THE SALIVATION ARMY

MissEight and I were out a little bit today on Snow Day #2, doing a last-minute grocery store run. The Salvation Army bell ringers were dual-teaming the doors to the QFC, so I went and got some cash at the ATM.

MissEight: Why are we giving money to them?

Me: Because they take the money and do good things with it, like helping the homeless.

My daughter screwed up her face as she read the words on the bright red bucket after dropping a fiver in it. As we walked hand-in-hand across the snowy parking lot, she kicked a chunk of ice with her pink plaid Size One boot.

MissEight: Well, I still don't get why we would give any money to a spit army.

It took me a few seconds until I understood her misreading of one of the words on the red bucket, and then I broke out into a huge grin.

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A CREATIVE SNOMG DAY

The skies were bright blue all day, the temperatures in the 20s, and enough snow and ice on the ground from yesterday's storm that the kids got a day off of school and many, many people wrecked their vehicles. The Seattle area is a lousy place for winter's harsher spoils -- the freeze/refreeze cycle combined with our San Francisco-style hills can make for treacherous and ridiculous driving. Fortunately, I didn't have to drive anywhere today, and I could enjoy watching videos of last night's Seattle slide fest instead.

This one features a bus. Awesome.



This Audi makes a brave attempt to get up Queen Anne Hill, ends up a 3-hitter.



I do think these folks were making a party out of watching the cars. It's cruel AND fun!



MissEight's idea of snow day fun was to gather up snow and paint it.

Another snow day tomorrow. I can't promise there won't be a snow dinosaur or an opera.

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COUCH TEEN & I DISCUSS A VERY BAD FIRST DATE

Well, there we all were, the whole family, having a nice lunch at the Pancake House. MissEight busied herself drawing with the provided crayons and Mr12 played some game on my iPhone while we waited for the yummy food to arrive. It wasn’t very busy, but we were seated next to a couple in their 20s. After a minute or so, I became aware of the conversation. I had no choice but to become aware of the conversation because the girl was speaking very loudly, with apparently no idea that everyone around her would be able to hear everything she was saying. The young man didn’t say much, if anything. My god, I realized, as she went on and on…my god…this is their FIRST DATE. I looked at up CouchTeen. He looked at me. We wore the same stunned expression. Holy crap.

I snuck a glance over. It would be fair to say she had some appearance challenges. So be it; there are some not-so-great looking folks whose personalities well make up for a lack of genetic blessedness. However. Not. Here. She kept talking and talking and talking -- braying, really -- confessing her personal sexual history, her failed romances, the multiple self-help books she was reading about relationship failures and overcoming selfishness and narcissism, and almost anything else, as long as it had to do with her. I had to look away towards the window because I started laughing and could not stop. That poor dude.

I asked CouchTeen this afternoon about it.

Me: So…how about that Pancake House girl, huh?

CouchTeen: She was very annoying and she had herpes above her upper lip. Two little herpe. Herpii. She would not shut up. That guy couldn’t even feign interest! She was self- inquisitive to a giant fault. It was really bad. Awful.

Me: At what price would you date this girl?

CouchTeen: DATE?????? LIKE MULTIPLE DATES? Oh my god. Would I have to touch her? ZERO PRICE! God, if I didn’t have to have any physical contact…god… god…how long would it have to be? I couldn’t… I couldn’t do it for any less than like a grand a night. I don’t think anything less would be worth it. I don’t think you could last.

Me: What about for free?

CouchTeen: No, I would kill myself. You’d have to just walk out. For free, I couldn’t last 30 minutes.

Me: What was the worst thing other than the herpii that you remember about her?

CouchTeen: God, I don’t know, it was all just so bad. The self-help books. I guess her last boyfriend that she kept talking about gave them to her so I guess that’s saying something. You don’t want to tell someone that you read self-help books about narcissism on what must have been a first date! God, she was just so full of herself, but she thought she was doing this great job of NOT being full of herself.

Me: She never stopped talking that I heard.

CouchTeen: No, not once unless the server came over, and that lasted about two seconds. Awful. God, and she looked like she was wearing some outfit from Prince’s closet from 1983, that Purple Rain blouse.

Me: She kept saying how everyone in her life kept telling her how selfish she was, and then said, “well, of course I am, because I am an only child!”

CouchTeen: I don’t think I heard the guy's voice once. GOD. Excusing your wild selfishness on a first date just seems like a really bad way to set things up. Yeesh.

Me: She also made some excuse that her debit card was messed up, so the guy had to cover the lunch check!

So, the advice we would give this couple is as follows:

THE GIRL:

-- This is a first date, not a Catholic confession booth. Your idea of being all super-honest and upfront and “this is me with all my faults, take me as I am,” could not be more inappropriate at a lunch meet-up at a family restaurant, with a guy you don’t know.

-- You aren’t that interesting to hog the entire conversation – no one is. Not only do you need to let the guy speak, how about asking him about himself and his life, hmm? If you don’t want to get to know him, are you just looking for some man to put up with you and nod his head at you?

-- The shirt was not good. The date maybe would be better postponed until your lip herps had healed. Help yourself here a little.

-- 99% of all self-help books are crap. Never tell anyone you read them.

-- Do not expect to get a second date when you flat-out tell the guy that everyone in your life, including boyfriends, regular friends, and your family keeps telling you that you are a jerk.

-- Bring cash.

THE GUY:

-- RUN.

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BOWIE AND WOMAN?

DAVID BOWIE, I AM CALLING YOU OUT!

It's possible I might have watched this on TV at the time, 1975. If so, thankfully my memory banks have erased the evidence, because this is a sound and vision that no one should have had to endure. Courtesy the endless heaven-and-hell that is YouTube, I bring you the singular horror of possibly the worst pop medley duo of all time: David Bowie and goose-voiced fake Native American, Cher.



Oh my GOD. Listen to that slimy TV disco house band play Bowie's "Young Americans," THEN IT GOES INTO "SONG SUNG BLUE," then "ONE," then "DA DOO RUN RUN," THEN -- THEN!!!!!!! -- with a horrible screech from Cher, "WEDDING BELL BLUES." It goes on and on and on and on and on. Cher sounds like a dying Oldsmobile, and when she and Bowie do "The Bump" and it limps back into "Young Americans," we all lose a piece of our souls and colons.

Why, Bowie, why? Did you owe some sleazy Hollywood producer a favor? Were you hoping to score Cher's wig? This is pre-overarching-camp days, so you can't claim that. No. I call you out, sir, because I believe that down in your little starman heart, YOU LIKED SINGING AN INCOMPREHENSIBLE SELECTION OF TURGID POP, WITH NO PARTICULAR GRACE, FLOW, MEANING, OR ENTERTAINMENT VALUE. I also believe that your voice is based primarily on the vocal stylings of Anthony Newley, so there's that evidence as well.

I demand reparations for the damage this has caused me. Send me the wig and your new book and perhaps someday, I may heal.

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MR12'S BLACK BELT SATURDAY

Do you know what I like? You may not believe me, and especially if you know me, but sometimes I like to be wrong. OK, I hear the peals of ringing laughter, yeah yeah yeah. Sometimes I go with the odds, and sometimes the odds are against me, or you, or someone else, and I adjust my expectations in a downward direction. But every so often, I am proved wrong in this, and good things happen anyway, like they did today for my middle child, good ol' Mr12.

I guess I don't write about him as much as I do about droll and dramatic CouchTeen or the wildly-funny, bizarre, and lovely MissEight, because he is just this rather sweet, easy-going, happy guy. He is rarely any trouble, and adapts well to most everything that comes his way. This was not exactly the way he began, although he did truly always have a sunny disposition. He was difficult to feed for many years, and we worried about him. He had some trouble with schoolwork, and we worried about him. He was treated very harshly by a teacher, and we worried about him. He at times felt worried too, and we worried about that. Many times, he seemed just on the edge of failure...but then pulled up at the last possible second. This child was the one out of the three that I expected would get the most knocks in life, and perhaps withdraw in response.

But look what we have here. Today, after beginning his mixed martial arts class six years ago as a six-year-old, he earned his black belt. Six years, year-round, at least two or three times a week. His instructor, a sharp, compassionate man, doesn't pass anyone through if they do not truly earn their stripes and belts. There were times Mr12 expected to be advanced, hadn't done his best, and had to wait for promotion. And that's how it should be. Some kids didn't last in class. It's hard work and a big commitment. MissEight tried it a few years ago, and it did not go well, because as she found out, martial arts instructors will spend zero time arguing with insolent pretty five-year-old girls. Perhaps she will return to it later in life. I know, HA.

I expected him to quit. So many nights he was tired after a long school day, and would have homework to do after martial arts, and just wanted to relax. But he never once asked to quit. The one kid I thought was least likely to persevere, did. The work and the goals meant something to him. I thought he wouldn't be able to do it, and I was wrong, and I could not be happier about that.

So today, Black Belt Saturday, our entire family turned out to watch Mr12 test and cheer him on. Here's a little video of it -- music kindly provided by the trio of Pete Townshend, John Entwistle, and Keith Moon. Daltry was prolly out havin' a punch-up.

He wants to keep going. I will keep taking him. Congratulations, Mr12.

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GUEST POST: NEIGHBOR RALPH'S CANINE COMEUPPANCE

I am glad to bring you a rare (and always welcomed) Popthomology Guest Post, this time from my friend Stacy in Florida (@tuned2chords on Twitter -- follow, follow!). I forget sometimes how extremely lucky I am to have this site; I am able to speak my mind and tell my stories and share things with the world each day. When I am able sometimes to describe a feeling, experience, or event that other people can strongly connect to, it's humbling and gratifying. After all, so much of other people we never know -- most of our interactions remain transitory and surface-level. But we're all in this together. Stacy, with good humor and delightful sailor-swearing punctuation, reminds us that some people really don't want to be in this all together, unless "all" means "exactly like me and my kin." She also reminds us that dogs are smarter than people, and occasionally have perfect comic timing. Thank you, Stacy!

We had a neighbor named Ralph. His house was manicured. The paint was immaculate and his wife always had on a matching ensemble and perfect hair. She was a real estate agent and he had retired early, had a boat and a nice car. So many people would think, “What nice neighbors to have!”

Ralph came to our open house party when we moved in. He told us his cat was named Sambo, because he’s a black cat. Isn’t that clever. He questioned us about what we were, and the answer was Jewish.

He and his wife then proceeded to be nasty to us and everyone who visited us for the rest of the time he lived next door. He scowled at Aunt Myrtle when she came over because she is black; he did not want her tires touching his grass. Hanukah parties really pissed him off. They kept track of what we did. Ralph’s pristine wife once referred to me as “you people." All the while, my kids witnessed their behavior, and I in turn was able to teach them a lesson in how not to treat others.

One pretty Saturday morning, before Ralph moved out to live on a lake, as he told my husband Rob, to “get away from the niggers and Cubans and Jews, “ we had a little… scuffle with him. One of our dogs ran outside, a sweet little girl lab. Maibel saw him and ran over toward him, because, well...she’s a happy dog. Ralph shoo-ed her away and in her friendly excitement she proceeded to go into poop position...plop,plop,plop.

Ralph yelled to Rob, “Your fucking dog just shit on my lawn!”

Rob, who is patient, molasses-y, you’re-going-to-wait-this-out wise when he senses a problem, said to Ralph, “Relax...I’ll get the scooper and clean it up riiight now.”

To which Ralph replied, “Fucking kike!”

Rob paused and then took the scooper full of dog shit...I saw his arm go up in a surreal slow motion, as if the music from “The Bionic Man” were in the background... up with the scooper, sideways turn... and the next thing I know, Rob flings all the dog shit in the scooper toward Ralph’s general bigoted direction. “Fuck you!” Rob spat out, who then walked back home with Maibel and the scooper. It was one for the good guys...tossing dog shit at a shitty person, which isn’t exactly what any nice person ever, ever wants to do, or plans to do.

Hate. A man full of hate. Ralph, with all his toys and motorcycles and a perfectly manicured house and painted wife will never be happy in all his days, because there are "niggers and Cubans and Jews." I wonder if his current neighbors think, “What a nice neighbor to have!” 

Woof woof, Ralph.

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BUDDY RICH: KING OF THE DRUM BATTLE

You've all heard the expression "wired for it," meaning how someone is so very naturally talented that they seem to effortlessly do something that 99.9% of population couldn't do with 20 years of instruction and a gun to their heads. There is some kind of exceptional difference in the brain and body in wired-for-it people; then it is a matter of motivation, opportunity, and a little luck for that innate talent to be fully realized. When I see a really good drummer -- and I mean REALLY REALLY REALLY good -- "wired for it" just immediately comes to mind. One of those RRR drummers was Buddy Rich. I will go so far as to say that he may well have been the best ever.

I count myself fortunate to have been exposed to Buddy Rich's musicality very early in life, via my jazzman dad. Of course, Dad knew I loved music, and enjoyed having me hear what he thought was real excellence. He would play me records, or point out pieces of songs on the radio, and sometimes let me stay up late on school nights to watch "The Tonight Show" if there was something extra-special on. And that is where I first saw Buddy Rich play and was blown away by what he could do, just like everyone else watching him. What a delight. Rich would come on, maybe a couple times a year, chat with Johnny Carson, and then sit in with the crack Tonight Show band, and always delivered. He seemed to me to be this very odd combination of smooth smiling Cheshire cat, all controlled and tight, yet also very aggressive and almost kind of dangerous as he played. As I came to find out over the years, drummers are a particular breed. They are all somewhere high up on the crazy scale. (I am a pretty lousy drummer, which perhaps correlates well to sanity.)

Anyway, what I would like to share with you now are several clips of Buddy Rich's "Drum Battles" -- the pair-offs he often did with some of the other best drummers of the time. You don't have to be a jazz person to love these -- you don't even have to know anything about music. You show this to a cattleherder in Africa or a schoolkid in Japan or a Grandma in Finland, and each one of them will smile. Pay attention to how truly precise Rich is -- master of the snare drum. Enjoy.

Here's Buddy with Gene Krupa, another amaaaaazing drum peer of Rich's, on the Sammy Davis Jr. show in 1966. (There's a pretty fair chance I would have seen this at the time. SAMMAY!) I think Keith Moon caught more than a little of Krupa's big bang and swagger.



One of the "Tonight Show" appearances...this time, Buddy plays against Ed Shaughnessy, the "Tonight Show" band drummer. Jaw-dropping good, and so much fun.



In this short battle, Buddy is back with Krupa AND singer Mel Torme AND vibraphone master Lionel Hampton. Who knew?



Comedian Jerry Lewis played drums, too. But...



Finally, Buddy in the "drum battle of the century" meets up with a famous crazy hairy hippie on a chain. Was the outcome ever in doubt?



Wired for it? Oh, yes.

Buddy Rich, Age 6.

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SH*TBIRD NATION

I can be both proud and embarrassed of my home state of Wisconsin. Today, it pleases me to hear that the Janesville Gazette has shut down online reader comments for several categories of news: crimes, courts, accidents, race or sex. That's kind of a lot of content, huh? Editor Scott Angus (his last name really should have been Holstein or Guernsey, but I digress) has with deliberation and reluctance admitted that his news service can no longer reasonably handle the amount of abusive dialogue offered up on a daily basis from the Gazette's readers, noting, "The comments typically start out OK, but they deteriorate into insults, innuendo or otherwise offensive remarks...People simply can’t or won’t behave." These are not the words of a prude, or someone who wishes to restrict free speech -- journalists are often the most passionate defenders of the right for people to speak their minds, regardless of how difficult the sentiments might be to hear. But something has changed, hasn't it. The anonymity of the internet has created a nation of shitbirds.

You know what a shitbird is, right? One of our airborne avian pals, flying free and easy above us, who thinks nothing of dropping a copious load of crap down upon the world at any time, for any reason, on anything, and merrily just continues on its way. It is either completely unaware or unconcerned that it has soaked the top of your head with disgusting pasty smelly goo. It may, in fact, get quite a kick out of it -- we don't know, because the shitbird has already left the scene of the slime. Life for those of us on the ground has a different set of rules: if you poop on someone, they will probably get very very mad and will then scream at you and may very well slug you or pull down his or her own pants and poop on you in return. I believe there was some kind of Supreme Court ruling on this back in the 1850s. It's not civilized to just go up and poop on people. It doesn't help advance society in any way and can cause riots and public health alerts.

If you read any comments anywhere on the internet, from news services or magazines or YouTube, you know very well about the shitbird phenomenon. It hardly matters what the content is -- some troll will say something ugly, and things usually just get worse from there. But even if the pile up or pile on doesn't happen, you and I have to read the shitbird anyway, because it's just sitting there and it's not highlighted red or something to alert you to just skip it. Defenders of shitbirds (yes, there are many, and they too are also usually called "Anonymous" or "KillZone45" or "EatMeBitch") will say it is the readers' duty to just suck it up and deal. If you don't like it, just ignore it, because...

"...It's just the internet."

But guess what? No, it isn't. Behind each post there is a person, and behind each news story there are even more...people who are often in some kind of crisis to begin with. Shitbirds would never have the nerve to just walk right up and poop on your foot, because these birds are small and weak and nervous and know you may be perfectly able to, with one swift move, grab them in one hand and wring their little necks until they're fit for nothing but becoming Thanksgiving appetizers in Kentucky. But on the internet, shitbirds are emboldened with the confidence that no one will ever be able to make them  responsible for their words, no matter how racist, sexist, creepy, vulgar, or threatening.

And what is the outcome of having thousands or millions of career shitbirds who get away with saying anything they feel like at any time and get a lot of attention for it with no consequences? It seeps into "real life." What was once considered taboo and backwards now seems perfectly acceptable. See: the Tea Party shouting at members of Congress, the assistant D.A. in Michigan who openly stalked a gay student leader, the Westboro Baptist Church...

There is a cost to allowing abusive and unproductive speech. If the public cannot police itself, then people like the Gazette's Scott Angus have the sad task of doing it for them. We all lose when we can no longer have the opportunity to have our voices heard, all because of a murder of unrestrained crap crows. The Gazette loses some of its vibrancy and immediacy and value by shutting down comments, absolutely. But I will stand behind Mr. Angus. Someone has to clip those wings. After all, if all of us here on the ground become so covered in crap that we are afraid to speak, or are prevented from speaking, well...Hitchcock's "The Birds" starts to look not so scary in comparison.

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A SONG IS WORTH A THOUSAND PICTURES…OR FIVE

I love the randomness of the oddly-recovered memory. What provokes an old dusty vision in my head, like for so many other people, is often the music that was associated with a time and place. Today I played a game with myself: write down the first five titles of songs I heard on the radio this afternoon that were at least 30 years old, then write down the picture that came in my mind when I heard them, as completely as I could.

It’s all in there.

Alice Cooper “No More Mr. Nice Guy”

I am sitting on the curb outside a strip mall ice cream shop. It is still fairly early in the morning, the sky is white-grey, and already the humidity is oppressive and thick. I am smoking a Newport, inhaling only every third drag because the menthol feels too hot. I don’t have enough air. I squint hard with each pull of smoke, balancing the cigarette inexpertly between my fingers, imagining that I look hard and badass. The old wads of gum on the concrete are flattened and blackened, surrounded by spattery spots of spilled ice cream from too-high cones, always refilled no-charge for the crying little ones. The day is open. I am bored with possibility. I am 12 years old.

Jackie DeShannon “What The World Needs Now”

I am in the bedroom of the teenage daughter of friends of my parents. They live by one of the lakes. It is summer, and dinner will be ready soon. Her room is small, with a twin bed and a desk. The walls are painted light blue. On her desk is a portable record player and a wire 45 single holder. Over and over and over and over again, I ask her to play this song, and I sing along every time, sincerely feeling the grand message of the words. I am happy as I can be, and the girl is possibly beginning to get a bit annoyed by me. I am 3 years old.

The Kinks “Dedicated Follower Of Fashion”

I am in the kitchen of our next-door neighbors’ house. The mom is washing the dishes at the sink, along with her two daughters, both older than me. I beg them to let me dry some of the dishes with a dishtowel, because my mother won’t let me. She’s afraid I will break something or stab myself with a fork by accident. The neighbor mom hands me the towel, and a warm plate that smells so nicely of dish soap. I am so careful as I make sure it is very, very dry and shiny. This song is playing on the AM radio, somewhere in the room, and we all sing along to the chorus. I feel very happy when I hear this group because their records all have that loud sound and they are funny. I can see the daylight coming in from the window above the sink. I am 4 years old.

Devo “Uncontrollable Urge”

Freshly back from a run to Peaches Records, I play this song on repeat on my console stereo record player. It has a light tan label. I bought it for the A-side, a funny robot version of the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” but end up liking the B-side a lot better; something that happens fairly often with me and singles. Suddenly, I feel extremely dizzy and sick and barely make it to the bathroom before exploding. I have eaten something that didn’t like me, and I will miss a week of school for it. My father eventually turns the record off by simply turning off the power, the needle still sitting on the record. I am 16 years old.

David Bowie “Fame”

I am kneeling on my twin bed, my elbows resting on the headboard, which has storage drawers. My plastic wood-grain alarm clock/radio sits on top. I am looking out the window, which is right above the headboard looking out to our driveway and the road. Cars rarely go by. I am cranky because it’s fall and I am back in school. I wait as the clock’s “digital” display flips the black-and-white number cards to read the appointed time, when this song makes its radio debut in Milwaukee. It begins to play over the tiny mono speaker, and I frown. It sounds like the sort of glam-funk I don’t particularly like. I know that John Lennon is on it, and I strain my ears to identify his voice. I keep listening, and when I hear the descending “fame fame fame fame fame fame…” near the end of the song, I shake my head ruefully. It’s gonna be a #1 song, just because of that one part, I think, Lennon or no Lennon. I end up buying the 45. I am 13 years old.

Deeply glad I don’t have any New Kids On The Block memories to have to store.

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HOME DECORATING TIPS WITH MISS EIGHT

(Sincerely delivered by MissEight in the car this afternoon, after a discussion about her school field trip to the local landfill tomorrow.)

"Recycling is important. You know what you could do to recycle and then make your house pretty? You take a Kleenex and you use it, right in the middle. Then you crumple it up and make it look like a flower. Then you stick a pipe cleaner in the middle. Then you blow your nose a lot and make more of the flowers and put them in a vase! Wouldn't that be nice?"

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I TOLD YOU SO

The hardest part of being a parent is not at all what you think it will be when you are first handed your tiny packet of newborn at the hospital, when you are instructed how to wrap it like a burrito, how to wash and feed it, then sent on your merry way with samples of Enfamil and Pampers and Dreft and diaper rash cream. You assume those first weeks and months of severe sleep deprivation, trying desperately to soothe the five-hour nightly screechfest, and cleaning mucky green infant poo that seems to come every few minutes from some cruel teeny intestinal swamp are the toughest things. You are thinking, hey, you get those out of the way, and it’s pretty smooth sailing, because you love your child, your child loves you, and everything will be groovy.

Stupid new parents.

Oh, trust me…the days of poo and screech and baggy-eyed exhaustion seem rather doable in comparison to what’s coming. After all, you can definitely put on a fresh diaper, catch up with naps (or, like me, develop a caffeine habit), and babies all do stop howling at some point. You can pick up a baby and rock and sing to them, you can make them laugh and smile by making funny sounds, and you can give them a new toy and they will be happy as a little clam. Doable.

No, the hardest part of being a parent is watching them grow up and do dumb stuff and get hurt and suffer, even if you tried to give them a glimpse into the Crystal Ball of Experience, tried to get them to understand the big picture, the longview, and all the rest of those boring things. Because they haven’t yet earned the experience like you did, they sometimes just don’t do the right things, and you are left with cleaning up a mess in sad silence, or flinging “I told you so!” at them in righteous anger and frustration. There sometimes is very little you can do. They have to make their own ways, and that includes mistakes that seem so glaringly obvious and avoidable to you…because you’ve already made them and moved on. You are left to navigate new waters in how you deal with your child and how you cope with your own feelings. And if you get it wrong, it makes everything worse.

Imagine a nurse telling you that as she handed you the hospital goody bag and your maternity discharge papers…“The umbilical cord stump will fall off in 10-14 days, and your heart might ache for several years. You can treat only one of these with an alcohol-soaked swab. Sign here please.” Nurses might know it, as baby after baby leaves the hospital with a tiny knit cap and a thrilled and scared new parent. They can’t tell you so.

But if you can, look and listen to the generation ahead of you. Most of those parents, now grandparents with their children all grown, will tell you that yes, those times were very hard and they worried like you do now, but that in the end, it all worked out pretty well.  Things may not have turned out exactly the way they wished for their kids, but they still love them just as much and are proud of the adults they became. It takes time and patience. And, if you are like me and from the Instant! Generation, time and patience are BORRRR-INNNG. There is no TANG for human development. I think.

No more than the nurse or your mom or my mom or I can tell you all about the hardest part of being a parent if you haven’t arrived there yet, I can’t really make a new parent understand the best part. It’s not that first baby smile, given right to you. It’s not the pride you see in them learning to walk, ride a bike, read, make friends. It’s not getting to play Hot Wheels or Legos or Barbies again. It’s not even all the goofy stuff they say and do that keeps you laughing and smiling, even on the days when you don’t much feel like laughing or smiling. I can’t tell you, because there aren’t really the right words to capture just how very very much you will love them, how that fills your heart. I won’t even try. But I can tell you that you might love them the most right when instead of telling them, “I told you so,” you just hug them, and say nothing at all.

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THE ENGLISH WIKI

I think the English language should be like Wikipedia: it should always be added to and modified by anyone who uses it. Any word that provides good function should instantly be able to be in use without a formal nod from the National Society Of Snotty English Word Approvers. Our language is rich and hardy, with many totally unreasonable rules. It deserves a bit of a kick in the buttocks.

So, herein I will submit five new words to the new imaginary English Wiki for you to use freely in all dealings, conversations, and contracts.

1. inturgency (n-tûrjn-s) n.: pertaining to the state of a toilet receiving feces prior to flushing; "The inturgency was of such force and duration that it clogged the Kohler, necessitating a call to the plumber."

2. neveryday (nvr-d) adj.: a daily non-occurrence; "I exercise approximately neveryday without fail."

3. succinked (sk-sngkt) v.: the negative act of providing too little information; "The company fiscal year report Jared wrote was only one paragraph; he succinked himself out of a job because of it."

4. parentwork (pârnt'wûrk) n.: schoolwork sent home that will actually be done by parents and not their children; "Wow, that Mr. Robertson did a damn fine job with the 2nd Grace Science Fair parentwork! 1st Place!"

5. emoshunned (-mshnd) v.: rejection from peers for being too sadly dramatic; "Caitlin was emoshunned by most of her graduating class; her penchant for drawing pencil portraits of Morrissey, writing poems about vampires, and wearing black eyeliner that reached to the bottom of her nose was off-putting to the other youths."

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ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS NOT ANY OF THESE THINGS

It is holiday catalog deluge season. People Want Us To Buy Things To Save The Crap Economy. Well, OK, I will, but sometimes the Free Market asks too much of me. Recently, I received a catalog from "Bits and Pieces," which apparently refers to the fact that their offerings to the public are made up of the most crappy crap you could find on a pirate-laden container ship from an foreign country where their design/production labor-bot-humans have been raised in solitary holes in the ground and fed only expired sweets laden with rat-cancer-causing saccharine.

Do not buy me these. I mean it. DON'T DO IT.

1. The Wooden Dragon Puzzle. I am fairly sure that I could never rebuild this, and if I did, some kind of activation signal would go out and I would be sold into a Chinese sex-slave supermarket.

2. The Meowing/Barking Coffee Mugs. There's nothing more I could wish for, in my sleepy confusion of the morning as I am fumbling to achieve consciousness with caffeine, than to be assaulted with the computer-chip-captured sounds of adorable kitties and doggies EVERY SINGLE TIME I RAISE THE DAMN CUP.

3. The Talking Toilet Paper Roller: On a related note to #2, I also feel so lonely in the bathroom that the comfort of a comical poop-wiper-holder would really enhance my daily adventures in peristalsis.

4. The Monkey Stomach Clock With The Ticking Tail: Why.

5. The Vibrant Horse Light: I'm not sure how you would explain this to anyone visiting your home, other than you were a huge fan of LSD or Hell.

6. The Pug In A Mug Ornament: This is so overwhelmingly sweet it could be used in hospital emergency rooms across the country as an emetic agent.

7. Money Soap: Inside this bar of soap, there resides a real rolled-up piece of American currency; you don't know if it's a $1, $5, $10, $20, or $50 until you maniacally scrub yourself clean with filthy lucre or just smash the hell out of it with a hammer on Christmas morn so you can buy crack.

Sayin'. DON'T DO IT!

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FAMILY CIRCUS ACT

(These statements were delivered in the car today, exactly in this order and timing.)

Me: Ow. The sun is in my eyes.

Mr12: Russia is a huge country!

MissEight: There's debate on tomatoes.

And now...from the Library of Congress...

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iPHONE PHOTO ROUNDUP

Because. Just because.

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