It really was a pretty good month

A few things that annoyed me during September:

1) The dental hygienist showing me how to brush my teeth (For a really long time, like ten minutes).

2) My daughter getting salsa in her hair (This probably shouldn't have annoyed me, but it did).

3) The elderly lady at the gym offering to fetch me a sweat towel, when I already had one (Okay, so I sweat a lot, but it's not like I'm dripping H1N1 all over her rude self).

4) The guy on the bus who sneezed on the back of my neck (Actually, more gross than annoying).

5) My own parental decision to let my nine-year-old watch Titanic, and that night having to lie down with her because she was haunted by imagery of frozen bodies in the North Atlantic (You'd think I'd have this dad thing down by now).

6) The United States Congress (I know, that's some low-hanging fruit right there).

7) The Seattle Seahawks, whose green alternate jerseys blew out two cones and three rods in my right eye, thereby rendering me unable to see color for three days.

Oh, yes, there are others, but I've already worked myself into enough of a grumpy old man. Now get off my lawn.

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There's something slightly magical about that moment each evening, with the kids tucked away and the nightly chores wrapped up, when my age-worn glutious maximus burrows itself into the leathery softness that is the family room sofa. The remote seems to magically appear in the palm of my hand, its cold, smooth plastic all but saying, "Welcome back, old friend."

Such was the case last night, as I flipped on the idiot box (By the way, this post is part deux, the nighttime edition, of my two part series on television.). 

The first show I came across was a Discovery Channel offering, about life in the Las Vegas County Jail. It documented the lives of the prison staff and, yes, the prisoners. Featured last night was an inmate named "Snake." He'd been arrested 27 times, was part of a skinhead Nazi gang and had more tattoos than brain cells. Snake proudly stated that he refused to share a cell with anyone who wasn't white, and therefore would immediately fight any cellmate who wasn't of the Caucasian persuasion, thereby securing a private room for himself. What a guy. As Snake proudly showed off his ripped upper body for the camera, it appeared evident that the guy spent most of his time powering out sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups and whatever other "-ups" could be performed in a six-by-nine-foot box.

At that moment, I reached a moment of clarity—television has reached an all time low. The networks have now decided to offer up the most racist, moronic felon as a reality TV celebrity.

It was certainly a slow evolution to this state of affairs, so let's try and retrace how we arrived at this point.

The 1970s:

No reality shows to speak of, unless you counted Battle of the Network Stars, in which actors from the various networks competed against each other in endeavors athletic. You might see the guy who played "Tattoo" on Fantasy Island arm wrestle Mary Tyler Moore, or Farrah Fawcett could possibly race Suzanne Somers in the 100-yard jiggle. Solid viewing if you're fifteen years old, which I was.

The 1980s:

Television was extremely well-acted, plot-driven and highly dramatic, with shows like "Magnum P.I." ," The A Team" and "Alf." However, a storm was a-brewin', with the premier of the Neil Armstrong of reality shows—Cops—and TV would never be the same. Here's just a sampling of this riveting reality pioneer:

Cop: "Do you know why I pulled you over?

Shirtless Guy: "Because I'm not wearing a shirt?"

Cop:"No, because your car is weaving across five lanes of traffic. Does that pipe in your hand belong to you?"

Shirtless Guy: "No, I'm holding it for my six-month-old baby. That's her sliding around in the back seat."

The 1990s:

MTV's The Real World redefines our desire to watch people at their worst. For the first time, we witness the visible adrenaline of an exchange like this:

Jason: "Where's my peanut butter?"

Ashley: "Puck ate it."

Jason: "Puck, did you eat my peanut butter?"

Puck: "Yeah."

The 2000s:

At this point, all bets are off, there's so much goodness to choose from. We can see nearly-naked, morbidly obese people standing on scales. We can watch washed-up celebrities suck up to a billionaire with a comb-over. We can watch convicted felons boast about their hateful ways.

Or, we can watch our index finger push down, a little too hard, on the "off" switch.

Even flow, thoughts arrive like butterflies

Wow. No mosh pit this time. No Doc Martens. No flannel. Oh, wait, there's a guy wearing some. No long hair flying around in unison to a deafening drum/guitar/bass cacophony.

On Saturday night, I saw Pearl Jam...again.

I'm not a huge fan anymore, in fact, I haven't been for at least ten years, but an opportunity presented itself when my brother asked Terri and me to join his wife and him for a show at the Clark County Amphitheatre, just outside Vancouver, Washington.

And once again, the past collided head-on with the present. The first time we saw the band was in 1992, at a free concert in Seattle's Magnuson Park. Pearl Jam's debut album had just broken, and we found ourselves entrenched in the epicenter of the grunge hurricane. I had turned thirty a couple of weeks previous, and I can remember how old I felt among the throngs of twenty-somethings flocking to the venue. We didn't realize that approximately 30,000 of them would methodically shove us forward into the notorious "mosh pit." Before we knew it, bodies were surfing above us, occasionally introducing the business end of a worn boot to one of our temples. Every so often, a pale, sweaty, bloody reveler would squeeze out around us and collapse onto the first open ground available.

By the time the show was over, we'd been knocked to the ground, elbowed and shouldered numerous times, I'd lost my ponytail band, and my calfs burned from standing on my toes for four hours. I was elated.

Fast forward seventeen years. Rather than arrive at the show via Metro bus and walking another half mile, we drove into the "Premier Parking" area, a three minute walk from the theatre. Rather than hike in with a backpack full of provisions, we stopped at a concession area a few feet from our seats for a couple of pre-show beverages. And portable toilets? Forget about it. These had actual plumbing and there were more than five of them.

The show was fantastic, especially since the band possesses a huge body of work now, rather than one blockbuster album from which to sample. Eddie Vedder still sings like a madman; his voice goes from dulcet baritone to shrill scream in milliseconds. Even though we purchased seats, the crowd stood the entire time, and judging by the average attendee's age, I'm sure it felt good to finally sit-down for the ride home in the SUV.

And if I see these guys again seventeen years from now, it'll probably be because the missus and I are preferred players at the Emerald Queen.

lol :)

As my daughters ate breakfast this morning, I casually suggested that this evening we go to Taco Del Mar, since Terri will be working late (things tend to get a little lazy in the kitchen when one of the adults is absent). Zoe quickly chimed in. "Can (her best friend) Maddy come with us?"
"I guess that would be okay."
And that's when modern technology took hold. No sooner had I delivered them each a glass of milk, than Zoe shot off a text message to Maddy, and Maddy in turn replied with a resounding, "luv 2 go."
This whole text message phenomenon has become insane. These kids have thumbs of unfathomable strength and speed. Thumb wrestling with Zoe used to be fun, but now I'm afraid she might snap my thumb off without realizing it. Also, it's not just texting for which they use their opposable appendages; it's also calculators, remotes...I wouldn't be surprised if they perform thumbs-only shampooing and conditioning.
And what an egregious error I committed the day I suggested to Zoe that she "call" her friend to set up a time to meet at the fair.
"Dad, why would I call Sharon when I can text her (you freakin' idiot)?"
"Because then you can work the whole thing out much faster, and actually talk to a real, live person."
"Whatever."
A little later, she mentioned that a couple of her friends who are dating sit next to each other on the school bus every morning and text each other. No kidding.
Oh, sure, there are definitely instances when texting is the preferred method of communication, such as on crowded mass transit or any circumstance in which the situation could prove to be humiliating.
What I wouldn't have given to possess text message technology that winter day in 1978. I was standing in my parents living room, chatting on our only phone with my new girlfriend of about two weeks. My mom and dad sat about four feet away, pretending to watch TV in their twin recliners. The phone conversation from my end went something like this:
"What? Why? But we just started...please? Are you sure you want to break up? Come on. Okay. Bye."
I hung up the phone and stormed past my parents on the way upstairs to my room.
"Oh, honey, it's okay. She doesn't deserve you." I did appreciate my mom's attempts at consoling me, but right now I was incredibly sad and embarrassed.
A simple text of "i'm thru w/u" would have made the situation slightly more bearable and I wouldn't have had to share it with the rest of the house.
I'm still thinking of instituting a new rule with the kids regarding text messages: you can do it as long as I get to proofread every message for proper spelling and punctuation. That should be sufficient incentive to for them to pick up the phone and brush up on their conversational skills.

And now...new organic Spam

At the risk of over-saturating my blog, here I am again, looking at day number two at home with a sick child. We currently have a no-television rule in our house (except sports), and I'm really glad there's no arguing about it on days like this. Movies are okay, since you don't want your kid to be too active and prolong her illness, but in my opinion, the only thing worse than daytime TV is the local news. Oh wait, I guess that's part of daytime television, as well.

During my forty-seven years on the earth, here are my limited observations of what's available on the boob tube between 9:00am and 5:00pm:

1) Commercials for predatory attorneys ("Have you been in an accident? We don't care if you were drunk and drove your car into a senior citizens' home. In fact, those people have lots of money and we'll get a big pile of it for both of us.").

2) Trade/tech school ads ("Don't you think it's time to move out of your mom's basement? You're 37 years old, and you have no skills. We're here to change that. We offer associates degrees in both dungeons and dragons.").

3) Train wreck talk shows ("Jethro is the brother and also the cousin of Jenny Lynn, who is in love with Jethro's son/daughter, on the next Jaury Springvich.").

4) Local news ("Coming up next: combating the swine flu with soap and water. Jim Foreman will be in satellite control to demonstrate how to wash your hands in a startling exposé.").

5) Soap operas. Sorry, I have to remain neutral on this one, since I watched All My Children from 1970 to 1986.

Days like today give me a deeper appreciation for stay-at-home parents, especially the moms who are ruthlessly stereotyped in daytime adverts, as eternally searching for superior cat litter or dishwashing detergent or fruit juice or pot-roast-filled hot pockets.

Well, I guess it's time to take a hot soak in some skin-softening dishwashing liquid.

I think that's the school calling

Having a sick kid is tough. 

When confronted by an ill child, the working parent (i.e. me) is faced with any number of issues, including:

• Should she stay home from school today, or does she feel sick because she ate really bad food at the fair yesterday, and actually said, "Dad, if it were legal to marry corndogs and onion burgers, I would do it." 

• How much do I spoil her if she does stay home? I don't want to positively reinforce this behavior by fawning over her, but I feel bad for her and she needs to rest and be comfortable.

• If I send her to school and she runs a fever, I look like a self-centered schmuck for exposing her classmates to her illness in that Petri dish known as an elementary school. 

• If I send her to school and she runs a fever, I look like a self-centered schmuck for sending her to school with a fever.

I'd been sitting at my desk at work for about an hour this morning when my cell phone lit up with that all-too-familiar caller ID. "Lauryn has a fever," the school secretary proclaimed. "She's sitting in the office and needs to go home." 

That's when the "pick-the-sick-kid-up-from-school" routine kicked in, as it always does upon receiving that notification. I rode the bus home, retrieved the car, scooped up a flushed-looking Lauryn out of the school office and we drove to Safeway for a couple of movies and some comfort food. I always feel a little self-conscious walking around a grocery store with a school-aged kid during school hours, and that's why I always keep a spare "Proud parent of a home-schooled honor student" T-shirt in the car. 

We completed the routine by driving home, getting her into her pajamas and pink bathrobe and popping in a movie while I whipped up some soup and saltines. 

At that point, the day becomes an opportunity to straighten up the house, fold some laundry and oh, who knows, possibly take a nap. And there's always something cute and cozy about a kid who's feeling a bit under the weather. I feel bad for her and I just want to nestle up next to her. 

Then, of course, we've got to make the decision in the morning about returning her to academia, or repeating the drill again. Parenting: never a dull moment.

Valve oil and pimples

Today has been a little weird, a musical alpha and omega, if you will. One of my kids started playing the viola and the other decided to quit the drums. I know it's been a recurring theme for me to observe my daughters' experiences and then climb into the Way-Back Machine to revisit my own childhood, and I suppose this post is no exception. 

Band/orchestra for the school-aged kid is more than a class; it's a culture. At first, you and your classmates really struggle just to play the instruments at all. I played the trumpet beginning in fifth grade, and those first few weeks were hellish. All the clarinets, flutes, trombones, trumpets and drums combined to form the musical equivalent of all the finger paint colors mixed into a sickening brown—it was anarchy.

But pretty soon, everyone learns the basic notes and scales, and things begin to gel just a little, Eventually, you can all play a song together. Sure, it might be Hot Crossed Buns, but hey, it's a song. That's when the cultural bond of playing music takes hold. And if I ever run into Mr. Sower, my fifth grade band director, I will tell him, "You had me at Hot Crossed Buns." I hope he takes that the right way.

To me, band was the great equalizer. You could be the scrawniest kid, or the fattest kid, or you could have a face like lasagna, but if you could play, you had the respect of the other kids in the room. Those who weren't in band didn't necessarily hold us in high regard, but for an hour every day at least, we were golden among each other.

I participated in lots of sports. However, none fostered the esprit de corps that music did. 

It makes me sad that my oldest daughter has chosen to end her musical pursuits. The grim reality for kids today is that, unlike how it was for us middle-aged folk, they must fully immerse themselves in whatever activity they choose, and their schedules shift into overdrive once high school begins. 

Every time I pull that old, silver trumpet out, the familiar aromas of valve oil and silver flood my senses. I really miss those days. I want to tell Zoe that she will, too, but the last thing she deserves now is to be flogged with the parental guilty stick.

And with Lauryn starting orchestra, I'm lucky to have yet another opportunity to witness the process all over again.