...or We Could Do That

    Excerpt from a real-life conversation in the Grim Richard car, after all three children have been picked up from school: 

    First, some background. Julian the six year-old is, by nature, an instigator. In fact, if you ask Julian what he wants to do when he grows up, he does not answer that he wants to be a fireman or policeman. 

    No, he's got bigger things on his mind.

    "I want to cuss and chew bubble gum."

    I am not making this up.

    Anyway, it's 3 in the afternoon on the way home from school. Nine year-old Gabriel has taken a break from peppering me with unanswerable questions about Star Wars. There is peace.

    "Hey, I've got an idea," says Julian.

    I brace myself.

    "Why don't we get gloves and pick up all the dog poop in the backyard?"

    In the rear-view mirror, I can actually see confused question marks floating above everyone's head. Except for Julian. He's smiling.

    "And then once we all have a bag of poop...we can have a poop fight!"

    All of the kids crack up. If you're under ten, this is like Nobel Prize-winning comedy material. This is comedy gold, a rich jambalaya of Cosby and Martin with a spicy dash of Kinison.

    And then my little, sweet daughter Riley chimes in.

    "Or we can have a water balloon fight!"

    This, of course, kills the laughing.

    I look in the rear-view mirror again and that's when I start laughing. Because four year-old Riley has an excited look on her face that says she's up for either one - poop fight or water ballon fight. It doesn't matter.

    I have clearly failed as a parent.

...And Some Yuca

I work about 40 miles away from where I live - which makes me next to ineffectual when a family crisis arises. By the time I find out about most problems, the problem has probably already been taken care of.

Bridget points out that I'm also ineffectual at solving family crises that occur right in front of my face. Which is true. Personally, though, I think this has less to do with my crisis-handling abilities and more with the types of crises that are thrown my way.

For instance, a voice mail that I received from my wife went something like this:

"Your six year-old son Julian has been taken down to the principal's office because he was dancing on the cafeteria tables and yelling for his friends to hit him in the balls. Call me as soon as possible."

I considered calling Bridget for a moment. Then I went to lunch at Pollo Tropical.

Before you judge, let me explain my reasoning. First, Pollo Tropical has this really amazing chicken soup with corn, plantains, soft pumpkin and yuca. I don't even know what yuca is, but I do know that God meant for it to be in soup. I had been thinking about a bowl of that soup all day and it would have been both disappointing and nutritionally unsound if I had skipped lunch to discuss my child's testicles.

Second, it seemed to me that the principal had swooped in and swiftly averted any possible testicle crisis. Bridget, didn't, for example, leave me a message that said, "Come quickly, your son was kicked in the groin by, like, 20 kids. He needs a teste transplant and you're his only donor match."

So, I relaxed and had some soup. Later, I got the whole story from Bridget which, as I guessed, was different from the voice mail message. It seems that Julian got in trouble because of two separate incidents in the cafeteria. In the first, Julian decided to impress his easily amused friends in the lunch line by shouting out,"Hey, dudes, don't hit me in the balls!"

Don't laugh. I hear Ashton Kutcher got his start the exact same way.

The second incident, which occurred ten minutes later and in front of the same adults, involved what Bridget says the principal described as Julian "gyrating on the tables like he was in the "High School Musical" movie."

Now that things are calmed down, I'd like to apologize to the state of Florida for my son's inappropriate behavior in school. But I do have two other comments.

I enjoyed the fact that the principal insisted on using the word "gyrate" to describe Julian's dancing. Because of his word choice, I will always picture him as Ed Sullivan and Julian as a really short, curly-haired Elvis. I appreciate that more than you know.

Finally, I saw parts of the "High School Musical" movie.

And it could have used some balls.

...And a Parting Gift:

Will Smith and the Ukulele

Thumbhole

Probably every parent wants their kid to learn how to play a musical instrument. I'm no exception. Each of my kids, I announced recently, will have to play at least one musical instrument of some kind.
"I don't care what musical instrument you play," I said to the kids, "as long you play an instrument."
That turned out to be a lie.
Six year-old Julian jumped on the, uh, bandwagon without hesitation. I think this is because curly, golden-haired Julian secretly suspects that he's supposed to be a rock star of some kind but just hasn't gotten around to picking up the accessories yet - the leather pants, the Ace-bandage-tight Lenny Kravitz shirt or the ability to play some kind of music.
Julian asked for a guitar for Christmas, and Santa promptly supplied a Julian-sized acoustic guitar. We plan to work on the rock star clothes once Julian has figured out how to wear his boxers right-side-out with the fly in the front. So, we've got some time.
I thought Gabriel would be easy. He loves playing Rock Band on the X Box and he even sings Karaoke at his grandparent's house, so when I solicited him for ideas I was mentally sizing him up for a drum kit or maybe even singing lessons. We have a student piano in our living room now, so I thought maybe he'd go for that.
"I want bongos," he said.
I stared at him like he was somebody else's kid. Somebody else's weird kid.
"I don't think you understand," I demurred. "You're supposed to let me live vicariously through you by doing the things I was too disorganized and uncool to accomplish when I was a child. I've already mastered dorkiness."
He pondered this for a second.
"How about the trumpet?"
A week later, I picked Gabriel up from school and he fairly jumped into the car.
"You remember how you said you wanted me to learn an instrument?"
"Uhhhhhhh," I said, sensing a trap.
"Well, I figured out which one I'm gonna play."
"Uhhhhhhh," I said again, but with this time with emphasis.
"I want to play the recorder!"
I looked at him like he was someone else's weird, recorder-playing kid.
"Oh," I said. "Do boys play that instrument, too?"
Still, I got him a recorder that day. I've got my fingers crossed that the ridicule of his peers would eventually drive him toward a cooler instrument, like maybe the xylophone or even the bassoon. In the between the repetitions of Hot Cross Buns, I take what enjoyment I can from the instrument. For instance, did you know recorders have something called a thumb hole? It makes me giggle every time I say it - and I say it alot.
Thumb hole.
Gabriel doesn't find it as funny.

Semi-Duh

    We're moving into a new house in two days, almost exactly a year after we first moved to Florida. And though we're excited about the new house, we're less excited about actually moving. Here's how I know: 

    With two days to go, we haven't started packing. Not a thing. 

    The pans, pots and spices are still in the cabinets, the DVDs are still in the bookcases and the towels are still in whatever you call that little closet near the kids' rooms.

    In all fairness, we did try packing yesterday. We prepared by waking up early and getting breakfast out of the way. We skipped church (because God understands when you're moving) and Bridget instead picked up flat-packed cardboard boxes from our in-laws and brought them home. 

    All this was accomplished by 9 a.m., leaving us a good nine hours to dismantle the house, cram it into boxes and seal it with brown tape. The weather, as is usual for Florida, was sunny and cooperative. We were psyched.

    From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m, we watched television. We did not even put together a single box during this time. I'm not even sure what we watched; it might even have been an all-day marathon on the "Anything But Packing" channel. Or maybe it was that new HGTV show "We've Got to Be Out of This House in the Next Week But We Don't Give a Crap" show. I'm not really sure.

    At almost 3 p.m., we began to make a kind of progress. Bridget began cleaning the garage. I thought this was odd, since the plan was to move everything out of said garage in exactly two days, but I tried to remain positive.

    "Hey," I offered, "Do you want me to start taking down the wall hangings?"

    Bridget paused and looked at me incredulously.

    "No, we're cleaning the garage now."

     I could tell she was fighting the urge to append the phrase "duh" to the end of her sentence. It was a kind of punctuation - a "semi-duh".

    About ten minutes later, she found a tool that belonged to her friend Monica and left immediately to return it. I didn't see her for a couple of hours. But that was okay. I caught two back-to-back episodes of "Watch Old Guys Golf While Important Deadlines Loom" on the Golf Channel.

    I love that show.

    Grim Bonus: Dimitri Martin goes over some pie charts.

Denouement, Dudes!

    I have noticed that a lot of big time writers will use the end of the year as an excuse to revisit the previous year's columns. Supposedly, they do this to update the readers and add a kind of psychological denouement to the year.

    Personally, I like doing it because it makes for some easy writing. Also, I really like saying the word denouement.

    Let's start with flip flops. Readers may remember that I started wearing flip flops  for the first time this year. I did eventually learn to saunter in those laid back shoes. In fact, I successfully rocked those flip flops until one of the tiny toe thongs gave out at church one Sunday.

    I wish I was kidding about this.

    It seems I am both tacky enough to wear flip flops to church and unlucky enough to have one of the tiny toe things blow out, effectively turning my flip flops into just flops. Very loud flops if you must know.

    2008 was the year that I gave a name to the biggest e-mail scourge of all time, Spom  - or spam sent by your mother. Many of you reached out to me by sending me examples of the complete crap your mother had sent you via e-mail. Ironically, this meant that I was essentially being spommed by your mothers - as well as by my own. 

    So, we're gonna put that in the "backfired" column.

    I bought both an Iphone and an Amazon Kindle this year, successfully spending a thousand dollars to do things I could already do and neatly proving that I am both a consumer tool  and a completely legitimate candidate for some kind of government bailout.

    We also discussed my wife's addiction to celebrations this year. I'd like to think she's making progress, but we had a birthday party for a friend last night on December 30th, and we're having another for New Year's Eve tonight. Draw your own conclusions.

    Finally, I'm gonna do some gloating. In 2007, I pointed out that the conventional wisdom  re: losing more than half of your body heat through your head was, uh, stupid. Turns out I was right, for once.

    Happy new year, people.

Editor's Note: If you're like me, you sometimes forget how cool the 80s were. My gift to you as we head into 2009...

  

Ridiculous

    Here's the thing about my nine year-old son, Gabriel. He is a humongous nerd, obsessed with building Lego play sets and playing Halo video games. He is racked by social anxiety and has trouble concentrating in school. And despite all of this, he is convinced that he is right about everything.

    He reminds me of someone...

    Oh, wait. I remember now. It's me.

    And here's the other thing about Gabriel. Though he loves me, he clearly thinks I'm a moron.

    The other day, for instance, my younger son Julian asked me about Santa Claus while we played in the front yard. By playing, I mean that the kids were hurling a football and I was drinking a Pete's Cherry Wheat in a pink plastic Adirondack chair.

    "Dad," said Julian, "How old is Santa?"

    This was a relative easy question, as far as Santa questions go, and I jumped on it.

    "Santa is thousands of years old, Julian."

    He seemed placated by my answer and since placation is really all you can hope for when you answer your children's questions, I took a satisfied swig.

    "That's ridiculous!"

    I turned to see Gabriel rolling his eyes.

    "Excuse me?"

    "Santa is not thousands of years old," Gabriel retorted. "The Santa Claus position is thousands of years old. It's actually passed down from person to person, like a king or a queen. Nobody lives for a thousand years."

    I looked squarely at this little blond kid with the serious look on his face.

    "It does sound stupid now that I think about it."

    "Sheesh!" he answered.

    "What if I told you Santa Clause was a vast conspiracy by adults to make kids believe in an imaginary being? What if I told you also that adults formulated this conspiracy without ever actually discussing it? Further, would you believe that most parents have no clear idea why they're part of this vast conspiracy? And what if I told you parents buy all of the toys at Christmas and give the credit to this imaginary Santa because they love their children and don't care about getting the credit for it?"

    Gabriel didn't hesitate. "That's ridiculous!"

    "Yeah," I said. "I suppose it is."

    

    

    

Twenties

    When we moved down to Florida, we left most of our family behind. We also left behind some of my oldest friends in the world - guys I grew up with. They are the best kind of old friends, the kind that knew me when I was a fat and acne-covered high schooler, the kind that hung out every Friday night even if no one had any concrete plans. And when we hung out, we did stupid kid shit, watched movies, played Dungeons and Dragons, read comics and fragged the crap out of each other in Halo 2. 

    I knew I'd miss them even before we left Virginia, but we left just the same.  

    We've gained new friends here in Florida and they are the best kind of new friends. They are intelligent, funny, responsible people with beautiful kids. They understand how hard marriage is. They only like their jobs some of the time, but they soldier on anyway, because that's what you do when you have a family. They have magnificent parties, actual shindigs that last into the early hours of the morning, shindigs with all the elements of a good story - narrative, rising action, spicy dialog and denouement. And like those parties, life is bigger here in Florida.

    Last weekend, for instance, we joined our friends in their front yard to watch the space shuttle Endeavor launch into space. We hadn't actually planned to watch the launch. It was more like an afterthought, a nice bonus that you get for living in Florida. Cape Canaveral is maybe 150 miles away, but we watched the countdown on our friends' living room television and rushed out to join the neighbors as everyone looked north for the fiery trail of the rocket booster. And about a minute later, we saw it. It didn't look like a rocket, really. It looked like a shooting star. And for the first time in a long time, I thought about the seven people on top of that little orange flickering light. I wondered if they were afraid. Or were they just excited?

    I miss my old friends at the weirdest times. I missed them the night the new James Bond movie opened, because I knew that a thousand miles away, my friends would be meeting at the mall to catch the late show. Afterwards, they might play Halo if no one had work in the morning.

    I miss my friends when I wear certain clothes. I have a black t-shirt with a red and white picture of a twenty-sided die, the kind of dice you roll in Dungeons and Dragons to determine a character's probability to hit another character. To the right of the picture of the die are the words "I roll twenties." 

    I wore it to a party the other night. 

    I like to wear the shirt to parties because it's like a secret nerd signal. Usually, one or two guys will quietly acknowledge the shirt by smiling or saying "I used to play that game when I was kid." Occasionally, I'll hear a semi-drunken cry of "Critical Hit!" and I know that some of my kind are at the party, hiding like nerdy Wildebeests in a pride of lions.

    A few people asked about the shirt the other night, but no one knew what the picture and legend meant. 

    I kinda expected that, but I was hoping just the same.

    I'll tell you what else I thought about on the night of the shuttle launch. I thought about the seven people strapped into their seats and hurtling as fast as they could toward their futures. In the midst of all the violent shaking and huge explosions, did they think about the people behind them?

    I think they did.

Daddipedia

    Fatherhood is a breeze, if you don't count all the studying.

    It was last Saturday at the local Supercuts. I've got the whole family there, plunked down in those plastic chairs and reading golf and travel magazines. There are a few other people waiting. Gabriel asks a question - kind of casually.

    "When was World War II, Dad?"

    I had just found an article in my magazine that promised to shave 10 strokes off of my golf game, so I shot him back a casual answer.

    "A long time ago, Gabriel."

    When I didn't look up from the magazine, Bridget punched me in the arm.

    "Answer him," she said.

    "It's a trap," I said without looking up. One of the male patrons laughed.

    "A trap? That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard," said Bridget. "Answer the question."

    I didn't move. She appraised me for a moment.

    "Unless you don't know the answer."

    I looked at my wife for a second and put down my magazine. I looked at Gabriel, who was playing a Nintendo DS game.

    "The United States entered the war in 1941, but it started in Europe earlier, in 1939."

    I picked the magazine back up.

    "When did World War II end?" he asked.

    "1945."

    "I thought that was the Civil War."

    "Nope. The Civil War ended in 1865."

    "When did the Civil War start?"

    "1861, I think."

    Gabriel changed tack.

     "Who were the good guys in World War II?"

    "Lots of countries, but I'll go with the biggies...the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union."

    "Who were the bad guys in World War II?"

    "The Axis - the Germans, the Italians and the Japanese, mainly."

    Gabriel wasn't done, but I could see my wife getting a little antsy.

    "When did it end?
    "1945, roughly."

    "Why did it start?"

    "Lots of reasons, mostly economic. But Hitler lit the fuse by invading Poland."

    He flicked off his DS and sighed.

    "Dad, why was Hitler bad?

    "Gabriel!" Bridget almost shouted. "That's enough. Let your dad read his magazine."

    I scanned the golf tips.

    "I told you it was a trap."

 

    

    

   

    

     

    

Grim Richard Rocks the Vote

    The other day, while dropping off a library book, I noticed the early voting line winding around the library. Naturally, I was intrigued. Longtime readers of this column know that there's nothing I like more than a good, long line. And since there's no Iphone or Harry Potter book coming out in the next couple of months, the early voting line might be my last chance to faire en queue until, say, Black Friday.

    So I decided to get in line, but first I picked up the kids from school. Sure, part of me hopes that they'll learn to enjoy long lines with the same reverence I do, but also I figured it would be nice if my kids had at least one memory of me doing something responsible.

    But as much as I like standing in line to buy stuff, the early voting line almost broke me. When I arrived, the line only ran down one side of our tropical library and was fairly short, maybe 300 feet long. Soon after, though, the computers that checked for voter eligibility went down and turned a 30 minute civics lesson for my kids into something a little more difficult.

    You see, my kids have to the ability to behave for roughly 29 minutes. And sure enough, for exactly that short period of time, my kids amused themselves by collecting rocks at the edge of the parking lot and asking precocious questions about the election process. At about 30 minutes, though, you could see their kidness cracking through the good behavior, like monsters awaking inside ancient terra cotta statues.

    Some of the crowd was getting surly, too.

    "I thought the whole point of early voting," said one middle-aged guy in dress slacks, "is to avoid the long lines on election day. This stinks."

    A lot of people in line agreed. Since early voting started, we've been seeing reporter after reporter detailing the difficulties and long lines for voting in this neck of the woods. Standing in the same place without moving only confirmed the news reports that was something potentially wrong here - that South Florida was screwing up again.

    And as my kids flitted in and out of the line, throwing leaves and arguing over rocks, I started to feel the same way. I started to feel like voting was harder than it was supposed to be. 

    And then I remembered something.

    I stood in two separate lines to buy the last Harry Potter book. I once stood in a mile-long line to get into an event at the San Diego comic convention. I once waited five hours to buy a video game console. In other words, I will stand in line for hours just to get some amazingly stupid shit.

    And I remembered, too, that this is South Florida. There are a hundred Guatemalans within a half mile who traveled a thousand miles to get to the city I live in. That's a pretty long line, too. I bet any one of those people would trade places with me, even if it meant spending two hours in line once every four years.

    Don't believe the media and don't believe the grumpy people in line. Our system is working, even when the voting machines aren't. Our system is working because I can stand in line with kids without worrying about their safety.

    I finally got to vote. And I'm glad my kids did see it. If you're reading this, I hope you vote - no matter who your candidate is, no matter how busy you are. Our kids are watching. And some of them are going to remember that their mom and dad once stood in line for eight hours to buy a Wii, but they couldn't find one extra hour to vote.

.

The Five

    I was driving my son Gabriel to school today and listening to Wilco's song "Hummingbird" when I realized what an amazing song it is. To begin with, it has possibly the best lyrical opening line ever created for a pop song:

    "His goal in life was to be an echo."

    This line is, of course, pure genius - rich, creamy imagery surrounding a satisfying nougat with just the right amount of artsy fartsy. It reminds me of moi, frankly. Especially the nougat.

    The rest of the song is just as good. In fact, when the song got to these words...

    "Remember to remember me

    Standing still in your past

    Floating fast like a hummingbird"

    ...I realized that "Hummingbird" is one of The Five - my personal list of the five best songs ever written. As you might expect, this is not a permanent list. The collection varies, sometimes on whim. There was a dark day this summer, for instance, when "I Kissed a Girl" occupied all five spots. I don't like to talk about that day or my brief struggle with lesbianism.

    As of today, though, The Five are as follows:

    "Hummingbird" by Wilco

    "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" as covered by Israel Kaʻanoʻi Kamakawiwoʻole A.K.A Bruddah Iz

    "My Babe" by Little Walter

    "Love Stinks" by the J. Geils Band

    "Little Tornado" by Aimee Mann

    As you can see, I'm feeling a little "sensitive" right now. BTW, If you've got a list of The Five, let me see 'em. 

Bounce House

    In principle, I like birthday parties. But my wife, honestly, has a celebration problem and she's making it hard for me to enjoy any of party or holiday celebration. Take my son Julian's recent sixth birthday party. 

    Julian duck-duck-goosed his way into pre-pre-pre teendom with 60 guests from his class and neighborhood, two separate SpongeBob birthday cakes and a full range of alcoholic drinks for the parents.

    Also, Julian and his guests enjoyed a full-sized bounce house, one of those inflatable rooms that kids jump around in at carnivals and school fairs. I planned to include it in the list of birthday excesses detailed earlier, until Bridget pointed out that I spent more time bouncing than any of the kids.

    I couldn't help it. It made my stomach feel funny.

    Friends and family know that Bridget's preoccupation with celebrations doesn't stop at birthday parties either. We put up two Christmas trees every year. Bridget picks a theme for one and I pick a theme for the other. This year, for instance, one of the trees (Bridget's) will use Herbie the Dentist and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as metaphors for man's alienation from society. My tree's theme will be, uh, candy canes.

    Bridget's obsession is not just wearing me down. Gabriel's ninth birthday is coming up and Bridget talked with him about the party as we set the table for dinner.

    "So, Gabriel, how many kids are you inviting to your birthday party?"

    Gabriel shrugged. "I don't know, maybe five. I don't have a lot of friends."

    Bridget smiled.

    "Well, honey, you've got a month to make some more friends. Get on it."

    Gabriel looked to me for sympathy, but I couldn't help him. I've seen the party budget that Bridget prepared and there's no way we're gonna be able to justify the bounce house for just five kids.

    

The Pianus

Many thanks to the readers who helped me briefly beat the sales ranking of "Identifying Wood" on Amazon. It was, however, just the first salvo in the war. Today, however, we take a break from the publishing battles and return to my roots - embarrassment by family members:

Our story starts when the Brown family invited our family over to their house for a pool party. Bridget and I looked forward to this. When you're new in town, it's difficult to meet people and make friends. And by "people", I mean neighbors with common interests or goals. As I related in a past column, my kids have already introduced us to local law enforcement, so we're covered on that side of things.    

Anyway, we went over to the Brown family house around 2 p.m. on a sunny Saturday. Our kids jumped immediately into their pool with the Brown kids and began swimming. On the tiled deck next to the pool, Bridget and I jumped into the conversational pool and began treading water with Hank and Anya, the Brown parents.     

Hank and Anya, it turns out, are not only attractive people, they're funny and smart as well. About an hour into our conversation, when their Ipod began playing "Why I Don't Like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats, I had to stifle the urge to grab Bridget and squeal out loud like a teenage girl, "These people are so totally cool. I hope they like us."  It was only later that things went horribly wrong. And by "things", I'm referring to my four year-old daughter Riley.              

It happened as Anya prepared to serve dinner and called everyone out of the pool. Hank stood in his swimsuit to one side of the breakfast counter. Riley charged around from the other side of the counter, pointed to Hank at about crotch level and said:     

"You have a little penis."

For a moment, I thought I might be mistaken about what Riley had said, so I glanced over to Bridget. The horrified look on her face told me that she had heard the same thing. I also saw 8 year-old Gabriel's face, which looked radiant and full of joy, so I knew he had also heard the same thing.

To make matters worse, Riley had mangled the pronunciation of the word "penis" so that it came out sounding like a horrible combination of "penis" and "anus".

She pronounced it "pi-anus".     

And this is how Hank responded:     

"Uh, what?"     

"You have a little pi-anus," Riley restated helpfully.     

"Uh, what?" Hank re-restated.    

Which was exactly what I would have said in the same situation, except I would have added,"I, uh, just got out of the pool."    

Hank looked at me, confused.

I considered telling Hank the truth - that I regularly let Riley hang out with two of the most scatologically-obsessed people on the planet. These two people - Riley's brothers - spent most of every day teaching her inappropriate words. And even worse, God help me, I had laughed at some of the jokes. Rather than teaching my daughter manners, I had probably been subtly telling her it was okay to talk about someone's pi-anus.

But that's not what I said. No, I was trying to look cool in front of the Browns. For all they knew, I was a responsible parent. I decided to act like one.

"Riley," I said. "We don't talk about people's penises in public. That's unacceptable."

"Your father's right," Bridget echoed.

We felt very parental and very mature until Anya spoke.

"Your minds are in the gutter. Riley didn't say that Hank had a little penis. Riley said Hank had a little piano."

"Uh, what?" I said.

"Riley said that Hank had a little piano," Anya restated. She seemed amused.

I didn't know what to say to Anya. I felt relieved that she had misinterpreted Riley's speech, but her interpretation was ridiculous. It was a humongous stretch of the imagination - until Anya pointed to the other side of breakfast bar.

That's where the Brown family keeps a little, tiny wooden piano.     

Identify This!

    It's done. Last week, my first published book, "The Book of Gabriel" hit Amazon.com and set the Web site on fire.

    Okay. That's an overstatement. It's ranked like 362,762 today.

    I really thought this whole bestselling author thing would be easier. I figured readers might need maybe a week to find my book, an hour to read it and possibly a day or two to start tearfully enjoining their friends to jump on the Grim Richard bandwagon. According to my calculations, I should already be sitting by the pool in a smoking jacket and turning down interviews from Oprah.

    No such luck. And to make matters worse, writing this entry just reminded me that I totally forgot to buy a bandwagon. How are people going to jump on the Grim Richard bandwagon, when I don't even have one?

    This bestselling author thing is tougher than I thought.

    I can take it. After all, I'm an unknown author who wrote a book smart-ass book of advice for his son - A smart-ass book that includes stories about growing up in nudist camp and babies with rotisserie heads. There's a reason why I kept getting rejection letters that said, "I love this book, but I have no idea how I'd sell it."

    But here's what hurts. You want to know what book is currently perched at number 71,634 on Amazon.com's book list? It's a hardcover book called "Identifying Wood: Accurate Results with Simple Tools ". As you might expect, it's a book about looking at wood grain and identifying which species of tree it comes from.

    I'm being outsold by a book on wood.  That really puts things into perspective. And I really, really hate perspective.

    I don't care about the smoking jacket and Oprah anymore. I don't care about being a bestselling author. I just want the "The Book of Gabriel" to outsell a book about wood. That's my lofty goal. I'll let you know how it goes.

    I only have one problem so far. I truly, deeply and devoutly want to buy "Identifying Wood" just to say I have a book about wood identification. The only thing stopping me from giving it the quick click purchase on Amazon?

    I'm saving up for a bandwagon. They're outselling my book, too.

                                                                                                                                                                 

    

    

The Bathroom Tourists

My sons are bathroom tourists.

Anytime we go to a restaurant - and we go to a lot of restaurants - both boys find some excuse to visit the bathroom.
Several times.

This would be less irritating if I had no plan to, say, eat at these restaurants. Unfortunately, I usually wait until I'm hungry to visit a restaurant and eating is pretty much the foremost thing on my mind. I might even go alone, but society pretty much demands that I feed my family, too.
Damn society.

Instead, like most parents of young children, I spend only 25% of my time at restaurants actually eating. Another 50% is spent repeatedly visiting the bathroom. The final 25% is spent yelling.

"No. You cannot go to the bathroom. I don't care if your bladder swells to twice its usual size and then explodes; you are not going to the bathroom again."

And then I usually take them to the bathroom again because I see fellow diners are dialing 911.

I know why my sons like going to the bathroom. It's those frickin' paper towel dispensers with the laser-activated mechanisms. My kids enjoy washing their hands and then waving them like a wand under the dispensers until the box magically rolls out a sheet of gritty paper.

I get that. I really do. I myself frequent exactly one movie theater in Florida and I do it for one reason only - the theater has the new Dyson Air Blade machines that actually squeegee your hands with air. Sometimes, I lose complete interest in the movie and spend most of my time in the bathroom. Sometimes, I'm forced to stand in a line of like-minded guys, each one tearing himself away from the Dyson with an embarrassed laugh.

I swear to you right now that I will have one of those Dyson Air Blades in my home - right next to the immensely practical urinal I'm planning to install.

Occasionally, I don't mind the frequent trips with my kids to the bathroom. My favorite trip so far was to an older diner attached to a drug store. We visited the bathroom, and after the boys finished their business, 5 year-old Julian walked expectantly to the paper towel dispenser and waved his hand under it.

When nothing happened, he waved his hand again. Still nothing. 9 year-old Gabriel took a swipe, apparently under the impression that Julian had waved his hand incorrectly.

I reached over and pulled down on the black old-style lever on the side of the brushed metal dispenser. One sheet advanced and my sons' mouths fell open.

They liked even better than the lasers.

Chock Full of Jesus

I've been going to church with my family since we moved to Florida. This was Bridget's idea, mostly, because she's worried about our kids growing up without any kind of reference point for religion.

A few years ago, for instance, we ate a holiday dinner at Bridget's aunt's house. Someone began to say grace and everyone at the table bowed their heads - except for the three Grim Richard children who, with their mouths crammed with food, looked around in amazement as the entire room of people closed their eyes. It was Gabriel, I think, who had the guts to shout out the obvious heathen question:

"Why the heck is everybody sleeping, Dad?"

So, there is some merit to Bridget's concern.

I'm surprised by how much I like going to this church. At first, I only agreed to attend because I think it's a good idea to force a conversation about morality at least once a week. Usually, this blog forces two or three uncomfortable conversations a week with my wife, so I sort of assumed that base was covered.

Apparently not.
v Gradually, though, I've come to enjoy the nice people, the great conversations and the fact that the "H" word is not thrown around like a holy brick. Also - and Bridget will hate me for mentioning this - there are donuts in the lobby after services. I think other churches really underestimate the synergy of donuts and religion.

Alas, the donuts are off limits for me now. A recent physical showed that I had borderline high blood pressure problems, borderline sugar problems and, finally, borderline cholesterol problems. To combat these borderline ills, I've adopted a pretty strict diet that denies me sugar, refined wheat and, most of all, high fructose corn syrup.

And so far, it's worked. My sugar levels dropped to acceptable levels. My blood pressure also dropped. It turns out that if you concentrate on eating only "food", your body tends to...what's the word I'm looking for...work.

A few Sundays ago, our church held Communion. Ushers handed little cubes of bread and tiny glasses of grape juice to everyone who wanted to participate. On cue, everyone popped their cubes of bread into their mouths. Except for me.

Bridget gestured impatiently toward my bread.

"High fructose corn syrup," I whispered.

Bridget shook her head forcefully and I swallowed the bread. I got her point. A little corn syrup is okay as long as the bread is chock full of Jesus.

The Miley Vyrus

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted. I have good excuses. My brother and his family came into town, for instance. Also, I just plain suck sometimes.

It's true. You can look it up on Wikipedia.

I planned to make up for my sloth by writing and posting a really good, amazingly funny blog entry. And I did indeed write a really good, amazingly funny entry yesterday which I was five seconds from posting this morning.

Until I saw the Hannah Montana Wake Up call site. Using this snappy purple and pink site, you can actually have a recording of Hannah Montana call your daughter's cell phone and give her a personalized reminder about her cooking class, girl scouts or cheerleader practice.

That's one possibility, anyway.

Or you could use the site to interrupt your friend Ron's important business meeting to remind him about his non-existent Girl Scout meeting. And what about Mike and Hank? Wouldn't they feel left out if Hannah Montana didn't call to give them a chirrupy reminder about gymnastics practice?

But wait a second here. I'm a middle-aged man with middle-aged friends who have serious responsibilities. Is this really the kind of behavior grown adults would appreciate?

Hmmm.

So, anyway, my apologies go out in advance to Ron, Mike, Matt, Hank and Roger. I would have hit more friends, but the site only lets you schedule five calls per e-mail address. I would have set another, temporary e-mail address in order to spread the Miley Vyrus but I have a lot of important, responsible work to do.

Like posting the web address for the Hannah Montana Wake Up Call site.

Tiny Toe Thongs

You know how some kids don't live near a pool or the ocean? And those kids, because they don't have access to water, never learn how to swim? And when they grow up, they keep avoiding pool parties and trips to the beach because they don't want anyone to know that they can't swim?
That's how it is with me and flip flops. I don't know how to walk in them.

Yes, by "flip flops", I mean the casual beach footwear championed by surfers and singer James Buffet. It's not something I planned; it was more of a lifestyle choice. I grew up on the mean streets of a coastal Virginia town, a really fat kid with an amazing talent for being a smart ass. This meant I did a lot of running to avoid getting beat up. Flip flops just didn't fit in with my shoot-your-mouth-off-and-run-like-hell-for-home lifestyle.

My feet, too, present compatibility problems with flip flops. They're not normal feet. My size thirteen feet are almost half toes and full of sinewy animal-like veins. People who have seen my feet can actually see evidence that we and apes have descended from a common ancestor.

It's true. I've had actual creationists approach me at the beach, look at my feet and renounce their former beliefs.

"Evolution," they sigh. "I totally get it now. Sorry, God."

Flip flops, unfortunately, are not really built to handle feet with finger-long toes. So,for these reasons and others, I've tried to hide my flip flop problems. I've worn regulars shoes and socks to the beach, embraced the Teva gladiator-like sandals and have generally done everything I can to avoid the tiny toe thongs of flip flops.

But the other day I found them - a tan aerodynamic pair of Dexters with blue accents and a soft rubbery foot bed that cradled my humongous feet. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was ready to try flip flops. I haven't been beat up in years after all and I've grown tired of buying Maximus-style sandals to hide my ape-like feet. I pointed the flip flops out to Bridget and she gently urged me to buy them. She even offered to help me learn to walk in them.

I wore them out to the car and Bridget, though she promised not to, laughed at me.

"You're walking like a girl who just got her first pair of high heels."

She paused. "No, I take that back. You're walking like a geisha who's just learning to walk on those Japanese wooden platform shoes."

Bridget's flip flop lessons were not as constructive as I first hoped.

Still, her taunts may have had an unexpected effect. I'm trying harder to master this footwear because of the harassment. One day I will casually walk in these casual shoes, with not too much flip and just enough flop. I will saunter in these laid back shoes and strike a blow for the flip flop-impaired and the people with huge, grotesque feet.

And the non-swimmers. I won't forget them either.



BTW: Writing this blog reminded me of the great band Guadalcanal Diary and one of their albums, "Flip Flop". So I spent most of my time writing this listening to the song "Always Saturday". The MP3 is not available on Amazon or Itunes, so I ended up watching it on YouTube. It's great song and a great video. Check it out if you can.

Martian Ice

School is out - which means that we've got to enroll our kids in some kind of camp quickly or we'll actually have to spend more time with with them. And none of the kids wants that.

Luckily, there's a different kind of summer camp for almost every kind of kid and we've been able to match our three kids to activities that suit their personalities. Riley, our four year-old girl, plies to dance classes every day in a pink leotard and matching shoes. Julian, who loves and excels at sports of all stripes, is slamming homers at baseball camp. And what about Gabriel - our pale eight year-old who dislikes sports and loves studying Uranus?

He's going to baseball camp with Julian.

Yeah, I know. But in our defense, it's not as easy to find an Uranus summer camp as you might think. It is, however, amazingly fun to call around to recreational centers and ask about one. Ultimately, it was just easier for us to send Gabriel to baseball camp and pretend that we're doing it so that he'll sample new things.

Gabriel is taking it like the champion nerd trooper he is. Every day he marches out to the outfield in his shorts and untied sneakers and stands there while baseballs rain down and other more competitive kids in actual, professional-looking uniforms yell at him to hustle.

But I don't think Gabriel is concentrating on his hustle.

Bridget and I picked the boys up from camp the other day. I tossed out the usual question.

"So, did you like baseball camp?"

"Yeah!" they answered. Gabriel's enthusiasm surprised me. "So, what was your favorite part about baseball camp?" I asked.

Julian chimed in first. "I like hitting the ball!"

"What about you, Gabriel?" I asked. He got a huge smile on his face.

"The dirt on the infield reminds me of the surface of the Mars!"

He's not wrong. Infield dirt totally looks like Martian surface.

I think Bridget is a little disappointed that Gabriel is not into baseball. Me? I like having two kids running around on the baseball diamond. One of them spends his time blasting home runs out the park. The other feigns playing baseball while he surreptitiously searches for Martian ice just below the surface.

D**keleptic

I called Bridget the other morning from work.

"Yes?" she said tersely.
"I just wanted to call and, you know, apologize for the way I acted when I got home yesterday."

"You mean when you were acting like a d**k?"

I was picking up on subtle verbal cues that signaled that my wife might still be feeling some animosity. I'm intuitive that way.

The evening before I had pulled into the driveway after work and had been greeted by my smiling wife, kids and dogs. A smart guy would have jumped out of his car, grabbed a beverage and enjoyed the Florida evening with his family. I chose a different route when I noticed that my wife had once again parked her car in the middle of our two car driveway, which prevented me from parking my car. I stormed in the house without talking to anyone and made a sandwich.

Still, I didn't think my behavior merited the "D" word.

"I think the word "d**k" is a little strong."

"Really?" She sounded genuinely surprised.

"In all fairness," I replied, "I hadn't eaten all day and I was tired from ten hours of work in the hot Florida sun."

"And that excuses your temper tantrum?"

Now I was a little irritated.

"That was not a temper tantrum. That was a physiological response to adverse environmental conditions."

She didn't say anything so I continued.

"This was more like a seizure. Like, you know, epilepsy - but different."

"In other words, you have dickilepsy."

There was that word again. I formulated a measured, even retort that not only explained my position but let my wife know just how offended her repeated use of that word made me. And then I discarded it.

"Exactly. I have dickilepsy."

"Is there some kind of telethon for that?"

"Nope. Not that I'm aware of. But there should be."

Obsessed with Uranus

I have two bits of news:

To begin with, the first ever Grim Richard book is headed for publication in the next couple of months. It's called "The Book of Gabriel" and it's being published by a small outfit called San Francisco Bay Press. The book, as regular readers might imagine, concerns my oldest son, Gabriel, around whom my second bit of news revolves.

Gabriel, it seems, has become obsessed with our solar system. That's not particularly unusual, given that Gabriel studied our solar neighborhood during the second grade school year that he just completed. His area of scientific focus, however, is peculiar.

Gabriel is enthralled with Uranus.

I'm not saying that to be funny or childish. Okay, actually I am. But I'm also being accurate. Gabriel has studied all of the planets in our solar system and, unlike other kids who are drawn to the rings of Saturn or the sheer mass of Jupiter, he is drawn to the seventh planet from the sun.

Uranus is all that Gabriel wants to talk about and this has given me and his mother humongous amounts of enjoyment.

Perhaps more mature parents might not giggle when their son announces in a bookstore that he "loves Uranus." We, unfortunately, are not those parents. My personal favorite so far? While working on an art project, he announced, "I need more glitter for Uranus."

Indeed. Who doesn't?

In any case, other Grim Richard publishing projects may require us to establish a corporate umbrella of some kind. Gabriel overheard his mother and I discussing this and almost instantly suggested a name.

Uranus Books.

I love that kid.