"Under qualified white man gets the job" is not groundbreaking or historical.

Wow.  What an amazing and unusual and historical election.

<shrug>

Notsomuch.

I have spent a lot (OMG a lot, so, so much angry and weepy time) trying to figure out the fevered rationalizations of the 42% of American women who voted for Donald Trump.

Not that anyone particularly needs to brush up on the horrors, but this man is a confessed sexual predator.  He rates the value of women solely on where he deems they fall on a scale of hotness, bangability & willingness to tolerate the (we can only imagine to be incompetent) fumbling approaches of his tiny, clammy baby-man hands and moist sphincter mouth.

Jesus.  I apologize.  I am sorry.  I am so, so sorry for the totally accurate image that paints for you all.  You can almost feel his fetid, humid breath on the back of your neck, can't you?

I digress.  In a nutshell, a crude, weak, man in power who disrespects, devalues, demeans, and violates women multiple times on a daily basis as he moves through the privileged world he inhabits.  Same old, same old.  How can women vote for someone who disrespects their existence so much so that he  doubles down on it during his campaign and doesn't even bother to try and be worthy of the vote he probably thinks they shouldn't have?

Wait.  Same old, SAME OLD.  That's why.  That's how.  His attitude and treatment, his judgement and dismissal, this is just the same old thing that girls and women everywhere in they country ignore, repel, and rise above every single day.  It does not represent a change in the life or environment for anyone - a Trump presidency just mean we women break even.  He is more crude, open and honest about it than your average bear, sure,  and once he is in office perhaps there are a few more neanderthals in the general population that also bring their hidden misogyny out into the open, but nothing about what he has done or said is particularly novel or even all that interesting to any of us.

 Wait.  What?  We are judged by our appearance?  We are taken less seriously?  We are dismissed as emotional or shrill or humorless when we openly confront sexism in the wild? Our likability is more important than our skills, experience, or intelligence? We willingly stand by as a country and let the media take a 6 times bankrupt business failure reality 'star' who is open about grabbing women by the pussy be elevated as somehow the political equivalent to the most qualified candidate in the history of the nation? Some men think of us as Things and not People?

THIS IS (not) BRAND NEW INFORMATION!!!!!!

It is funny that votes for this piss poor representation of a 'man' are being characterized as "votes for change".  They are anything but.  A vote for a uniquely qualified candidate who has worked in public service their entire adult life, has local, state, and federal government experience, is well respected among both parties (except in an election year, natch) and foreign governments alike who also happens to be a woman for the first time and happens to have 8 years of experience seeing the job up close and personal as First Lady so they know exactly what they are getting into?   THAT is change, people.  That is something that goes a bit against the grain in this country.

Literally nothing about this election is historical except the hysteria.  Until we can change the perception and value and dialogue about how women are treated in our society, a powerful white man who deems us as lesser creatures who exist to be judged and used for his amusement is just another day in America.

Lets use this opportunity as a way to identify and cull from the herd, once and for all, the worst of the worst kind of man.  Those men that are legitimized and validated and freed by the example our President elect (omg, gag) has set and bring the misogyny they had kept under wraps for the sake of political correctness out in the open.

We've got 4 long years. Let's take out the Trash.

Back to the keyboard

I'm here.

I've had a few requests to resurrect this blog (some requests were not even my mother!) so here we go.

Brace yourselves for the next 4 weeks of blistering political commentary.  And then some more.  No matter the outcome, I'm thinking systemic racism and sexism and all the other isms won't be quite fixed all at once.  If Trump wins, I will post as long as I can until he either establishes a dictatorship with no freedom of speech or incites a nuclear holocaust; whichever comes first.

Theres some stuff here going back quite a while.  Rereading it sometimes feels a little bit like reading your middle school diary, but in an even worse way.  :P   Some sad, some funny (I hope) and some maudlin/depressing/borderline pathetic, I am sure.  Turns out I might occasionally get out of the dramatic side of the bed in the morning -- who knew?  I've got bits and pieces of other stuff in various places; I am going to try and get that all up at some point too.  And try and fill in some gaps from when certain things were just too closely held to put on a page.   Maybe it will all come in handy when the boys have kids so I can send them pertinent posts when their own kids are driving them nuts or making them puff up with love so rich you can't even digest it all.

The most recent bits are kinda dad-centric, and maybe a bit.........I dunno.   Heavier than some of the rest?  That sort of loss can weigh you down.

In any case, here it is.   Judge me as you will.  But not, like, out loud to me.  I'm very sensitive.  :P

Year Three

It would come as no surprise to anyone who knew my father that he loved Van Morrison. I grew up to the rollicking sound of Gloria and Brown Eyed Girl and the soothing, poetic Tupelo Honey and Crazy Love. It was something we shared, our love of this music, the way it changed and evolved over time. For a long time, Moondance was our go-to road trip album.
He’d never seen Van the Man in person. In 2010, just a couple of years before he died, Van hit Austin at the Bass Concert Hall. My sisters and I pitched in and bought tickets for Christmas. On the way to the concert I wasn’t sure he totally understood what we were doing, but once we got to the venue he became…..well, the only word I can think of is giddy. I sat next to him during the show, and he was just so damn happy. He may not have known how or why he got there, he certainly didn’t think about anything outside of that concert. It was pure joy to witness it. He was completely engaged and present and just lost in the moment. 
On the way home after the concert he talked about how great it was and how happy he was with the set list. Slowly, of course, the sense that he was really there with us again faded back to the functional vagueness I had become accustomed to.
For the next several months, though, he would tell me, with same spark of giddiness, everything about that concert. He had no recollection that I had been there, but that was fine with me. It simply made me so happy to see him so happy again, with a little bit of that engagement and interest in life back for a fleeting moment. To have the chance to experience his joy, over and over. I would have listened to him tell that story a thousand times. God, I wish I still could, even just once. 
After he died, there was a long list of songs I just could not bear to listen to. The memories just hurt too much. Slowly I was able to endure them and remember wistfully how integral music was in much of the time we spent together. In time, I came to enjoy them again.
The one song I never was able to get to; the final and our favorite and the closing song of that concert was Into The Mystic. A beauty about love and longing and death and ultimately peace. I will listen to that today. Because he would love to know that I had.

Hark, now hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly
Into the mystic

3 years. I love you, Dad.

Gaaahhhhh.

I'm depressed.  I hate it. 

This happens every so often.  I am certain there is a rhyme or reason that I am just unaware of.  Hormones, lunar cycles, whatever.  I've never been able to pin it down. 

I notice it creeping up on me.   The need for a pep talk and running through a list of pros and cons of calling in sick before I get out of bed.  (Note:  kids are GREAT for this.  I have to get up no matter what, so I might as well just go to work!) 

It becomes a vague dissatisfaction with everything.  Mostly, a constant, low level yearning for MORE.  More what I don't exactly know.  More help from the kids dad.  More attention from my friends.  More from the people I love.  The bitch of it is that there is never enough more.  You literally cannot love me enough to fix it, because thats an external solution to an internal problem.  It has taken me years to learn that - years and relationships.  I want to shout "I'M UNHAPPY!!!  MAKE IT BETTER!!!" but there really isn't any point, because you can't. 

Replaced

Zachary started kindergarten.

I feel so lucky that he has Drew's kindergarten teacher.  She is wonderful - smart, sweet, kind, loving.  Basically everything you want your kids kindergarten teacher to be.

She is also, as Zachary REPEATEDLY mentions, prettier than me. 

Me: Zachary, are you liking kindergarten?

Zachary: Yes!  I love Miss Rinehart!

Me: Yeah, she is very nice, isn't she?

Zachary: Yes.  And also prettier than you.

Me:  Well, I'm glad you like her and think she is nice.

Zachary:  And prettier.

Me: Yes.  Well.  She *is* very pretty, but it is more important that she is smart and kind and wants to help you learn.

Zachary: And she is pretty.  I think I won't marry you, I will marry her.


Oh for fucks sake.



I GET THE PICTURE KID.

2 Years

It's been two years since my father died. Everyone says the first year is the hardest. I don't know how true that is. The first year was punctuated with tiny moments of relief – oh, I got through the first Fathers Day/birthday/Christmas without dad! The second year was harder in a way, as the loss settled in and became just a part of who I am. With the Alzheimers, I feel like we have been grieving tiny losses and missing my dad for years, ever since his diagnoses, as he slowly lost himself bit by bit. I don't feel like I miss him any less now. Differently, perhaps.

On some perfect sunny days, I still think "I need to call Dad and have him meet me at Huts for lunch!" and then I realize all over again that he is gone, and the stark reality is that the opportunity to meet him for lunch has been gone for many more years. I miss stealing pens from his desk (or front pocket; I had no shame!). I missed him when I was at the hospital with Drew, waiting for whatever procedure was going on to be over. Dad was a champion waiter in stressful situations. He always had a book, and he could sit for hours, never being annoying or talking too much, just being there steady as granite, there just in case you needed a cup of coffee or a walk. His presence was a comfort always, and I feel so much less grounded waiting on my own.

There are still a handful of songs I can't listen to while driving.

I pass both the Alzheimers home where he died and his sculpture on MoPac daily. I remember that last weekend of his life; the weekend of waiting. Of how ready we all felt we were before he passed and how totally unprepared and shocked we all felt after. I remember my friends gentle love and care for me and their tears on my behalf, and the love in the room at dads memorial.

After all this time, I still can't quite wrap my head around how someone can be there one minute and gone the next. Where did the essence of who he was GO? What happens in the vacuum left behind? I tell Drew & Zak that as long as we remember Granddaddy and his love he is still with us.

Some days I am more convincing than others.

 

Take Action

Today September 21^st is Alzheimers Action Day. My dad died June 5^th of Alzheimers disease.
I think of him every damn day, and I remember the pain of watching him slip away from us and from himself. I still find myself turning the fact that he is gone over and over in my head, just trying to make sense of how he was here, but now he’s not. All that intelligence and kindness and humor and all those hugs, just gone. I occasionally wake up in the middle of the night and realize, all at once like it is the very first time, that I will never hug my dad again. I am unable to sleep the rest of the night, the magnitude of that thought is just too large and looming to live with.
This is what I wrote for his memorial. It’s so weak a representation of who he was, but I can’t imagine anything I could write that would capture him.

First of all, I want to thank you all for coming. I know this is all a bit unconventional, but you all know my father so that can hardly be surprising. This is the sort of gathering he relished – people he loved in a place he loved, sitting back and enjoying each other, listening to some music, and having a laugh.
I see people here from every phase of my fathers life, and it really defines who he was as a person. That there are people here that he has known since grade school tells me that he was a good and loyal friend, his coworkers show me that he was a hard worker and well respected, and the special people who supported my mother and cared for him at the end of his life show me that even as the facets of his personality rounded and faded, there was something special about my father, some spark of humor and wit and honor and character that no one could fail to recognize or be drawn to. Alzheimers had a particularly specific kind of cruelty for my father, one of the most cerebral people I know, but even that juggernaut could not blunt his charm entirely.
I am here to celebrate my father, but I have to say that my heart is good and truly broken. I wanted to tell you a few stories about dad, but the reality is that I could never narrow it down to just a few. We took stained glass classes together and went on road trips. We learned to make arrowheads and he came to my kids pediatrician appointments. We went to Graceland and he took me to his office so I could see his work. We went to concerts and ball games and sewage treatment plants and Laguna Gloria. Quite simply, my father was always there, always a presence in my life.
When my first son was born I called my dad from the hospital, suddenly terrified of the responsibility looming over me, confident I was going to screw it all up and my dad told me “Julie, the only thing you need to give that baby is peanut butter, some dirt, and love.” Growing up, we all had ample supplies of each, and even when I was furious at my dad for whatever the perceived parental injustice of the day was, I never, ever doubted his love for me. Like most kids, I thoughtlessly took my dad for granted as a child, but as an adult I realize how lucky I am to not only have had a father that I loved and who loved me in return, but a father that I truly liked and who liked me right back.
When I was very young, I was a really horrible sleeper. Late in the night one winter, my dad came to my room and without a word bundled me into my jacket and put me in the car. He drove and drove to the outskirts of Austin, put me on the hood of the car, and told me to look up. There was an amazing meteor shower that night, and we watched the shooting stars together for a good long while, and then he took me home and tucked me back into bed. That was the sort of thing my dad did well – the unexpected, special moments, the random postcard or short story that showed up in the mail, handing you the most perfect gift you never knew you had always wanted.
I will long for my father when I read a great book I want to talk about, hear a Van Morrison song, get frustrated by a math problem of any kind, eat a Theta burger at Huts, or see any of the million places we went to together in Austin. So pretty much always. But especially when I see a shooting star.

Commitmentphobe

Last night, Drew crawled into my lap like a baby as I was reading. He is getting too old and big and strong and grown up for me to force him to hang out with me because I am his mother and not a video game or SpongeBob, so I really enjoyed it. I started kissing his face all over, you know, since no one was looking and all.

Drew: Mommy! Eww! It’s like we’re dating or something?

Me: Like we are dating? Huh? What’s dating to you? What do you know about dating?

Drew: It’s like when boys and girls touch each other and kiss all the time or get married.

Me: I thought you wanted to get married to me.

Drew: Mommy. I am six years old!!!!!


Apparently the commitment phobia starts early. Next year he’ll be seven, then ten, then fifteen, and I am just sitting around waiting forever, my best years behind me, until he meets some harlot in pigtails his own age and bails, leaving me in my tattered wedding dress, a 21st century Miss Havisham, crumbling in front of a mirror while they go out to the movies or whatever TOTALLY INNOCENT ACTIVITY fifteen year olds are up to in 2021. Maybe sock hops will come back in vogue.


Sigh.

Maybe they should.......

I love to listen to Zachary talk to his friends when I pick him up from school. The conversations have absolutely no commonality. Z is talking about acorns, and how he is not allowed to bring them inside school. Nathan is yelling that he needs a hug RIGHT NOW. Ben is eating play doh, and yet still shouting to participate in the conversation, you just can’t tell what he is saying over the mound of yellow clay in his mouth.

Listening to 3 year old boys talk to each other is like watching commentators on FOX news. Everyone randomly shouts, no ones ideas make any logical sense, no one is listening, and their gender politics are both rigid and misogynistic. The only substantive difference is that FOX guys talk about Ironman way less.

Passing

I was able to spend the last days of my dads life by his side, and I will always be greatful for that. I read him some Mark Twain, we listened to some Van Morrison and some U2, and I told him over and over again how much I loved him. Many of his lifelong friends (some since middle school) were able to come see him as well. The hospice nurse woke my mom at shortly before 5 to tell her it was time, and she was able to hold his hand and talk him through his last breaths. She said it was very peaceful, and he wasn't afraid.  

My dad was a great man. Opinionated, flawed, smart as hell, and terribly funny. I consider myself terribly lucky to have had him, and to have had a father who I genuinely loved to spend time with. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that one moment my dad was here, and now he isn't. I want to say I am doing ok, but my heart is good and truly broken.

He didnt want a funeral, so we are having a memorial later this month at a local beer garten he used to go to all the time. I remember being there when I was 5 or 6, begging for quarters for the juke box and I remember having nachos with him there as recently as right before he went to live at the residential home. I think he'd really like that location.

Progression

Just had a hard visit. I miss him so much, you guys. I'm not certain he really knew who I was, but he's not talking much anymore, so I don't really know. We just sat together, and at one point he grabbed my hand and kissed it and smiled. A while later it seemed obvious he wanted me to go. He was turning away, he looked so sad. Then he started covering his face like he didnt want us to see him. Like he was ashamed or embarassed. My heart broke in a thousand pieces. He's so unsteady on his feet now. He looks so vacant sometimes. I can't believe it has only been a year since he moved. Things have progressed so fast.  

I just want him to hug me back. Thats all.

Things I constantly buy but somehow never have enough of

Rubber bands

bobby pins

tweezers

nail clippers

pinkish mauveish brownish lip products be they pencil, gloss, lipstick or stain

purple eyeliner

spoons

Some of these I never have enough of because they slip away through my hands like water. I’m looking at you, rubber bands. Some I just persistently and constantly buy duplicates of. (See my bulging cosmetics case.) And some I refuse to pay a lot of money for, then get pissy that the ones I cheaped out on suck, so I toss them and then buy more cheap ones to hate on later. Tweezers, you little sons of bitches. I have no idea where the spoons go, but I bet my kids do.

Fathers & Mothers

It’s Christmas Eve and I am missing my dad.

Really, the only notable fact there is the Christmas Eve part. I miss my dad every day. Sometimes it’s a fleeting thought that I wish I could talk about a work problem with him, sometimes it’s a pain in my chest, an actual physical pressure that weighs me down and I feel like I can’t breathe through the gravity of it all.

I visited Dad yesterday. The visits are always difficult, of course. Usually because I leave still missing my dad as much as I ever did. One of the hardest things about his Alzheimers for me has been how impossible it seems at times to really connect with him. Mostly he knows who I am, mostly he knows I am Julie, his daughter. But it feels like a shallow kind of knowledge, with all the gravity and history of our relationship somehow untethered from how he defines me. I am Julie, his daughter, but I am not sure he always knows what that means.

Yesterday we walked outside a little, chatted about the usual — the weather, how the boys are doing, how is my mother. It got cold and we went inside and sat on the couch. I made a comment about my grandmother, his mother. And my dad began to cry. To cry. My father. He didn’t understand, he said. He knew he was losing some memory, but he didn’t know why, and it was weird, he said, to hear me talk about his mother. I tried to be calm, to maintain my composure as I thought “Oh my god, oh my god, I upset him, he is upset and it is my fault and I need to figure out a way to fix this right now.” But I couldn’t think of anything that might comfort someone who was, like I was, just missing their parent. So I talked about her some more, and eventually he started talking about his daughters. How much he loved them, how much fun they were. He turned to me and looked at me and took my hand and said “I really love you, Julie.” And I felt like he was really all THERE, for that moment, and I began to cry, too. For everything that Alzheimers is slowly taking away. Not from me so much, but from my father. He misses us, too. He is losing us just as surely as we are losing him. There is nothing any of us can do, I thought, there is no stopping this horrible descent, but for now, we are here and that is all there is.

I put my head on his shoulder, and we clasped hands, and we cried together.

I had to help my dad dress this weekend.

 I don't think my heart ever broke more. 

I took the boys to see him Friday evening and when we got there he was in his room in just boxers. I knocked on the door and he answered, and his face was so apprehensive and scared, like he didn't know what to expect. He saw it was me and I saw he had no pants so I said "Hey, we are going to go wait in the dining room, why don't you put on some pants and meet us there?" I corralled the boys to the table (a few feet away) and I heard him calling my name. I went into his room and he was sitting on the edge of the bed. He asked me "I don't know what I am supposed to do here. I need pants or something?"

So I grabbed his pants. They were on the floor, tangled up in his shoes like he had taken his pants off before he took his shoes off.  I untangled everything and helped him get them on. He tried to zip the zipper before he pulled them up and then tried to buckle the belt before he buttoned or zipped them. And he kept asking me what was happening and where were we going. When he stood up, he suddenly grabbed me and put his head on my shoulder and just hugged me. Then he kissed my cheek and said he loved me. And then he said "I was wondering. Will there ever be a time when I won't be in a place like this?"  

And a little part of me died inside.  

There are so many days I just feel like I can't handle this. At all.

Too many feelings

I am so fucking tired of Alzheimer's disease. I fucking hate it. HATE. I just had to sit through a healthy eating course at work, which is fine, but they kept mentioning Alz as something diet could prevent. And frankly, I have done a lot of research, and that's just not true a lot of the time, and it pissed me off in a "why are you blaming the victim here?" kind of way. Dad liked ice cream and so he earned it? Fuck you. (And yeah, I get that's not what they are saying rationally, but irrationally it pissed me off.) I am tired of worrying about whether or not I am going to get it, and put my kids through this bullshit. Or my sisters. I shit you not, I considered staying with Cliff because I was so afraid of that. I still am. Every time I get a word on the tip of my tongue but can't quite get it or forget a street name, I think about it. Every time.  

Looking at places for my dad is killing me. I keep imagining him, at bedtime, wondering why he is there and not at home, looking for my mother, wondering why we left him there.  

I am just so, so angry. And there's no one to be angry AT. That's the hard part.

Thankfulness

Drew

Drew………right now he is caught in this wonderful, poignant place between preschooler and Kid. Almost a kid — occasionally embarassed at hugs and kisses when I drop him at school, starting the eye rolling when I remind him to wash his hands or go to the potty, but still little enough that when I pick him up from school, as soon as I walk out the door to the playground, I hear “MOMMYYYYY!!!!!” and watch him tear across the playground at full speed to jump into my arms with enough force to almost knock me over. I have never been greeted with such joy and fervor in my life, and it is one of the very best moments of every school day. I am thankful for his cleverness (even when it works against me!), his friendliness and socialiability, the way he plays little jokes and then slyly says “Mommy, I was trick-sing you!”. We still lay down together for his bedtime, and my day is not complete until he tells me “I love you, mama, and I will see you in the morningtime”.

Zachary

Zachary……..Zak Attack! Bull in a china shop. No one who meets Zachary fails to be astounded at his sheer strength. He’s small for his age, but never was there a more solid, sturdy kid. He is happy 95% of the time, but lord help you the other 5%, for he will make his displeasure known to all within earshot. After I hear Drew’s goodnights, I eventually settle in for the night with Mr Zachary. He’s a world champion snuggler, and mostly refuses to sleep alone. He wakes up like his father — meaning cranky as hell — but after a drink and a snack he settles into his role as Mr. Happy. His recipe for joy includes snacks and crumbs of attention from Big Brother Drew. Nothing else is required.
I know it’s cliche to say how much you love your kids, and I was thinking last night as Drew and I played a game how much I just *liked* them. I like spending time with them, I like their occasionally silly little games, I like hard hugs and wet kisses and sharing the food off my dinner plate (most of the time). They humble me with their love, and I am beyond grateful to have the opportunity to return it.

On the tip of my tongue........

The other day on the elevator, I was telling my sister a story and I could NOT remember the name of a person I was talking about. It was elusive— just right there, but I couldn’t get to that name.
Stuff like that scares the bejesus out of me.

Mom and dad had kids young. When dad was diagnosed, I was in my mid thirties. If I were to end up in the same boat, Zak and Drew would be in their young twenties. That’s just too young to have to deal with an ailing parent. Too, too young.

Shortly after Dad was diagnosed, he told my mother that she’d be relieved to know he had decided against suicide. I don’t know how serious he was, but I do know he wouldn’t have mentioned it unless he had — however briefly — considered it. It made me really, really angry. How dare he even think of making a decision like that? But every time I forget to do something or space out on a name, I think about that conversation, and I understand just a little. I am established in my life, and this sucks. I cannot imagine if the boys were in college and they got that news about me.

There are some types of early onset Alzheimers that are genetically influenced in a way that you can get tested to see if you can get it. They have not said that Dad has that kind, and given that no one in his family before him had AD, I doubt it is. But I do wonder what I would do if it was. Would I want to know? Probably not really. Would I find out? Yeah, I think I would. Not so much for myself, but so that I could be sure to wring every single bit of pleasure out of my boys now, so that I could set things up for them so they didn’t have to worry about the mundane details of taking care of me.

Even now, I sometimes hug Drew or kiss Zachary, overcome by the desire to hug him just a little harder or kiss just one more time, and think “I want to REMEMBER this.” I want to remember it always. Forever. The smell of their hair, their sturdy arms snuggling me. It reminds me that this damn disease doesn’t only steal loved ones away from us, but we leave them as well. One day my dad might not know who I am. I think about how painful that will be. For both of us.

This morning, Drew kept asking me for toast and I kept putting him off. I was actually doing it, just slowly along with the 47 million other things I have to do to get us out of the house every morning, but I am sure he felt like I was ignoring him.

He walks up to me, puts his hands on his hips and says “Mommy! I want my toast, please. How many times I have to ask you? I ask you a MILLION times already, but you just not listen.” and he shook his head sadly, like there was no hope for me at all.

Which, lets face it, might be true.

Last Morning

One of the best things about having kids is that they are just funny. I love the way Drew talks. I love the words he mispronounces and the ones he just can’t figure out the meaning to.

He is convinced our neighbors are his “parents”. I do not have the slightest clue WHY he thinks this, but he will not be swayed. Cliff and I are Daddy and Mama, so our roles are obviously defined. But since other people are always telling him he needs to ask his Parents permission to do things, he had to assign that role to someone. I know he is confused about why he needs to ask our neighbors to cross the street or eat a sample of pizza roll at Costco, and I find it mildly disturbing that at 4 he already realizes that his father and I, while lovely, clearly lack the sort of authority and gravitas the label “parents” seems to require.

He either does not understand or cannot say the word “yesterday”. So instead, he says “last morning”. Which is awesome. I don’t know why, but it kills me and I hope he always does it, even when the other kids at Harvard make fun of him. “Hey, how did you do on that pop quiz we had last morning?”

Computer = compudder
Goldfish = goldfishies
raviolis = ollies

When he asks for milk, he has started asking for “a drink called milk”. I don’t know if he thinks I need the clarity or I will throw a Drink Called Battery Acid in the sippy or what, but he always needs a drink. Called milk. Just so you don’t screw it up, mom.

Family Programming

So before I had a kid, I always wondered who in the world watched crap like “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and stuff.

I now have my answer. Drew thinks that show is the Bomb. He calls it “Falling Down Show”, which really is the better of two options, considering “Ball To The Crotch Show” would be equally appropriate. He laughs harder than I have ever seen a kid laugh. Rolling on the floor, total hysterics. It is awesome, and I willingly tolerate Tom Bergeron (the perfect host for those in Middle America who find Ryan Secrest a bit too edgy) for the sake of those belly laughs.

About the only show that tops Falling Down Show is Big Red Ball Show.

She’s not gonna make it!!

Yes, Wipeout. I guess it’s funnier if the people are supposed to fall down.
 

The show premiers tonight with a 2 hour episode. I don’t know if Drew will be able to handle it. Our couches, either, because he usually starts jumping around on the furniture at about 15 minutes in, with all rebukes met with “But I’m doing my PRACTICE!!!!”

We have no idea what he is practicing for. But whatever happens, he will be ready.

It just occurred to me that both shows are broadcasted by ABC. Where they can’t find anyone to write dialogue, apparently.