Man In The Moon

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is a manifestation of the Observer Effect. The idea is that the act of observation will create changes in the phenomenon being observed. This is already starting to happen to me because of this blog. Let me explain:

The other night as I was sitting behind my wife waiting for her to finish something on the computer so I could get back to it, I got a little bored. I picked up a nearby hair band and started aiming it at the back of her head as if I were going to fire it at her. I know, it’s stupid. My daughter saw me and immediately said, “You are going to slip and have a whole new post to write for your blog.” See what I mean?

Now that I’ve written about a few embarrassing events here, my family has decided to “help me” by giving me ideas for new material. It’s now become their favorite pastime to dredge up every single embarrassing event they can think of and then laugh about it to no end.

• “Remember the time dad was riding the grocery basket out of the store and flipped the whole thing over in the parking lot and we hid from him while he had to pick it all back up in front of everyone?”
• “Remember the time his crown fell out at the swimming pool and he was diving around looking for it and that kid had to help him find his tooth so he could go home and superglue it back into place?”
• “Remember that time we got lost in San Francisco for four hours and finally had to force dad to get directions from the guy at the gas station and it turned out that the guy didn’t speak English?”

Believe me, there’s a lot more, but you get the idea. The very act of writing this blog has changed various aspects of my life. Knowing that nearly any given situation might become the subject of a blog post here makes everyone–myself included–think more about what we say and do. There’s less natural reaction–if that makes any sense at all–and more thought-out reactions. I wonder if this happens to comedians as well.

It creates a kind of unreal home-life wherein everyone seems to be waiting for someone else to do something.  It’s like a game of Jenga where each person tries to pull out the block that will make the next person mess up.  I’m not complaining, mind you.  It just takes some getting used to.

Blogging about my life accomplishes several things for me:

• It relaxes me and puts me in a good mood.
• It allows me to look at things from a different perspective.
• It forces me to see the humor in almost any situation.
• It gives me new people to talk with.
• etc., etc., etc.

By the way,  I want to say a special thank you to all of you that are still coming here even though I haven’t posted anything for the last ten days.  Another recent change in my life is that I got a brand new client with a huge web project that’s taken a lot of my time.  I will really try to make sure that I don’t let those kinds of gaps happen here any more.  It’s that whole real-life thing that I mentioned previously. Now, if you’ve read all the way down here, then you get to know that I have a few videos that I’m working on for some upcoming posts.  One of them will actually show me–just in case you were ever curious about what I look like.  So, stay with me, and I’ll make up for my absence.

Lesson Learned:

If you don’t blog new stuff regularly, people stop coming.

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So, I’m sitting there with my thirteen-year-old daughter watching an action movie the other day. You know the type, right? The hero is chasing the bad guys, pulls himself out of a horrible car wreck, runs through traffic on the freeway, gets hit over the head with a chair, continues the chase into a warehouse, and then gets shot through the left shoulder inches from his heart. Cut to commercial. My daughter and I both look at other and say, “Uh oh, now he’s mad.”

That’s right, we both said it at the same time. Right then and there, it occurs to me to question the kind of father I’ve become. So I open my mouth to say something, and I’m suddenly channeling Will Smith. You know that trademark backpedaling thing he does where he tries to fix something stupid that he’s just said or done and ends up making it worse and worse until someone has to put their hand over his mouth to make him stop. Well, imagine a white guy doing a crappy Will Smith imitation, and you’ll be pretty close to how I actually sounded as I tried to “fix” the situation.

“Cause…uhm…you know…uhm…when they dropped the helicopter on him, that…uhm…it missed him…and the…uhm…building that exploded around him…uhm…just messed up his hair and…uhm…gave him that nasty cut on his forehead…but, when they shot him…that…uhm…uh… Look, you know that this stuff isn’t real, right? Cause that would actually be really bad stuff to happen to someone, and they wouldn’t be able to just–”

“Dad,” she says, interrupting me. “I’m thirteen, and we’re running out of commercials. Can we go get some snacks now?”

“Oh, yeah, right. We gotta hurry!” And thus ended my brief lapse of parental perception. We cheered the guy through the rest of the movie, watched things blow up, watched him single-handedly take out a small army of bad guys, watched as the authorities showed up too late to do anything, and generally went on about our lives.

Now, as much as I would love to delve into the deeper moral implications of all of this–NOT–my family will be back from the video store any minute with the sequel, and I promised to have a few snacks ready.

Lesson Learned:

Commercials aren’t as long as you think; go faster.

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I have to apologize for my absence the last few days. Believe it or not, it has to do with the snow again–only this time for an entirely different reason. If you look at the picture of the front of my house that I’ve included with this post, then you’ll see my front steps. Those steps tried to eat me. Let me explain:

When I arrived home a few nights ago, I was climbing those steps and took a bad fall. It seems that nature played a little trick on me and hid some ice under that snow. I was about to take the very last step to the top when the whole world suddenly flipped over.

From what I can tell and put together from memory, it seems that both my feet suddenly slid forward through the back of the steps while all of the rest of me flipped over backwards. There I was hanging backwards on the steps with all my weight torquing both feet up under the top step and wedging them in place while I’m screaming bellowing in pain.

By all rights, I should have broken both ankles and at least one arm and possibly my neck while cracking my skull open. Instead, I have two spranged ankles, and my left knee is twisted up and hurting pretty bad. Amazingly, though, nothing’s broken. Obviously, I won’t be walking for a while.

Of all the things I’m most thankful for after surviving that, I’m especially grateful to my closest neighbor. It just so happens that he’s a volunteer firefighter, local EMT, and ambulance driver. He heard me scream cry out and came to my rescue. My wife and daughter couldn’t get me up off the stairs. With his help, I managed to get inside out of the freezing snow and get my legs up. As embarrassing it felt at the time, I can’t imagine how long I would have been stuck out there without his help.

After a quick checkover and my repeated insistence that nothing was broken except my dignity, I was left on the couch to hurt and try and recover. That’s when I suddenly remembered the reason I had been in such a hurry. (Yep, you guessed it.) I needed to go to the bathroom…really bad. I was fifteen feet away and had no chance to make it alone. It required the assistance of both my wife and my oldest daughter to get me in there.

It was an extremely painful experience just getting there and getting myself into a position that allowed me to do what I had to do. However, it seems that once I had finished the necessities that had driven me there, I made a horrible discovery. I wish that I could say that it was something manly like a broken bone or blood gushing out of my leg or something like that. But no…not me. Instead, I discovered that my underwear which had fallen down around my ankles was now far beyond my reach. Anything that required me to bend my legs or body was out of the question.

At this point I began doing what any man in such a situation would do–I mean besides whining–I tried to figure out exactly how my wife was going to use this circumstance against me when I called her in for help. I mean, you gotta figure that I was going to be offering her carte blanche rights to cause me extreme humiliation–and possibly even pain. So I ran through the list:

“Now, let me see, is she currently mad at me? Not that I know of. Okay, not very reassuring.

Is she currently on her period? God help me!!! But, no, I’m okay there.

Is she currently angry at children or anyone else that might result in spillover anger directed at me? Not that I know of. Okay, again, not very reassuring.” At this point in my musings, I was seriously considering calling an ambulance for help, but I kept on.

“Let’s see, have I told her I love her today. Yes. Oh, good, that’s good.

Have I said it more than once? Yes. Oh, very good.

Have I told her she’s beautiful today? Yes. Excellent!

Have I told her more than once? No. Oh, crap. Too late now.” By this time, my legs were thumping, my hands were starting to shake, and I was in extreme pain. I had no choice anymore. I had to call her in to help me.

“Honey, can you come in here?”

Immediately, I heard my daughter in the living room burst out laughing and my wife comes up outside the bathroom door and answers me in an uncharacteristically super-sweet voice, “Yes, dear.”

Oh, God, they know!

To make a long story short–if it’s not too late for that already–she helped me and got me out of there and into bed. Anyway, it’s been a long and embarrassing trip (no pun intended) from that top step the other day to posting this today. I hope that this message finds you in better condition. Take care, and be careful out there.

Lesson Learned:

A few compliments a day goes a heck of a long way.

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In case I hadn’t mentioned this before, I happen to be the father of three very beautiful girls. They can’t help it. They take after their mother. Unfortunately, it isn’t the kind of beauty that goes unnoticed by others–especially once they’ve become teenagers. This means that I’ve occasionally had to step in and handle certain “situations.”

I know that my regular readers will by now have formed a certain mental picture of me as a calm, easy-going kind of guy. I’m sure that they think that I would handle such a situation with the dignity, aplomb, and self-control befitting my fatherly role and the wisdom of my years. (Did you just snort?) However, that isn’t quite the way it went.

The very first time this happened with my oldest daughter was years ago when we were sitting at a restaurant eating. (Okay, it was a McDonalds.) She suddenly felt the need to run over to the store next door and buy something. She was strangely indeterminate about the specifics of what it was she needed so suddenly and desperately. However, it had to be right now.

It’s rather insulting, actually, that she believed that I had no clue as to what was going on right outside the gigantic plate-glass window that we were sitting next to. I didn’t even need reading glasses back then, and yet she somehow believed that I hadn’t noticed a certain boy who had just arrived and entered the same store, a certain boy who had already expressed an interest in her.

We’ll call him Lunch. That is, of course, not his real name, but I digress.

I gave my daughter permission to run over to the store as I sat there eating fries and playing the clueless idiot she apparently believed me to be. I even gave her a couple minutes head-start to make the connection I knew she was after. Then I followed. I found them there talking near the front of the store as I stepped out and made my appearance.

I can’t really describe the emotions that overcame me at that particular moment at the thought of my daughter being old enough to attract male attention (such as it was.) I just remember glaring at him and watching amazed as he suddenly started backing away, stumbling over things, and mumbling about having something else to do. Exit one boy.

I remember also that my daughter was rather upset with me. She went on and on at length about how mortified she was and…some other stuff. I don’t remember the rest. I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy reveling in this new experience.

What a rush. It was like discovering that I had a latent super power that I’d never known about before. I was Glare Man!

Faster than a speeding teenager.
More powerful than a kick in the rear.
Able to cross entire rooms in a single glance.

Look, there in the corner!
It’s a bad dude.
It’s an angry dad.
It’s Glare Man!!!!

I’m afraid that I’m not someone who should ever have been entrusted with such a power. It’s so overwhelming and addictive. I quickly lost control of myself. Once I discovered that it worked over distance–first a room, then an entire parking lot–there was no stopping me.

It started out with just the boys who were interested in my daughter. Then it spread to any boy that was unlucky enough to be looking her way. Then it just went completely overboard. My only real fear now is that I’ll cross glares with another father out there one day and we’ll both scare the crap out of each other.

I’ve abused my powers. I’m so ashamed. I need help. Really, I do.

I would stay and tell you more, but there’s a UPS guy heading up the driveway. I’m waiting for my daughter to answer the door before I jump out and get him. My goal is to knock this one right off the deck in one glance. Wish me luck.

Lesson Learned:

Boys will come. Boys will fly. But a father’s glare will never die.

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Now that thehabe has thrown down the gauntlet , impugning my poetic skills, I feel it necessary to defend my honor. (It’s a guy thing.) Her little, houti touti Sunny Poem for a Winter’s Day is nothing compared to my real life poetic expressions.

The idea that I can’t be sensitive, caring, poetic, and artistic just flies in the face of all the evidence here to the contrary. Can’t you tell from my previous posts that I’m a sensitive, caring guy?

Oh, c’mon, do you have any idea how many chick flicks I’ve had to sit through in my house? I hold back 90% of the snide comments that come into my head. I cover my mouth while laughing at the climactic sad scenes. I mean, shoot, I’ve had to sit through movies with Delta Burke in a leading role. What more do you want from me?

Therefore, it is with utmost dignity, that I present the following poem that I wrote for my kids several years ago. It’s especially fitting this time of year.

(Hey, where’s my drumroll? There was supposed to be a drumroll.)

The Terrible Illness

I went to see the doctor
With aches and pains galore.
The doctor checked me over,
And then he checked me more.

He looked into my eyeball.
He looked into my ear.
He looked way deep down in my throat,
And then he checked my rear.

He listened to my heartbeat.
He listened to my lungs.
He listened to my belly
And told me not to hum.

He took a batch of blood out.
He told to get up.
He sent me to the bathroom
To fill a little cup.

He said he knew what I had.
He said he was no fool.
He said I had a math test,
And now get back to school.

HAH!!! Take that, thehabe.

Lesson Learned:

Sensitivity is in the eye of the beholder.

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