The Challenge

In an effort to maximize our time, Sarah and I are limiting checking our personal email to Five (5) times per day.  Sarah isn't so bad.  Her problem is getting sucked in by the most offbeat stories.  "Did you see that guy who plays the harmonica with his pores?" she'll ask me when she gets home.  No, I didn't, I'll say, because only Sarah, the talented harpist and his annoyed neighbors  know of that story.  I too might be better informed if I didn't devote so much time to my email.  My email's desktop application updates automatically every ten minutes.  If there's anything new it'll pop up on my screen.  So without even trying I'm checking my email six times an hour.  But I'm so bad I refresh my email every few minutes.  I drop everything to click the "send & receive" button.  And then wait, slaughtering valuable time watching the blue and white barber pole spin up something new.  Often it doesn't.  But I'll check it again in five minutes.  I figure I'm on my computer five hours everyday.  That means I check my email 60 times per day.  Imagine if you checked your real mailbox that often.

With at least two minutes per, each day I'm devoting two hours to this futility. 

And the disappointment of the barber pole locking onto something and only reeling in an advertisement or some forward about Bill Gates paying a nickel every time you use a computer.  I actually said "stupid kid" when I waited several minutes for an email with a large picture of a missing child.  Now I'll have more time to care.

First Father's Day

I really have to hand it to my wife.  She's been a vegetarian for twenty years,yet the last week or so she's pored over articles and tutorials on how to make the best steak ever.  She did it.  It was amazing.  I'd like to pay her back with a best ever veggie burger.  That's a difficult task because no matter what you do it's still a veggie burger.  Sarah, however, stood over the grill with, at first, a shaky confidence.  For some reason she doesn't feel the need to dominate inanimate objects.  It wasn't long, though, before she was flipping meat and fighting back fire.  One thing she did do, and this is weird, is she took time to clean the grill.  She really scrubbed it, and I imagined going on Antiques Roadshow and being told my grill is worthless because someone scraped away its valuable veneer.  I've always been of the mindset that the previous cooking's remains add to the next meal's flavor, kind of like ancestors passing down their legacy.  And then, with me watching suspiciously from behind my PBR, Sarah rubbed the cooking grate with olive oil.  She got all Zen and Bhudda and became one with the grill.  Now I'm going to have to treat it more poorly than usual so it remembers who's in control. 

Quin wasn't quite aware of the significance of the day.  Although an impartial observer might think he was really living it up for the holiday.  In fact, he's excited for everyday.  Sarah and I think he could be the inspiration for an Saturday Night Live bit.  Remember "Orgasm Guy"?  Q'd be "World's Happiest Person Guy".   It looks like if he could speak he'd say, "Is that a blade of grass?  No way!  I love blades of grass!"  And then he'd turn and shout to anyone who cared, "I have a blade of grass!  Really!  It's green and I love it.  I love you all!  Yes, every, individual blade as much as the other!" 

I have to say yesterday I felt like Q coming across a stray dog kibble.  It was overwhelming heralded a father.   I wondered if they had the right guy. 

I don't yet feel fatherly.  Everyday delivering plastic I see guys who look like dads.  They seem more stable.  They work 9-5 and are good people who tolerate work seminars and take protective eye wear very seriously.  That doesn't seem to be me.   "Happy Fathers Day!"  Dude, that's just plain crazy. 

 

Or "Quinsane" as some doting parent might say.

Little Man, Crazy Little Man.

He moves.  A lot. 

He's figured out doors.

I've actually Googled "How many times baby hit head retardation?" and "Gnawing table infant mental physical health issues."  For feeding he's taken on his breathlessly hilarious Stevie Wonder impression.  He whips his head back and forth.  Getting the spoon in his mouth is like Luke Skywalker hitting the exhaust port of the Death Star, but thirty times at six in the morning.  I often yelp, "Quin!"  Then I breathe myself into a gentle taper, calmly asserting my position as frustrated and covered in peas. 

He thinks daddy's psycho whisper is funny.

Bigger, Stronger, Faster $$$$

You know something is powerful when you come away thinking Barry Bonds isn't so bad and Carl Lewis is a total ass. That seems like a big deal, but it's only a tiny fraction of the information packed in Chris Bell's entertaining and enlightening documentary. He might tackle too much (but hey, he's a body builder), but I was intrigued until the very last frame.

Bell is the middle child of a middle class, All-American family of five. He and his two brothers grew up in the early 80s when pro wrestling and Rambo dominated pop culture. To live up to their hero's accomplishments, all three got into working out. All three became notable athletes, but they all hit a point where they realized to be as successful as Stallone or Hulk Hogan, they'd have to do the juice. His older brother, Mad Dog, and his younger, Smelly, both started steroids. Chris, upset by the immorality of cheating, avoided drugs. But what he couldn't sidestep is the hypocrisy of a nation that outlaws performance enhancement, while wholeheartedly encouraging it. A fine example is the same year Bush, Sr. made using and distributing anabolic steroids a federal crime, he appointed renowned juicer Arnold Schwarzenegger to be the nation's icon for physical fitness.

BSF will make you mad ('roid rage?). However, Bell's guy-next-door demeanor and laid back storyteller style makes the most incendiary moments more informative than inflammatory. And, dude, it's hard not to laugh at the stuff we used to think was cool. Bell packs in hundreds of clips and photos of ridiculous 80s moments.

Beware: You're about to find out you've been blowing a lot of money on supplements.

Who Will Like This: Me. I love documentaries. I live for the unearthing of the hidden connections between senators and juicers, our president and baseball players, and the shared traits of porn stars and classical musicians.

Secret to Better Enjoyment: Seeing how a "before" and "after" picture can be taken in the same day.

The Happening $

Mark Wahlberg is Elliot Moore, an idealistic high school science teacher. He manages to survive the crazy wind that blows into Philadelphia and makes people kill themselves. While running through the countryside with his wife (Zooey Deschanel) and Jess, the daughter of his friend (the friend is John Leguizamo), Wahlberg tries to piece together if it really is the plants wiping out people like everyday pests. The real mystery is how he read the script and thought it would be a good movie. Now I have to be honest, I did tell the publicist that I liked its pumped up score, deliberate reads and overall Hitchcockian style. But she's really hot and I have a hard time saying anything negative about her movies.

However, my conversation with her was only fleeting, and if I had more time I would have added, "and it was Tuesday and I needed a good laugh." That's a problem when it's supposed to be a thriller.

As per usual the marketing mavens of the movie world went about slapping writer/director M. Night Shyamalan's name all over it like it still carries weight after Lady in the Water. As a matter of fact, M. Night may want to change his name to Good Night. He needs a break. He should go back to college, not so much for book learnin', but to see this movie become a classic for a the Cult of Bored Stoners. I can only hope that's what he's going for because I've never heard a theater laugh out loud at a man getting his arm ripped off by a tiger. Even worse is that these were all critics who, to make it seem like a life of going to the movies is difficult, maintain an emotionless facade of academic objectivity. Shyamalan should be proud that he cracked the shell of the intense guy from the Denver Post. But I think most people are going to wonder what in the heck they paid for.

Beware: The beginning will have you thinking you're really in for a thrill ride, but an hour later you're having muffins in Betty Buckley's place and wondering if you've wandered into a high school production of Little House on the Prairie.

Who Will Like This: I can already hear my friend, Brian, defending it. But he likes banjos, and not in a hey-we're-drunk-and-out-of-ammo-so-what-should-we-do-with-our-hands sort of way, but with more of an artistic admiration. So he appreciates efforts no matter how misguided.

Secret to Better Enjoyment: Typically a guy running himself over with a lawn mower isn't funny.

A Sad Tail

I think it's getting better, but Paco broke his tail.  Or dislocated it or sprained it, nobody really knows.  The people at the very expensive emergency vet clinic say it's usually not a big deal but sometimes they have to amputate.   I got that information after filling an 8 X 10 room with gas.  I tried not to, but we were in there for so long that the broccoli got upset and started expressing itself.  I didn't go about oppression because I'd waited long enough and was about to leave.  My timing was awful. Right as I was heading out, two female vet techs wandered in, and smack dab into what they must have thought was a low hanging cupboard.    

The first lady couldn't help but recoil.  The second opened her eyes wide and said, "Oh Paco," both worried and scared was her tone.  "You are a nervous boy." 

"Very nervous aren't you Paco!"   In my doggy voice I reinforced his role as the culprit.

I tell you this because I think the atmosphere lent itself to the brevity of the appointment.  Either the dog or his smirking owner had dropped his colon somewhere in the room, and the ladies were eager to leave.  I left with some hastily prescribed pain pills and very little information on what was wrong with our dog.  

Earlier in the day it was difficult to ascertain the problem.  Paco was just different, you know, like someone who's lost their eyebrows, you just can't put your finger on the change.  He'd spent the afternoon playing with his brothers, Bear and Phantom, so we figured he'd been reminded one too many times of his runt status.  It wasn't until we watched him try to poo that we realized he couldn't lift his tail.  He wouldn't go and kept getting frustrated, turning and biting his unresponsive appendage.   I proclaimed to Sarah the hygienic pride by which our dog lives.  Very dryly she pointed out that he both eats and rolls in feces, so not to boast too much about his cleanliness.   

 

Even  sadder is that he can't wag, or at least he couldn't.  He'd shake his butt, but without the extra and often destructive emotional denotation of is his tail.  Happiness was his bain, making him attack his tail even more.  Not sure if that's a smart thing.

He's getting better now.  I got a second opinion from our regular vet who said it might be sprained and we'll just have to keep an eye on it.   For now he's on his pain relievers, and we've had to tap our vast reserve of Rymadil, a medicine the vet has so often prescribed to our injury-prone pup that he just gave us a bottle about the size of a Pringles can.  I've been Googling to find any human applications. 

We'll keep you posted.  On the dog, that is.   

The First Temptation

 

The Dog Bowl.  It glimmers through tongue smudges and food floaties; it is perfect in its imperfection. Staring back at you, unblinking.  Puppy eyes begging for a pat. 

Baby Einstein wails for attention.  The Grow Worm performs a song gaily.  All the toys, overpriced performers of numbers and letters and music, work the living room like street buskers.   But these Sirens Doppler into obscurity.  They are no match for a thirsty animal's beverage receptacle.  Dog Bowl.

It is the gateway drug.  Let the path of parent and child diverge.   

Twenty, thirty times per day.  Dog Bowl.