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waitdad turned 1 today!

First Takes: Lie To You Featuring Joshua Macrae, Melina Gold and Snot Monkey

Acoustic version of Sidewalk.

So he's got that going for him.

Waitdad problems.

Right off the plant. And it's the second time he's done that. Drives me up the wall. Now, it's important whenever you get irrationally pissed off at people, to kind of take a step back and see things from their perspective, cause there is always (and I meant it, ALWAYS) a better solution than sitting around in your jammy pants ticked off and blogging about it. [blogger takes deep breaths] So for starters, the red ripened jalapeños are considered "over ripe" and some insist that they are less hot and less sweet, though some insist the exact opposite. All I know is that they are pretty. And I've got one last big harvest of jalapeños before the season comes to a full close and I was planning on going full "Portlandia" and pickling them for future enjoyment. The red one's were going to add a nice little visual touch to a steaming hot plate of nachos. There is no way for Vito to know this. He cares nothing for plating techniques, and rarely eats nachos. What he sees is fruit over-ripening on the plant and needs to be picked. And he was in the neighborhood. And, well, you know, why not? His motives are filled with love and purity. Which isn't true at all, but let's just believe that for a moment. So what to do? What to do? The simplest and best answer is to just ask him not to pick any of the red jalapeños. Yet, now that he's done it twice, it might send the wrong message, and I might inadvertently hurt his feelings, or worse, end up in a debate about the optimal time to pick jalapeños, when all I clearly want is for him to leave my peck of peppers alone for me to pickle. "Pick 'em before he sees 'em" My wife says. The passive aggressive act isn't always the correct one, but listening to your wife will always and forever be the smartest move a young man can make. Can I call myself a "young man" anymore? My father would say yes, but the gray in my beard clearly says no. I should save that thought for next week. So either I deal with it, or I "sorta" deal with it, or I just let it go. You ever played an actual game of Pepper? Where you're the runner between two people? And they're throwing the ball back and forth and you're trying not to get tagged out? It's a game about commitment and error. The throwers only have two choices: Throw the ball, don't throw the ball. But the player in the middle has three: Run right, run left, or don't run. The game only ends when the runner commits to run. And the runner will only commit to the run when he/she sees that a thrower has made an error. Either the ball was thrown too slow, too high, out of the lane or dropped. The runner decides when to end the game, but chance decides the out come. Sort of a macabre distillation of life itself. Yet, we really have to extend the metaphor out a bit, cause life isn't just a single game of Pepper. Life is infinite games of Pepper. Sure, sometimes you're playing Pepper in the sand lot, and sometimes in the ninth inning of the World Series, but it's still just a game of Pepper. And here's the thing: We all have multiple games of Pepper going on at the same time. Take anything you can think of regarding your life and there is a Yes, No, Maybe solution. For instance, I want to use my red ripened jalapeños for some seriously awesome Super-Bowl Nachos. But if I bark at the old man, I could create familial tension, and as tough as it is to admit, his love is more important than a pretty plate of nachos. Even if only by a little. But I know exactly when he's most likely going to show up in my back yard. Sunday morning between the hours of 10:00am and 1:00pm. So I have until about 9:45am to go out into my own backyard in my jammy pants and pick any over-ripened jalapeños myself. His error, my commitment and the game continues forever. And Joann gets to be right.

Calvin was crying today because he got a bad hair cut. It wasn't that bad, and it certainly wasn't the worst. The worst, of course being the time when I tried to do it myself and he ended up squirming so bad that we had to shave it all off. He was screaming, his mother was screaming and we ended up with a boy who looked like he had mange. This one just gives him a page boy top with a surfer dude curly bottom. It's not that noticeable, especially if you're like me and not the kind of person who notices those things. So Joann comes in just now and tells me that his hair cut is really bad. I guess, whatever. Which is the only thing I ever say that makes her want to punch me in the uterus. See, technically, I was the parent of record during the hair cut, which makes me the one who is ultimately responsible for things not turning out well. But, in my defense, I did every thing I could to ensure that the basic instructions were met, and by doing so, am bullet proof in the eyes of the lord. I was to tell the hair cutterer to give his hair a nice trim and get it out of his eyes. I relayed those instructions to the letter. The hair cutterer, a big boned gal in her mid 20's, who clearly hated everything about her life, starting with her job and possibly ending with everything that ever happened on any day that doesn't end with Red Bull and vodka, did exactly what I told her. She trimmed a bit and got his bangs out of his eyes. It wasn't pretty and she was essentially done before I could finish an article on a local french restaurant that was very polite but rather short on praise, which I found interesting because the restaurant had gone out a business awhile ago. Which can only mean two things. Either I've slipped time again or the hair cutterer's boss need to update the magazines. Calvin started sniveling the second we got to the car. He was very disappointed in the way he looked. I didn't notice. Yet had I been a hair cuttering professional, I would have seen clear as day that this was not the most reasonable outcome for a ten minute $18 hair cut. Wasn't really all that close. Was actually pretty ridiculous. And here's the thing: I've been in customer service for years, years. And people are awful. They really are. I'm sorry about that. And when they go to a place to pay for a service, they kind of have a reasonable expectation that the professional will be making a few professional decisions based on the likeliest positive outcome. Like when people would ask me to make some thing for them that I knew was just going to be awful, I would let them know first that it was a terrible idea and that I could make them something much better if they wanted, but if they persisted, I would let them know that I will absolutely make it for them to the best of my ability, and that if I was right and it was awful, I will be magnanimous about it and make them something better to replace the thing they thought they wanted but didn't really. There are actually four possible outcomes to this scenario: One: They trust me and we all live happily ever after. Two: It's awful, they recognize it as awful, they gratefully accept my better judgement. Three: Its' awesome, and we both agree that we have just experienced a very human sharing moment. Four: It's awful but they're way too embarrassed to say so and creep out of the room in shame never to show their faces again. All four are perfectly fine. However, if I say nothing, all hell breaks loose. I'm just stirring the pot with my indifference. Now I'm the kind of customer in scenario One. I'll give you instructions to the best of my ability and then I'll read your body language to see how close I came to reasonable. You won't be able to hide your disappointment of me if you think I'm crazy and I'll get your advice one way or another. We will win the game of society because I openly admit my ignorance and trust your professional judgement. But if you don't care; if I'm like "Take off a few inches and get the bangs out of his eyes." and you're like "I guess, whatever." and the outcome is terrible, well then, we've lost the social fabric, and my wife  has permission to punch you in the uterus. Cause I'll be in "Time Out" pretending to throw my T-Shirt at the Jets game.

Wait . . . Dad? MmmHmm? What does Tooty Fruity smell like? There is no such thing. Why? Cause I picked the Tooty Fruity sticker. What does it smell like to you? It smells like sour. Like lemons, limes? No, like bad fruit. Like evil kiwi? No, like bad fruit. Like drunk and disorderly casaba? No, like bad fruit. When have you had bad fruit? I don't know. Kay. Now when I was a kid, scratch and sniff stickers came in only one smell: "Scratch and Sniff" Smell. Could have a picture of chocolate cake or a bowl of fresh strawberries, but it always smelled the same after you scratched it.  A sweet stale smell like medicine with a candy coating. Yet it has become clear that scratch and sniff technology has grown so precise that they have to create an entire new vocabulary around the exotic smell catalogue. Tooty Fruity Oh, Rudy. So here we go, Random Five Scratch and Sniff Smells that I think could have a chance to make it in the internet age. 1. Clean Baby Nothin like clean baby smell. It is without a doubt the single most dominant reason why we don't eat our young. 2. Skittle Breath Not a mouth full of Skittles (cause that would be too overpowering), but when you are talking to someone who just enjoyed a mouth full of Skittles. It's softer, sweeter, and makes you instantly like the person. I would so stick that sticker on my wrist and take heavy sniffs during awkward moments of just about every conversation I've ever had. 3. Ripping the foil off a brand new pack of Marlboro Lights. Stale, sweet, agonizing death. 4. Grandma's Purse A heavy mixture of bottled perfume, lipstick, and double mint gum. 5. WD-40 You know when you smell WD-40 that something went and got itself fixed. Something that had been sitting around unfixed for like ever. When you smell WD-40 you know you're smelling someone who has just secured the right to take an afternoon nap. WD-40 is the smell of champion. Please, send me the smells you would like stick on your wrist and make other people smell. Maybe we can get something going with some Capital Investment groups. Have a good week end y'all.

I just hope she doesn't notice that the Penny-Saver is missing from pile three.

And when your child requests string beans its time to give up your silly lists and go get string beans.

A watched pot.