Why I Work at the Coffee Shop

Currently I’m a freelancer.  Why do I choose to work at the local coffee shop?

Reason #5

My desk is a mess!  If I were only a little less lazy I could spend five minutes and organize my computer desk.  Everything is stacked in piles including mail, pens & pencils, sticky notes, post-it flags, CD’s, photos, and a microphone.  I could clean it up, but why when I have a perfectly clean coffee shop to use as my office?

Reason #4

They make better coffee than I do.  I’m a cheapskate on coffee.  I purchase the generic brand coffee from the local grocer.  The ’shop makes it much better and they make a little leafy design in my lattes.  Plus, the poppyseed scones are to-die-for!

Reason #3

Saves gas.  I don’t have to drive to work.  I can walk about a block to my favorite coffee shop.  Sometimes I’ll choose to drive a short distance to partake and sample other coffee shops.

Reason #2

Fewer distractions.  When at home I’ve got other things I could do than work on the computer:

• Look at all those books on the shelf that need to be read!
• Oh, I’m behind on my laundry!
• Doggone it, the dishes are piled up again.
• Cool!  I could watch a Batman movie marathon today!

Reason #1

The barista chicks are HOT!

Crayons vs Legos

My parents were clever. Much more clever than I am as a parent. Growing up I never had the encouragement to indulge in creative visual artistic endeavors. Rather than sit me down with a box of crayons or colored pencils in which my final output would be a bunch of indiscernible scribbles, circles, and zigzags surely to end up on the front of the fridge at my request, I was given the array of typical little boy toys. I built cabins out of Lincoln Logs, spaceships from Legos, and raced cool cars on mini race tracks. All of which could be disassembled and stashed after I became bored with the monotonous activity. Clean. No mess. No clutter. Very clever.

But despite all the underhanded training and playtime activity to become an architect, rocket scientist, or redneck race car driver, I became a creative artist. And as a parent with a deep appreciation for all types of creative arts I am obliged to plop my daughters down at the table armed with a gigantic boxful of crayons, colored pencils, markers, and a ream of paper, and say, “get to work, draw me something.”

I have also discovered that this route to keeping children entertained is a whole heck of a lot cheaper than spending hard-earned dollars on overpriced toys that get opened and played with once or twice then stuffed in the closet for eternity – or at least until the next yard sale. But, whereas simple toys can be put away, thrown away, or just accidentally swallowed, there’s a ton of creative output from the drawing table. And every little page of scribble is a masterpiece in the eyes of my girls.

“Put this on the fridge, Daddy!”

“Hang this one in the hallway!”

“Do we have enough for an art gallery showing on First Thursday yet?”

As dutifully as my daughters spent their creative energies drawing their masterpieces, I dutifully display their art upon as many surfaces as are available. That usually means the front of my fridge looks like a telephone pole in a bohemian part of town; stacked with layer upon layer of fliers and posters and silly art.

But I wouldn’t change it for the Mona Lisa.

Happy Fathers Day

Nice Underwear

So one day I’m taking a shower. A guy can take a shower in his own master bath in privacy, right? So I freshen up, splash on my favorite Eau de Toilette, slip on my clean drawers, and open the door to see Goonie standing there.

“Nice underwear, Daddy.”

“Uh, thanks, sweetie.”

I no wear whitey-tighties. I prefer seamless cotton-lycra thigh-length boxer briefs that provide personal support and a luxurious, comfortable fit. So I was somewhat embarrassed that my oldest daughter caught me in my draw’s, but it was like I was wearing shorts so I wasn’t streakin’ or nothin’. These particular draw’s had a prominent classic TH red-white-blue logo flag embroidered on the front.

“I like the flag. It’s pretty,” she smiled.

“Uh, thanks, dear,” I said, trying to contort myself into a position where my daughter could not view my crotch area. “I shan’t be wearing these out in public, though. The flag will be hidden under my trousers. That’s why we call them ‘underwear’. Hehe. Now excuse me while I find my trousers.” I jumped into the walk-in closet and grabbed the nearest jeans and slipped one leg into them. Damn! My wife’s jeans. I slipped them off.

“Can I wear them in public, Daddy?” She snuck inside the walk-in, trapping me.

“NO! I mean…no, Dear. These are men’s underwear. I don’t think Tommy makes little girls underwear with this kind of logo on it.”

“Who’s Tommy?”

“Oh, uh, Tommy Hilfiger. It’s his underwear.”

“Why are you wearing Tommy’s underwear?”

Oy! 5 year olds and all their questions! “I’m not…these aren’t…He makes men’s clothes dear. It’s a brand, like the logo on your shoes.”

“Oh. Ok.” With that answer she seemed satisfied and skipped out of the closet, humming the ‘My Little Pony’ theme.

I thought I had successfully put the “my daughter saw me in my underwear” fiasco behind me (no pun intended), but Goonie has a memory like a sponge. Her retention and recollection are impeccable. Nothin’ gets past this girl. Recently we went to the mall and entered through the JCPenny department store. It just so happened that the men’s clothing was nearest the door to the parking lot. We entered and started walking when Goonie spied the underwear section.

Without a hesitation nor a volume censor she blurted out for the entire store and half the mall to hear, “I see your underwear, Daddy! Isn’t that Tommy’s underwear?”

I love my kid I love my kid I love my kid…

She’s the greatest. We’re still workin’ on the self-censor lessons.

T’anks Mom

Little Bobo the Klingon is finally learning English as a second language. Although she throws in a healthy dose of Klingon-ese in every sentence still, she is coming along great. We understand what she wants with words like, “’nana”, and “joooooce!” Now she has learned, through repetitive repeating from her mother, of course, to say “T’anks Mom” after she receives something asked for, like the Big Gulp size 32 ouncer of joooooce.

She also is becoming quite adept at communicating what she doesn’t want. Every evening when it’s nearly time for all little Klingons to go to bed I say “Jammies!” Bobo’s eyes widen and she shouts, “no jimmies!” and bolts in the opposite direction in her little waddling fashion. Klingons are so cute when they waddle. She is no match for my speed and agility, plus I know a few secret shortcuts through the house. But even so, catching and then hanging on to a tiny Klingon are two different ball games with two very different set of rules. If she could speak, it would go something like this: “catch me if you can, but, oh, just TRY, dear Father, to confine me. I DARE YA!” She’s gonna be hell to keep up with as a teenager.

I firmly believe that they should add Klingon ropin’ & ‘restlin’ to the annual Pendleton Roundup Rodeo events. Or at least replace the greased pig chase at the state fair. This little 30 pound wiggly mass of muscle & mucus is one slippery critter! Once grabbed she can twist and maneuver into dozens of yoga poses in efforts to elude her captor. Never mind that she may be 6 feet from the ground and could fall on top of her head. She has no worries! She’ll bounce and just start running again.

Single handedly holding her down while changing her diaper and dressing her in the proper night time attire is a feat worthy of a Reality TV show. But each night I prove my superior strength & determination and succeed in preparing my youngest child for a restful slumber. After all the squirming, all the crying, the wiggling, the “NOOOOOO!”, when that’s all done she becomes completely calm, smiles as if there was no trauma for the past half hour, and goes happily about her business as if the screaming & eluding was all part of the “Jammie Game”.

So I follow her into the kitchen for our ritual preparation of the bottle of milk. I hand it to her. She looks me in the eyes and says,

“T’anks, Mom.”

Just Don’t Ask Her Age

Happy Birthday, Goonie!

What is it with women and their age? The Goon, for the past week, has been pining about turning yet another year older. With tears welting in her eyes she says, “I don’t want to be 5! I want to be four and a half FOREVER!”

So, to calm her fears about turning prematurely gray, I tell her to just lie about her age. Like all women, she’ll be doing it eventually anyway. She’s just starting…a few years before most women. For instance, her mother is…AHEM…29 (give or take 4 years). She doesn’t feel fully acclimated to being practically in her mid-thirties, so she prefers to say she feels like she is still 29.

Sure. I’d like to think I’m still 20-something and can party all night. In fact, I was 31 when I last attempted an all-nighter, partying with a group of younger college peers in celebration of a successful final presentation of our business class project. ‘Course, we started the party BEFORE the evening presentation, so we were lubed up pretty good during our speeches. I think we got the vote for “Most Entertaining Group of Drunken Schmucks” award for our sales pitch. Then we ended up at a nearby nightclub with live music ‘til 4 am. This was a Tuesday. I called in sick to work on Wednesday. I will never stay out drinking ‘til 4 am ever again. Having children has pretty much sidelined any desire for nighttime weekend shenanigans anyway.

So tonight, instead of going out the a local karaoke klub, or blues bar, and getting smashed, I’m going to Chuck E. Cheese and smash a few of those damn pop-up rodents, snarf some yummy ‘zza, and play my favorite video game, Galaga! Hey, who says we can’t still party in our 30’s?

Go Fish…

Little Deedle Dumpling, I fear, is getting in touch with her inherited redneck roots. This, I hesitantly and reluctantly admit, comes from my side of the family. (Although I believe Bobo’s Klingon roots stem from her mother’s side!) Deedle has had her share of enjoying a cruise on a passenger vessel ranging from river dinner cruises, to paddlewheel excursions, to a full-fledged Alaskan cruise chock full of icebergs and glaciers and Juneau (oh my!) & all that fun stuff that kids love. But the other day we crossed a bridge where Deedle spotted below us a dingy on the river with four men which appeared to be holding long sticks.

“What’s that?” she asked.
“That’s a boat dear.”
“What are those men doing?”
“They’re fishing, honey. That’s a fishing boat.”
“What are those sticks?”
“Those are fishing poles. They hang a line from the pole into the water and catch fish.”
“I want to go fishing.”

Red alert! No! Head ‘er off at the pass! I swore off fishing years ago. It’s messy, and smelly, and who wants to sit for hours trying to catch a stream trout when you can get perfectly good fresh fish at Red Lobster. (mmmmm…..lobster) Besides, I can’t shell out thousands of dollars on fishing gear, rods, reels, spinners, dancers, bleeders, buzzers, crankers, plus a boat load of Wet-Ones to clean oneself, not to mention the boat itself.

So I chose to take the path of truth with this one, hoping it would dissuade my innocent girl made of sugar and spice and everything nice. “But do you know what you do after you catch the fish?”
“Eat ‘em!” she said gleefully.
“Well,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “you have to kill them first. Then you gotta cut their heads off and pull their guts out and clean them really good before you eat them.” There, that should gross out a 5-yr old girl who loves My Little Pony more than life itself.

Without missing a beat she said, “I’ll kill ‘em, Daddy! I’ll kill ‘em and cut ‘em up. I’ll just chop off their heads with a knife.”

Oh, my darling angelic girl. What has corrupted you? Was it the Tele? Did my father put you up to this? Did you overhear your father rehersing Sweeney Todd & crooning about slicing throats? Next you’re gonna tell me you want to go hunting for elk in Livingston, Montana.

“Really? You want to do that, Sweetie?”
“Yeah! But first I’m gonna name the fish. I’ll say, ‘your name is Charlie’, then I’ll chop off his head.”

Charlie the trout, wherever you are, beware! We’re bringing our mini-rod & spinner and comin’ for ya! Hey, maybe I can justify buying that new boat now.

My Daughter the Ham

My Daughter the ham…

Dunno where she gets it…

SAFETY VIOLATION

Deedle Dumpling is destined to become a Citizen on Patrol, and a good but authoritative COP at that. She seems to know and follow the rules, and is not hesitant to point out the error of her parent’s ways.

After strapping her into her booster seat today I hopped in the driver’s seat and started the ignition. “Put your seatbelt on, Daddy, or it’s a safety violation,” instructed my loving daughter, of whom I was very proud for looking out for her Daddy’s best interest.

“I will sweetie. How did you know it’s a safety violation?” I asked.

“Lou & Lou and You: Safety Patrol from Playhouse Disney.”

Thanks again, Disney. Knowing this was a good tidbit of knowledge for a preschooler, still I wondered what else Disney had brainwashed into my impressionable daughter. I half expected my sincere, innocent girl to tell me I had to go & buy the latest Disney DVD of Brother Bear 2 or she would turn me in to the authorities for child abuse.

So we continued our journey and as I approached a stop sign my little backseat driver informed me, “S.T.O.P. Stop Daddy. You gotta stop here or it’s a safety violation,” Actually I think it’s a moving violation if I don’t actually STOP at the stop sign, but I didn’t have the heart to correct her, not when she’s destined to be a hot COP someday keeping our streets safe, and could one day pull me over on charges of rolling through a stop sign.

“Thank you, dear,” says I. I smiled in the mirror back at my grinning girl and pulled out my cell phone to call Divagirl. I punched send and lifted the little receiver to my ear.

“That’s a safety violation, you know,” came a stern voice from the backseat. I peeked in the mirror of my car and couldn’t believe my eyes. There sat my near-5-yr old with arms crossed and a raised eyebrow like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. I’d been caught. I had forgotten my little accessory earpiece one should use while driving to free up both hands. And yet here was I, a bitter complainer about seeing people talk on phones while driving doing the very pet peeve I loathe.

“Lou & Lou told you that?” I asked.

“Yes, Daddy. Put the phone down and no one will get hurt. We can both forget this incident ever happened. I trust you will be prepared in the future.”

I flipped the phone closed & dropped it like a hot potato. Didn’t want an “incident” in the car to ruin a perfectly good day. Nor did I want my oldest believing I didn’t follow Lou & Lou’s safety rules. If you don’t have trust in a family what have ya got? “That sounds like a plan, Deedle. Let’s go have an ice cream!”

“That’s fine, Daddy. Just don’t eat while you’re driving. That’s a safety violation, too.”

Curious about these Lou & Lou characters I looked ‘em up on the ol’ ‘puter. Indeed I found good printable safety tips offered by two squat-looking, badge-toting children of either sex, whose names I assumed were short for Louise and Louis. I found some other interesting driving tips that I thought my daughter should be aware of. Particularly the one about NEVER MAKE SO MUCH NOISE THAT YOU DISTRACT THE DRIVER. Hmmm. That’s one I’ll be pointing out a lot. Another one: PAY FULL ATTENTION WHILE DRIVING. DO NOT EAT, READ, PUT ON MAKE-UP OR SHAVE (yes, these are actual tips from our old pal, Disney) WHILE DRIVING A CAR. I like that one, too. I think the former and the later go hand in hand, wouldn’t you?

My Toddler is a Klingon

My 18-month old is speaking. Her mother & father are so proud of her! She makes complete sentences with proper grammer and punctuation and everything. But I swear she’s speaking in Klingon, ‘cause it ain’t the language spoken in our house. I surmise that she’s a reincarnation of a Klingon warrior because she is stout and brave and fears nothing. She proves her bravery on a daily basis by swan diving off the sofa or running head-long into solid wooden pews. She proudly displays her new black eye as a badge of honor.

Yesterday she waddled up to my while I sat at the computer, batted her big long eyelashes and said, “ ‘ej pa’wIj lojmIt DamuptaHvIS tam Hoch, Dada”

Which I’d like to think meant “I like your singing very much, Father.”

Or maybe she said, “I smell stinky from my bottom region…time to change my diaper, mein Vater.”

But as far as I know little Bobo was reciting Edgar Allen Poe.

Sometimes I know she’s swearing. She and Deedle Dumpling have a Big Lego piece set. Bobo was attempting to assemble what appeared to be a Borg ship scale replica (my Bobo is indeed a Trekkie at a young age) and the last piece just didn’t want to cooperate and connect. “baQa’ guy’cha Dor-sho-gha!” wailed my chubby little Bobo. She’s so cute with her face all scrunched like that.

However, it’s not so cute when she turns her Klingon wrath on the adults in the home. Driving home from the state fair the other day she was becoming restless in her car seat. Klingons evidently don’t like to be constrained. She whined and pulled futilely at the shoulder straps. I broke my concentration on the road and turned to her and lied, “it’s ok, Bobo, we’re almost home,” knowing full well we still had an hour on the road. She threw a glare at me that burned my eyeballs and let out, “mu’qaD qoH QI’yaH plaQta’, yIntagh!!!!!”

Had she a qutluch handy I’m sure it would have been a good day to die for me.

My Little (Big) Girl

I was thinking yesterday about how my oldest has grown and matured over the last 12 months. One year ago my little Deedle Dumpling was a shy 3 yr old who was too big for her age, didn’t have any friends her age, and knew a Universe about as big as our old condo & my in-laws house, ’cause that’s where she spent all her time.

Last year I unloaded my family from our little condo which my wife & I bought together the year we were married. It was a great metro lifestyle. Close to downtown Portland, near amenities in a cute little neighborhood of Multnomah Village, and was in a relatively safe part of town with good housing appreciation. Little Deedle Dumpling came along in 2001 and made our little abode a comfy cozy place, but we started realizing that the trudge from our front door down two flights of stairs through to the end of the parking lot became a chore when carrying a child. I liked how it was building up my biceps but I knew we had to get a house with a garage some day.

When our little Bubalah came along last year to join Deedle Dumpling our cozy lifestyle quickly got cramped. I swear the walls closed in and our little condo felt like a shanty with two tiny children. One year ago today our little tribe moved out of the metro and to the burbs in a nice home with 2 full baths. And believe me, I’m glad to have that second full bath with 3 women living under one roof.

Deedle Dumpling started preschool after we moved and I remember feeling the parental angst at leaving our shy firstborn who was a full head taller than all the other new preschoolers. She often got mistaken for a 5 yr old (now she’s as tall as a 1st grader at age 4) and looked a little out of place with the rest of the rugrats playing in the sand. It wasn’t long before she had made friends. And when she started telling me about how much she enjoyed chasing”Ben” around the playground I thought to myself, “that right darlin’, just keep ‘em running away from you.”

Well, here it is one year later. My little girl is almost 5, takes dance class, and has a weekly playdate with one of her preschool friends during the summer. She loves dance and wishes she could go everyday, and looks forward to seeing her old friends and making new ones when preschool starts again in a week. Once an insecure, shy wallflower, she now goes up to kids her age and starts talking to them. She used to tell Momma & Daddy to be quiet when we were practicing our music, now she makes up her own songs, and creates imaginative scenarios with her 1001 little ponies. She’s been to Disneyland and loves Princesses. She especially loves when Daddy plays her little princess game where the goal is to acquire jewelry. When Daddy wins I have no less than a tiara, bejeweled necklace, earrings, bracelets, and a fine 100 carat diamond ring. Oooooo…I feel so pretty!

Yup, I love my girl. I can’t wait ’til she’s a teenager and has her boyfriends come see her father in drag in a stage show. Hey, don’t underestimate a man in a dress…sagging tights can really piss a guy off!