Checkers Speech

Gotta look it up now.

Apparently it has to do with finance and ethics, obviously the GOP's strong suit, but, judging by the campaign button, this is when they got the "ironic gay vote."

http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#5NtbA2/www.npr.org/blogs/politicaljunkie/2009/09/on_this_day_in_1952_richard_ni.html?ft=1&f=97248522/

tough times

Poor Coco. Yesterday the girls stayed home, sick. Coco tried to talk his way into staying home, too, or at least into coming home early, but I'm a little more experienced as a parent and it's too early in the year for me to say "*&%! it, let's go kite flying instead."

It was tough going, though. He refused to hold my hand the whole way. One of the regular benefits of the stay-at-home world is that, in ten years now, not a single day has passed when I haven't held a smaller hand in mine. (It's only a downside on really hot, sweaty days.)

But after school he held my hand later and apologized for the morning and told me that he almost cried at school because he missed me. He didn't, though, don't get the wrong idea. Apparently, he rubbed his eyes and sniffed and it went away.

Then, this morning, after we had our goodbye smoochie and I turned around, I was hug-tackled around my thighs and there he was again, with his eyes a little redder and bulgier than usual. I bucked up and gave him another hug and off he went. Brave dude.

the shirt

With the change of seasons comes a change in clothing. I feel like I ought to get a flannel shirt soon, but can't decide on one. I know, this is a problem and it really concerns you.

I did notice, though, that my closet - or rather, the closet I share with the kids because real estate is so precious in Bklyn - holds quite a few button-down shirts. And I also noticed that, the more expensive a shirt was, the less likely I am to wear it. So today I wore a shirt that is currently at about $39.97 1/2 per wear. Gotta get that rate down.

I have T-shirts that weigh in at less than a penny per wear.

Putting on Pants

When people say that someone is just like you and puts on pants one leg at a time, I wonder.

Do they know how perilous an endeavor it is when I put on pants? How I really stake my all on whether or not my foot will proceed through the hole without a snag?

I'm just saying. The last time I was at the pool and changed into my regular clothes I had one of those moments. The floor was wet, obviously, so I was trying to be careful about not letting the pants touch the ground. On the other foot (seems more appropriate than "hand" here) I still had to commit fully to getting the ungrounded limb through the opening. And when I reached that point of no return, there was that moment of weakness and doubt when I wasn't sure I'd be reenacting oh-so-many slapstick scenes, especially because it took quite a few hops to regain my balance. Luckily I was able to run into a locker rather than a person, though the person would probably have been softer. Still better than the floor, though.

freakin' awesome

stick with it, it gets really good

(if you're really impatient, skip to the 2 minute mark)

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

the kids

What's up with the kids, you may wonder.

Well, they're in school now, getting acclamated to the hard life. Madge is a pro, it seems, and is taking it in stride even though she's got a cold and is a little extra tired. But she likes her teacher a lot and has described her as McGonagall from Harry Potter. She's still waiting for her Transfigurations lesson. Little does she know that Transfiguration in the real world is called Puberty.

Coco is a First-grader now. Hoo-boy. He walks in on his own, very proudly. And when he comes out I wait by the fence and he comes to me. This is hard. For me. Because he's so darn cute and comes running at me but gets upset if I hold out my arms or run to him, too.

Madge often comes speeding towards me as well but catches herself as she approaches, just in time to remember to be a bit surly as I try to hug her. Sometimes I can squeeze a little kiss under the radar, but I pay the price later. Oh, well; it's worth the price.

Coco's biggest difficulty - or rather my biggest difficulty - is that people talk to me because that's part of social convention. But it tends to interrupt his stream of thought.

As a matter of fact, if you want to update A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, I think all you have to do is tell a 6-year-old boy that it's time to go to school and have him launch into ramblings that go from bending the four elements to "the reason Germany is so big is because it's so far away, let's go to Paris for my birthday." Take that Proust; and Coco only has six years of memories to fall back on.

Whoooeeee!

So it's more than 9 minutes, deal with it. Think of how the bass player feels.

Pour Some Water On Me!

Nifty

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/business/15bank.html?_r=1&hp

USDJ Rakoff (I think he's a district judge, not a disk jockey, but who knows, maybe he's both) ruled against the penalties for BofA in the Merrill Lynch bonuses thingie.

See, they were going to pay out $5.8 billion of shareholders' money to themselves as a bonus, but meanies decided it was unjustified and wrong.

So they agreed to pay $33 million of shareholders' money as a fine, but now a judge, obviously also a meany, decided it is unjustified and wrong.

Apparently he cited Wilde's line of a cynic being someone "who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." Pretty cool.

Except, of course, that an Elightened Being knows the price of Everything and the value of Nothing.

I don't even know what to say

How did...?
What the...?
Who could...?
Hunh...?
And yet: Oh, soooo perfect!

swimming

The kids had their first swimming class of the fall. They've had them sporadically in different places we've lived, but never consistently and they've not really learned strokes in a structured way.
Which is a roundabout way of introducing my fatherly pride in Madge. We had signed them up in the basic pollywog 1 class. Doing one of the exercises, the teacher asked Madge if she could do it without the noodle and she said yes and did and was moved to pollywog 2 (in a different lane). While doing the pollywog 2 exercises, specifically doing the freestyle with proper breathing (which she has never done for me, I might add), the teacher of that group said said, "Stay here after class."
After class they ran her through some more paces. These were: "Can you do the backwards frog?" "I don't know, what is it?" Teacher shows, Madge does. "Do you know breaststroke?" "I don't know, what is it?" Teacher shows, Madge does.
So now she's in guppy.
Coco should probably be in pollywog 2, but was super proud since he was able to show the rest of the class how he can float on his back.
Okay. I'm done bragging.
Getting them there after school and getting them to bed tonight was a pain in the ---

back to school

I'm a bit slow on the uptake.

This afternoon Coco told me that if I'm sad and lonely and miss the kids it's okay.

It's around midnight now and I just realized (thanks to the andante movement of Mozart's 18th piano concerto) that he missed me today.

(Listen to it and you'll feel it, too):

If you've listened this far, you might have noticed that it's not quite done. Here you go:

"like" on facebook

Facebook allows you to comment on posts, as you know. And, for the extra-lazy who still want to be heard, you can just click "like" to show your approval.

Oddly enough, though, if you follow something like an NPR newsfeed, you get something along the lines of "Wildfires Kill Thousands" with a link to the story.

What exactly are you saying when you click "like"?

reruns can be good

In case you missed Flo Luehnsdorf on your TV the first time around, you can catch him again! And if you've seen it already, I'm sure you'll tune in again, because, let's face it, who doesn't want a snootful of Flo?

First rerun of "Feuerschiff"!
Donnerstag, September 10th, 9:45 p.m. in NDR

more on movies

An anonymous contributor has asked that I point out that I squealed like a little girl during District 9.

I squealed like a little girl during District 9.

And it was very weird to be in a full theater (not an empty matinee) with only adults. At least adults in age; some of us were, as mentioned, squealing like little girls.

Madge Monday

We went to the Prospect Park zoo yesterday. It was a milestone of sorts because it was our first time going there without packing anything. All we did was go. No picnic lunches, no extra snacks, no special treats. Just: out the door, up the slope and whee.

Of course the trip home was filled with a lot of "I'm tired of walking" - alternating with bursts of running through the grass.

The trip was fun. Madge, though, has been weepy lately for, I'm guessing, hormonal reasons. ("Why are you crying?" "I don't kno-ho-ho-hooow, sniff.") So, the more tired she got, the more breaks we had to take to calm her down. In a way it's nice because it's not something I did to upset her - I seem to upset her a lot - and I look like a good guy for trying to cheer her up. We'll see how this turns out.

I take requests

I have been asked by an anonymous contributor to blog about how great the movie "District 9" is and what a genius Julie is for suggesting we go see it.

The movie "District 9" is great.

Julie is a genius for suggesting we go see it.

clarification on heads and tails

A recent twitter post of mine was a little vague, I think. I guess 140 characters can't explain too much.

It involves the guy at the video store and his daughter. Both were little. I'm saying this because I think his size influenced the Napoleonic bullying of his offspring. Anyway, she was about five and had picked some Lion King sequel and he groaned, "Not again!" Then he followed it with, "You haven't seen this Harry Potter movie yet. Let's get this."

Now, I'm not really into censoring but this kid was too young to really get much of the movie, so it was clearly for him. When she didn't bite, he topped it off with,

"I'll tell you what. We'll flip a coin. Heads: I win; tails: you lose."

Seriously. Even Madge later said, "I couldn't believe that. That was really mean."

Way to make your offspring a sucker. He even clarified it to her to make sure she knew the difference between heads and tails and then quickly glossed over the fact that she'd lose either way.

Let me rephrase that. She wouldn't get to choose the movie she wanted. But I think he loses either way.

Coco Tuesday

All right, another.

Coco was chewing on his shirt collar over the weekend and somehow bit on the button and has been complaining about his teeth ever since. This is not a good introduction to a story in which I am one of the main actors. Sure, on TV or in a book this could be amusing, but grrr.

We went to the dentist today because it hasn't gotten any better. It seems to "only" be the molars coming in. "Only" in the sense that it's probably not an abscess.

I sure hope not.

The news is helping Coco out, though. I think he thought the button chewing caused it and therefore he was to blame for his own misery. Who wants that, I ask?

Speaking of which - yes, you need to fill in the gaps in my reasoning - there was a somewhat interesting review in the New Yorker by James Wood about the new anti-atheism. Thoughts, anyone?

Madge Monday

And again I'm behind.

Monday was a double-playdate. I took four kids to the pool. Yippee.

It wound up fine, with only a few minor scrapes and scratches and whinings.

It was Madge's best friend and her little sister, who is half a year older than Coco. Madge finds this little sister annoying. I finally realized on Monday that it's not only because the little sister is pesky but because she has a told-you-so air about her that is very much like Madge's.

When it flared up and I pointed it out to Madge, well, let's just say it took a while to deal with the tears.

Sinatra

Tell you what. Do yourself a favor and get "Where is the One?" onto your iPod of whatever portable means of listening to music you have.

But, as tempting as it may be to crank it up, especially if you're out and about after dusk, don't - and I repeat: don't - make eye contact with anyone while the song is zipping up and down your spine.

You'll just make a fool of yourself.