I was reading article the other day about some soldier stationed somewhere far afield. I don’t have any recollection of the article, where I read it or it’s purpose. But I do remember thinking that there were many such soldiers, so very far afield. As well as many who had made the ultimate sacrifice and wouldn’t be coming home at all.
My great uncle with whom I spent Saturday evening is part of what’s referred to as the Greatest Generation. It’s a well-deserved label though I often think it does a disservice to the generations who have fought for our country both before and after. My uncle displays one of the chief traits of the Greatest Generation – a unique and unflappable stoicism.
About flying over the European theater and getting shot at, my uncle just states we did what we had to do. End of story. Full stop. There was no question. It’s what they had to do.
Wars and conflicts these days seem to be less binary, less black and white. What we have to do isn’t always as clear or well-defined. But while we can bicker over which conflicts are necessary and which aren’t, the people that protect and defend us are always worth of our support.
Today is Memorial Day. Its time to remember. And thank.
Month: May 2010
Haiku For Monday #320
My plan for today?
Coffee, kids, sunscreen and pool.
Monday, kiss my ass.
The Weeklies #134
The Weekly Phenomenon. Lost is over. I’ll admit, I’m bummed. Sure, it didn’t answer all the questions but dammit the finale was still good. It was a show about faith, hope, love and fate and that’s, ultimately, what the last two hours were all about.
The Weekly Milestone. Mia’s last day of preschool – EVER – is today. How in the hell did that happen?
The Weekly Read. Fresh off the beach, I was looking for a nice, mindless beach book. I picked up James Patterson’s Lifeguard. You know, it didn’t suck. It actually wasn’t bad at all. Okay, it wasn’t fine literature but it was fast-paced entertainment which, frankly, was what I was paying it for.
The Weekly Music. I always liked the concept of the Stone Temple Pilots more than I liked their music. Their debut album was strong however it was their second that blew me out of the water. I still rank it as one of the true great alternative albums of the 90s. But after that, STP started sucking. In a big way. Their third album was garbage and, up until they disbanded, they never really recovered. I can’t say I was very hopeful when they reformed. After all, the reformation came out of the ashes of two very good bands – Velvet Revolver (though it’s apparently not dead yet) and Army of Anyone. I’m surprised and happy to reveal that their latest, Stone Temple Pilots, is freakishly good. It’s chock-full of goodness and more hooks than you can imagine. It’s one of those albums you wish you knew all the words to immediately so you could sing along. It’s not nearly as heavy as they can get but it’s damn good to listen to.
The Weekly Schadenfreude. Oh, Ann Curry. You flub so much on TV who’d have thought you’d have anything left to flub offTV. I underestimated you. According to US News & World Report:
You have to feel for Ann Curry. The Today show anchor made a serious flub in her commencement speech at Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., this past weekend. Curry ran through some names of Wheaton’s most famous alumni during one part of her speech. The problem? She named a few grads from the Wheaton College in Illinois. Oops.
The Weekly Question. On Wednesday I revealed via Facebook that I’d forgotten to wear underwear (see what you miss if you don’t catch me on Facebook?). How about you? Going commando – something you do never, often or, hey, what’s underwear?
To-Do or Not To-Do
I’m sitting here looking at a list of thirteen things I have to do today. Work things. I know for sure that I’m missing five or six but can’t for the life of me remember exactly what they are. I’ll probably think of them as I go through my 40 flagged for followup email messages in a little while. This week is really the first time I’ve felt that promotion I got a last month. I’m looking for ways to clone myself.
I’ve never been very good at maintaining to-do lists. I have a couple iPhone applications designed to help but they don’t. Same with my computer. And plain old low-tech pencil and paper. Whenever I start a to-do list, I fail miserably. My enthusiasm lasts for a day or so but fades when I realize that the to-do list won’t magically update itself or add to itself by the ideas jumping out of my mind. In addition to jetpacks and flying cars I want mind-controlled to-do lists.
All this explains my desk. It’s covered in square yellow post-it notes, to-dos of-the-day scrawled across them. And at some point I will try to go back, to mark things off, and I will be utterly unable to decipher my own writing. Clearly this approach isn’t working.
How do you accomplish what you need to accomplish and remember the things you can’t afford to forget? Are you a to-do list person?
Two Conversations (Or, Vaginas Win)
CONVERSATION ONE
Me:Yay for penises.
Me and Owen: Yay!
Beth: Yay for vaginas!
Beth and Mia: Yay!
Mia: Vaginas win!
Me and Beth: Vaginas always win.
It’s true. They do.
CONVERSATION TWO
Me: Hey. Question. Why did you let a lobotomized one-armed monkey on crack cut Owen’s hair?
Beth: …
Me: What’s wrong?
Beth: …
Me: Oh shit. Did you cut Owen’s hair yourself?
Beth: Um, yes.
Me: Oh shit. Again. I’m sorry.
Beth: Why, do you think I did a bad job?
Me: Well…
Beth: Well?
Me: Maybe that’s the style these days?
Beth: I’m totally fucking with you. Of course I didn’t do it?
Me: Okay, then the question stands. Why did you let a lobotomized one-armed monkey on crack cut Owen’s hair?
Beth: It’s not that bad, is it?
Me: I would have punched that monkey in the face when it was done.
I’m a little sensitive about bad haircuts. The last really bad haircut I had was terrifyingly horrible. It left a bald spot. And, of course, it just so happened to have been done the day before I wrenched my neck and was unable to straighten my head. Which just so happened to have been two days before I started school in a brand new high school, having just moved from Texas, where I knew absolutely no one. That moment in time – amid stares and muted conversations all wondering who the new special kid was – was, perhaps, the most socially horrifying ever.
You’ve had some bad social moments, right? Care to share?
BP, As In Big Problem
Can I just take a minute to talk about the oil spill?
I grew up in Houston, arguably the most influential oil town in the US. A couple of times each summer, my family would load up the car and head to Bolivar Peninsula, a sandy stretch of beach just off Galveston. In doing so, we’d find ourselves driving through Texas City. If you don’t know, Texas City is where 90% of the refineries are in Texas. When we started to see the refineries – easy since it looked like some really ugly sci-fi mothership had landed – we’d roll up the windows if they were open, turn off the air conditioning if it was on, and close all the vents. Because Texas City was horrendous to drive through. And it was immediately obvious to anyone driving through that the process of harvesting and refining fossil fuels was treacherous, dirty and fucking up the planet.
When the Exxon Valdez ran aground in ’89, I’d just gotten my driver’s license. Among the many rules my parents laid down – wear your seatbelt, be home by midnight, don’t drink and drive – was don’t buy your gas from Exxon. So I didn’t. And I recall my superior, idealistic 16 year-old self shooting dirty looks at the folks pulling out of the local Exxon stations. But, of course, that kind of boycott – which was, actually, fairly popular back in ’89 – did little to impact Exxon or send any kind of message. Why? Exxon and all the other oil companies have a captive audience.
What this all comes down to are the many questions I have rolling around in my brain to which I have no obvious answer. Why, with all the technology we possess, can we be able to drill a well deep into the earth but be absolutely unable to plug is? Why aren’t better safeguards in place? Why would we ever think it a good idea to allow the oil companies to police themselves? Would we give Whitney Houston a pile of crack and a pipe and say we expect you not to smoke this but if you do, please drive yourself to rehab immediately and get yourself clean?
We can’t abandon fossil fuels entirely. That’s whack (thanks Whitney) and we’re not anywhere near ready. We’re years, even decades, away from finding reliable cost-effective solutions. But I don’t think it’s a stretch to ask the people who are tasked with finding fossil fuels to please not dramatically fuck up the earth while doing so, to be careful, to stop being a profit-hungry group of asshats.
I ask you –
– What will it take to find some alternatives to fossil fuels?
– What do we do in the short term to let BP and others know this is unacceptable?
Threat Level: Red
A simple fact of life and often overlooked truth: when you get puked on on a Friday night it’s very difficult to tell exactly how the weekend’s going to go. It’s a dubious start at best.
On Friday night as I was quietly reading to Mia, she threw up. On me. And the repeated the process moments later. Reading time was over. We braced ourselves for the inevitable follow-up but it never really came. Mia slept through the night and, in turn, so did we, then managed to wake up at the uncharacteristic and slightly annoying hour of 5:00 AM so I could – her words – listen to the chorus of birds. The birds did sound pretty and all but they weren’t quite worth rolling out of bed in the darkness for. But, you know, still better than getting ralphed on.
We spent the rest of the weekend cautious, afraid to consider the threat neutralized for fear of jinxing ourselves. On the Parental Scale of Domestic Terror an epidemic of puking elevates the threat level to red, if not beyond.
On Saturday it rained. On Sunday it rained some more. And Mia again thought as though she felt icky. Beth felt the same. So we took it easy. Beth napped, the kids and I watched movies (can I say again how awesome Netflix streamed via Wii is?) that Beth would hate, namely Scooby Doo. By afternoon, when the sun came out, we were all ready to get outside and play. We were all equally eager to get in bed as the day ended. Which is why, no, we didn’t catch the last episode of Lost. So shhhhhhh!
Now I’m heading to work, praying that no one else gets hit, that we can lower the terror alert without threat of a puking insurgency. I’m not ready to stand on top of my garage and declare Mission Accomplished.
And your weekends? How were they?
Haiku For Monday #319
Some days I wish I
was in school and could take the
summer off. No dice.
The Weeklies #133
The Weekly Best Inventions Ever. DVD players. For the car. My kids don’t watch a lot of TV but we break our own rules when it comes to the car. And during our drive to and from the Outer Banks? We broke that rule a lot.
The Weekly Read. A friend hipped me to the Shit My Dad Says Twitter feed. After laughing my ass off, I grew skeptical. I figured it was just a guy with some good one liners, not a real dude in his late 20s who moved back in with his no-nonsense, foul-mouthed dad. Then the book came out. Look, the book is obviously an attempt to cash in on the success of the site, as well as the hype around the William Shatner-starring TV series currently in development. And books like that usually suck. This one didn’t. Sure, it’s a quick read and uses the now-infamous Twitter feeds as its centerpiece but it is funny and the portrait that emerges of the shit-saying dad is a pretty decent one.
The Weekly Astonishing Fact. Speaking of William Shatner, do you have any clue how much he’s made out of being the spokesman for Priceline? During his 10-year tenure, he’s earned a whopping $600 million. Yes. You read that right. See, instead of cash, he took stock. And despite the waning economy, Priceline has remained a highly valued favorite.
The Weekly Music. Rock and Roll. Owen loves Rock and Roll. He requests it whenever we’re in the car. His jammies with guitars on them? Rock and Roll Jammies. He’s even got the devil horns move down…mostly. Ronnie James Dio, may he rest in peace, would be proud.
The Weekly Thing I Couldn’t Care Less About. John Travolta announced they’re having another kid. Whoop-de-fucking-doo. Am I supposed to care when famous people get knocked up? Now, if Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh transcended the boundaries of modern medicine and had a kid together, I’d want to know because, well, kill it with fire! Otherwise, I could give a shit.
The Weekly Schadenfreude. Courtney Love just admitted to having a fling with supermodel Kate Moss. The question is, who else has Courtney loved? Or, perhaps a better question is who hasn’t she?
The Weekly Question. What’s the last book you read? Would you recommend it?
The Return
If you stopped by on Monday, you might have figured out where I’ve been the last couple of days. Beth and I packed up the kids, a vast percentage of their stuff, and headed to the beach for a family vacation with my parents and some other family and friends. If you got the clues correctly, you know we went to the Outer Banks (far-flung financial institutions), between the towns of Duck (decoy) and Corolla (Toyota).
Here’s a quick run-down of the trip, by the numbers.
Sunny days: 1.5
Cloudy, rainy days: 3
Vicious thunderstorms: 1
Cars left out in vicious thunderstorms: 1
Windows left down in said thunderstorm: 1
Inches of rain in car after vicious thunderstorm: 2
Backs burned: 1
Movies watched: 1
Beers consumed: 10
Crabcakes eaten: 2
iPad demonstrations given to family: 5
iPads I think I sold for Apple: 3 (Steve Jobs, I expect a reacharound)
Hours spent in car: 14
Hours spent on beach: 10
DVD players bought for the car ride: 2
Times we praised the saint who invented portable DVD players: 65 million
Kids who were absolute saints in the car: 2
Games of Chutes & Ladders and Candyland played: 500 minimum
Crossword puzzles completed: 5
Work emails accumulated: 300
Times Owen requested Daddy, let’s listen to rock and roll!: 20
There you have it. It was a short trip, more like a long vacation, but despite the abundance or rain, it was damn near perfect.
Anyhoo, I missed you guys. What’s up? What did I miss?
rudecactus 