So — where did the question come from? Could it have been due to an exploration of family life of some of his classmates who, possibly, could have step-siblings? Perhaps.  But it took a moment for me to realize where he got it from.

His favorite pasttime has been watching the adventures of these two guys:

If you haven’t met them, these are Phineas and Ferb, the title characters to the Disney channel cartoon of the same name. The premise: these two kids are step-brothers trying to figure out how to spend their summer vacation, and they come up with these brilliant, incredible ideas / inventions that let them do anything and everything — whether it’s creating a beach in their backyard or starting a band just to become a one-hit wonder. There’s a lot of potential for utter chaos and destruction in the name of fun.  All the while their older sister, Candace, is all about busting them for their escapades, but their mom never ends up seeing them and simply thinks her daughter is hysterical. There’s also a subplot involving their pet platypus named Perry, an animal who has a double life as a secret agent trying to stop an evil genius named Doofenshmirtz.

Oh — and Phineas does most of the talking. Ferb might have one line per episode which he delivers in his proper British accent.

If you haven’t had a chance to watch this show, I highly recommend it. It reminds me a lot of the cartoon humor seen on Anamaniacs and Pinky and the Brain.  Kids can get into it, and adults get the subtle (and some not so subtle) nuances.

But back to the topic at hand: step-brothers.  Here was a concept I wanted to explain to my son. In fact, the notion of siblings in general is a bit foreign to him as an only child. So I decided to start with this line of questioning.

“Av, do you know what makes Uncle Awesome and me brothers?”

“Yeah, because you two are brothers!”

“No, I mean… what do the two of us have in common? What do we have that’s the same.”

He thought about this a bit. Then he figured it out: “You have the same last name!”

True. “But what else? Do we have the same Dad?”

“Yes!”

“And we had the same Mom?”

“Yes! The same Dad and the same Mom!”

“Right! So that makes us brothers — we’re both boys, and we have the same parents. Do you know what step-brothers are?”

“Um…. You have the same Mom and Dad but different last names?”

“Well, close. Step-brothers have … well, let’s see…”

This was tough.

“Okay. Phineas has a mom who is married to Ferb’s Dad…”

“… so that’s why they’re step-brothers!”

“Um… yeah. So now do you understand what step-brothers are?”

He paused for about two or three seconds. And then:

“Hey Dad — let’s make a big fire in the backyard!”

The moral of the story as I see it: don’t let your kids watch television shows which contain step-brothers. Or crazy antics involving fire. Or explosions. Discussing this stuff can be dangerous to one’s personal property.