Well Done

“I don’t like steak!”

Hang on a second.  That came out a little abrupt and apparently needs context.

I was a junior in high school and my girlfriend asked me over for dinner.  I inquired about the fare and she replied that her dad was grilling steak.

"I don’t like steak.”

My comment was followed by the retort, “Well, you’ve never had my dad’s steak.”

She was right, of course.  I knew her mother worked at the Jewel meat counter, but this was probably the first time I’d been invited over for dinner.

A couple of hours later, I was sitting at the table when her dad placed an inch and a half thick slab of meat in front of me.  I looked at my girlfriend and asked, “What’s this?”

“That’s steak!” she answered. 

Apparently, my context needs context.

My mom made steak rather regularly, but it didn’t look like this.  You see, our steak came on a shrink-wrapped Styrofoam tray.  It was about a half an inch thick and probably didn’t reshape the plastic that was stretched taut across the shallow plate.  Mom would transfer it from the packaging onto a pan, then it went straight into the broiler.  I’m not even sure if she stopped to season it.

Some 20 to 30 minutes later, the steak would be done it was time to eat.  Eating my mother’s leather required a sharp knife, A-1 sauce, and lots of chewing!

That high school family dinner-date opened my eyes to a whole new world.  There was this thing called steak that was easy to chew and rather delicious!

The best steak I’ve had since then was on another date, this time with my wife.  We were in New York for a couple days and I decided to call around to find a nice dinner reservation.  I obviously started at the top of the “Best restaurants in New York” list.  The #1 restaurant told me their next available reservation was in three months.  But it only took 2 or 3 more calls before I found a 9:30 PM on a Thursday reservation for two.  After promising them $450.00, I took the reservation.

The meal was spectacular and I may blog about that another time.  But right now, only steak matters.  It was Kobe steak, or some other trademarked slab of beef.  Shaped like a 2 1/2" circle and standing 2” high, it was unlike anything I had ever seen.  From the top, the outer edge was dark gray, while the rest was a warm pink.  It was like they had rolled it once across a 500° grill, then dropped it on a plate.

I cut into it, first tasting the outer edge.  It was exactly like my mother’s steak!  But beyond that outer edge, was a soft, delicious meat that absolutely melted in your mouth.  Even thinking about A1 sauce while eating it would have brought the chef and his largest knife out of the kitchen in a fit of rage.  No such thought crossed my mind.

I’ve come a long way, as far as steak is concerned.  Every time I order or grill, I find slightly less done is always better.  From the extremely well done my mother made, to the medium well I ordered through my twenties, I now prefer a thick cut grilled to medium.  Recently, I’ve been toying with the idea of trying medium rare.

But even with all that experience behind me, I still don’t like steak.

I love steak!

Comedy is (Not) for the BIrds

There are certain opportunities that only come along once in a lifetime.  Sometimes you can see them coming, jump on, and ride.  But other times, only hindsight is cruel enough to point out the opportunity missed.

Now one could easily cite missed stock buys or other life changing decisions that have passed most of us by.  But I’m talking today about one of those potentially life-altering events above and beyond just striking it rich.  I’m talking about… the first Angry Birds movie.

The movie was fine and, on a whole, lived up to my rather low expectations.  But its creators missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be immortalized for their comedic genius.

It was somewhere near the middle-end of the movie when the birds somehow decided it was reasonable (I’m sure they didn’t do it just to be true to the game) to launch themselves out of a giant slingshot.  Their target was piggy castle.

First, they launched a little orange bird who came up significantly short before exploding in an orange powdery puff.  The pink girl-bird was next, but she also came up short.  Other birds were launched, mostly forgettable, especially if you didn’t play the game.  At some point they decided to launch the mime-bird.

Now let’s stop right there for a minute.  There have been some outstanding mimes throughout history: Charlie Chaplain, Marcel Marceau, and dare I say it, Tape Face.  Tape Face’s ‘Lady in Red’ bit is absolutely hilarious and Marcel Marceau’s ‘Walking Against the Wind’ bit from Mel Brook’s Silent Movie is spectacular.  I have no idea how he manages to move backwards while leaning forward with the appearance of walking forward.  It puts the Moonwalk to shame.  Both clips are worth a quick Google! (Hey, where are you going?  After you finish reading my blog.)

Mel Brooks was able to catch one of those opportunities I spoke of earlier in that very same movie, a movie titled Silent Movie, when he gave the only spoken line to the mime.  Pure. Comedic. Genius.

Which brings me back to the birds.  They loaded the mime into the slingshot and sent it flying.  The movie then cuts to the Piggy King walking confidently in front of a large, glass window.  Do you hear opportunity knocking?  A mime?  A window?  I sat in the theater with anticipation growing.  I just knew the mime was going to smack into the window, then do the ‘Stuck in an invisible box’ bit before gravity finally smeared him off the glass.

Alas, history is cruel and I was left disappointed as the bird instead bounced about amidst a tumble of falling buildings far from the castle.  The writers, producers, directors, voice actors, gaffers, and even the best boys for the movie failed to see the historic moment staring them in the face.  It could have been great.  It could have been epic.  They could have written their names proudly alongside the likes of Robin Williams, George Carlin, and Tina Fey.  But they didn’t.  And the world is a more dreary place for their failure.

Pure. Opportunity. Lost.

And Then I Got Covid and Almost Died...

 You may not realize it from reading my blog, but I’m actually a rather funny person.  Just ask anyone.  My daughter will proudly proclaim me as funny and The Boy will describe me as humorous.  Even my wife will occasionally admit I have a mildly amusing sense of humor.  (Please don’t ask anyone else, as their opinions do not count.)  I’m the guy who giggles like a school girl when someone uses consecutive “dos” in a sentence.  It is my firm standing opinion that everything is funny if you look at it the right or wrong way.

As an example of my clever wit, we were walking into church a week after there had been a small fire in the attic and the water sprinklers had flooded portions of the building.  (See, funny already!)  The pastor was standing in the atrium, greeting us late-comers.  Above him, the drop ceiling was missing various tiles, obviously those that had been damaged in the flood.  My mind raced for the right thing to say.  My first thought, something about water, was a fail, but two or three trains later I had it.

“What happened?  Were you guys playing Mario?” I asked, jumping and swinging alternating fists into the air while doing my best impersonation of the “you got a coin ding” from Super Mario Brothers.  They laughed, The Boy laughed, and we proceeded into church.

On that rather short walk, Andrew, still laughing a little, asked, “How do you come up with that stuff so fast?”

I don’t really know.  The quick-twitch function of my funny machine parses situations rather quickly.  It can amend or rewrite thoughts about a situation at blazing speeds, finding just the right words to express the humor in most any situation.

Not having a filter assures that those thoughts are always shared with the world, for better or worse.

As it turns out, humor is my security blanket.  It is what I turn to when I am stressed, worried, or something is going horribly wrong.  As doctor visits of this aging male have gotten more and more interesting, I remember one time declaring to my primary doctor before an “exam, “Remember when we used to be friends?”  A similarly themed ER visit found me in prime form entertaining the doctors and nurses with every inappropriate ass joke I could muster.

And then I got Covid and almost died.  Technically the Covid was a few months before the Mario jumping incident.  But trust me, it ties in reasonably well.

My wife got Covid from a patient at work and was kind enough to share it with the rest of us.  She got a little sick, the kids took it better than Mom, and Grandma weathered the Covid onslaught better than all of us.  Then there was me.

I started out feeling sick.  My lungs began to struggle.  I tried doing breathing exercises to keep them open, but the illness progressed.  Exertion of any sort, especially walking up the stairs, would send my Oxygen levels in a downward spiral.  It took two trips to the respiratory clinic and a second visit to the Emergency room before I was finally admitted.  By then, I felt like the breathing capacity of my lungs had been reduced to the size of a walnut.  All humor had left me.

I was locked in an isolation chamber (i.e. specially adapted hospital room) and was occasionally visited by the extras from the ET escapes scene.  For four days, I lay in bed, tethered to various machines.  I had an IV in my arm, pressure collars on my legs, a glowing OSAT monitor taped to my finger (I could make another ET reference here), and that oxygen hose thing (Google tells me it is called a nasal cannula, or NC) wrapped around my head.

Sometimes I had enough energy to sit the bed up and watch TV, but most of the time I just lay there like Mojo the Helper Monkey, struggling to breathe.  One time I tried to roll over and lay on my stomach, per Mollie and the doctor’s advice.  After 30 minutes of trying to figure out the logistics regarding my multiple leashes and lack of energy, I found myself face down and more uncomfortable than I have ever been in my entire life.  It only took a minute to roll back over, followed by 15 minutes to recover.

Going to bathroom was the worst.  I had to sit up, disconnect my tethered legs, take off my Oxygen, unplug the OSAT monitor, and drag my IV poll around behind me.  By the time I made it to the bathroom, worked my magic, and lumbered back to bed, I was so extremely short of breath, it sometimes took 20-30 minutes to recover enough to reconnect anything beside the Oxygen.

One time, I sat on the toilet after a really bad coughing fit with my hand on the red emergency cord, ready to pull it.  I held it for about a few minutes before stubborn pride got the best of me and I managed to stumble back to bed. 

After about three days, a nurse pointed out that my Oxygen cord was too short and suggested she get me a longer one.  I regaled her with the struggle I faced just getting myself to the small water closet less than 10 feet from my bed.  How did she describe it?  Oh yeah, they had “…set me up to fail.”

The longer cord meant one less thing to detach from myself when getting up.  It helped a little, making the experience only absolutely miserable instead of completely defeating.

I occasionally had enough energy to reach my phone when someone called.  From those calls I garnered that Mollie was extremely worried about me.  My parents were worried.  My siblings were worried.  The dog was worried.  The doctors were worried.  The threat of being moved to the Intensive Care Unit, intubated, and put on a ventilator started to come up.

I remember my father calling me and encouraging me, in earnest, to do everything I could to get better; a difficult task when it is already all you can do just to breathe.  He asked me if I was scared.  Thinking about it, I wasn’t scared throughout the entire episode.  I was sick, but just waiting to get better.  It didn’t really cross my mind to be scared.  “Maybe you should be,” he advised.

Somewhere about day four, I was told I would be receiving convalescent plasma.  They hooked a new bag of liquid up to me and I fell asleep.  Some five hours later, I woke up feeling better than I had in days.  Instead of breathing through a walnut, my lung capacity had expanded to the size of a softball.  While still terrible, I can assure you even a little increase in the ability to breathe is an extreme comfort.

It took a few days to be discharged and two months to feel somewhat okay.  After leaving the hospital, I was talking to Mollie about her ongoing concerns during my internment.  She showed me a text conversation she had had with our pastor.  He had asked what he could pray for.  “That Mike would get his funny back,” she replied.  Obviously hesitant at such a dangerous request, he only offered to pray for “my funny to get an upgrade.”

Now five months post-Covid, Mollie has learned my humor is a necessary tool.  She can often be heard declaring, “If Mike loses his funny again, I’m taking him straight to the hospital.  If they ask what’s wrong with him, I’m telling them he lost his funny.  He must really sick!”

I’m not sure how funny my Mario impression really was, nor whether the pastor considered it an upgrade, but I have learned that even a bad sense of humor is better than Covid.

Who Likes Short Shorts?

I’ve always been short.  I was born short, I’ve lived short, and I’ll die short.  It all started back in grade school.  We used to line up by height for certain events: assemblies, photo day, and such.  While other people wandered around, saluting each other from the crown of their head, I would walk uncontested to the front of the line.  A new kid once usurped my position for a year, but I spent most of grade school as line leader when height was a considered factor.

It's not that I come from a particularly short family.  I just got, dare I say, the short end of the gene pool.  My brother and one sister are taller than me, as is my dad (I honestly have no idea how tall my other sister is).  I have tall uncles and tall cousins.  One grandpa was what others might consider tall and I remember the other being really tall, though he admittedly died when I was only 3.  When you are three, everyone seems exceptionally tall.  But not me.  I’m just short.

Five foot, six and a half inches, to be exact.  That’s eleven and a half inches shorter than Michael Jordan and over a foot and a half shorter than Shaquille O’Neal.  I am three and a half inches taller than Mugsy Bogues, but he was the shortest player in NBA history.  Those three and a half inches also accurately describe my vertical, while Mr. Bogues could leap 44.3” to dunk.

I do, however, tower above the shortest man to ever play baseball.  That would be the 3’ 7” Eddie Gaedel.  He was a bit of a publicity stunt for the 1951 St. Louis Brown.  He had one at bat, walking on four consecutive pitches, after which he was promptly removed from the game for a pinch runner.  Besides him, the list I found notes only one other MLB player who was shorter than me, while four players match my 5’ 6”.

Probably the most demeaning measurement of my height is this.  I am roughly as tall as four of Shaquille O’Neal’s size 22 shoes stacked heel to toe.

I also married short.  Mollie, my wonderful wife, was kind enough to let stand a whole 3 inches taller than her.  While that did restrict the height of the heels she chose to wear for our wedding, it has at least allowed me to occasionally ‘feel’ tall when I can reach something on the middle shelf that she cannot.  I do, of course, need two ladders and an elevator to get anything off the top shelf.

Given our children contain our mixed DNA, I had very little hope for their future stature.  Annaliese, as she has always been, will remain tiny.  But Andrew apparently dove deep into the gene pool and found some recessive height trait. 

I have enjoyed watching him grow, taking every opportunity to rag on him for being shorter than me, knowing full well a time will come when he will echo my insults from far above.  That day is fast approaching.  Just last week, Mollie stood by him and declared, “Andrew, you’re really tall!” 

I was overjoyed.  Grinning ear to ear, I thanked Mollie for her compliment.  If she thought Andrew was really tall, and I stand an impressive half an inch over him, then I too, for the first time in my life, must be really tall!

Excuse Me, Do You Work Here?

Have you ever been walking through a store and been stopped by another customer who asked if you work there?  I have.  Just the other day, I was browsing for some crafty thing I needed at Joann’s (please don’t tell anyone I shop at Joann’s) when a woman walked up.  “Excuse me.  Do you work here?” she asked.  I, despite a strong urge to play along, told her I did not and she moved on to ask some other lonely schmuck who may or may not work at Joann’s.

While in recent years I have only been asked 2-3 time a year, it used to be a more common occurrence.  Perhaps an older, fatter me doesn’t look like they work anywhere, let alone the place in which I am currently standing.  Perhaps it’s the two children in tow that make me look more like a shopper and less like an employee.

I think it may have to do with the way I shop.  I often spend way too much time in a store.  I wander.  I meander.  I browse.  Perhaps that type of shopping makes me look like I am supposed to be working.

I once asked a woman why she thought I worked at a particular store.  She explained that it was winter and I wasn’t wearing a coat, so I must have a long-term plan for staying in the store (i.e. employment).  That made sense, well at least more sense than the fact I rarely wear a coat in winter.

A younger me would get asked if I worked somewhere every 1-2 months.  Every once in a while, I knew the store well enough I could help the poor, lost soul who thought I was worthy of employment, but more often than not I was just as lost as they were.  The type of store I was in didn’t seem to matter, though I was stopped more often in one particular store.  More on that later.

Orange is my favorite of color shirt to wear.  It’s not my favorite color, that honor is reserved for slightly brighter than street sign green.  But as far as shirts go, orange is the best.  They look great and are always more comfortable than a similarly designed blue, or perhaps black shirt.  My earliest encounter with orange shirts was in high school.  Our school colors were blue and orange.  For PE my junior and senior years, I took a weight lifting class.  Our 'Excel' gym shirts were a fantastic orange with a blue panther across the front (and my last name written in black marker across my back).  A classic look, if I do say so myself.

Another class I took in high school was wood shop.  Mr. Groth’s amazing woodworking skill and teaching instilled a life-long love of tools in me.  As a result, there no store in which I aimlessly wander more than The Home Depot.  Aisle after aisle of wonderful tools I didn’t need and couldn’t afford.  All in my orange shirt…  It’s no wonder I got asked if I worked at Home Depot so often.

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

I've been back to blogging for only a couple weeks and I've already forgotten to post.  That's okay because it means the four to seven of you who actually read this will just have to wait until Thursday to read my blog on Wednesday.  At least I'm pretty sure that's how it this works.

What is actually good about my latency is that you don't have to read the blather I previously patched together and was supposed to put up this week.  You'll have to wait until next week for that particular manuscript.  Instead, I've been inspired to tell a story.

It was long ago when I was young and naive.

Side bar.  How the hell do you spell naive?  I've tried nieve, naive, naieve, neive, neieve, nieive, naeive, naeve, naieve, niave, naeive, neive, neaive, pnaieve, mnieve, and knaive, but they all get underlined in red.

Is it because I'm missing some stupid French accent mark? naivú, naivð, now which Alt+### do I want? õôóôñëêaèçèé  There it is.  Good old Alt+0233.  naivé, nievé...

That's it, I give up.  The French, or whoever the hell came up with the spelling for that stupid word can keep it.  Back to the story.

It was long ago when I was young and stupid.  You may be thinking, "But Mike, you're stupid now.  I mean, you can't even spell...," but then you'd stop yourself before speaking because you can't spell it either.

No, this was a kind of stupid that surrounds youth and inexperience.  I'm sure there's a word that aptly describes it, but I don't know how to spell it.

Such naiveté...  Seriously???  I got that one right? I mean, come on.

(Editor's note: Microsoft Word properly shows I spelled it correctly the second time.  The inept spell check in Chrome apparently wants me to type 'naïve' with two stupid little dots above the 'i.')

Such naiveté can be observed on a college campus near the dining hall as unlearned youth wander up to a table to fill out an application for a credit card for the promised reward of a 1-pound bag of M&M's.  Nothing says putting my education to good use quite like the simultaneous formation of an unhealthy addiction to both chocolate and debt.

It also rears its head when said college student attends a Chicago White Sox game (questionable in and of itself) without bringing extra cash or bothering to fill up the gas tank.  Thus, I found myself leaving a crowded parking lot with a yellow light reminding me how stupid I was.  To my relief, there was a gas station a couple blocks South of the park that still bore Charles Comiskey's name.  I parked my car near a pump and went inside to pay.

No cash.  I was stumped.  Here I was on the Southside of Chicago at a rather sketchy gas station, with no gas, and no money to fix that problem.  The only bright side I could find was that if I got mugged, I'd only be out an empty wallet.

Did I mention I also didn't have a phone?  No?  Well I didn't have one of those either.

I talked to the gas station attendant, explaining my plight, but he didn't see, or at least didn't offer any solution.  I paced around the gas station and checked my wallet one more time to make sure I hadn't missed some quantity of cash hidden in a secret pocket.

Then I saw it.  A plastic rectangle I kept in my wallet, though I'd never gotten around to using it.  I pulled it out and asked in the most awkwardly uneducated manner possible, "Do you guys take these things?"

The attendant, who was apparently familiar with credit cards, confirmed they did.  Relieved, I returned to my car and filled my tank, using a credit card for the first time ever.

Only now, in retelling this story, did I realize my true blunder in this adventure.  It was not the lack of cash or my unfamiliarity with credit cards.  It was my failure to remember the association that first provided me with the credit card that may or may not have saved my life that summer day.

I should have bought some M&M's.

Dreams

I had a rather vivid dream last night.  I hopped a bus to a creek on the North side of Springfield and started walking up the creek.  Reaching the first bend, I started searching the creek bed rocks for Indian arrowheads.  My first few finds that looked suspiciously like arrowheads, but I decided they weren’t.  Digging deeper near the bank, I found a trove of treasure.  There were eight to ten knives carved out of rock.  A few were broken, or only partially carved, but many were pristine.  I gathered my finds in my arms and climbed out of the creek.  I stopped quickly to examine some sort of Bob Ross game that had been lying in the creek, but decided the knives were enough and headed back to the bus.

The bus was a self-driving and I was the only person on board.  I laid my ancient knives on a seat and worked on packing them into my backpack.  As the bus worked its way in the general direction of home, though on the far East side of town, other people began to board.  A rider mentioned their stop and it caught my attention. 

“This bus goes all the way to Jacksonville?” I asked. 

She confirmed and I began worrying about which stop would let me out closest to home.  The road names didn’t make sense to me and I was having trouble reading the schedule.  I finally decided there was only one left, which I missed.  I tried to use the ‘Stop’ button beneath my window, but the driverless bus wouldn’t listen and pulled onto the interstate.  A short jumble of exits and turns later and I was awake, safely in my bed without having to walk across town to get home.

It's no surprise I would dream about Indian arrowheads.  I really love old artifacts and fossils.  I have a small collection that includes numerous crinoids, a trilobite, a fish, a piece of dinosaur bone, and a small lump of petrified sloth poop.  Geodes dot my collection, as do other small fossils.

My greatest fossil find was about the size of a coconut.  It was a coiled snake with its head raised, ready to strike.  The detail was amazing, right down to the impending doom written in its beady eyes.  I have no idea how it formed, but it was truly beautiful. 

A few months ago, I sat down at my computer to work.  An hour in, I thought about my new fossil find, deciding I should show it to my wife when she got home.  But where was it?  My brain skipped for just a second, before settling on the unpleasant truth, a truth I literally exclaimed aloud.

“No!  It was a dream!”

Spreadsheets Galore

I am what you might call a nerd.  Not your run of the mill goofy glasses and squeaky voice nerd (though I have learned the guy at the glasses store two years ago failed to get my glasses adjusted correctly and they don't sit straight on my face).  Instead, I find myself to be a nerd semi-disguised as a “well-adjusted individual.”  Could you read that straight face, because I couldn’t even type it without giggling at its absurdity?

But seriously, I like football, chili, and cage fights.  No one could possibly think I’m a nerd.  But then you see me with all my nerd friends sitting in a game store playing Magic: The Gathering.  Cat’s out of the bag (which is bad because I’m allergic to cats).

It gets worse. I have spreadsheets.  I have one for the budget we seldom stick to, one to track my mortgage payments, a Magic 8-Ball, a Magic event record tracker (one for in-person events and one for digital games, of course). There are the inventory tracking spreadsheets I’ve created for various areas at work and the spread sheet I keep to test new excel functions, should I ever need to go back and use something I once took the time to figure out.  That one is filled with really important things like custom functions and concatenate (which smooshes multiple cells text into one).

I did a quick search... I have 595 spreadsheets at work (technically 2,144, but some are just data storage) and 181 at home.  How many do you have and are you nerd enough to even figure that out?

Did you know I once set up a spreadsheet to calculate upgrade bonuses for an entire MMORPG so I could make the best decisions when spending my hard-earned gold?  Yeah, that was the game I had to stop playing at the request of my wife because I was getting up at 3 AM to bank my gold.

It gets even worse.  I taught myself to write macros and VBA (which is apparently a semi-Excel-specific version of Visual Basic.  It all started so innocently, wanting to copy something repeatedly or add a line at the top of a page and copy in formulas.  But it was never enough.

One day I sat down with a burning question.  Could I create a button in Excel that moved my cursor to a different cell with the click of a mouse.  Apparently just clicking on the cell had become too mundane; I needed a stronger drug.

Once one button worked, it seemed obvious to create one for each of the four normal-person directions (diagonals are overrated).  The next most obvious question was whether or not I could restrict the movement to a certain area, followed by tracking where I had been, and numbering the cells in a semi-random manner.  It was almost as if I was trying to program some sort of game in Excel.

Hours and hours (and hours [and hours]) of properly nested formulas later, I have a fully functional Choose Your Own Adventure game.  Well, it’s fully functional only in a nerd’s sense of the word.  There are 225 rooms you can wander into, of which some 30 have story lines written for them.  But the programming works.  That’s enough to be considered fully functional!

Perhaps someday I will find the time and, more importantly, the inspiration to write stories for a couple hundred more rooms.  In the meantime, I am providing you a Beta test experience!  That’s right.  You can try my non-nerd created, spreadsheet-based, Choose Your Own Adventure-esque game.  So what if the story-lines repeat themselves.  Do you have what it takes to escape the dungeon, or will you find yourself dying a horrible death. There’s only one way out.  And whether you make it out or not, you can always enjoy my spectacular usage of concatenate!

Here is a link to the game.  Try it out and let me know how you do in the comments below.

Excel Choose Your Own Adventure 

(If it doesn't load on the next screen, you can click the download button.  You may have to allow macros.  Don't worry about the macros; I wrote them all myself and they are safe.)

An Avocado is a Fruit

Avocados may be the most utensil intensive fruit on the face of the Earth.  Compare it to an apple.  You don’t need anything to eat it, but if you’re really fussy, they make a neat little coring tool to cut it into convenient, bite sized slices.  One utensil, max.  What about oranges?  All you need to enjoy one of them is an orange peeler or some long finger nails and a little determination.  How about a pomegranate?  It needs a knife to cut it and a bowl of water to work in, along with fingers and way more patience than should be required to eat a fruit.  And only one of those is a utensil.

But the avocado.  The avocado first requires a knife.  But no ordinary butter knife will do; a steak knife is needed to slice its leathery peel.  Once split, you need a spoon.  This tool works amazingly well separating the peel from the inner fruit.  You could try using a fork here, but the spoon fits the curve of the peel so well.  As an added bonus, it is quite effective at scooping out any unwanted brown spots that may be marring your otherwise beautiful fruit.  A fork would butcher this job.

Now I know it’s completely possible to stop at two utensils, reusing the knife to slice the avocado.  But I’ve found the best uses of an avocado require a fork.  An avocado slice on a salad pales in comparison to a chip dipped in fresh guacamole or avocado spread across toast.  Both are utterly divine.  While I admit I’ve never tried mashing an avocado using a knife and/or spoon, the fork does the job wonderfully well.  Smashing, mixing, spreading, the fork does it all, except of course for the above mentioned cutting and scooping.

Avocado toast is worthy of some additional details, as its rather bland moniker doesn’t do it justice.  I’m talking about ripe avocado mashed with a dash of lime juice, spread thick on toast, then lightly dusted with cayenne and a crackling of sea salt.  Absolutely amazing!  I was first introduced to avocado toast in Hawaii.  Yes, I’ve been lucky enough to go to Hawaii.  It was all sunshine, beaches, waterfalls, volcanos, pineapple, and, of course, avocado toast.

But then, avocado toast wasn’t the most memorable food I was introduced to on the Big Island.  We asked about local cuisine and were directed down a road South of Captain Cook to a small establishment that could best be described as half food place, half house and garage.  Following our directions to a T, we walked up and ordered Lau Lau.

Lau Lau is pork and butterfish wrapped in lu’au leaves and inedible ti leaves.  This particular establishment, I had heard, steams the wrapped delicacy for multiple days before serving it.  I’ve tried other Lau Lau, but nothing else has come close.  Amazing doesn’t begin to describe it.  Avocado toast can be accurately summed up as amazing, but avocado toast is not a reason I would willingly fly back to Hawaii for a single meal (not that I can afford that).

And of course, Lau Lau only requires one utensil to eat.  Unless, of course, you count the airplane and multiple cars needed to get there.

Electrical Outlets

It’s been over a decade since I’ve bothered to write anything on here.  Why did I stop, you may ask?  Keeping up with my blog had become a chore.  I was setting deadlines, then struggling to find enough nonsensical text to post.  On top of that, I had just gotten a new job working for the State and I wasn’t sure how much I was able to divulge about my work.  If I said too much, would they fit me with cement shoes like they had threatened at the new employee orientation?  Wait, they said headset, not cement shoes.  And to think I’ve spent the last decade worrying I’d end up meeting Mr. Hoffa.

I had always wanted to write about my new work environment and the hazards of navigating an endless maze of cubicles.  Tall ones, short ones, even medium ones, all subdividing a series of never-ending dead ends.  It was maddening.  It is maddening!  A decade later and I still find myself wandering around, getting lost, and not knowing where the light switch is.  And the sad part is I’ve been working at home for the last 10 months!

But you and I know that’s not why I’m up writing tonight.  Well, you didn’t, but now you do.  Please do try to keep up.  

It’s about The Girl.  I’m pretty sure I haven’t blogged this story before, seeing as the girl is 11 and this feels like an older-than-a-one-year-old story.  If I’m wrong, then I hope you enjoy a second telling.  At the least, you haven’t heard it in over a decade.

Like I was saying, it’s about The Boy.  I’m a firm believer in "corporal punishment."  Not the over the knee ***-whoopin’ kind because you spilled my beer.  More like the reasonably firm hand slap to impart understanding that a dangerous action may cause pain.

I walked into Andrew’s daycare and was chatting with the teacher.  (I may have told this part of the story before.) 

“You know, Andrew is the only kid in here who doesn’t play with the electrical outlets,” she remarked.

“That’s because he tried once and I slapped his hand.”

Andrew always was a quick learner.

But like I was saying, this story is about The Girl.  The Girl is what you may call a free spirit.  An independent free spirit, if you will.  An independent, lives by her own rules in her own world, free spirit (I mean that in the best way possible.  If you’ve met her you probably understand).

She was the second kid.  I’d done parenting good before.  I knew how to raise a kid.  So, when my roughly two-year-old not surprisingly reached for an outlet one day, I firmly told her “No” and slapped her hand.  I’m pretty sure it was the first hand slap she’d encountered because she pulled back, sitting up with a startled expression on her face.  I could see the gears in her head turning, processing this new concept.  I waited for the tears to fall, for the lesson to be learned.  Instead, she raised her hand and slapped me back.

I don’t think she thought it was a game.  I think she wanted to let me know she wasn’t going to put up with being told what she could and couldn’t do.  She’d survived the NICU, she could take care of  her own damn self.  She needed to teach me a lesson.

Anna was never one to back down from a little discomfort, a challenge, or the brunt force of reality.  She learns lessons through exploration and discovery.  A hand slap never taught her to fear some greater danger; those lessons only took hold when accompanied by a look of disappointment on Daddy’s face.  That brought her crumbling to the ground.  Which was great, because then I could grab her up, hug her tightly, and lovingly explain whatever lesson I thought she needed to learn. 

It is taking me a while to learn the lessons my daughter has been teaching me.  Learning often requires a little pain and a little disappointment.  I guess they both take after me.

What Does the World Revolve Around?

No time to edit today.  WYSIWYG . . .

Apparently, my little girl is learning to play the system.  She has spent the two days in the 1 year old room at day care.  When I picked her up today, she put on her usual pout, lying on the floor crying.  I, of course, let her cry, refusing to pick her up until she puts forth some effort on her end.  While I sat a few feet away from her, her teacher asked if I was encouraging her to crawl.  It set me back a moment.  Why did Anna's teacher think she had need of learning to crawl.  "No," I responded hesitantly, "she crawls all over the place.  She's even almost walking.  Isn't she crawling around in here?"

It seems she has not been.  Perhaps it is the foreign room, the bigger kids and the shiny new teachers that have her clamming up, but I am not buying that one.  I think the girl knows that if she doesn't move on her own, somebody will pick her up.  After all, attention is truly what Anna has craved since day one.

It was time for a demonstration.

I took my phone out of my pocket, turned on the music player, then set it on the floor.  After all, what self respecting child can resist the opportunity to play with Daddy's phone?  My trap set, I walked away to collect her effects from her cubby.

I turned around and the game was afoot.  The cat was out of the bag. (Stupid cat . . . I should have tied the bag tighter . . . er . . .um, right, keep on topic.)  Her teacher had seen it too.  The little girl was up on her hands and knees.  "Ooh will I have a story to tell tomorrow," her teacher said.

My job there was done.  I collected my effects (a.k.a. Anna) and we forged our way home.

I'm not really sure if I have a point to this story, other than my wonder at our daughter's continued insistence that she be the center of her tiny universe.  As much as I would like to explore this phenomenom further, I find myself being beckoned to the car.  Of course, I can expect many years of witnessing (and hopefully overcoming) this very thing.

Family Ties

This week finds our linguistic hero taking a well deserved sabbatical. In his stead, you shall have the pleasure of reading the musings of I, Jorge, Mike’s evil twin brother. Let us begin our other-worldly adventure as we . . .

Dude, Jorge, what are you doing on my blog?

Mike?!? I thought you were supposed to be, er, away for the week. I was just, um, checking to make sure . . .

“Aaaaah, get out of my chair!” (Bonus points for naming the movie.)

Sorry for all of that, folks, but Jorge is gone now. In fact, it is quite likely you shall never hear from him again. That’s right; let’s never speak of him again.

Ahem.

Did you know you can daisy-chain a three-way phone conversation? That’s right. If I call Dad and Dad calls Sister and Sister calls Brother and Brother calls Sister-in-Law, then the whole mess of us can yack it up in a non-stop interruptionfest. But why would one care to create such chaos? I’m glad you asked. But first, a story.

Have you ever played ‘I Spy?’ You know the game where you see something, but make everybody else guess what it is. My family never played ‘I Spy.’ Settling for something we could see, something tangible and all too often obvious was not enough to sate our appetite for entertainment. We played ‘First one find a . . .’

You see, when you play ‘I Spy,’ your creativity and imagination are kept on a rather short leash. In our game, however, there were no limits. Somebody came up with an idea and everybody strove to spot it first. I can still remember some of the items we sought. Many of them are seemingly mundane, with no real reason they have remained amongst my conscious streams of thought. For example, double red doors on a house. I cannot tell you who found it first, but I do remember looking for it.

As we got older, the challenges got harder. Lists were created. First to find a man walking a dog, a fire engine and a fat lady. (Please read as a list, not a sentence describing what the man is walking.) It strikes me that this game held our attention through high school and even college. Perhaps we enjoyed the challenge of creating a difficult pursuit. Perhaps we reveled in the chance to find the ever elusive ultimate ‘find a.’ I wasn’t part of the game in which it was named (I believe Melissa partook), but eventually one item became the ultimate find of our silly game. To this day, it is understood that if one of us ever finds a motorcycle pulling a port-a-potty, they shall be deemed the eternal champion!

I had toyed with the idea, when Melissa got married, of hiring some biker dude to tow a jon-on-wheels past her reception. However, the day came and went with nary a thing being hitched together (except her and her hubby, of course.) Anyways, I’m not sure they allow port-a-pottys on Coronado Island. I’m not even sure they allow a biker dudes!

About four or five years ago, I found myself missing this penultimate distraction to those encased in a moving vehicle. It struck me, why should we have to be in the same car to play? We didn’t even need to be in the same state! Thus began the first multi-state game of ‘first one find a.’

A few days ago, our family once again stepped up to their individual microphone and amidst a clamorous phone conversation, each shared their newest idea. The conversation was outstanding. In the end, we all knew exactly what we needed to find, an antique mustang driving down the road with a lady in a red coat, carrying a red bag sitting the open trunk, while a fat lady and a skinny lady on skateboards watched, but they tripped over a man who was lying on the ground because he had been hit by a kid driving one of those battery operated cars. Or something like that.

As my family begins the quest to crown its fourth champion, I invite you to participate in the first ever “I have No Idea Why I Just Said That” first one find a challenge. The rules are simple. Find the things I list below, then post that you found them in the comments section. (and/or on Facebook) It does not matter where you are when you find the item, except that you cannot find it at home. Also, you cannot create a situation in which you see a listed item. (The port-a-potty gig wouldn’t have counted anyways.)

The List
1. A dog going to the bathroom (not your own dog)
2. A red car beside a blue car (front, back or side)
3. A leaf in the act of falling off a tree (somewhere between the tree and the ground)

Happy hunting!

The Name's Al, Weird Al

Too long it’s been since a generous muse has set its sweet voice upon my listening ears. Those that long ago visited Sir William, C.S. and the great Mr. Larson have at whiles found greener pastures than those upon which my brain doth graze. But yet it seems, perhaps, others have taken their place, stirring my vain imagination towards its work.

Of late, inspiring words have been far and few between, as Wednesday after Wednesday I find myself staring down the barrel of a self-imposed deadline. The outpouring of my mind has taken other forms beside the written word. Thus, I have a partially completed spreadsheet, dotted with formulas, buttons and Microsoft Visual Basic language; a concoction that exists for no more grand reason than the challenge of its creation.

For those who haven’t heard, I have found employment in the good graces of the state. My quiet days spent tending a tiny flock have been exchanged for conversations about vehicle tax returns, penalties for late filing and the unending struggle with the ultimate question, “Do I have to pay tax on this?”

In case you haven’t figured the answer to that one out yet, the answer is usually a resounding ‘Yes.’ Unless, of course, you make a purchase from an out of state supplier who is not registered with Illinois and you have them ship the item to your brother’s aunt’s sister’s grandmother’s first boyfriend from high school. In that instance, Old-Romeo has to pay the tax.

But I digress . . .

No I haven’t! I never did find a true tune to which my fingers could waltz upon these keys. Instead, they have rather taken flight to an obscure Weird Al Yankovic Polka Party cut. (Editor’s note: all sense and sensibility has taken leave of Mike for the next paragraph. They may return somewhere in the final verse. Pirates, be ye warned.)

Now there’s a topic. Nothing entertains the masses like a long-haired misfit harping out overly fast music from his accordion, (Do accordions harp? If not, what do they do . . . accord??? So when an accordion plays music, does everybody get along with everybody else?) All while his squeaky voice chimes along, (So you can enjoy life as much as I, I have included a link to the song on last.fm. Just find and click the tiny black circle under ‘Top Tracks.’) ‘Yo I tell you what I want, what I really really want. So tell us what you want, what you really really want . . . I wanna, I wanna I wanna zuba zuba aah . . . If you wanna be my . . . Everybody. Ye-ah. Rock your body. Yea-ah . . . might as well be walking on the sun’ . . . . accordion solo!!! . . . . ‘I get knocked down but I get up again’ . . . some song I don’t know . . . but my body keeps bouncing in my chair. There’s something about this . . . ‘semi-charmed kind of life Baby Baby’ . . . that lifts my spirits. Even though I cannot stand the original Mmm Bop by those kids who nobody know what ever became of them, I find no shame in singing it loudly when accompanied by a polka beat.

As WinAmp sings about being ‘Pretty fly for a Rabbi,’ I find it hard to continue any coherent thought. Perhaps that is for the best. After all, who among you really wants to hear about how my little girl climbed upon a walker/rider thingey at church tonight and waddled around the nursery for a while before successfully dismounting without cracking her noggin upon the hard floor? I often wonder about my still-tiny girl. She has given voice to a few words and now moves about upon unsteady feet so long as her hands find a sturdy support. But there is an ever nagging fear that her tiny size hides some deeper malady. But then she unexpectedly mounts the walker and casts a glance my way. A broad smile graces her face, boldly proclaiming, “Look at me, Daddy. I’m doing something amazing and I sure do know it!”

A.K.A. Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy

Raggedy Andrew and Raggeda Anna

Halloween 2010

Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Five . . .

Ladies and Gentlemen, ten random facts before I go to bed.

Drum roll please . . . insert rim-shots as necessary.

Number Ten:

I just spent the last two hours making a red-yarn wig for Andrew’s Halloween costume. I do not look forward to making a second for Anna.

Number Nine:

The first three games of this year’s NFL season spoiled the remaining games for Bears fans everywhere. After all, the wise among us were fully prepared for a miserable season. Starting off 3 and 0 could not have been more damaging to our mental stability.

Numero Ocho:

Ocho means ‘eight’ in Spanish. Cinco means ‘five.’ Ocho-Cinco, however, does not translate to eighty-five. Sorry Chad . . .

Number Seven:

I seriously think I have some sort of mental deficiency related to remembering names. I spent almost thirty seconds this morning trying to remember my boss’s boss’s name. Don’t let the far-removed hierarchy fool you, I’ve used his name properly every day for the last month!

Number Five:

I also seem to have trouble counting backwards . . .

Number Six:

Mollie, Andrew and Anna are once again off gallivanting about the known universe. More specifically, they’re in Iowa. Some people quote a clever acronym regarding the residents of Iowa. I find the acronym to be three-quarters inaccurate . . . they very rarely “Out Wandering Around . . .”

Number Four:

Walter Payton, Nolan Ryan and Bo Jackson – eternal members of the uber-stud club. Did I miss anyone?

Number Three:

I have eleven bobble-head dolls in my study. When their teams play badly, they must turn and face the wall. Which reminds me, “Mr. Urlacher, about face . . . Don’t you argue with me now. I understand that you are playing well, but all your buddies up there on the shelf don’t even play for the Bears anymore and you don’t hear them complaining when I turn them around! This is a team effort. Don’t give me no lip, son.” . . . smack . . . bobble, bobble, bobble, bobble, bobble, bobble . . .

Number Two:

Yes, as my profile states, Taco is my favorite word.

(editor’s note: I double checked. My blog profile mentions tacos, but doesn’t say anything about them being my favorite. I really have no idea what online profile makes such a claim. It doesn’t make it any less true, though.)

And the number one random fact for Thursday, October 28, 2010 is:

The giddy laughter ensuing a proofread of numbers ten through two has made typing number one rather difficult. I should probably go to bed!

Faux Art 13: Over the World's End

Faux Art 13: Over the World's End

I Live a Normal Life

Like any good father, I have taken some time to teach my son about the finer things in life. And so it is that occasion will find the two of us, Wii remotes in hand, stomping Goombas and hurling turtle shells our futile quest to save Princess Peach. Not that we’ve enjoyed such frivolities lately. Being a working father leaves little time for the excesses of life, such as Mario, reading for pleasure and children.

Yet on the way home from work this Monday, I was struck with a strange urge to lock the children in a closet and indulge in a munchkinless night out with my wife. Finding all the closets full, I resorted to plan B, nearly exhausting my phone list before procuring a sitter. One trip across town to pick them up and a cooked package of macaroni and cheese later, my pleasantly surprised wife and I were off.

As freedom’s wind blew through our hair, we drove off into the night. Any destination was but a wish away. Movies, dinner, there was so much to choose from. With little to no discussion, I directed our car to our first date-night destination – Menards.

That’s right, with the entire town of Springfield at our beckon call, we could find no destination more alluring than a big-box hardware store. While that may be taken as a commentary on the night life in Illinois’ capitol city, I feel it is more a tale of our life less extraordinary. For the past three months, we have watched as our general contractor has managed a mere single step per week in his painstakingly slow process of building us a porch. Two weeks ago, they poured the front steps. Last week, he got prices for the railings. This week, he’s ordering the materials. Next week, he may get the wiring done and if we’re lucky, he may even install the railings the week after that . . . . . and that’s why our first stop as an unleashed couple was to stop at Menards. After all, picking out lighting fixtures for your front door is not a task that begs to be distracted by miniature humans.

Picking the lights we both liked may have been the easiest decision we have ever made. We found our way to the lighting displays, took two steps down the aisle, when both of us simultaneously pointed and exclaimed, “I like that one!” We were courteous enough to give our due our respect for the other suitors, but it was all show. Our minds were made up and our time at Menards was quickly over.

With Menards behind us, our night took on a more standard date-night feel. We enjoyed a quiet dinner at a fancy restaurant, followed by little boy underwear shopping at ShopKo. Hey, I never claimed to live a normal life . . . ahem.

But these are the things that make up our life. With Andrew finally beginning to understand the concept of staying dry (at least from Sunday morning until about half an hour ago Wednesday evening), we needed more than five pairs to allow the laundry to sit unmolested. And with his sudden understanding of, shall we say ‘when he needs to go’, I had little desire to tempt fate by having to put him back in pull-ups.

It’s amazing how suddenly Andrew seems to have changed his habits. Over the course of one day, he went from contentedly sitting in soggy bottoms to coming out of the bathroom having already done his business before even telling us he had to go. I guess sometimes things just click.

Speaking of clicking, Andrew accompanied me through the bank drive-up the other day. On a previous trip to the Wal-Mart pharmacy, I had tried to explain how there was a tube inside a pillar that took a box from me to . . . well, if you know what I mean, he didn’t. But as I pulled up to the bank, I noticed that the tube was visible. I showed Andrew the canister and explained how I would push a button and air would suck the canister up the tube. He listened intently, then interjected, “Like Mario goes down the tube!” I had to stop short and think about it . . . It was so simple and so beautiful. I answered the only way one possibly can when faced with such crystal clear childhood perception. “Yes, it’s exactly like Mario.”

Pink Potential

Pink Potential

“Not to Go Back is Somewhat to Advance” - Alexander Pope

Efficiency has always been overrated, at least when it comes to watching a child grow up. Why else would parents long for the day their child learns to use a fork? Using one’s grubby little fingers is by far the most effective way to eat. Just ask any professional eater; you never see any of them wasting effort with time-consuming utensils. Why then do so many of us long for our children to use a spoon? No, of course it has nothing to do with the latter method being cleaner; no one has ever complained that a kid was making too much of a mess. Rather, I am firmly convinced the desire stems from an inherent understanding that efficiency is less important than a child’s ability to learn something new.

Take my little girl . . . please . . . Okay, I couldn’t resist borrowing that golden oldie, but as I type, ‘The Girl’ is upstairs in her crib, screaming as though she fears eternal internment within the confines of her crate-like prison. On a recent reprieve from her caged bed, she demonstrated a new-found ability. She cast off her antiquated form of mobility, namely army crawling about the house, and has since been moving about upon her hands and knees. I was so excited to see her ‘properly’ crawling that I got out the video camera to document this marvel. (I have even included a brief snippet for your enjoyment! You will find it beneath this post . . . but only if you read the whole thing!)

Yet this step forward, which I celebrated in the name of progress, came at a price. Her mastery of the army crawl was phenomenal; she could worm her way around the house faster than I could pick up the things she wasn’t supposed to be playing with. Her new skill, however, was a serious impediment upon her mobility. I was in awe of the flailing arms, knees, legs and elbows, all of which resulted in a painfully slow procession across the floor. There was a flurry of motion, yet very little movement. In fact, there were a couple times over then next few days when her pants were so slippery, she would flail about contentedly while failing to move even one inch! Despite my parental joy and wonder I had to ask myself, was this really a step in the right direction?

Other times, however, a child’s wisdom pushes through all the stubborn etiquettes we have engrained upon ourselves and cuts right to the chase. There is no beating about the bush, meandering of thought or lollygagging. (“You lollygag your way down to first. You lollygag in and out of the dugout. You know what that makes you? Larry!” “Lollygaggers!”) While an adult might tame their tongue and hold back a snide comment, a child’s insight has no use for such censorship.

And so it was as I was introduced to a friend of a child of a friend at Andrew’s third birthday party. A brief passing of pleasantries quickly revealed we lived on opposite sides of the Chicago sports world. I invited Andrew over to show off his trained response, “We don’t like the Cubs!” It was not to be. Childhood innocence and insight prevailed as I attempted my set-up. “Andrew, this is (yeah, I’m bad at remembering names, what are you gonna do about it?). He likes the Cubs.” His answer could not have been simpler. It could not have been more to the point. It was the true essence of efficiency. He looked up at the man before him and asked in honest earnest, “Why?”

Annaliese Crawling Video

If it please the court, I would like to submit State's Evidence 'A': A video of the accussed allegedly crawling.