HEDORAH

Well, another holloween has come and gone. We thought about going to the mall and meeting up with an army of Bean's day care friends, but we thought it would just be too hectic. They planned to meet at the mall for god's sake. But around 4:30 we decided we should suck it up and take one for the team, so we piled into the Rav4 and off we went. When we got there parking was a nightmare, lots of poeple. But we found a spot, got out and called one of the moms. She said they were leaving early because they were all too tired. So we went in and at the first attempt Bean choked and said she wanted to go home. So we got in the car and one the way home she said she wanted to go to the resturant and have Thai food. So we went to the Thai resturant and she had 'the usual'. Then we tricked a treated for a few more minutes and came home. We didn't carve pumpkins this year. Bean boycotted any attempt to buy pumpkins at the store all week because she doesn't like to eat them. We explained that we don't need to eat them, just carve them. But it was 'no, no, no'.

I went to see Inglourious Basterds a few weeks ago with my good friend Joseph. We got the theater and were waiting for the movie to start. I was complaining about a stiff neck or something and Joseph said he had something for it. I didn't respond so Joseph said "I'm talking about my cock." This seemed appropriate given the nature of the film we were about to enjoy. As we were giggling to ourselves an older lady, about 60 or so, turned around with a scowl on her face and said "I don't need to hear that, I really don't". Neither of us said anything, we were a little caught off guard. I was sitting there from time to time during the movie wondering if the lady was maybe in the wrong theater. I mean, it seemed really strange for someone to complain to us about profanity a few minutes before seeing what they were about to see. Anyhow, watch the profanity at Tarantino movies, else an old lady might yell at you.

I went to college with a guy named Clifford. He was known as “Skip” in our small town of a few thousand farmers and GM workers, outside Flint. Skip was a year older than me and we’d grown up together in this small town, each of us getting athletic scholarships to Michigan State University. Skip was playing football via his 6-5 265 pound frame and I was a scrawnier ‘big ten’ wrestler recruited at 118 lbs. We were the perfect roommates living in a large campus dorm on a floor split up across a guy and girl wing of a couple hundred kids.

Skip was a bit of a prankster. One thing he loved doing was getting me to look at shits he took that were unusual. Most of the time, these were really big poops and he loved seeing the surprised look on my face. Sometimes I just didn’t want to take the time and since he was so much bigger than me, he would physically carry me to the bathroom and point my head downward at the toilet. He didn’t have a lot of patience.

One morning before an 8 o clock class I was in there doing my business and I laid quite an egg. The thing was basically shaped like a softball, almost perfectly round and unusually large. It was very hard to believe it was mine. This was something skip had to see. I went to wake him up and surprisingly he jumped right up out of his waterbed in his tighty whities and to take a look. This was probably the first and last time I had gotten him to check out one of my duties.

He was surprised and excited. He was so impressed he instantly got an idea to ‘do something’ with it. Without telling me what that meant he started foraging around the room looking for tools. He eventually came back to the toilet with an empty coolwhip container and a wire coat hanger. He fished the ball out and put it into the plastic dish. He opened the door, peered out and then made a break for it. I looked out to see a 265 pound defensive end of our football team racing down the hall way with my turd in a plastic bowl. He had almost white spiky hair matching his underwear tone. Our hallways were really long and bent at about a 30 degree angle halfway down. At these bends were quarter sphere bronze ashtrays built into the wall. Skip dumped my dump into the ashtray and raced back.

Later that day at lunch, it was basically the talk of the floor, as we gathered at the one big usual table in the cafeteria. Some people thought it was funny, but most people were pretty mad, determined to find out ‘who shit’ in the ashtray. Most thought it was skip because he was one of the few deranged enough to do something like that and the size of the dropping was something that had to come from such a large person.  

Hours and classes went by the whole day and the shit was in the ashtray, there it stayed. No one had the nerve to deal with it, it started to stink. The following morning we got a knock on our dorm room door, it was the R.A. asking for money to pay the hazmat fee for clean up. It ended up costing everyone on the floor something like 20 bucks or something to clean up.

No one ever found out it was mine. For all you still out there that remember 88's poop in the ashtray incident at west wilson hall at Michigan State, I appologize.

Taking care of a 4 year old really isn't all that hard.

 

Around 6 or so is dinner time. Try to stress eating the veggies, which is always an uphill battle.

Bed time is 9 to 9:30...it depends on how tired the kid is. And you know, if she's up until 10, no big deal.

At about 8 or 8:30 is bath time. Fill the tub, make sure it's not too hot. Then tell her to take a bath. She'll insist on washing her own hair etc etc, so just let her and then probably ask her from time to time how it's going. At the end you'll want to cover her forehead and dump water on her head, making sure all the yucky shampoo is out. Then she'll get out and stand on the mat, and you just towel dry her off and ensure she puts her night time diaper on and pajamas. Then you give her a teaspoon of the fish oil in the fridge (in a blue bottle) and maybe some soy milk. Now, since you are babysitting, you can make the decision on maybe a little ice cream. I know...it is crazy, but that is the fun part, being the uncle and all.

 

Entertainment

Drawing

Coloring

Letting her place PBSKids.org on the computer upstairs

Puzzles

Book reading

DVDs

Computer movies and videos upstairs on the media center

 

Miho's cell and the phone number will be on the cork board near the phone.

Pediatric Associates nurse hotline will be on the cork board near the phone.

Evergreen emergency room if you need it, that is where we'd take her.

 

The other night I was helping my daughter with her 'homework', which was essentially coloring stuff with a colored pencil. She is only four and starting to learn how to color better, not so much stabbing the paper or slashing it with the pencil but instead using her wrist to be more efficient and even when coloring. Anyway, she obviously started to get impatient and regressed back to the slashing and digging approach. I told her "take your time, it's not important to do it fast, but to do it right". Then I started to think about how I work at my job and realized that I'd be better off listenting to my own advice sometimes. I'm smarter than I think.

 

When it's all said and done, when someone looks at any piece of work, they'll evaulate it first and foremost based on the quality, not how long it took. So don't get distracted with those dummies that are trying to rush rush rush you through your life, they are on the wrong side.

My daughter is going through a shy phase. Actually, I’m not sure whether it’s a phase or just a card kids her age (she’s 4) play when it’s convenient, but I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. The latest shy episode was at the part, about a half hour down the road from our house. I mention it’s proximity because that is one of the main reasons I let her lead us there multiple times a week. So sometimes being close to the park can be great for her but curse for dad.

A few days ago the park was busy with people signing up for a triathlon scheduled for the following day. So there were a lot of kids coming and going at the play area. A few of them decided to play tag, starting by needing to decide who would be ‘it’. Now being it can be figured out a lot of different ways, I had forgotten how many different ways I guess.  Anyway, it looked like a lot of fun so my daughter decided she wanted to play. But since she was shy she needed daddy to help ask to join in, since many of the kids seemed to already know each other and were having so much fun, we felt a little like outsiders. She grabbed my finger and pulled me over. I stuck my foot in to the existing foot circle while asking to play too. The kids agreed and so we started with ‘bubble gum bubble bum in a dish, how many pieces do you wish’. The one landed on gave a number which was counted and then the kid who’s foot corresponded to the number was not it. This went on until there was someone who was it. At some point I was it and I needed to chase the kids around. I hope parents weren’t watching. I mean, I hope they were but I didn’t see any.

As I was running around, the oldest kid who had a bit of a mouth on him, started referring to me as ‘old man’. I thought for a second about how rude that was. Then I realized he wasn’t trying to be rude, he was just identifying me. At some point in running the kid down and tagging him, I reminded him that ‘the old man’ got him.

I saw a 60 year old lady with white pants walking down the street yesterday while I was driving through town. Her pants were tight fitting and white, sort of like a nurse's pants or something. Anyway, she totally tripped and smacked her whole front side on the pavement. She got up and seemed ok so I didn't stop but I got to thinking that if I were younger I probably would have thought it was funny. But I didn't think this was funny at all, so I guess that is just another sign that I'm turning into an old man.

What makes the hyena such a formidable foe? It isn't his "laugh" or his charm. It is his willingness to sink to any low, to eat from the dead carcass and his overall willingness to survive. The hyena is unpredictable at times but one can always count on his selfish motive of survival trumping any other aspect of social behavior.

 

I know some people like that.