Star Wars introduced me to blue milk. My mom introduced me to blue steak.
When my mom got her kitchen remodeled in the 1980’s she was adamant about placing the microwave as close to the refrigerator as possible for convenience. Most of our food was prepared in an assembly line; from freezer, to microwave, to plate, to table. It wasn’t until I was older I figured out what all the other boxy objects ( the “stove”, for example ) in the kitchen were actually for. My mom sure could rock the ‘wave though. It was the Instant Pot of the day, capable of doing almost everything …
Proof that it’s impossible to “go see” a puppy without bringing it home. For more go here.
Is your household a little too calm and relaxing? Do you have lots of nice things that you need destroyed in short order? Is your carpet looking a little too clean? Is walking through your backyard without stepping in something too easy and you need more of a challenge? Well, if that’s the case I have a solution to your problem – adopt a puppy! A puppy will resolve all of these problems within days of bringing one home.
In practice, there’s really no such thing as “visiting” a puppy that is up for adoption. That was Jodie and my first mistake. The second was bringing our daughters, Ashley and Kaylee, with us. There was no way “Mattie” ( now “Maddie” ) wasn’t coming home with us.
Take care. Stay healthy. Live life. Adopt a puppy ( you won’t regret it ).
Any road trip with my dad was the best road trip ever. For more go here.
In the late 1980’s my dad took my brother and I on an unforgettable road trip to Yellowstone. We spent the majority of the trip lying down in the cramped shell of his compact red pickup surrounded by camping gear, coolers, and a questionably watertight portable toilet. The cool thing about growing up in the 80’s is that you could do this, the bad thing about growing up in the 80’s is that you could do this. Today, if you were to ask me the most memorable thing about the trip, it wouldn’t be the geysers, or moose, or the camping – it would be the hours upon hours of conversation with my dad through the narrow sliding window joining the cab where my dad drove, and the bed, where my brother and I laid down.
Take care. Stay healthy. Live life. Enjoy the journey.
My family and I were invited to join our good friends for a beach party on Coronado for an end-of-summer marshmallow roast before all of our kids went back to school. The waves were just big enough, the weather was just perfect enough, and the Del provided an endless supply of s’mores. As I watched my oldest get churned up in the waves I kept expecting her to stomp out of the water, throw down her board, and give up. She never did and her reaction after we finally had to fish her out of the water for s’mores was priceless.
This was inspired by my daughters’ friend, Allan. He’s proud of his single solitary stubble. Maybe I’ll buy him a bottle of aftershave for his upcoming 11th birthday.
This hasn’t happened …. yet, but I wouldn’t put it past my cheese-loving daughter.
My oldest daughter loves cheese. She will often hover around when I am grating it and, when I am not looking, scoop some up and run off leaving a trail of shredded bits behind her. She is a true cheese-lover, or “Turophile” ( “Tyros” is Greek for cheese and “Phile” is English for Lover ). As of yet she hasn’t actually asked me to lick the cheese off of the grater, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
She takes after her old man, but unfortunately my dairy days are over. It’s bad for prostate cancer and, as such, that cow, at least for me, has gone off to pasture.
After “throwing” Kaylee on a bee I comforted her in a way only a father knows how. For more go here.
Last week I was rolling around with my youngest daughter, Kaylee, on the grass in our backyard. At one point I heaved her up and unceremoniously plopped her onto her butt. What happened next surprised me. Her eyes grew as big as saucers and she launched herself into the air with a loud shriek.
“Dad threw me onto a bee!”, she screamed, flailing her arms.
“DAD THREW ME ONTO A BEE!”, she screamed again, louder.
In one swift move Jodie rushed over, picked her up, sat her on a bench, and removed the stinger. After Jodie produced a bag of frozen peas to apply to the gaping hole in Kaylee’s leg I felt the situation had been diffused enough to sidle up next to her. This comic was inspired by what transpired next.
It never ceases to amaze me how complex a face mask really is. I’ve seen more masks converted to stylish ascots and/or subjected to periscoping noses than I care to. The instructions are simple. If you’re going to wear one, please, at least wear it correctly.
“Dad! Can we do an Easter Egg Hunt on Minecraft?”, my oldest daughter, Ashley, asked me.
In years past we would go to the Westwood Club, our community center, for an annual Easter Egg Hunt with our friends and neighbors. However this year, due to social distancing restrictions enacted to slow the Coronavirus, the community center would be closed and the Easter Egg Hunt, cancelled.
“That is a great – wait, no, fantastic idea!”, I told her excitedly, “Let’s do it!”
So, during the week leading up to Easter Sunday we created a Minecraft World, populated it with a bunch of colorful “eggs” ( we substituted in-game colored wool blocks ), and scheduled a Zoom teleconference so that the participants could talk.
We kept the rule simple.
Each participant would be provided a “basket” ( an in-game chest ) that would reside in the starting area.
Each basket would contain tools ( a pickaxe and shears ) which would allow the participant to “mine” the eggs.
A hunt would last 15 minutes.
During the hunt each participant would have to find and mine as many eggs as they could and return them to their basket before time ran out. Only eggs inside the basket at the end of the hunt would be tallied.
And most importantly, the participant with the most eggs wins.
For each hunt we also hid a special “golden egg” ( an in-game gold block ) which would be worth ten regular eggs.
To get by Minecraft’s 8-player limit we would hold two hunts. The first would be for the older kids who would re-hide the eggs for the second hunt, which would be for the younger kids.
The hunt had it’s hiccups, but everyone seemed to have a good time. Hopefully next year we’ll be able to once again meet up with our friends and neighbors at the community center for a real, in-person Easter Egg Hunt, but desperate times call for desperate measures and this measure, in my humble opinion, wasn’t so much desperate as it was fun.
Take care. Stay healthy. Live life. And stay safe everyone.
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