Elena and I were made for each other. We tell each other all the time that we are “soul mates”. I think part of that is because in some respects we are complete opposites. One of those opposite points can best be summed up by the fabulous 80’s hair band, Foreigner.
“Cold as ice - you know that you are
Cold as ice - as cold as ice to me” — Foreigner, Cold as Ice
The other night I go into the bedroom after finishing work on the computer and Elena is already sound asleep in bed. She has all of the following covering her: a sheet, the electric blanket set to level 6 out of 10, a down comforter, and not one, but two of her quilts. And she’s curled up in a ball like she is still cold under all of that stuff.
“Well, I’m hot blooded, check it and see
I got a fever of a hundred and three” — Foreigner, Hot Blooded
As for me… I set the electric blanket to level 2 out of 10 and get into bed under it with the down comforter. After 10 minutes of laying there I can’t take it anymore and I have to turn the electric blanket off.
What does it mean? Who knows… I just think it is funny. And truth be told, Elena’s been working really hard for a long time to lose weight and she looks great. So she blames her constant coldness on a lack of “previously present insulation”. :-) But if she’s cold for that reason, then does it mean I’m hot for the opposite reason? Uh, oh…
This is humorous. We found this picture from the last time we went to Maui in January 2000 — exactly nine years before we went this time.
It’s Wailua Falls on the Road to Hana. The waterfall looks exactly the same! Uhh… but the guy in the picture looks a little different. Nearly the same outfit… but this guy has more hair!
OK… so I look a little younger. But Elena and I both agree that the trip we just took was much better than the one nine years ago. That first trip she Elena was 4 months pregnant with Maren. We were much more adventurous this time. And our accomodations were much better.
I am in the middle of a stretch of 8 plane rides in 3 weeks. Two trips for work, and an upcoming vacation. I am writing this upon my arrival to my hotel in Carlsbad, CA. I noticed that the plane ride to Orange County, CA is a little different than other plane rides, let’s see… what could it be… oh yeah, the kids! An airport so close to Disneyland can only mean that there are more kids on the plane than normal. The little girl (probably Emma’s age) that sat in front of me with her mom kept me entertained. I heard all of the following during the flight:
“Can we go on a ride right after we get off the plane?”, “No dear, we have to wait until tomorrow”, “OK… as long as we get up early and get into line before anyone else.”
After the plane lifts off the ground: “We’re in the air Mom! Can I roll down the window?”
Again, as the plane is lifting off: “I see Grandma’s house! I think she is waving at us!”
“Mom, can we only go on rides that don’t have a line? I don’t like waiting in lines…” (she’s going to be disappointed)
After returning from the bathroom with her Mom, she turns to Dad sitting on the other side of the aisle and proclaims “Dad! There’s no water in the toilets!”
I guess it suddenly dawns on her that her older sister Ava (sitting across the aisle) is also going to be going to Disneyland: “Mom, do we have to take Ava with us? Can she just stay at the hotel?”
After landing, Mom explains that they have to go to the hotel: “Why? I don’t want to go there, can we go and wait for Disneyland to open?”
I call home from work today to check in with the family and Emma answers the phone. She immediately starts into explaining all the excitement for the morning. Her story goes a little like this:
Dad it was crazy! Poop was flying all over the room. Poop was on the chair and on the couch and now it’s on Mom’s bed. Mom is watching Poop to make sure it is safe. There was blood on Poop because Tiger Socks jumped on Poop and put her claws into Poop. So Poop is bleeding, but it looks better. We threw Tiger Socks outside because she was mean to Poop. But… yeah… Poop couldn’t stand up straight. It was “Crazy Poop”! It was sooo funny! Want to come home and see it Dad?
Huh? The use of the words “blood” and “poop” in the same sentence was completely throwing me off. I tried to ask her what she was talking about and I just got the same thing again. “Where is Mom?”, I said. “OK I’ll get her, ” Emma said. “She’s holding Poop.”
As I wait for Elena to come to the phone, I suddenly realize… oh yeah, my brilliant teenage son named his new parakeet “Poop”. What an unfortunate name for a bird (or anything else for that matter).
Now that you know what Poop is, read Emma’s tale again and it makes perfect sense! (”Tiger Socks” is our cat.)
Last night’s episode of the Colbert Report had me laughing pretty good. Cookies are no longer the number one snack food for children, it’s now fruit. This is of course a disgrace to Mr. Colbert and he blames the primary culprit of the Pro-Cookie Agenda… Cookie Monster himself. I’ve watched the video a couple of times now and it still makes me laugh.
“Me have crazy times in the 70s and 80s. Me like the Robert Downey Jr. of cookies.” — Cookie Monster
On Memorial Day Elena and I took the two girls and made the rounds to the grave sites of our grandparents. It was a rainy day which wasn’t so great, but it was good to get out of the house. The cemeteries were of course beautiful, and covered in flowers. I don’t think the girls knew quite what to think, but they liked the adventure anyway. We started in the morning and made a day of it, even stopping for treats (which the girls thought was great).
But the funniest thing happened on our last stop for the day. We arrived at the cemetery where my grandma is buried and just down from the grave site we see the sign that is in the picture to the right. It did seem kind of off, but I guess it’s not just retailers who have Memorial Day sales. Probably would have been a good deal. If the girls weren’t with us I’m sure we would have looked into it… not.
I have to post this. We went to the Discovery Gateway Children’s Museum a couple of weeks ago. They have an exhibit going on right now with the Sesame Street characters helping the kids to learn all about the body. Lots of good information on the five senses, good nutrition, exercise, etc.
There is also an exhibit on the digestive progress. “Food today, poo tomorrow!”. I, of course, found it to be hilarious whereas Elena just looks at me and thinks “why can’t he grow up”? Your eyes are not deceiving you… Emma is working the poo contraption.
POO UPDATE: I arrived at work this morning (April Fool’s Day) to Gordon’s fine present on my desk. Read all about it here (I couldn’t stop laughing… and people had to keep taking double-takes when walking past my office)
Let me see if I can set the scene for you… I’m in a meeting room with about a dozen people. Half the people I know, half I don’t. I’ve been asked to give a presentation for a software application so I am sitting at the front with my laptop in front of me connected to the projector. The presentation is going well and we are about 20 minutes into the 45 minute presentation. I’ve been doing a lot of speaking explaining the software and the few people sitting next to me at the front of the room have been asking a lot of good questions. There has been a lot of pleasant banter back and forth. I am the king of the castle.
Then it happens…
The person sitting next to me reaches into their briefcase/bag and pulls out a tin of mints. They open it (this is occurring while I am speaking to everyone), then they slide the tin on the table in my direction.
Hello? At this moment I begin to suffer from a erratic Seinfeld thought process. I’m still speaking, but my multi-tasking mind has switched thought processes. What does this offering mean? Is it an act of “sharing kindness”? Or is it a “your breath is going to kill us” offering? I’m still not quite sure what to make of it. Many times my wife has made a similar offering to me, but I know for sure that she is not doing it because she wants to share — she does it because the expulsion of odor with my every exhale is too extreme for her. So is that what was meant by this inconspicuous table slide of mints?
Arghh!! What does it all mean? Needless to say, as soon as I had a time to stop speaking for a second I reached, took a couple of mints, and put them in my mouth. Then with the hope that it was a “share” offering, I participated in the pyramid scheme of offering mints and slid the tin across the table to the person next to me.
Wait a minute… I wonder what that person thought of my offering?
Elena is out of town. The boys are off doing their own things. And Maren is sleeping over at her aunt’s house. So after we drop Maren off, Emma is very sad. So I ask her what she wants to do that would be fun and she says she wants to go to the park.
As we get in the car and it starts up, I am reminded by the car’s temperature gauge that it is 94 degrees outside. I don’t want to go sit at the park - it’s too hot! So as we are driving away we pass a McDonald’s. Whoa! They have a playground! So I flip a U-turn and go back. Emma says “Is this the park?”, “No Emma… this is McDonald’s”, “McDonald’s! I love McDonald’s!”. I rule. I am the best Dad in the whole world.
The following are a collection of different events that all occurred during this McDonald’s excursion. I had to blog about them — it just made me laugh the whole time.
We order the obligatory Happy Meal, of course. It came with a Hello Kitty toy. Score one for Dad… Hello Kitty is so cute!
After consuming only 3 fries, Emma asks if she can go play. I tell her she has to eat her 4 chicken nuggets first.
After consuming 2 more fries, Emma asks if she can play with the Hello Kitty toy. I tell her not until after she is done playing in the playground. She proceeds to get up from the table to go play. I tell her she needs to eat her chicken nuggets first.
Emma slowly consumes a chicken nugget as she watches the other kids playing. Then a light goes off in her head, “I can eat the chicken nugget and play at the same time”, she thinks. As she gets up from table I ask her to sit down. “But I have the chicken nugget Dad!”. “Yes Emma, but you need to eat two more first”.
Loud screaming of “Mom Mom” is suddenly heard from the upper catacombs of the play structure. The lady next to me answers back. And then, so everyone inside (and probably outside) the restaurant can here, the little voice yells “Mommy I’ve got to pee and I can’t find my way out!”. Mom gets up, sticks the top half of her body into the play structure and begins to essentially play a game of Marco Polo with her child. And in a few minutes the child emerges and a mad dash to the restroom is made.
Emma finishes her first chicken nugget, gulps down chocolate milk, and takes off. “I’m done with my chicken Dad!”. “Wait Emma! You still have to eat one more!”. With a look of disgust, and her hands on her hips, she turns around and says “We can just take it home Dad!”. Nope… I made her sit down and eat again. (Notice that we are now down to just eating a total of 2 nuggets, instead of the original 4.)
Emma slowly eats another nugget until there is about half of it left. Then she stuffs the entire rest of it into her mouth, jumps down from the table and takes off. I guess she did eat two, right?
About every two or three minutes she returns to the table to gulp chocolate milk. By the time all of this is finished, she will be sporting a nice brown chocolate milk goatee (as seen in the picture).
Another mom walks in and begins yelling for her daughter, whose name is apparently Serenity, that it is time to go. The girl answers from high up in the catacombs that she doesn’t want to go and the mom begins repeating the phrase “Serenity… now!” I begin to have flashbacks of a Seinfeld episode with George’s Dad yelling “Serenity Now!” and I have to turn around because I can’t stop laughing to myself.
Time to go. The standard countdown negotiation begins between parent and child with me playing the part of the parent, and Emma, the part of the child. We start at “let’s go now” and before I realize it, I have been negotiated into 3 more minutes.
Seven or eight minutes pass and I say its time to go. Emma, apparently having no concept of time, proceeds to argue with me from the high in the catacombs that it hasn’t been three minutes yet.
Finally I convince her it is time to go. We pack up and head towards the door. The great and all knowing McDonald’s establishment is not stupid. Near the door there is a display of all the currently possible Happy Meal toys. Brilliant placement for children coming into the restaurant so that they will force their parents to buy a Happy Meal (worked on me). But it also backfires, because the kids also see it as they’re leaving and wonder “why didn’t I get that toy”.
As we’re driving home I ask Emma if she had fun. “Yes!” she says. Again… I am the best Dad in the world!
As I turn to pull onto our street Emma starts crying saying “No Dad!”. “What’s the matter, Emma?”, “I want to go to the park!”. I try to explain that we went to McDonald’s instead and it had a playground. She then begins to rattle off all of the things that are apparently qualifications for a place to be a park. It seems that monkey bars, swings, two slides, and dirt are required for a place to be considered a park.
There you go. It sounds like it might have been frustrating, but in actuality I found it all very funny. Hence the blog post. Now I’ve just got to see if I can ever convince her it is time for bed.
Whoa! Little bit of a drought there on making blog entries. Well no more! The main reason is that I have been out on the road for work reasons. In the last 10 days I have been to Toronto, Chicago, and Richmond, VA. All for various reasons. So with that in mind, here’s a blog entry of everything wrong with travelling:
Airport Security Some people just don’t get it. How long has it been since the London liquid terror thing? 9 months? I would think that people would now know that you can’t take liquids on the plane. Even if you don’t know, there are signs all over the airports and constant nagging on the PA system telling you. But I still had people in front of me at every single airport that had to have some kind of liquid confiscated.
Body Odor
There should be a rule. There’s a rule at the pool. “You must shower before getting in the pool”. There should be a rule for getting through security.
Expensive Hotels
Why is it that the hotels that have the higher rates are also the ones that nickel and dime you to death? I stay in one hotel and it is $110/night with free wireless internet, free parking, and a free continental breakfast. I stay in another hotel and it is $179/night, $15/day for parking, $10/day for internet and no breakfast. Hello?
Push back and wait
Why do airlines do this? We all board the plane. They begin pushing back then stop. Then the captain comes over the loudspeaker and says that the weather is bad in the destination that we are flying to so traffic control will not let them take off. So we sit in the plane for an hour on the ground. Hello? They had to have known that before we boarded the plane, why did they board us?
TV Channel Guides
Hotels have got to provide a “treasure map” for what TV channels are where. I spent 15 minutes surfing channels to try to find the basketball game. Argh! Just leave a list of channels in the room (an acurate list!)
Business travel in general
Anytime I’m out of town for work it consists of me spending the entire day doing the client’s work, then spending the entire evening and night doing the usual work that I have to get done on a daily basis. It is tiring.
That’s about it. Enough complaining right? I admit, there are benefits to travelling as well. But the bad things are more humorous
Last night’s episode of the Colbert Report had me laughing pretty good. Cookies are no longer the number one snack food for children, it’s now fruit. This is of course a disgrace to Mr. Colbert and he blames the primary culprit of the Pro-Cookie Agenda… Cookie Monster himself. I’ve watched the video a couple of times now and it still makes me laugh.
Master And Servant
