Let there be a feast of properly prepared meats and cheeses for all

So the Bears are going back to the Super Bowl.  It's been twenty-one years since they were there last.  And I am just all a-tingle.

Well, no I'm not actually.  I proclaimed my allegiance to the Saints a few days ago, if I recall.  And when they creeped within two points of the Bears early in the second half of today's game, I thought the choke was on.  It was on, it was just the wrong team that choked.  New Orleans started giving the ball away.  You're not going to win championships doing that. 

I was eighteen in January of '86 when the Bears beat the Rams by 24 to get to Super Bowl XX.  I watched the game at home, and it was never close.  Towards the end it started to snow, just like it did today.  Two weeks later they were champs.  It was the first Chicago title of my life-we were still five years away from the six titles in eight years stretch of the Bulls.  I am still waiting for the Blackhawks and the Cubs (we don't recall anyone else in the city winning anything, especially October 2005).

No one could have been happier than I was when they won.  I used to be a complete Bears fanatic and I admit that once I experienced the feeling of them winning a Super Bowl that it changed the way I felt about them, but it took a few years after that for it to be complete.  I remember being miserable when a team that should have won more than just one title was knocked out in the playoffs on their home field the next two years, so I was still as into them then as I was before they were champions.  But by the late 80's, my level of interest in the Bears was forever altered.

Blame the media first.  They started sucking up to the team after the Super Bowl win and spent the next decade with its nose inserted squarely up the proverbial backside of every person involved in the organization.  I swear if the Russians had nuked London in 1989 on the day that the Bears played a pre-season game, the game would have been the top story on the 10 o'clock news.

Your "average" fan in this town adds to my chagrin.  Within minutes of the game ending today, the "news" was reporting live from some bar, because, you know, it's essential that we know what Dave, a 26 year old bookstore worker from Rogers Park thinks.  And it's always something witty like "Yeah, I knew they were going to win.  Bears!!! WOO!!!  We're going to the Super (BURP!) Bowl baby!" 

Man, I've really gotten old.

As I write this, Indianapolis just beat New England, so it'll be the Colts and the Bears in two weeks.  Two weeks!  What torture!  Every top story on every local news show for the next fourteen days will be about the Super Bowl.  And then there will be the bet between the mayors.  Gee, what's Daley going to put up?  Millennium Park? The Sears Tower? Meigs Field (oops. wait a tic...)?  How about this: if Indy wins the Super Bowl, they get the White Sox.  If the Bears win, the Indy 500 is forever run in the Windy City.

In '85, the Bears only loss was to Miami.  When they Bears won the NFC championship, Miami was just kicking off the AFC championship against New England in South Florida.  Everyone wanted Miami to win, so that the Super Bowl would be a rematch.  New England won that game, and then lost the Super Bowl 46-10, and it was more lopsided than that score shows.  Everybody moaned about the missed opportunity, about how the Bears would have avenged their only loss of that season.

One of the Bears' three losses this year was to New England.  I bet by nine tomorrow morning I will hear someone moan about not being able to pay back New England.  Personally, I'm glad it's Indianapolis.  Now we don't have to hear all about the '85 Super Bowl.  Plus, Colts-Bears is a better match up.

It should be a good game, and yeah, I guess I want the Bears to win, but it certainly won't kill me if they lose.  It's a game where I will be happy with either team winning.  And for the sake of my sanity I will do my best to ignore the hype, lest I spoil the fun of everyone else who will live and die with this team.  I remember how it feels, and everyone should go through it at least once.

I just remembered that two days after the Bears won Super Bowl XX, the shuttle Challenger exploded.  That kind of put a damper on things.  And then my nephew was born one month later.  Time does fly.

Go ahead and call me Grumpy McGrumperson, and remember how superficial and hypocritical all this is when I go batshit whenever the Cubs get to a World Series.

How to be a Nuisance

Walk in the middle of the street.  Talk to the actors while sitting in a crowded movie theater.  Smoke 'em if you got 'em.  Spit in a drinking fountain.  Sing along with your i-pod on the train.  Say "it is what it is." Answer your  cell phone in the library.   Tell a friend you'll give them a ride to the airport and forget to show up.  Leave the copy machine out of paper.  Sit on someone's eyeglasses.  Say "baby needs a new pair of shoes" at a craps table.  Yell "bingo" when you get blackjack.  Eat the last Twinkie and leave the box in the cabinet.  Root for the Cardinals.  Poke holes in bicycle tires.  Tell your nephews that there is no Santa Claus.  Wear baseball caps sideways.  Answer "What?" to every question asked you.  Swipe your neighbor's Sunday paper.  Talk about your bowels. Turn the bass way up.  Yodel.  Don't replace your divots.  Drink milk from the carton.  Buy the wrong flavor ice cream.  Pick your toenails.  Be that person in the group that never makes a decision.  Write in library books.   Leave your clothes in the washing machine.  Belch in church.  Take pennies out of fountains.  Burn the toast.  Hide the remote.  Carve obscenities into pumpkins.  Don't squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom.  Never use turn signals.  Be late for everything.  Lick envelopes right after finishing an Oreo.  Cite Oprah.  Scoff at the idea of global warming. Forget to pay the electric bill.  Talk down to waiters.  Call yourself a rebel.  Ask people how much they weigh.  Don't use coasters.  Interrupt.  Sneeze on the neck of the person in front of you.  Throw snowballs at moving cars.  Leave the windows open when it rains.  Vote Republican.

This is Not the 99% I Wanted to Be a Part of...

I spent a majority of last week in Overland Park, Kansas, partaking in matters of both business and pleasure. Throughout my visit I kept having the same thought over and over: "Why am I so tired?" For whatever reason, I could not get my engines going. No amount of caffeine in the morning nor sleep at night made me feel any different. 

I must be getting old.

By five-thirty Sunday afternoon I was in my car and on my way back to Chicago, determined to make it home with as few stops as possible-one for gas and dinner, and one or two for a restroom.

I only made one stop, in Des Moines, Iowa. I stayed for two days. And it probably saved my life. 


I feel off.

I've made this drive a dozen or so times before: I-35 north to Des Moines, then I-80 east into Illinois before catching I-88 for the last 100 miles or so home. It takes about eight hours, and is at least an hour faster than taking I-70 across Missouri to St. Louis and then I-55 to Chicago. On the way down to KC five days prior I was annoyed by the construction on 88 west, so much so that I considered taking the longer route home until I realized that it really wouldn't save me any time.


Kansas City to Des Moines is almost exactly two hundred miles, and for most of it, I felt weird. I've found that I cannot adequately describe what I mean by "weird." If you've seen the Jodie Foster movie Contact you may recall the scene towards the end where she is traveling at the speed of light and her face seems to separate from her body. That is how I'd describe how I felt, and it is not adequate.


I'm gonna pass out.

An hour before or after and I would have been in the middle of nowhere (the ride from Des Moines to Iowa City is especially void of civilization) but for reasons I will forever be thankful for the extreme nausea and dizziness arrived just as I did into the outskirts of metropolitan Des Moines. By the time it felt like someone behind me was stabbing me between the shoulder blades I was in the city itself.

I would very much like to know the person who came up with the idea to affix the large blue 'H' symbol to highway exit signs so that I may buy him or her several drinks. At around 8:45 PM, in the twilight of an Iowa summer night, I was certain that I was having an emergency, and had I not seen that H I don't know where I would have ended up. Most likely I would not have ended up at Methodist West Hospital in West Des Moines.


I hope I'm wrong, but I believe I'm having a heart attack

As it turns out, I was wrong. I was not having a heart attack. I didn't find this out until Tuesday morning though because the cardiologist on call in the ER Sunday night wanted to assume that I was, so after being treated for several hours I was admitted, and early the next morning underwent an angiogram, where it was determined that I needed a stent in my proximal left anterior descending coronary artery.

As I said, I did not actually find out until Tuesday morning that I never had a heart attack. I also found out that I needed a stent because my artery was 99% blocked. Technology is a wonderful thing: I saw a video of my artery before, when the dye used during the procedure was barely passing through, and after the blockage was removed, when the dye flowed freely towards the rest of my heart, as oxygenated blood does now.  

I'm a lucky man. I dodged a bullet. But I fired the bullet, too.


I recently turned 45. I'm 5' 9". I weigh 235 pounds. I don't exercise regularly. I'm married to a wonderful woman. I have two beautiful sons under the age of five. What the hell was I thinking?


It's hard to convey but even when I was most alarmed, most frightened by my symptoms while driving, I never felt like I was going to die. It was more like a feeling of "uh oh, something's wrong and I gotta find out what." However, once I heard that one of the arteries that supplies blood to my heart had been 99% blocked, all I could think of was how did I not die, be it that night, or the day before, or the week before. Who knows how long I was walking around with this? The day before I left for KC, I spent a few hours in my backyard cutting up and hauling out large pieces of a tree that we lost in a storm, and I brushed off the slight twinges I felt between my shoulder blades as just fatigue on a hot day.


It's been very hard facing my kids since I got home Tuesday night, simply because every time I see their faces I am reminded of what could have happened, how I could have just disappeared from their lives forever. I feel the same when I look at my wife. I almost abandoned my family. It's the worst feeling I have ever experienced in my entire life.


But I have to forgive myself, because I now have work to do. I have to change the way I live if I want to stay alive, and I cannot do this if I am caught up in the guilt of my prior selfish lifestyle habits. Frankly, it has been easy this week avoiding food that I have eaten before that I now know is horrible for me; I don't miss it. Yes, it's only been three days, but the choice is simple, isn't it? I change. Or I die.


I will have a much harder time conquering the challenge of getting in shape. I have never been in shape. I need to lose at least fifty pounds. Five-zero. That's a lot. And it can't be done all at once, which means it will take dedication, persistence and time. 


I'm nervous, but not scared. I'm nervous that I've already done too much damage to my body and have sealed my fate of an earlier-than-expected grave. I'm nervous that as time passes I will become someone who is convinced that every little ache and pain is the harbinger of something much more threatening. I've always been aware that some day I am going to die, so this is not the sort of thing that will trigger a midlife crisis. Still, I have to be realistic: I could already have died. The fact that I did not means that I'm still relevant and I can still gain control.


Blockages in the left anterior descending artery are commonly referred to as widow makers because the heart attacks they trigger are usually sudden, massive and fatal. I struggle reading that, knowing that this whole experience could have turned out much differently for myself and the people I love the most.


It's great to be alive.

I'm not someone who is going to start lecturing others about the way they live their lives. All of us to some extent choose what we are, what we become, and what we will be. I thought I was lucky before for reasons unrelated to this health scare. I had no idea what luck really is; luck is knowing that you could have lost everything in the flash of a second, and now have the ability to avoid something that terrible with just a little resilience and dedication.


I am amazed at how simple it all seems sometimes.

  
 

Get it on a stick.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today happens to be my favorite holiday of the year. I love that there is no hype, no expectation other than hang out with family and eat yourself into oblivion (if you so choose). Plus it gives me the opportunity to post this, the best Thanksgiving story ever, again. My mother is a wonderful person, and the fact that she readily admitted her "error" also shows what a great sport she is. Believe me when I say we laugh WITH her about this, not at her.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, especially Mom!

(The following was written in late November, 2004)

Is that a neck in your turkey, or are you just glad to see me?

I would like to apologize to my mother in advance, for being unable to resist the urge to tell this story...

My fiance and I had Thanksgiving dinner at my mother's home this year, with the rest of my family. My mother is an excellent cook and has prepared many wonderful holiday dinners throughout the years. This year was no exception.

Wednesday afternoon I was home as Mom placed the frozen turkey in the sink to began preparations to cook it. At one point as I was walking through the kitchen, I heard her say that something was missing.

I don't know anything about cooking turkeys.

I looked at the turkey in the sink. Mom had removed two packages from inside, which I assumed to be giblets and something else, a liver maybe, since it was dark. My mother and I then had the following exchange:

Mom: Doesn't it look like it is missing something?

Me: Um, the head? I hear they usually get rid of it before they sell them.

Mom: I mean from the inside. There should be something else.

Me: I don't know what's normally inside a turkey.

Mom: It's male parts, it's missing it's male parts.

Me: WHAT?

Mom: The male parts of the turkey aren't inside like they usually are.

Me: (Just now understanding what she is talking about) What? I'm never eating turkey again...

As I said before, I know nothing about cooking turkeys. I can identify the parts of the turkey after it is cooked, but I have no idea how one is packaged. So I did a little research and found that when you buy a turkey, there is supposed to be a package inside containing the giblets and the liver, and also the turkey neck. For all I knew before, I thought the neck was still attached and you just cut it off when you prepared the bird. I don't even know what the point of including the neck is.

Then it hit me.

My mother, who later told me that she has been cooking turkeys for over 40 years, has always thought that the neck that is normally included inside the turkey was instead, um, "something else."

That something else being what puts the "Tom" in turkey.

This explains why the neck has never been part of a holiday meal in her house.

And why I will never not laugh at the sight of a turkey, live or dead, cooked or uncooked, again.

Don't stand so close to me

Potentially, I may be about to tick off God, so be warned about lightning strikes.

Evan's baptism was Sunday. We had the christening in the chapel of the parish I attended when I was growing up. I had all of my "C" sacraments there-communion, confession, confirmation-and I bet I've attended close to one thousand masses there in my life.

But not recently. I have a tendency to encounter "falling out" situations with churches. I grew tired of this particular parish over a decade ago, because they played the city in which the parish is located for fools, acquiring a valuable piece of land (in the name of creating a "badly needed" parking lot) and demolishing an historic building. Guess what? The lot is nothing but grass, and has never been anything but. I have had a falling out with two other parishes in the area over what I believe are blatant political endorsements-more on this later, promise.

I digress. We went to this parish for the baptism for logistical and sensible reasons. My mother still attends this parish, and we thought it would be nice to have her third grandson baptized there (five of her six grandchildren have now been christened there-Desmond is the only one who was baptized elsewhere). I had no problem with going to back to this church.

We arrived at the church about twenty minutes before the start of the baptism, and I snagged a bulletin available in the lobby expecting to see our son listed with the other babies being christened there on this day. To my surprise, there was no mention of forthcoming baptisms.

I was a little disappointed but it was certainly nothing for me to be alarmed at. However, later in the bulletin, there was a half-page block of text, and it began like so:

"We remind our parishioners to vote, and to encourage others not just to vote, but to vote correctly. We all should vote and encourage others to vote for life."

The emphasis is mine. It took a few moments of conversation in my head to figure this out: Vote correctly? What the hell does that mean? And why does the parish want to make sure that I vote for the remainder of my life...wait a tic, that's not what it means. They're telling everyone to vote pro-life.

I wanted to leave. I wish I had the stones to say that I didn't want to be a part of anything this church participates in, but of course I didn't, and we had our son baptized, and I forgot about all this until we returned home.

Look, I understand the Catholic Church's position when it comes to abortion, and I understand why they are so passionate about it. Truly, that would never upset me, but I draw the line at them telling me that I need to vote Republican.

And let's be honest, that is what this was, an implicit endorsement of the GOP because it is the "pro-life" party. And it is completely wrong. As far as I'm concerned, this parish should have it's tax-exempt status removed for making a political endorsement.

(For the record, if there had been an implied message to vote Democratic for any one particular reason, I'd say that was wrong too. However I admit that it would not incense me the way this actual message does, because the entire abortion debate nauseates me.)

The Church is pro-life, and I am pro-choice. By the way, that does not mean that I am "pro-abortion." I wish there never had to be another abortion performed anywhere on this planet, and I am tired of pompous, holier-than-thou pro-life supporters who accuse those of us who are pro-choice of encouraging pregnant women to have abortions no matter the circumstances, like we are all population control freaks or something.

I am pro-choice for one and only one reason: I am a man. I will never know what it is like to be pregnant. I really don't think men should have a fair say in restricting a woman's personal choice.

Obviously, this is an extremely volatile topic, and I could write about it for the next year. To placate my disappointment, I am going to write the pastor of this church a letter expressing my distaste for seeing a thinly-disguised endorsement in the church bulletin. The church has no place in politics unless it wants to pay taxes. I will be respectful and courteous, but I won't feel better about this until I write him. I will be curious to see if he contacts me afterward.

One last point, and I can't express this in any other way, so let me apologize in advance for the way I say this. Have you ever seen a bumper sticker that says "You can't be Catholic and Pro-Life"? I see them around more and more these days, and when I do, I want to tape a large piece of paper next to the sticker and write in big, bold, block letters with a giant black permanent marker:

"The fuck I can't!"

G'night Stimpy

So Bears quarterback Jay Cutler got sacked nine time in the first half of the team's 17-3 loss to the Giants last night, and I think I might know how Jay is feeling.

Am I equating sleep deprivation to being slammed to the Astroturf over and over? Yes. Yes, I am.

Seems lately that if I am not sleeping, I am thinking about sleeping. Yes, I'm thinking about it now. ZZZZZZ.

Evan will be two months soon, and he's a great baby. He has a witching hour, however, that lasts for more than an hour. It's closer to three or four, and it starts around midnight. I did not give birth to this baby. I did not go through the anxiety of knowing that there was something growing inside of me that would eventually have to be expelled. Or excised like a like a fly out of soup. I slept fairly comfortably from the time this baby was conceived until the time he was born.

Thus, I stay up with Evan during his witching hours. We go to sleep sometime before two and three in the morning. Evan is a ball to be around during his nighttime prowl-he's not fussy unless he's hungry-and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy the one-on-one time with him.

Did I mention that we have another son? Did I mention that he gets up every morning by 7? Did I mention that he creates about as much noise as a jet engine at takeoff?

I've taken more cat naps in the last eight weeks than I had in my life up to that point. I have fallen asleep while standing in the shower. While drinking coffee. While watching the first thirty minutes of Saving Private Ryan.

I'm sure on more than one occasion when I've been out in public lately someone has taken a look at me and thought "Yowsa, that guy looks horrible; he must feel awful."

Just the opposite. Sure, I'd love to be sleeping more (or writing more) but if I have to be lacking in sleep, let it be on account of my boys. These days wont last forever.

Six pounds later...

We're alive. The baby was born on August 12th at 8:55 AM, and we named him Evan. He's thriving. Big Brother Desmond is thriving. And we are tired. Really, really tired.

Did I mention that we are tired?

No complaints though. The surreal feeling that comes with doubling the number of kids in our house has finally worn off, and I no longer anticipate the knock at the door that brings an official-looking person who tells us that this is all a mistake, that this child is not ours. Parenthood 2.0 has officially left the beta stage.

Every single time in the last three weeks, when I have tried to write here, Evan wakes up. It just happened again two minutes ago. As I took him upstairs to Kristen for a feeding I told myself to come back and at least write something.

Something.

More later. Promise. There's a lot to say about this new kid.

My new hero

One thing I absolutely love about the Internet is when it delivers pure liquid gold.

Like this video, for instance:



The woman in orange is my new hero. The banner she is standing next to says "Worst Governor Ever." I have a minor complaint: it should say "Worst Half-governer Ever."

What the hell is Sarah Palin wearing on her feet? Are those Caribou Barbie boots? And clearly, Bristol has been working on her sign language, given her use of international symbols when she defends her Grizzly Mama as "defending United States."

24 carat!

Six months later...

So I took half a year off. And now the layout of this blog is blue.

Speaking of blue, there's about to be another boy in our house. Come Wednesday the size of our clan is doubling. Circumstances beyond our control means our son will be "plucked" instead of going through a natural childbirth, so we know exactly when he's going to be born.

The idea of having two kids? Surreal. More than surreal. It was surreal thinking about having a child when we were waiting for the arrival of our first, a little more than thirty months ago. Thinking about having another is almost beyond the realm of my comprehension.

I may not sound thrilled. I assure you that I am.

We feel like we are ready for this, since we've been through the newborn experience before. The difference this time is that we know that we aren't going to sleep. The first time, we had no idea how much sleep we would lose with a newborn in the house. It was a lot. Being sleep deprived soon became as normal as breathing and eating, though I will forever be surprised by just how much my intelligence waned during that period. About a month after Desmond was born, if you had asked me how much two plus two was, I would have said fifty-six.

Two kids. When I was a kid, a family with two kids was small. Now it seems huge. I look at our house and deem it too small. I wonder if I will ever have a day when I don't trip over a toy or a laundry basket. How old will I be when I no longer hear the Thomas the Train jingle over and over and over and over...

We aren't going to name this child until we see him. I had the name of my first son picked out ten years before I ever met my wife, so I let her choose names this time, with the caveat that I wouldn't support a name that I really, really disliked. And there were a few of them.

I'm thinking "Rabo", which would only make sense if you've read Kurt Vonnegut.

I do plan on visiting these parts a little more often than I have so far this year.

Who Dat? No, really, who is that?

If you twist my arm and force me to pick, I'll go with the Saints to win the Super Bowl, but this is one of those years when I'm fine with either team winning. I just want to see a good game.

A bigger issue for me is the fact that The Who are the half-time entertainment. My reaction when I first heard this was "WTF?"-with the 'W' standing for 'Who' instead of 'What'-because The Who doesn't really exist in a modern form anymore. Unless Keith Moon and John Entwistle come tumbling out of the Miami sky, what you'll see at half-time ain't gonna be The Who.

I love The Who. Have since I was thirteen or so, whenever "Faces Dances" came out. And what a treasure it was to realize a few years later that that was far from their finest work, and that there was a whole trove of earlier stuff to discover.

And I love what Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend have done together and alone, both when the Who was still whole and after. Townshend's "White City" is my favorite album of all-time. But they are 65 and 64, respectively, and for the life of me, I can't figure out what they are doing performing at half-time of the Super Bowl.

Uh oh...follow me to...the horror.

The game is being televised by CBS!!!

The game is being played in Miami!!!

DO YOU SEE WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!?!?!?!

Three...is a magic number.

1. CBS has three "CSI" shows-Las Vegas, New York, and (gulp) Miami.
2. All three shows have opening theme songs written and performed by...The Who.
3. Super Bowl half-time shows are usually three songs long.

If the half-time show by The Who today are "Who Are You" (theme for Vegas), "Baba O'Riley" (NY) and "Won't Get Fooled Again" (Miami), I'm going to be physically ill.

Well, spit: I just went to The Who's Wikipedia page to verify the spelling of their songs, and there's a snippet at the end that claims "Pete Townshend says the band will play a medley of their hits consisting of "Pinball Wizard", "Who Are You", "Baba O'Riley", "Won't Get Fooled Again" and the finale of Tommy.

If you told me back in 1979 that this was going to happen, I'd've started listening to opera instead.

Merry Christmas

Our family celebrations begin on the evening of the 23rd, so as things prepare to get rolling here in the Great Midwest, I bid the warmest of Christmas wishes to any and all who stumble upon this. Joy to the World, and all that.

The Ballad of Dr. Biff McSparkland

‘Twas the night before Christmas and on Santa’s sleigh

Was a jolly old man who had lost his way.

In the skies over New York there had been a great flash

Then into Rudolph’s side, a meteorite did crash.

The collision knocked out his nose of red light

Leaving him helpless to navigate this flight.

The sleigh then began to tumble and pitch

Leaving Santa to mumble “Son of a …Kringle!”

“Rudolph is hurt, he’s ruptured his spleen

Gotta find a place to land this thing!”

Far below Santa, a man drove alone;

Dr. Biff McSparkland, on his way home.

With no family or friends, he’d no plans the next day.

So after a night of sleep, he’d work Christmas away

At the hospital ER, tending to sickness and wounds,

And griping endlessly about cheesy Christmas tunes.

(Biff was unhappy and needed a change

But that’s a story for a time less strange.)

So on the road he drove, when he heard a great roar.

Great, he thought, another accident, no more!

Santa had landed his sleigh in a field.

(Remarkably without losing any of his great yield.)

Poor Rudolph lay on his side in great pain

For the space rock had caused much more than a sprain.

Santa, grief stricken, yelled “Now what do I do?

I can’t possibly treat such a large boo-boo!

Christmas is ruined! Oh those poor girls and boys!

And what will I do with all these toys?”

It was at this time that Dr. McSparkland arrived

And looking at Santa, said “what’s all this jive?

I heard your crash, is everyone all right?

And why are you wearing that? Your coat is too tight!”

Santa replied “We hit trouble over Schenectady!

And I fear poor Rudolph needs a spleenectomy!”

It hit Biff then, just how much he was needed.

“I’m a doctor,” he said. “Then help him!” Santa pleaded.

Biff did his thing, and Rudolph recovered.

(Minus one organ, but no less discovered.)

Next morning the toys were under the tree

While Santa, back home, remembered with glee

His pal, Dr. Biff, who had saved the day.

Next year he’d reward him in some special way.

Meanwhile Biff had gone home and rested,

then rose a little early, gone to the kitchen and tested

A new recipe that he had thought of last night

When he placed a small package in the fridge by the light.

So at work Christmas Day, Biff shared with his team

A new holiday tradition, the Roast Christmas Deer Spleen!

Happy Birthday, Desmond James

(Warning: corny, yet touching video at the end of this entry!)

Yesterday (12/21) was Desmond's 2nd birthday. I was warned that as a parent time would just fly by, but it does seem like it has been two years. He's been around long enough that I struggle sometimes to remember what life was like before him. It was certainly much less active, and much less interesting.

I had been around enough children before he was born to form an idea of what parenthood would most probably be like. For the most part, it has been as I thought, with the exception of sleep. Kristen and I spent the better part of Desmond's first year in major sleep deprivation, and although we are not "in demand" at night as much as we used to be, neither of us has adjusted back to pre-parenting sleeping habits. She's had it rougher than I have, no doubt, but we would also both say that the change has been worth it.

Obviously, Desmond has changed a lot in two years. He looked exactly like me when he was born, and now he looks exactly like his mother. He used to fit into the crook of my arm like a sack of potatoes. Now I can barely lift his 35-pound body without feeling it everywhere. I miss the baby Desmond with all of my heart, but the little-boy Desmond is amazing, and I can't believe that I get to spend every day with this kid.

Desmond's personality exploded about two months ago. He hugs, he kisses, he gets excited whenever and wherever he sees his mother, and he expresses his individuality hundreds of times per day. It has been astonishing seeing the transition from a baby who relied on us for everything to a toddler who feels more confident about his place in the world with every passing day. Our life is not without obstacles; Des can be stubborn and resistant, and he has definitely discovered the emotion of anger recently, but it is all part of learning to live--I wouldn't trade the moments of impatience for anything--and we have to remember that a lot of life is facing challenges.

I still find it hard to believe at times that I am a parent, and I know that it is because I never thought about it growing up. Later, when I was an adult and living on my own, it just seemed like something that wasn't for me. Up until I met my wife in the spring of 2003 (when I was 36) I still didn't think I would ever get married, much less ever be a father.

Obviously, I am grateful to have been wrong about that.

I guess I would say that being a parent is hard, simply because at times the knowledge of being responsible for another life can be a little overwhelming. I've never regretted doing this, and I never will, yet I think of some of the challenges being a parent will bring in the future--normal things that will occur "down the road"--and I don't look forward to dealing with them.

Right now, Desmond thinks that I am the second-coolest person on Earth, but I'm willing to bet that in about ten years or so, his opinion might change. One day, maybe he'll think I'm too old to understand what it is like to be him. When I was a teenager, I didn't understand that the adage "with age, comes wisdom" was about the truest thing that has ever been said.

I'm a realist. Life isn't fair. People suffer, some through no fault of their own. You cannot create a world without angst. I want the best for my children, but know that there are forces at work that may keep it from them.

Right now? All I want for Desmond is to be healthy and happy, and to learn about the world around him. I want him to explore to his limit and develop a desire to learn, so that when he goes to school he really gets into it. I want him to create and imagine, and most of all, I want him to stay innocent.

Down the road, I want him to develop strategies for dealing with "the world." I'd love to be able to tell him that he will always be happy, that the sun will always shine, but life isn't like that, and I feel that I'd be doing him a tremendous disservice by not acknowledging it.

A good friend said to me recently that a parent "prepares the child for the path, not the path for the child." I agree wholeheartedly. Right now, I can control somewhat what life has in store for Desmond, but those days are waning fast.

I check on Desmond every night before I go to bed. Last night, I went upstairs after one, so it was already his birthday. He sleeps with a few of his blankets, and I noticed yesterday that he had wrapped two of them around his face. I moved them, and in his sleep, he tugged them back, wrapping them again around his face. After I moved the blankets for the third time, he woke up and gave me a look that said "What in God's name are you doing?" And then he smiled that smile, the one that says "Oh yeah, I recognize you. You're my Dad, and I love you." He reached out to me, and I thought, what the heck, it's his birthday, so I picked him up and we sat in the rocking chair in his room for twenty minutes.

Times where Desmond will sit still with me are few now, so I cherish any chance I get. He was half-asleep, and while sitting with me he rotated between yawns, rubbing his eyes, and smiling, the entire time holding on to my right index finger with his right hand.

Right after Desmond was born, I stood by him in the room while the nurses washed him and checked his signs. It lasted about ten minutes, and the entire time, he held onto one of my fingers just like he did last night. I remember feeling his grip then and thinking "I am in, for life. When you want to let go, let go. But it will always be there for you."

And I thought the same thing last night.

I love my son in such a way that I cannot describe, so I won't even bother. I feel like I was destined to be here at this time. Life has never had a greater purpose, and I've never understood it more. I only hope that it stays like this forever.

To my son: I love you unconditionally. I will do my best to prepare you for this world, but at times you will hurt, you feel anger, you will feel disappointment. It's normal. Hopefully those times are far outweighed by the joy that life can bring. Whatever path you find yourself on, I will always be there for you.

The Season of the Knuckle

My father was not one to complain about something unless it bothered him incessantly. He had a certain way of ignoring annoyances until they either went away or stopped being annoying. It is a trait that I don't have.

So it is not difficult for me to remember something that he complained about: the knuckle on his right index finger. Every so often, it would swell up to almost twice its normal size with arthritis, and the slightest movement would cause him pain. His flare-ups would last less than a week, but when he was in the middle of one I'd hear him wince over and over throughout the day.

This is a trait that I do have. In the exact same finger. Three or four times per year it shows up on my digital doorstep and hangs out for a few days. Just last week I happened to realize that it had been a long time, more than a year, since the knuckle on my right index finger swelled up, looking like a pale pickle and stiff as three fingers of scotch.

I woke up this morning, went to scratch my head, and saw more stars than the Hubble Telescope. Sometime while I was asleep, my overdue visitor arrived.

My right index finger looks like an albino sausage.

It's literally impossible for me to move the finger without feeling like it is on fire, and simple tasks are rendered, well, not simple. Today (and for the next two or three most likely) I opened the refrigerator, dialed my cell phone, and did one hundred other menial, everyday tasks with my left hand.

Typing this is taking much longer without the use of my primary finger, and every time a different finger on my right hand hits the keyboard, the spike digging through my index finger plunges deeper and deeper.

It's a nuisance, but I'll live. Every time I feel stiffness or pain I am reminded of my father. I never experienced arthritis in the knuckle until a year or so after he died, and I've come to the point that I believe that maybe that wasn't just a coincidence, that a swollen, painful knuckle is a two-to-four day visit from my father.

Just trying to wiggle my finger now, the pain is excruciating.

I hate it and I love it. I want it to go away and I want it to last forever.

There's irony, and there's IRONY

I got a rejection letter in the mail today from a literary journal to which I submitted a piece of writing.

The literary journal in question is published by the university where I received my MFA in 2008.

I was an editor of the literary journal's 2006 issue.

The rejection was a form letter, though written very warmly, and it's easy to see that the person who wrote it understands what it is like to be a writer. I think it is one of the best rejection form letters I've ever seen.

Of course, I'm biased.

I wrote the damn thing back in November 2005.

Getting used to disappointment

More later.

Ah.....

It's the finest Saturday of the year.

Why, you ask?

Michigan 38, Notre Dame 34.

I always enjoy the first ND loss of the season, so that we no longer have to suffer talk of ND winning it all.

(Sorry, Beth. It's nothing personal. And I'm even 100% Irish!)

Swing batter, batter! Swing, batter!

I've been told more than a few times that there must be something wrong with me because I'm not particularly fond of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. What can I say? It just never appealed to me. It's not a bad film. I just don't think it's the classic that everyone else seems to think that it is. Why? I can't get past the whole idea that there is no way that Ferris, Cameron and Sloane can get everything accomplished in the time that they have before Ferris has to get back home to keep his ruse going.

Yes, I know, it's only a movie, but I have always had issues with movies that don't assume the person watching it can figure out when something is complete BS. More on that later.

Next week, a reporter from Chicago is going to try to re-create the events of the film, as the movie lines up with reality in a nice tidy row. He won't be the first to try this, either.

Given that it's 23 years later than the time of the movie, there's no way he's even going to come close to pulling this off. The Wrigley Field situation alone will ruin any chance.

I've thought about this a few times since the death of John Hughes (especially about this move, because I'll just say that I seem to be the only person who ever existed who doesn't fawn over it), and really, I just can't get over the fact that the viewer is supposed to believe that all this is possible. It's not, not even in 1986, and there are clues in the movie that let you know this. The Cubs game alone is enough to break it into a million pieces. A vendor mentions that it is the third inning, and in '86 Wrigley Field still didn't have lights, so every game started at 1:20. It'd be a stretch to say that it would be 2 PM by the time the game is in the third inning; it would be more like 2:30 at the earliest.

But the premise gets blown further to bits when the game is on TV (as is Ferris) and you clearly hear Harry Caray say that Lee Smith is pitching. Smith was the Cubs closer, so it would be the 8th inning at the earliest that he'd be on the mound, and quite possibly the ninth inning. That puts Ferris and the gang at Wrigley Field around 4 at the earliest. You think they're driving back to the North Shore, going through the stuff with Cameron wrecking the corvette, etc. in 90 minutes? No way.

I remember feeling this way the first time I saw the movie. And it's petty, sure, but it bothers me that someone didn't catch the infeasibility of all this.

I just hate when movies do this. Yes, I can accept the story of ET crawling out of the garage because you know it's a fairy tale going in, but I'm pretty sure that you wouldn't find Ferris Bueller's Day Off in the sci-fi section of your local video store.

You know what other "classic" movie drives me crazy with this stuff? Jerry Maguire. Decent movie until the last half hour, and then it just loses me. It starts when Rod Tidwell gets injured in the end zone and lays there for a while while Maguire is on the phoen with his wife, detailing how badly he is hurt. I can fathom that, I suppose. But then Tidwell recovers, hears the fans cheering for him, and proceeds to dance and strut all around the end zone. If someone tried that in actual game, someone from the opposing team would clobber him in about five seconds. And then when he got back to the sidelines, his coaching stuff would clobber him for doing it too.

And let's not forget the big revelatory moment when Rod is on a talk show and the host divulges the huge new contract the player has been offered. It's complete bull. No team, no agent, would ever allow something like that to happen.

That kind of stuff drives me crazy yes, can ruin a film for me. My brother is a pilot. You should hear him go on about the dozens of aviation moments in movie involving airplanes that are complete BS. The 747 blowing up at the end of the second Die Hard? Phooey. The rescue of the president in Air Force One? Bunk. I always say he should host the "Oh That Could NEVER Happen" Film Festival. He could have day one, I'd take day two.

Last night I was getting ready to go to bed when I got sucked into a movie called The Final Season. It's about a high school in Norway, Iowa that built a baseball dynasty, winning 20 championships before the school was closed due to enrollment issues. The film is about that last season, which was spring of 1991, which also happened to be my last semester before graduating from the University of Iowa. I remember hearing about the situation in Norway.

The film seemed true to the story, with some embellishments in it, of course. I doubt that the team really had an angry Chicagoan who happened to excel at the game move to the town just before the season started, among other things, but all in all, it was an adequate baseball movie that told a true story that also happened to be heartwarming: here was a school with a rich tradition of winning about to be gone forever. Could the team win one last title?

Norway does (and did) win, of course, but the recreation of the game is what killed the movie for me (again). I really, really, really doubt that in the last inning that a Norway player went up and over the wall to take a go-ahead home run away from the other team. I doubt that the stud pitcher on the other team was a prick who yelled at his players on the field "do I have to do everything myself?" I doubt that with the bases loaded and the winning run on third that a manager would have his batter bunt.

Wait, unless maybe the manager was...Ferris Bueller!

What's wrong with a little realism? Why make this movie and then turn it into a complete fantasy at the end? Does the average film maker think everyone in his potential audience is a complete moron?

I can hear the collective voice of the movie-watching public telling me to get over it. A movie is a movie, much like a novel is a novel. Which reminds me: what they did to The Time Traveler's Wife was CRIMINAL...ah, don't get me started.

Time for a Random 11

(This is a complete, total ripoff from here)

I haven't done one of these in a while. It was finally, finally hot here today (which means over 90-it's been a depressing summer) and I celebrated by overdoing it outside. Tomorrow it might be over 95, and I'm playing golf. Let's hear it for sweat.

1. "A Certain Girl"-Warren Zevon. Look! He's linking to videos! Yes, this is another way I am ripping off from another blog. On to Warren: I miss this man. This is the first song of his I remember hearing, around 1979, on WEFM, the first classic rock station I ever got into. Within a year of discovering the station, it changed formats to country. I started listening to another station, WMET, and they switched to jazz within a year as well. When I was a pre-teen, apparently I was the Typhoid Mary of FM classic rock. As someone who used to practice lots of unrequited love, this song speaks to me. Ah, those were the days.

2. "I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down"-Elvis Costello. Truth be told, I am not much of a dancer. I tend to only dance at weddings, and then only if I have had a few beverages. This song makes me want to dance no matter the circumstance, and if I were to jump up on the coffee table in front of me, and there was not another awake person in the house, I'd find myself rocking back and forth while swinging my arms in the opposite motion. Take a look at the three dudes in the background while EC sings the refrain: they are doing it all wrong.

3. "I'll Fly Away"-Allison Krause. Someone else named "Gillian W" sings this as well, but the screen on my 'pod is too small to display here entire name. I'm sure it's here somewhere...Welch! It's Welch! This is from O Brother Where Art Thou, a severely underrated movie (Do not seek the treasure!). I love it. When I first met Kristen she told me that she was a big George Clooney fan, and I told her that this was one of my favorite movies (We thought you was a toad!). She had never seen it-really? I mean how can you be a Clooney fan and not have seen this? I forgave her, and we moved on. No, not really. I still hold a grudge. Hi Honey! She's seen it several times since (I've counted to three!). This song gives me a bit of comfort when I think about those who have gone before me. Imagine how I'd feel if I took religion a tad more seriously.

4. "Departure"-REM. From the vastly underrated CD "New Adventures in Hi-Fi." The video is a little, um, weird. I'm not sure why Michael Stipe thinks he is a purple raccoon. Anyway, any song I hear from this CD makes me think of a road trip I took out west in the summer of 2003, and I recall hearing this song as I passed the Salt Lake City airport heading towards Nevada early on a Sunday morning (the song talks about heading out over the Salt Flats). The rest of Utah after Salt Lake on Interstate 80 is a little, shall we say, barren, but yet fantastic, if you are into looking at things that you've never seen before. We don't have salt flats in the Midwest. I ended up in Sacramento that night, and saw more from less in fourteen hours behind the wheel (there's nothing in Nevada either) than I could have possibly imagined. I don't think I'd make it through an hour of the same drive without falling asleep though.

5. "Waiting on a Friend"-Rolling Stones. It'd be hard to a favorite Stones song, but this is in the top five. We got cable television for the first time when I was a freshman in high school, and there was a public access channel that ran community bulletin boards for every city on the system. They'd play the best music on it though, and I recall sneaking into my parents' room to turn this channel on just for the music. My father busted me frequently, and it drove him nuts that I'd turn on a television for music. One time he busted me as this song was on, and I said "Dad, come on it's the Stones." He replied: "I don't care if it's a meteor. Get out of here."

6. "Yellow"-Coldplay. Ah yes, before Chris Martin got all Gwenyth on us. I like this band, but they haven't been the same for me ever since "Fix You", which is the worst song ever. My niece Erin was a baby back when this song was popular, and she loved it, kicking her feet like crazy whenever it came on. Three years later I played "Fix You" for her and she cried. Really.

7. "Follow Your Bliss"-B52s. OK, there are times when the Internet freaks me out completely, and this is definitely one of them. I didn't think that there'd be a video for this song, and there isn't. Stick with me here: I remember being in Iowa City in the summer of 1990 (just before my senior year) and turning on the Weather Channel before I walked to class to see if it was going to rain, and was a little put off by the fact that this song was being played during the local forecast. It seemed (then, and still does now) a little depressing that someone at the Weather Channel would coordinate music for local forecasts, and that someone would have to contact the B52s and get permission to include this. And I thought this would be an interesting anecdote, but as it turns out, you can see it for yourself at the link, because someone has posted on YouTube a local forecast for Jackson, Mississippi from July 9, 1990 featuring "Follow Your Bliss." Of course, that means the use of the song was national. Unbelievable. What did we do before the Interent again?

8. "Save Me"-kd lang. Whatever happened to her? My very first apartment was in Oak Park, Illinois and had one of those big old fashioned basin bath tubs. The first time I used it I put 6 CDs into the player, hit random, and stayed in the tub for two hours. This is the first song that played. I bet no one else anywhere in the universe hears this song and thinks about a bath tub.

9. "Daughter"-Pearl Jam. As with dancing, I am not much of a singer, but there are a few songs that for some reason I can just nail. This is one of them. I sing it better than Eddie Vetter, and no, I won't sing it for you. Another song that was written for me is James' "Born of Frustration" though I refuse to do the "woo woo wooo woooooo" part at the beginning. Those might be the only two.

10. "Just Like Heaven"-The Cure. Winner of the "Let's Turn a Great Song Into a Crappy Movie" award, which is different from the "Let's Turn a Crappy Song Into a Crappy Movie" award. What the hell is Reese Witherspoon's problem? I digress. Remember the annoying guy in college who played his guitar on the roof of his rental house across from the dormitory where you lived, the one who annoyed the hell out of you and made you wish you had a catapult and several small sheep? The only time I found him mildly entertaining was on a very foggy night in the spring of 1990 when he was playing "Just Like Heaven" and I couldn't see a damn thing. I wonder if Reese Witherspoon was over there.

11. "Romeo and Juliet"-Dire Straits. We started with unrequited love, we finish with unrequited love. Back in my pathetic 20s, when I was blindly carrying a torch, I used to listen to this song and think of how cool it would be when she finally came around. Then a few years later it was featured in Can't Hardly Wait (which is a great song and wasn't a bad movie, so it doesn't win any awards from above) and seemed completely pathetic. It makes me laugh now, especially since I am married and all that pathetic 20s shit is behind me (Thank you, Kristen; when I met you, you made me 56000% cooler. God love you). I do admit that there are times of my life that I could scrub out of my brain with a Brillo Pad, but experience makes us who we are today, doesn't it?

Stay thirsty my friends.

Surely, this one was the King of all Muppets

I have acquaintances who, when they found out that I was going to be a father, said to themselves "HA!" These were people who heard me say that if I ever had kids, there would be certain things that I would never do; things that I saw other people do with their kids, like wait for an hour just to see a Disney parade pass by.

I wasn't being judgmental. People are free to do what they want. And I'm free to not to do what I want, regardless what any child of mine may think.

So far, no Disney parades, and I don't see that changing. Call me Grumpus. I don't care.

I did do something last week that I thought I might never do though: I bought my son an Elmo.

Yes, Elmo. Some love him. Some hate him. Some of us hear his voice 24/7. Desmond has discovered Sesame Street, and he loves Elmo. He completely freaks out whenever he comes on. So last week, when we in Target, I saw a small stuffed Elmo that spoke when shook (and if that isn't an apt metaphor...unfortunately it does not say "stop, my brain hurts.") and I showed it to Desmond. He squealed. Windows five miles away shattered. I put it in the cart.

And this is how cool my son is: he didn't freak because I didn't give him the toy. He just kept his eye on it for the rest of the time we were in the store. I let him hold it in the car, still in its package, and he squealed the entire way home.

So we hear Elmo now, 24/7. I will never get used to it, but I know that it is not forever.

Shake-Me-Like-a-British-Nanny Elmo (and if you have issues with that name, address your complaints here) is packaged quite tightly. He comes sitting up in a cardboard container, his arms and legs fastened to it with plastic. I needed a scissors to free him of these restraints.

It struck me as I was doing this that Elmo is packaged in a most peculiar way: his arms were outstretched, the plastic attached around his wrists. His feet were crossed over, and the plastic wrapped around them as well.

I not only unpackaged Elmo, I de-crucified him.

I feel so noble.