Entry 252: Sick Day

I took a sick day yesterday.  I think it's just my second one since joining my current company.  I definitely needed it.  I'm doing a bit better today, but, my lord, when I woke up yesterday it felt like somebody had release a colony of fire ants in my throat and then hit me in the face with a sledge hammer.  I haven't been this sick in a long time.  Just how long?  Well, that's one nice thing about keeping a blog for the past four years.  I can actually go back and trace stuff like this.  It appears as if I was pretty ill on March 10, 2013.  So, there you go... Not actually all that long ago ... huh.

My main worry now is that I will give Lil' S whatever it is I have.  Although, he was a little bit sick last weekend, so maybe he gave it to me, so I won't give it to him.  But if that's the case then he gave me the maximum strength version, because he just had the sniffles, and this thing has completely flattened me.  (Maybe my immune system is getting weaker in my old age.)  Yesterday, I had to get him up and feed him and get him to daycare, and I could barely do it.  I mean that literally.  It was really hard.  Also, I could barely talk because my throat was all messed up, so I didn't want to interact with any other parents or his teachers or anybody.  (Not to mention, being sick at a daycare, even if only briefly is very frowned upon by everybody -- understandably so.)  But it went as smoothly as one could hope.  I just had to exchange brief pleasantries with one teacher and give another parent a terse "hey" and a head nod in the parking lot, and that was that.

I came back and collapsed in bed for a few more hours, woke up, dragged myself downstairs, forced some food down, took a couple Aleve, and then watched a documentary on Jimmy "The Greek" -- weird guy, by the way.  It's strange that he became such a well-known personality.  I was quite young when he was around, and even I knew who he was.  ('Twas the power of network TV back before everybody had cable.)  If you don't remember, he was an NFL "analyst" for CBS, but his job was essentially to give betting tips without actually saying that that's what he was doing.  He got fired in the late '80s for making insensitive comments about "the black athlete", which reminds me of a little rule of thumb we'd all be wise to stick to: If you're commenting about a minority group, and your impulse is to put "the" at the front ("the black athlete", "the negro", "the gays"), you probably shouldn't say anything at all on the topic ... or any topic ... ever.

But anyway, I was thinking, with the Internet and everything on demand now, we really are living in the golden age of being sick.  Back when I was a kid, a sick day meant lots of game shows (I was always partial to Scrabble hosted by Chuck Woolery, of course) and lots of playing the same Nintendo games that you had already beaten fifty times and were utterly bored with.  (I'd start making up my own little challenges like, "Let's see if I can beat Super Mario Bros. 2 using Toad on every level without taking a warp zone," or, "I'm going to try to go undefeated on Tecmo Super Bowl with the Chargers with Mark Vlasic at quarterback".)  Now it's so much less boring to be sick.  It's still not pleasant.  But at least there is more stuff to do.  

Anyway, since I'm low on energy.  I'm going to wrap this entry up pretty soon, but before I do, I present this clip.



It dovetails nicely with something Dan Savage was talking about on his podcast the other night: people making fun of other people for mispronouncing words that they have probably only even seen in print.  This struck a chord with me, as I've had this happen to me several times.  In general, it's big pet peeve of mine when people get grief over not knowing something they would have no way of knowing.  In the clip above, the guy comes off as stupid for not knowing how to pronounce Achilles, but if he's never heard it before, how would he know?  Or maybe he has heard it ("Achilles Heel" is a pretty common phrase) but never associated it with its spelling.  It's not like we are born with an innate knowledge of pronunciations of Greek mythological heroes. He said it phonetically, at least.

As a gesture of sympathy toward this poor man (not that he needs it; he still won the show, apparently), here are some words that for a very long time I had been mispronouncing, perhaps just in my head, until I heard how they are properly pronounced.

Albeit
Mine: Al-bait
Actual: All-bee-it

Assuage
Mine: Uh-sewage
Actual:Uh-swage

Detritus
Mine: Deh-tritt-us
Actual: Deh-trite-us

Impetus
Mine: Im-pettis
Actual: Im-puh-tuss

Litigious
Mine: Lit-uh-giss
Actual: Luh-tij-us

Tao
Mine: Tau
Actual: Dow

Tyranny
Mine: Tie-ran-ey
Actual: Tier-uh-ney

That's all I got.  Until next time ...

Entry 251: Papitol on the Capitol

S went to Africa for work on Saturday, and she's not getting back until tomorrow night, so it's been just me and the little man for the past week.  It's been fine.  As it turns out, being a single parent is not that hard if you put your kid in daycare for 10 hours a day.  I have him for about an hour in the morning, and two hours at night (plus wake-up duty), and that's it.  And some of that time he's strapped into his chair eating, anyway.  Also, as I've mentioned before, he's noticeably less fussy when S isn't around.  I'm not sure exactly why this is, but my theory is that his whining works better on S.  I'm not claiming to be immune to it -- he's definitely broken me a few times this week, and I've acquiesced to his demands for "George" (Curious George cartoons on the iPad) -- but I think I have a bit more resolve than S.  Overall, Lil' S and I have gotten into a nice little routine, and things have gone fairly well.

Part of our routine is that I read him a book or two (or eight if he has it his way) before he goes to sleep each night.  A few of them are good.  Most of them are so-so.  A few are bad.  It's weird too because the worst ones are the so-called classics.  The Very Hungry Caterpillar is terrible, for instance.  Actually everything Eric Carle writes is pretty lame.  The drawings are good, if you're into that type of art, but the stories (if you can even call them that) are super lame, even by kid standards.  In The Very Hungry Caterpillar, for instance, 95% of the book is just a list of all the things the caterpillar ate.  There's no creativity whatsoever.

Then some other books have the opposite problem.  They try to be too creative, and it ends up being confusing or a bunch of nonsense.  There's this one called Sam Meets Bernadette about these two fish.  Sam is a lonely goldfish who only swims in circles until another fish Bernadette comes and shows him all the wonderful things outside of his bowl that he never noticed before.  It's actually a cute premise.  But the problem is that all the things she points out aren't actually what they are.   For instance, she sees a pair of glasses and calls it a butterfly.  The book is suppose to be a life-is-what-you-make-it type of thing, but it's lost on a toddler who's still in his "pointing things out" prime.  So Lil' S, will shout out "glasses", but then the text says it's a butterfly.  I don't want to confuse him, so I just end up ad-libbing the entire thing, "And then they saw some glasses... And then they saw some bananas... And then they saw..."

I'll give Sam Meets Bernadette a pass since it might be good when he gets older and gets the gimmick.  The one that I absolutely will not give a pass is Wheedle on the Needle.  I want so much to like this book because it's got some hometown flavor to it, but the story is awful.  It reads like something that would be cranked out in a creative writing class by a mediocre fourth-grader -- like by a student who thinks the way to be creative is to put characters in a series of disjointed fantastical situations without much coherent explanation or flow.  Here's the story of Wheedle on the Needle: There's this giant creature named Wheedle who lives in peace in the Pacific Northwest until human construction workers disturb him.  He tries to steal their tools and scare them, but it doesn't work, so he goes to Mount Rainier.  But they disturb him there too.  So he puts a bunch of clouds in a sack and goes to the Space Needle.  His clouds cause it to rain all the time, which stifles the workers' noises.  But it also annoys the people of Seattle, so the mayor gets the people to sew him earmuffs.  He's so happy with his earmuffs that his nose starts to glow (because that's what happens when Wheedles get happy), and his nose is the blinking light on the Space Needle.

How is this book so famous?  I have the 35th Anniversary Edition, which means it's still going strong, and it's nearly as old as I am.  That's outrageous.  I could write a story this well in an hour.  I'll give you the broad strokes right now off the top of my head.  It's called the Papitol on the Capitol.  It's about a woman named Papitol who likes skipping rocks in Rock Creek, until one day the people of DC tell her she can't do it anymore because it might hurt the fish that swim in it.  She gets mad at being rebuffed, so she arms herself with a sword and a laurel wreath shield and sets out to go on a killing spree.  But before she can do so, an elderly statesmen and a his talking crow persuade her against it.  Papitol is so distraught about what she almost did, and she fears that she might actually do it for real in the future, so she throws herself off the Washington Monument (which is still under construction) into a bunch of wet cement.  Her body is never recovered -- it seemingly disappears after hitting the ground -- and the next morning a new statue bearing her likeness shows up on top of the Capitol overlooking its entrance.  Paptiol on the Capitiol.  What do you think?

[Interesting tidbit: Papitol faces east, away from the National Mall.  The official entrance is also on the east side.  Somebody told me that this is because when the Capitol was built they anticipated the city growing more to the east, but instead it grew northwest.  I have no idea if this is actually true or not, but it sounds good.]

OK, so my book might be a bit macabre for kids, but as far as the story goes, it is every bit on par with Wheedle on the Needle.  Although, admittedly, a big part of my issue with Wheedle is that I find the author's notes, so blowhard-y and full of humblebrags that I downgrade it a few levels.  Objectively it's a 3.5 out of 10, but I give it a 1.  You might too in a minute.  Here's the author's blurb before the story:

One day in 1974 I set my mind to creating a story about and for Seattle.  Using the Space Needle as a background, I began the creative process.  Fortunately and unfortunately, the only word I could think of that rhymed with Needle was Wheedle.  Later that day as I walked in quiet rain, the peace and tranquility of the moment was shattered by a loud whistle from a ferry on the Sound.  Of these tiny seeds the story was sown.

See what I mean?  My favorite part is "Fortunately and unfortunately ..."  Could you get any more humblebraggadocious?  And here's the "About the Author" at the end:

I have spent my life as a dream-maker.  To be able to crawl inside a story as it is being created is an unbelievable and delightful experience.  By reading this book and others I have written, you are able to share my experiences.  I have written and published 320 books or so, and it is only by the grace of God that I continue this amazing adventure.

Boy, can't wait to sink my teeth into those other 319!  People think Gwyneth Paltrow is pretentious , but I put "I have spent my life as a dream-maker" (not a dreamer, a dream-maker, as in one who makes dreams) up there with anything she's ever said.  And at least she's a Hollywood megastar, not a mediocre children's author.  I know the comparison between Gwyneth Paltrow and Stephen Cosgrove has been done so many times before that it's a cliché, but it's just too apt for me to pass up.

Anyway ...

Another thing Lil' S and I have been doing is playing with this toy truck my parents bought him.  They wanted to get him something he could get in and ride, so my mom went online and bought this:

In her defense, you can't really tell how big it is in the online advertisement.  Also, he really likes it.  It's remote control, and he can't really work the control, so he just spins it in circles randomly and runs it into furniture until it gets stuck, and then he picks it up and moves it with his hands.  Or he just watches me drive it around our living room, which is fun -- well, not really fun, it's not like I'd just driving it around if I was home alone.  But it's fun within the realm of activities we can do together.

We're both a little afraid of that thing too.  If I drive it directly at him, he'll often run away and say, "scared, Daddy, scared".  Then sometimes late at night when everybody but me is asleep, it will make a noise and lunge forward a few centimeters even though the remote control is on the bookshelf and nobody is touching it.  Spooky.

Alright, that'll do er.  Until next time ...

Entry 250: It Takes a Kinda Big Man ...

It takes a kinda big man to admit when he is kinda wrong -- and I am just such a man.  S was mostly right about the trip to OBX.  I'm very glad we went; it was super fun.  I only say "mostly right," however, because she was wrong about the length of the drive, which was my main objection in the first place.  She was insistent it would be under five hours, but she was basing this off a text message from a friend who said they did it in four-and-a-half hours with two stops.  Everybody I talked to (and Googlemaps), on the other hand, said it was five-and-a-half to six hours.  It ended up being right around five hours and twenty minutes.  And that was driving in the middle of the night, with almost optimal traffic, and one five minute stop.  Like I said to S at the time, I do believe our friend was mistaken.

And by the way, isn't it a really silly move to dig in so hard on something that is about to happen, unless you're really, really sure about it?  If it does, in fact, take longer than five hours to get from DC to Corolla, NC, then at some point during our drive, we are going to eclipse the five hour mark, and then what do you say if you insisted it would be shorter?  As it turns out, you don't say anything and then act like the other person is being petty if they bring it up.  So, on second thought, maybe it's not that silly after all.  It's actually kinda genius.

One of the other reasons I wasn't so keen on going is because I thought Lil' S was too young.  I thought he wouldn't appreciate it, and we would just be running after him the entire time to keep him from drowning or falling off a balcony or something.  Again I was half-right: He loved it, but keeping him safe was in fact exhausting.  Part of the problem is my irrational fear of him falling from a high place.  We had a huge rental house, and I got really uncomfortable when he was on the top deck even if he wasn't near the railing (which would have been incredibly difficult for him to get over, anyway).  It got so bad that I had to leave him with S and go inside because I couldn't relax we were out there together even if I knew rationally that the likelihood of anything bad happening was extremely low.  But another part of the probably is that he's often too bold for his own good, and does put himself in legitimately perilous situations.  Case in point: See below.

This was taken approximately five minutes after waking up our first morning there.  It's about a ten-foot drop below him.  The very first thing he did when he woke up in a new house was go to the highest point and hang over it.  That's what we were up against.  (S is holding his leg here, by the way.  I wasn't letting him risk a broken neck for the sake of a pic, I swear.)

Then when we took him to the ocean -- really no fear about going in the water.  The fact that his little legs can't move that fast in the sand saved us a few times from watching him plunge into the sea.  And then when we went to the pool -- he jumped right in straightaway.  Our friend actually said something like, "Wow!  I've never seen a kid his age just jump in like that."  He was wearing this floaty thing on his back, but it's not a proper life vest, so he was just face down in the pool for a second until I pulled him up.  Actually this did kinda freak him out (thankfully he does have a little bit of innate fear), as he was very apprehensive about going in the pool again after that.  He was OK chilling on an inflatable raft, and he would sometimes let you swim around while holding him, but he did not want to put his face in the water again.

The trip was great for the adults too -- a lot of boozing.  But it's a different type of boozing than it would have been 15 years ago.  There were no wild nights (how can there be, when everybody has to wake up at six with their kids?); instead the first drops of alcohol would be served around noon, and then it was a slow-burn buzz the entire day.  And why not?  You're at the beach, and the only things on the agenda are salt water and chlorinated water.  I discovered a new favorite sunny-day cocktail: gin and tonic with a twist of lime and a splash of grapefruit juice.  It's very refreshing.

The drive back Saturday evening was not nearly as enjoyable as the ride in.  It was cute to hear Lil' S demand we all sing ("Song!  Song!  Bah black sheep!  Song!"), but toward the end I started to get really tired.  (I didn't have any drinks Saturday, but I was sapped from waking up early sitting in the sun all day).  Worse, I got a speeding ticket: 73 in a 55 zone.  In my defense, it was a three-lane highway in each direction, in pristine conditions, and traffic was very light.  I didn't even realize what the speed limit was or how fast I was going.  I was not driving unsafely by any means.

Coincidentally, the other day, I was listen to The Adam Carolla Show, as I frequently do, and his guest was the Republican lieutenant governor candidate for California.  I was about to skip ahead because Republicans rarely have anything new to say.  It's always a big anti-union, anti-regulation, anti-Obama jack-fest.  They all regurgitate the same four or five zombie lies, and if you've heard them once, there's no reason to subject yourself to them again.  But I thought I'd keep an open mind and listen, and to my surprise the main point of discussion was something I very much agreed with the man on: the tyranny of traffic laws.

Traffic law and its enforcement gotten way out of hand, and it has completely strayed from what it should be -- a deterrent for unsafe driving -- and become a system of extorting revenue from citizens by local governments.  Take my situation: You know how much this ticket is going to cost me?  $500.  That's right, $500.  And for what?  Driving at a speed millions of people drive at everyday on a flat stretch of smooth highway, in a safe, new car (just had the oil changed and tires rotated a few weeks ago), with no other cars near me.  That is crazy.

And it gets even crazier when you break down that $500.  $263 is the fine.  I talked to a few lawyers -- yes, I had to lawyer up over a speeding ticket -- and they all told me the same thing: They can bargain my charge "down" to improper equipment.  (It's actually a more expensive fine, but it doesn't affect my insurance.)  How this is even possible, I have no idea.  I didn't have improper equipment; I was speeding.  There's Exhibit A that the system is crooked.  Then I have to pay $250 for a lawyer fee because if I don't get a lawyer, then I have to appear in court.  Since I was going more than 15 m.p.h. over the speed limit, Currituck Country, North Carolina will not allow me to pay the fine over mail.*  I actually have to make a court appearance.  Or I can hire a lawyer and grant him or her power of attorney to appear on my behalf.  There's Exhibit B.  You don't have be a Jesse Ventura-esque conspiracy theorist to come to the conclusion that the police, the courts, and the lawyers have a nice "understanding" worked out; everybody gets their piece of my $500.  (I received ten ads in the mail from lawyers for legal services the past two days.)  I mean, if I was doing something so unsafe that it necessitates an appearance in court, why wasn't I taken off the road.  How could I have been let free to continue to menace other drivers ... and myself?  My wife and kid were in the car for Pete's sake!

Because, or course, I wasn't really doing anything unsafe.  I wasn't cutting through traffic; I wasn't swerving; I wasn't tailgating; I did nothing to suggest an accident was imminent.  I was driving in a straight line with no other cars in the immediate vicinity.  It's clearly not about safety.  If it was: 1) As pointed out on The ACS, the areas of highest danger -- the ones in which most accidents occur -- would be the most patrolled.  But that's not the case.  In fact, I suspect it's the opposite.  I suspect most speeding tickets are given in relatively safe situations because the vast majority of people speed only when they feel safe doing so.  2) Police wouldn't pull you over on the side of the road sometimes blocking a lane of traffic.  What's less safe then having cars zoom by you or go around you at high speeds on the side of the road?  And try driving until you find somewhere better to pull off; see where that gets you.

So now I have to pay an exorbitant fine ... whatever.  I'm employed; I can swing it.  The bigger issue is I hate the society we've crafted.  I hate that local governments are funded in large part by making traffic laws so onerous that everyday citizens cannot avoid becoming law-breakers.  It's not right, and it's un-American.  If municipalities needs money, bring back the policemen's ball (as Adam Carolla says), or raise the gas tax, or even charge a toll on your roads.  Nobody likes higher taxes or tolls, but at least they're honest.

And by the way, this is the case everywhere, not just Nowhereville, North Carolina.  My father in-law, for example, just got a ticket here in DC for parking in a street sweeping zone, despite the fact he came and left without a street sweeper coming anywhere near his vehicle.  He's about as by-the-book as one can get, so if he can get dinged, anybody can.  Now, you could argue that we should all just follow the law.  But my response would be: How much energy should the average citizen be expected to exert to avoid punitive traffic fines?  If you make the laws strict enough, everybody will eventually break them.  It's very similar to credit card companies charging exorbitant fees for violating small-print regulations in user agreements.  Sure, in theory, customers could avoid them by following their contract to a tee ... Or the companies could just not be allowed to do them, and we could all get on with our lives.  The credit card company analogy is apt in another way too.  Just as predatory lenders will levy bullshit fines and then drop them if you complain, DC government will frequently write you iffy tickets and then dismiss the charges if you contest them.  It's such a racket. (By the way, if you think I'm being hyperbolic to make my point, read this.)

In conclusion, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I hate the Tea Party, but I get why they exist.  If you don't, try owning a car in DC or driving a little too fast through Currituck County, North Carolina.

OK.  I'm now dismounting my soap box.  I feel better.  Thanks for reading.  Fight the power.  Until next time ...

*By the way, the cop could have at least been nice enough to put my speed at 69 to avoid being 15-over, but he didn't.  He did however praise me for being courteous.  One of the biggest lies cops propagate is that it is in your best interest to cooperate with them.  In my experience, it's almost the exact opposite.  If you push back a little (in a legal way), things work out better for you because they don't want the hassle.  In this case, there wasn't really much I could do other than help expedite the process as much as possible, so I could get on with my criminal lifestyle.

Entry 249: OBX

No time for a longish entry tonight -- or this weekend.  Tomorrow evening we are headed to Corolla, North Carolina, a city on a strip of beach known as the Outer Banks (sometimes abbreviated OBX as I've come to learn).  It should be fun -- it had better be fun, as this trip almost ruined my marriage.  Allow me to explain.

S has been saying that she wants to take Lil' S to the beach for a long time now,* and we have some friends who get a house for a week at OBX every year who gave us an open invitation to come stay with them.  So when S brought up the idea of a visit a few months ago -- we'd drive up Thursday night and come back Sunday afternoon -- I said sure.  But I did so under two assumptions I later found out were wrong.

First, I thought we were going Labor Day weekend.  This is because the email S forwarded me about this event was labeled "Labor Day Weekend".  However, that was describing when our friends would arrive.  We would be coming the weekend after Labor Day.  I didn't get this, and once I saw "Labor Day", the dates in the email didn't mean anything to me -- I had Labor Day in my head.  As did S, by the way; she thought it was Labor Day also, so she never corrected me.

Second, I was under the impression it was a four-hour drive when in fact it is likely closer to a six-hour drive.  When S first Google mapped it, she accidentally put in the wrong address -- she put in the house where our friends picked up the keys for the rental house.  But the actual house is another few hours away, because you have to drive down the coast across a bridge and then back up the coast, which apparently can take a while.

Now can you guess why these two things were such a big deal?  Can you guess why I was devastated once I learned we'd be driving Thursday night and Sunday afternoon this week instead of last week -- and driving several more hours to boot?  I'll give you a hint.

The opening weekend of the NFL season is literally my favorite sporting event of the year.  And because the Seahawks won the Super Bowl last year, they play in the Thursday night opener.  So basically our travel plans were now perfectly concocted to prevent me from enjoying one of my favorite weekends of the year.**

Anyway, I now didn't want to go to the beach (not just because football -- the extra time in the car was also a huge factor, as is the fact the forecast calls for rain much of the time we will be there).  And so S got mad and said that I was trying back out of a commitment.  And then I got mad and said she gave me bad information.  And then we both got mad because it's 90 degrees here and our air conditioner ran out of coolant (refilled now, thankfully).  

But we reached a compromise: we leave tomorrow evening about 7:00 p.m. and driving back Saturday evening about 7:00 p.m.  This way S gets to go the beach with her family; I get to watch the 'Hawks on Thursday (I made sure there is a TV at the house) and be back in time for the Sunday games; we will likely hit less traffic; Lil' S can sleep the entire time; and I'm a more alert driver at night anyway.  Win.  Win.  Win.  Win.  Win.

Well, I still have to spend 12 hours in car this weekend -- that didn't get resolved -- but sometimes it's the price a man must pay for a happy wife and a weekend of football.

Until next time ... 

*I personally don't understand the obsession with taking a two-year old to a "destination" when a) he won't remember it, b) he'd be just as happy at the splash park down the street.

**During our first round of arguments, S was annoyed that I wanted to change our plans to watch the Seahawks because "it's just one football game".  True.  But the best way I can explain it is, imagine you have a TV show that you really love -- like how people loved Breaking Bad -- and the first episode of a new season is about to air.  Further suppose it's been revealed that a big event is going to happen on this episode, but nobody knows what it is, and the catch is, if you don't watch it when it airs then this big event will be spoiled for you.  There is no way in this hypothetical you can avoid spoilers.  If this was the case, watching the episode would be a big deal, right?  That's how I feel about the Seahawks game.

Entry 248: Birthdays 2 and 37

My birthday was Thursday.  It was fine.  I don't really like making a big deal out my birthday because -- I just don't.  I'm not into gift giving or receiving, and parties in my honor make me feel uncomfortable, which is weird because I'm pretty narcissistic.  (I know, I don't really understand it either.)  Plus, this is the time of the year in which everybody is out of town.  Last year, at S's urging, I set up a birthday event at a nearby bar -- just a hey-let's-all-meet-at-this-place-at-this-time type of thing and out of the 15 or so people who were invited, exactly one person (other than S and I) could make it.  So we just canceled it.  That's what I get for trying.

Come to think of it, we should have gone through with it, and then when our one friend showed up, and asked where everybody is, we could have said, "Oh, it's just us and you."  That would have been kinda funny.  It reminds of this time I went with my friend RB to a bar for the birthday of a random guy on her flag football team, and we were the only people who showed up.  I felt bad for the dude.  He was only like 25, and he was this big gangling, awkward kid.  He was a nice guy, but it was pretty obvious that social interaction was not his forte.  And now for his birthday the only people who came were a flag football teammate he barely knew and her friend he didn't know at all.  To make matters worse, we just stopped by for a quick beer on our way to a different party.  We invited him with us, but he felt compelled to stay in case other people came.  So we just left him at the table by himself with a gigantic drink in a novelty glass the bartender gave him when she carded him and saw it was his birthday.

I look at all the lonely people ... where do they all come from ...



Anyway, the in-laws are in town right now, so I got dosas on my birthday, which is a pretty good birthday meal.  Also, our friends E & M stopped by for a little while.  E is horrified by the notion of somebody not being properly celebrated on their birthday, so she brought over a little ice cream cake, which was very nice of her.  It said my name on it and everything.  I love ice cream cake.

S and I had plans to see a movie tonight, but the movie I want to see (Boyhood) is three hours long and the only showing we could go to is 8:30, which means we wouldn't be getting home until like midnight, and that's way past S's birthday, so we bought tickets for a matinee show tomorrow instead.  The thing about staying out late is that not only does S start to get sleepy, but I start to get anxious.  With work and Lil' S and everything I get so little time to myself to just nerd-out that I absolutely crave the few hours I get before I go to sleep at night.  Sometimes when we're out, I'll start itching to get back before it gets too late.

Actually, what I really wanted to do tonight is go to the Nationals-Mariners game with King Felix on the mound, but the game is in Seattle so that would be quite a commute.  I suggested we go to a bar to watch it.  S refused initially, but she relented once I played the birthday card.  But the game starts even later than the movie (10:00 pm our time) and could potentially be longer, so we'd probably get kicked out of the bar because S would be sleeping at the table.  Plus, I don't feel like drinking because I actually get to sleep in these days (here's to early-rising, doting grandmas!), and I don't want to sully my good sleep with alcohol.

In other birthday news, we had a party for Lil' S's last Saturday.  It went well.  We were worried initially because it was supposed to rain all day -- and it did -- and our plan was to have all the attendees hang out outside, and then when the rains came, we weren't sure we could fit everybody inside comfortably.  But it all worked out.  S booked an entertainer -- a woman who sang and made balloon animals and shit like that -- and so she took all the kids and a few parents downstairs and the rest of us hung out upstairs.  So we were all spaced out nicely.  I gave S a ton of grief over hiring the woman too, so I had to eat crow on that one.  She saved us.  I have to rein S in sometimes for getting too elaborate and biting off more than she can chew, not only with planning parties, but with life in general.  But this time it really worked out to our advantage.

Alright that's all I got.  Until next time ...

Entry 247: Brooklyn

The trip to Brooklyn went well.  It was tiring -- the drive up on Friday, drive back on Sunday weekend blitz is always a bear -- but it was really fun.  I gave myself a stomachache with my terrible eating, however.  My main meals were pizza, sausage and beer, hamburger and french fries, and pizza again.  Even in the morning, at the free continental breakfast from our hotel, I ate chocolate-filled croissants for breakfast.  It's weird, they had oatmeal and hard-boiled eggs, which is what I normally eat, but somehow since I wasn't in my house I felt justified in eating crap.  Then on the drive back I started to get drowsy (meanwhile S and Lil' S were sawing logs in the backseat), so I stopped to get an iced coffee at a rest area, but the line at the Starbucks was so long that I got annoyed and got a Coke instead (it was a Cherry Coke Zero, if you want to get technical).  It was my second soda of the day, and I normally don't drink any soda, so it made me feel like my gut was rotting.  It felt like -- you know how there's that urban legend that if you put a penny in a glass of Coke and leave it overnight the penny will be completely dissolved in the morning (or something like that)? -- well, my stomach felt like that apocryphal penny.  So now I'm in "junk food detox" for a few days, which has been quite hard, as one of my coworkers who makes pastries as a hobby (very deliciously, I might add), decided to bring in a giant pan of blueberry cobbler on Monday morning, and a tub of vanilla ice cream.  I love pies and cobblers a la mode.  I pretty much had to avoid the break room.

But anyway, about the trip.  We got in to NYC Friday afternoon, and we first went to Manhattan to meet one of S's friends who had a baby a few months ago.  We met at a cool park, and I realized that New York is a good place to take a toddler in the summer because there is seemingly a decent park on every other street corner.  Lil' S is almost to the point where I can just set him down and watch him with one eye, but he's not quite there.  He still gets stuck sometimes climbing, and I have to steer him away from swinging things (like swings) lest he get knocked over wrecking ball-style.  But he's pretty good.  I know I've said it before, but that kid can climb.  He did this monkey bar thing, fairly easily, that this little boy who looked twice his age could barely do.  The kid's dad was funny, once he saw Lil' S do it, he became determined for his son (Leon, I learned) to do it too.  He started passionately coaching him in a foreign accent I couldn't discern: "Go Lee-Own!  Go Lee-Own!  Go all dee way to dee top!  Put down dee flower (the kid was holding a leaf) and GO!  All dee way to dee top!"  But hey, credit where credit is due, the kid made it all that way to the top.

[Here's Lil' S going up a ladder: "I climbing, Daddy!  I climbing!"]

Later that night we went over to our friends K's and B's place to eat pizza and see their adorable 11-week old boy.  It was babymania.  Then we went back to the hotel and went to sleep.  Or rather S and Lil' S went to sleep.  I stayed up and read depressing articles about Ferguson on my iPad (free wifi at the hotel -- at least that wasn't depressing) and followed the Mariners game on my phone.  Speaking of depressing, is there anything more pathetic than treating the ESPN GameCast display as if it's a live-action telecast?  I'm following the blip on the screen, screaming to myself, "C'mon!  C'mon!  Get out of that stadium icon!"

[C'mon, ump, are you blind?  How is that second pitch a ball?  It's right in the zone!]

The next day we met some friends for brunch.  And then at night we met my brother and his family -- just barely.  One thing about being a visitor to New York is that it's easy to get stymied by transportation logistics, especially if you have a toddler.  But after some difficulties -- missed calls, wrong subway trains, cranky kids, hungry wives, selves that had to pee -- we all made it to Brooklyn Bridge Park, where we met my bro A, his wife M, their kid Lil' Q, and M's dad L.  We moseyed around the waterfront, talking and herding our children for an hour and a half or so, before we had to start heading back to the hotel -- it was almost 8:00 pm, after all.  Much of the time we we walking around, we were half-looking for a playground the Internet said was near us, but we couldn't see.  And of course, as soon as we start to leave we notice that it's on the other side of some bushes roughly 20 feet from where we spent the bulk of our time.  Oh, well.

[Brooklyn Bridge as seen from Brooklyn Bridge park]

We made plans to go to Coney Island the next day, but those plans got scrapped because S didn't really want to go.  This caused a mini fight, as although I was fine with not going, I didn't understand why she didn't say something earlier; I was under the impression that she wanted to go when we made the plans.  So then she said, "Fine, let's just go then."  But then I didn't want to go because I didn't have my heart set on it in the first place, and so if she doesn't want to go, then we're going when one of us doesn't want to go and the other one doesn't really care one way or the other, which doesn't make sense.

So I made new plans with A to meet in the morning at a park that is about a mile from our hotel that we could walk to.  But then those plans got scrapped because the forecast was calling for rain and S didn't want to get caught pushing the stroller in the rain.  This caused another mini fight (one other thing I noticed about having a kid: vacation fights go up approximately 375%; back in our carefree Vanuatu days we almost never fought), so we changed the plans again and just met A and M at their hotel.  And actually it all worked out quite nicely.  It did rain, heavily, so S was vindicated.  But it was just a quick cloudburst, and then it got beautiful, so we had a nice day to enjoy.  And as it just so happened there was a cool playground right by A's and M's hotel (I'm telling you, there is one on every other corner), so we got to let the kiddos run around, and in Lil' S's case get soaking wet (Lil' Q was a bit unsure of the splash area).  We also ate lunch (pizza), and a great time was had by all.  The end.

[Fowler square in Brooklyn.  We ate "brunch" (sausage, kraut, and a pilsner for me) at a delicious nearby German pub.]

Well, not quite the end.  We still had to drive back to D.C.  There was traffic almost the entire way, and it took five and half hours.  It sucked, and I was annoyed the entire time.  OK, now it's really the end.

Until next time...

Entry 246: Long Weekend, Long Week

Short entry tonight.  I'm leaving (with wife and kid) to NYC for a long weekend early tomorrow morning.  It should be a good time, which is good.  I could use some fun.  News this week has been pretty shitty, huh?  The big thing, of course, is the tragedy that unfolded (and is continuing to unfold) in Ferguson, Missouri.  I have neither the time nor the energy to get into my thoughts on that.

The other thing is that Robin Williams died.  Williams death made me much sadder than a typical celebrity death.  This isn't because I was a big Robin Williams fan.  On the contrary, I was ahead of my time with the "Robin Williams: Not that Funny" fad.  Relatively recently, he started to get called out a bit as being overrated or whatnot (Family Guy did an entire episode satirizing him), but I was saying it back in 1993 when I saw (and didn't laugh at) Mrs. Doubtfire.  He's just not my style of comedian.  Even his old stand-up that other people who didn't like his movies swore I would like, I didn't like.  But personal comedic styling aside, he seemed like a pretty good dude; he was obviously incredibly talented and beloved; and he was, in my opinion, an excellent serious actor (I have a big soft spot for Goodwill Hunting).  It's a shame he's gone so soon.

His death affected me for two reason:

1) He was one of the first celebrities -- maybe the first celebrity -- to come into my consciousness.  Some of my earliest memories are of watching Mork & Mindy on a big transformer-sized TV we had in our basement.  His death reminds me how long ago that was and makes me think of my own mortality (and now that I have a kid that gets ratcheted up tenfold).

2) He committed suicide and suffered from depression.  Mental illness is an area where my views have changed drastically over time.  Back in my idealistic (and unrealistic) libertarian teen years I thought it was basically BS, and that people could be happy if they were truly willing to fight through it.  In college, when I actually became friends with somebody who had depression issues, it just confused me ("But you have an awesome girlfriend, how can you be sad all the time?").  And now I understand that it's a disorder like any other disorder.  You can't fix it by "fighting through it" anymore than you can diabetes.  You need proper treatment.

As mental illness becomes less stigmatized (even among tough guy athletes) and more and more people open up about it, I realize how many people I know -- how many people I love, family and friends -- who suffer from it in some form or another.  Many of these people I had no idea about and wouldn't ever have suspected had they not told me.  Outwardly everything seemed fine.  And so when I hear about somebody who ostensibly had a great life committing suicide, it hits home a lot harder than it did in the past.

And on that somber note, I have to split.  Until next time ...