and never brought to mind...

Happy Holiday-That-I-Couldn't-Possibly-Give-A-Smaller-Rat's-Ass-About, everybody!!

Dave

  (posted by Dave at 10:50 PM || )

  i wouldn't exactly call it a "retraction" of my earlier stance, but...

... after my rant a few weeks ago about the pants, I have to say... these size 38's sure are comfortable. Plus, now I can eat as much as I want. Look how loose they are!! Pass the Doritos!!

  (posted by Dave at 1:05 AM || )

  Now just the Jews!! "Then one foggy Xmas Eve, Santa came to say..."

I was reading an article in the local paper this weekend about religion and public school. There is a local school board memeber who is putting together a legal team to study the question of just how MUCH religion can be legally tolerated in school, because he wants students to pray at the start of every day. More on him later.

The rest of the article discussed when can and can't be done in schools. You can pray, but the teacher can't tell you to pray. Or NOT to pray. You can draw a Nativity in art class, and a teacher can hang that on a wall, but the school itself can't display a public nativity. You can sing "traditional" songs, even ones that may have a religious element, as long as they are sung in the context of "cultural history"

And here is where we get a lovely quote from a local teacher about how she handles the issue in her class. (Imagine the Southern accent, it helps...)

"Well, I try to stick to songs like Frosty the Snowman, or Let it Snow, or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, that way nobody has to feel left out."

Totally. Without. Clue.

After I picked up the pieces of my exploded head, I decided to write a letter to the editor about the school board member who wants to dust off daily school prayer. The letter will read...

"I think the idea of instituting a daily prayer is a wonderful idea. Maybe the students could pray for books. Or well paid teachers. Or that they will miraculously receive a proper education despite being stuck in the 48th-ranked state school system in the country. Or perhaps the school board would be better off trying to actually DO something to address these problems DIRECTLY instead of wasting their time making itself look even MORE foolish and assbackwards to the rest of the fucking country"

I might add that the letter is from an ATHEIST who is sending his children to a RELIGIOUS SCHOOL just to escape the fate of Alabama Public Education.

Medieval-minded assbackwards redneck idiots...

  (posted by Dave at 7:29 AM || )

  finally...

Lo! The playhouse roof is be-shingled!

And there was much rejoicing...

  (posted by Dave at 5:41 PM || )

  time is on my side...

Well, Ian turns two in a few weeks. That means it's time to put an end to all this waking up at 4:45, 5:00 in the morning. How, you ask? By teaching him how to tell time.

Skeptical? Ha! We did it with our daughter when she was 2. Here's how it works. Buy an LED digital clock, and cover the "minute" digits with electrical tape. Now you have a clock that just shows the hour. Now say your kid wakes up at 6:35, and you want them to sleep until 7:00... grab a piece of paper and draw the following picture. On the left side of the paper, draw a large digital "6", and a picture of a child sleeping. Then on the other half of the paper, draw a digital "7", and a picture of a child who is awake and happy and smiling. Now, hang this picture on the wall over the clock and tell the child they can wake up when the clock says "7", but they have to go to sleep or rest quietly if it says "6".

Totally, totally works! Katie would be absolutely quiet until 7:00, then she would say "Mommy, it say se'm on my clock!" And the boy? Well, we've had to use a "5" and a "6" instead of six and seven, but still... it is totally working!!! I woke up at 6:05 today. SIX-O-FIVE!! You have to get yourself past the idea of 6:05 counting as "sleeping in" to grasp the importance of this, but I can assure you - THIS MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE.

Next step... slowly set his clock back 5 minutes a day until he's sleeping until 10:00!!




  (posted by Dave at 10:54 AM || )

  38... it's a size, not an age...

I did it. Ok? I did it. I was down four or five pounds, but nothing I do can combat a visit from the in-laws, which involves many restaurants and nearly constant baking... not to mention the Sudden Presence of Many Bags of Minty Holiday Candies. So the four pounds came back, then I ripped the knee out of my last-good-fitting-pair-of-jeans building this playhouse (more on the playhouse later) and when my wife and I went on a date Saturday night, I had, quite literally, no pants to wear.

So I bought them...

Thirty...

Eight..

I don’t get depressed about losing my hair. I don’t get depressed about driving a boring car full of Cheerios and animal cracker crumbs. I don’t get depressed about the wrinkles or the odd gray beard hair. But the pants...

And it's not even so much the 38" as it is the Spectre of Forty. Because once you buy those 40" jeans - I'm sorry, but you are officially a Fat Guy... one of those guys whose belt buckle points DOWN and whose pants still somehow manage to defy the laws of physics and stay up. And I've been fighting it... oh, how I've been fighting it! Going to the gym, people... THE GYM. I don’t think words exist in the English language to describe the hatred I have for the gym. (The Germans probably have one. "Bikenvalkenhätzen" or something.) But apparently age 35 is another one of those metabolic milestones like 25 and 30. Once twenty-five hit, I could no longer eat an entire bag of Doritos daily without consequences. Once thirty hit, I said goodbye forever to the 34" jeans. And now, at age thirty-five? Bring out the Fat Guy Pants.

I suppose I should be happy that they are at least LOOSE. But still. Looking down the gaping maw of the Fat Pants as I was about to put them on this morning, I think I saw something at the end of those two dark denim tunnels. It was the last vestige of my youth.

  (posted by Dave at 9:32 AM || )

    (posted by Dave at 9:32 AM || )

  dave is full of xmas cheer, among other things...

Christmas is upon us... and you know what that means? A naked 8 foot fir tree in the living room and giant plastic crates of decorations all over the damned house. What a wreck! Somehow we have to get the place semi-straightened out by the time the in-laws roll in this evening.

In the meantime, I have to go home at 10:30 to watch Ian while the wife goes to Katie's school to read a story at storytime. (Don’t ask why *I* don’t just go read at school... it never occurred to us until the plans were already made. Draw whatever sexism conclusions from this that you wish.) And sometime during business hours we're getting a giant pallet full of lumber dropped of from Home Depot for the impending Playhousepalooza.

I would like to say more, but I'm having some digestive issues this morning. You can find me reading Isaac Newton's "Opticks" in the last stall in the men's room for the next several hours.

  (posted by Dave at 9:57 AM || )