Fixing the Housing Crisis

They say the market's bad, but I think the time has never been more right to build your own house.

Gumdrops add to resale value.

Or I can always flip this house.

And if I make a nice profit, that's icing.

Forget the house, I'm just going to concentrate on this icing.

The Dude vs. Santa

As ever parent knows, one of the most terrifying things you can inflict on your child is taking them to see Santa.

Here's how it went...

Daddy: Hey, Dude. Do you want to see Santa?
Dude: Sure, Daddy, that sounds super fun. Can we wait in line for an hour and half too? Because that is something I love to do.

Daddy: Okay, here's the deal. You're going to get up there and sit on that bearded old stranger's lap and say, "Merry Christmas!" And then you can tell him that you want a choo-choo train for Christmas.
Dude: Choo-choo train!
Daddy: Perfect. Then we'll want you stare at all the different cameras at the same time and smile. This is important, okay.
Dude: Don't worry about it, Daddy. It ain't no thing but a chicken wing. I got this.

Dude: HOLY CRAP!!!! WHAT IS GOING ON???? WHO IS THAT MAN???? HE'S GOING TO HAUNT MY DREAMS!!!! GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!
Daddy: Someone, get this kid a candy cane, stat!

Dude: Okay, high five, Santa. We're cool.

As LL Cool J said, "Don't call it a comeback."

Jaws Two

                              Neighborhood opens their doors to trick-or-treaters.

Sharks in the neighborhood.

Our Shark.

We're going to need a bigger boat.

When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'.

 Happy Halloween from a candy eating, pumpkin carving machine!

 

Moby Dude

One of the longstanding jokes in my family is that my dad liked the “idea” of a dog as a pet, but was unwilling to let us have a real dog. He liked the metaphorical dog, man’s best friend who’d fetch your slippers or sit at your feet idly napping while you read Proust in your easy chair. But acquiring an actual dog and all the barking and shedding and eating and pooping and smelling it entailed was always a non-starter.

In much the same way my dad liked the “idea” of being a dog owner, I have always liked the “idea” of fishing, and could fancy myself a fisherman under the right set of circumstances.

I love the epic man versus nature elements found in Melville, Hemmingway, and even the salty dog Bering Sea crab fisherman in the “The Deadliest Catch”. And equally attractive is the family-bonding element of “A River Runs Through It”. I even love fishing shows on TV with their professional master bassers decked out in enough advertising to make a NASCAR driver blush. Remember Jimmy Houston and his dark black sunglasses and that shock white mop of hair and his cool drawl?

Father’s and sons at war with nature and with each other, casting off their differences and dipping their lines in the water hoping to catch a “metaphorical” fish while becoming at one with nature and themselves. I can imagine putting on our waders and flinging our fly fishing lines in slow motion through the crisp Michigan air or manning a skiff in the Florida Keys on the hunt for the elusive bone fish or even just idly floating along in a rowboat on a Wisconsin lake.

The dude and I, waking up at dawn, at our secret fishin’ hole, grunting, casting lines, wearing those fun-looking bucket hats, baiting hooks, drinking bitter coffee (me) and Yoo-hoo (him) from tin thermoses, gutting our catch, and frying it up for lunch. I can imagine it all…

But in reality, I don’t like waking up early. I’m afraid of tipping over the boat and falling in and getting eaten by a shark or a largemouth bass (are their mouths large enough to fit a human head in?). Go to a sporting good store and there’s like four zillion types of rods and lures to choose from. It’s worse than golf equipment. This isn’t the low-pressure sport alternative to my score-obsessed golf game that I’m looking for. People take this seriously. And all those mosquitoes!

My earliest fishing memory is as a West Hills day camper using little pieces of mealy corn from a big chum bucket as lures and attaching them to a hook that resembled a bent paperclip. I distinctly remember catching a boot, but that could just be something that I imagined to be true.

I have been taken fishing a handful of times by neighbors and friends in the past and have enjoyed it. Once I caught two fish, but I secretly think I caught the same dumb-ass fish twice.  And after, I always think that it was fun and should do this again sometime, but that feeling wears off pretty quickly. I have the same reaction after going bowling. This is fun, why don’t I bowl more often? I asked myself.  I should wear bowling shirts and recruit a bunch of friends and join a league. Then a few years pass…

I don’t know if the Dude will get into fishing and want his fishing naïve dad to take him out on the water somewhere. What about the retention pond behind my house? But if he does, there’s always people like Papa Bill and Great Uncle Danny who are ready teach him how to properly bait a hook and cast a line without catching the back of your shirt.

The Dude Takes Flight

Close your eyes. You’re in an airplane. You’re 35,000 feet up in air.  You’re supposedly traveling at about 500 miles per hour, but you feel like you’re going nowhere.

You hear the nonsensical babbling of a small child. You try to ignore it. The babbling seamlessly blends into whining. You try to ignore it. The whining becomes crying. You can’t ignore it any longer. Does this child have parents? Can’t they please calm down this demon child? Isn’t that THEIR JOB?

The crying is now a full on tantrum. Other passengers must notice and share your disgust. Why is this child even on an airplane in the first place? Shouldn’t there be some form of rule against it? Can’t the parents even be shamed into forcing this child to be quiet for even a couple minutes?

The noise emanating from the child is getting closer. You feel it all around you. It won’t stop. Now you sense that the scornful looks of the rest of the plane are directed at you for some reason.

Open your eyes. The crying child is sitting next to you. It’s yours.

This is a live blog.

1:45- Boarding. Me, the Dude and Supermommy are flying to NY for a family vacation. We’re flying Southwest so they have an open seating plan. We board the plane to find our seats. As the Dude says, “Hi” to all the passengers already seated, they try to avoid eye contact as if to say, “Please don’t sit your snot-nosed kid next to me. Just keep walking.”

 1:46- We find our seats. Even though the Dude is technically young enough to sit on our laps for the two-hour flight, the Dude is pretty big for his age and awfully wiggly. So, we bite the bullet and buy him his own seat for everyone’s comfort.

1:47- We buckle the Dude in along with his traveling companions Dog-Dog (aka Blanket-Dog) and Bear who also needed to be buckled in with him. His binky (pacifier or nook as I’ve heard it called) is surgically attached to his lips. We don’t even care.

1:51- Our steward “Colin” casually says hello to us and asks how old the Dude is. We say, "a little under two, 22 months actually.” Colin the steward frowns and says, “He has to sit on your lap.” We say, “Wait a minute, we bought a ticket for him.” Colin the steward just shakes his head as if we are the worst people he as ever seen and walks away to do whatever they do when they’re not pretending to demonstrate how an oxygen mask works or seeing how many ice cubes they can fit in a tiny plastic cup of Sprite.

1:52- I realize that Colin the steward made me feel guilty for buying a ticket and giving the Dude his own seat, rather than putting him on the plane for free and let him crawl over some other poor passenger.  Point taken. Don’t give Southwest any extra money.

1:53- I take out Spirit, Southwest Airlines official magazine, from the seat pouch in front of me. I’m in luck because this month’s issue is “The Awesome Issue”. If you happen to fly next month you will receive the “Less Than Awesome Issue”. Sorry. The cover story is entitled, “Think This Looks Gnarly? Try Doing It At Night.” Awesome.

1:55- The poor suckers who didn’t get their tickets in time and we’re in the D line are now boarding the plane, frantically trying to find seats that aren’t near any little children.

1:59- The Dude’s diaper is already saturated with pee, and he has decided that seatbelts aren’t that fun after all. He tries to wiggle out of it like Harry Houdini in a sinking box bound by shackles and chains.

2:00- I open up Spirit Magazine: The Awesome Issue. I’m always fascinated by the letters to the editor section, I mean who reads this stuff on a flight and is stimulated enough to write in? I’ll tell you who, Dan Lothian CNN White House Correspondent in Washinton. He wrote in about a story Spirit did on golf, specifically the golf course TPC at Sawgrass and the island green on the 17th hole. He writes about how he doesn’t play golf but admires it, and perhaps when he has more time and he retires he might take it up. Thanks for the insight, Dan. Glad to hear your thoughts on the matter.

2:01- Take-off. We’re off! Quick tip- Binkies work great to combat ear popping caused by air pressure.

2:10- Our captain informs us that we can take out our electronic devices. Suppermommy whips out her trusty new iPad.

2:11- Our iPad in-flight movie today is Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey. The original film starred the voice talents of Will Ferrell, Drew Barrymore and Dick Van Dyke. The sequel uses the voices of Tim Curry, Matt Lauer, Clint Howard (Ron Howard’s brother) and Jerry Lewis. Downgrade?

2:15- The thing about Curious George is that he’s just so darn curious. It will get him into serious trouble one day, the type of trouble that even a man in a yellow hat can’t fix.

2:20- Turbulence!!!!! The Dude doesn’t seem to mind. Kinda fun.

2:25- The kid behind us is crying. It sounds like locusts buzzing. I feel a sense of smug superiority that my child is watching his iPad is rapt silence.

2:26- Dude loses interest in the movie and wants to stand up in his seat and dance. Looks like a situation. I pretend to be engrossed in my Spirit Magazine-The Awesome Issue and let Supermommy handle it.

2:27- Here’s a list of stats as reported by Spirit Magazine- The Awesome Issue: Hackers create 57,000 fake websites each week, modern punctuation wasn’t around until the 15th century, Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham using only 50 different words, and we consume nearly 50% more sodium than is recommended.

2:30- Snack time! The service staff distributes peanuts, pretzels and baked pita chips. Baked pita chips? Where the hummus? Hook a brotha up with a little chickpea, yo!

2:31- Supermommy is dismayed to find out that her bag of honey-roasted peanuts contains a grand total of one whole peanut and six halves. She essentially was handed a bag of honey-roasted air.

2:32- I triumphantly announce that my bag contains 22 honey-roasted peanuts.

2:33- Supermommy steals my bag of honey-roasted peanuts.

2:34- I place my drink order with the smug steward Colin. I order a Coke. Will I get a full can or not? Always a mystery.

2:40- Where’s that Coke, Colin? I’m thirsty!

2:42- I make a serious mistake by breaking down and eating my pita chips before my drink arrives.

2:45- The service staff, Colin included, are nowhere to be found. They must be retrieving my drink order by skydiving to the ground.

2:50- My Coke finally arrives. A splash of soda over 10 ice cubes.  I drink it in one swallow before the Dude gets wind of it. Now where’s that extra bag of pita chips I took from the Dude?

2:51- The Dude finishes eating the aforementioned bag of pita chips. The pita chips are gone. What will I do if the hummus spread arrives? SOL is what I’ll be.

2:53 The Dude attempts to flip the table tray with the iPad resting on it. Bye-bye, iPad!

2:55: I pretend trouble is not afoot and turn back to my Spirit Magazine-The Awesome Issue and read an article about all the fun you can have living in Baltimore. Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell from “The Wire” would no doubt love for you to join their crew.

2:56-The seatbelt sign is off.

2:57-The seatbelt sign is back on. The Dude is not amused.

2:58- The Dude’s getting squirmy.

2:59 The Dude’s getting ticked off.

3:00 Ah, freak out.  Le freak, c’est chic!

3:05-3:30- Per a deal I made in conjunction with Southwest Airlines and the FAA, I cannot publicity comment on the events that occurred during this timeframe.

3:31- Juice.

3:32- I read a story in Spirit Magazine- The Awesome Issue about a canine genius who knows more than a thousand words.

3:50- Colin the steward implores us to turn off all electronic devices, blackberries, pinkberries, blueberries and Chuck Berrys. I didn’t make that up, that’s what he really said, people you got to believe me.

3:55- We begin our decent. Ahhhhh, we’re gonna die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3:56- No, we’re fine.

4:00- The plane lands. The stewardess (who looks like Thelma from the TV show “Amen”) gets on the intercom and sings to the tune of “Rockin’ Robin”.

Fly Southwest Airlines,
cheap, cheap.
Fly Southwest Airlines and we’ll really get you there,
cheap, cheap.

This really happened btw.

4:01- With time running out on my time with Spirt Magazine- The Awesome issue, I quickly flip to the end to read an interview with actor Bryan Cranston from "Breaking Bad". Heisenberg! New season of "Breaking Bad" starting soon. One of the best shows on TV and the best place to pick up tips on the fine art of meth cooking (way better than Rachael Ray's "Thirty Minute Meals" for instance- you can't rush good crystal- yummo!).

4:05- As we pack up our stuff to leave. The stewardess and a couple of passengers comment on what a good little boy the Dude was on the flight. Supermommy and I do a double take. I guess the standards of behavior on an airplane are graded on a curve.

The Crying Room

If the church was built for the Father and the Son, then within that structure, the crying room was built for Daddy and the Dude.

Last weekend, the Dude was tapped to don a tux and be the ring bearer for his aunt’s wedding. As anyone who has ever been to a wedding can attest, the sight of a little guy in a tux walking down the aisle is always a highlight. In fact, for my own wedding, we had no younger family members and I considered hiring a child actor for just this purpose. Supermommy quickly dismissed my ingenious idea, just as she dismissed (rightly so in retrospect) all of my genius wedding planning ideas (hook up an iPod instead of hiring a DJ or having waiters walk around with trays of Pigs in a Blanket throughout the reception and not just during the cocktail hour).

Lately, our churchgoing as been, ah, slightly inconsistent. Okay, we haven’t gone since the Dude’s baptism. But, to be honest, the Dude does not like to sit still unless a Pixar film is on the television. So, I was worried about what the Dude would do when he walked down the aisle. Temper tantrum? Loco legs? Sit down in the middle of the aisle? Point at his lower half saying, “Poo-poo, poo-poo!” to the congregation?

Supermommy was a bridesmaid and she walked the Dude down the aisle, and by all accounts, he did a good job, and everyone oohed and aahed at him because a little boy in a tux is undeniable.

Once he had finished his walk, he was passed off to me sitting in the pew for the duration of the wedding, while Supermommy took her place with the rest of the bridesmaids.  Now the real work (for me) began, because no matter how cute the Dude in his tux was, his time to shine was over, because THE WEDDING IS ABOUT THE BRIDE, ALWAYS. My job was to stop the Dude from even attempting to steal attention away from the bride on her big day during the ceremony. No cute baby jabbering, no dancing, no waiving at everyone, and most importantly, no crying was allowed.

I was armed with all the Dude’s favorite things: his binky (or pacifier-jeez, that’s a whole blog post in of itself), his blanket-dog (a little blanket with a dog head on it, this isn’t rocket science, folks), his stuffed bear, and some other assorted toys and books. I wore a pocket watch too, because, to paraphrase Doctor Who, pocket watches are cool. But the real good stuff was the camera and my cell phone.

Most little kids born in the last few years have hardcore cell phone addictions. Face it, they see their parents on them all the time, they look shiny and cool, and they make all sorts of fun noises. And to repeat, they see adults on them ALL THE TIME.  And they aren’t fooled by the imitation toy versions. They want the iPhone. The Dude can do the touchscreen “slide open to unlock” trick and also send a text. Steve Jobs in his evilest world domination fantasies could not indoctrinate a future generation of consumers as thoroughly as the child’s own parents.

So I let the Dude sit on my lap and push as many fun touchscreen buttons on my phone as he wanted (he managed to delete all my contacts) while the ceremony went on. The second he made a peep; I popped the binky in his mouth like plug, and he was quiet and content for the first twenty minutes of the mass (Catholic weddings last a long time).

As a side note, if you watch enough weddings in TV and movies, you’d know that the two most important and dramatic moments are 1. The personally written vows that the married couple spend an inordinate amount of time worrying over and 2. The bit where the priest/minister asks, “Does anyone in the audience know of a reason these two should not be joined in holy matrimony?” and everyone looks at the groom and then scans the bridesmaids, then looks behind them to see if anyone is going to burst through the door and race down the aisle (I dream of witnessing this one day in addition to it’s cousin the racing-through-the-airport-to-stop-a- boyfriend/girlfriend-from-making-the-biggest-mistake-of-his/her-life-by-getting-on-that-plane-and-dropping-their-luggage-and-running-up-to-each-other-kiss-while-everyone-claps-move).

But, spoiler alert, none of those things actually happen during a Catholic ceremony. No personal handcrafted vows are said and the priest doesn’t ask the congregation for any damning evidence about the couple. The church might have to return the check if the wedding doesn’t go through, and that is definitely NOT going to happen. Plus the priest might want to hit the open bar at the reception.

At the first sign of struggle, I was instructed to whisk the Dude away and take him to crying room.  The Dude started getting wiggly during a strangely jazzy piece of music played for a responsorial. Then when he nearly dialed the mother of the bride, I figured the time had come. Off the crying room we go!

We joined his older (by two weeks) cousin who was the flower girl and her dad already ensconced in the crying room. They were supplied with more toys and all the cookies they could eat (the Dude took this as challenge) and all the stacked plastic folding chairs they could climb (ditto).

There’s an old saying in the Catholic Church, I think it was first said by Pope Pious XII, but I’ll translate it for you from the original Latin, “What happens in the crying room, stays in the crying room.”

We’ll never know quite how soundproof those walls were, but for the rest of the ceremony, the focus was on the bride (and groom okay).

And the children were seen and not heard.

L’argent de poche or Why Does My Son Always Bang His Head?

Now available on Netflix Instant is Francois Truffaut’s 1976 film listed under its original and more literal English language title “Pocket Money” though usually known as “Small Change” in the US.

Whether it’s the film’s seemingly modest ambitions, episodic structure or the haphazard viewing availability in the US, Pocket Money/Small Change doesn’t have the same cache as Truffaut’s first three Nouvelle Vague masterpieces: The 400 Blows, Shoot the Piano Player, Jules & Jim or the late period joie de filmmaking summation, Day For Night.

But within a great director’s filmography, there is often an underrated gem that is every bit as enjoyable as the masterpieces. For Truffaut, I think Small Change is that film.

Filmed in Thiers in South Central France and shooting with a cast of untrained actors, Truffaut's unobtrusive camara creates the illusion that he just chanced upon an entire town filled with Antoine Doinels.  A town filled with real children who get in trouble with their parents, clock watch at school, tell dirty jokes, commit petty theft, watch mademoiselles undress through binoculars, and have their first kisses. The film is a primer on the adorable precocious little rascal scamp kids with cute foreign accents genre.

The scene that is most often cited from the film is the sequence where a two-year-old-boy is momentarily left alone in their apartment by his mother and chases their family cat onto the window ledge. As the scene progresses, the viewer sees where this is all going, but can’t believe the movie would let the unimaginable happen. Onlookers spot the baby on the ledge and are frozen in place, shocked.

The baby holds onto the ledge by his fingers, and you think that mommy will grab him. But no, his grip slips and he falls six or seven floors to the ground like Blanket Jackson if Michael actually dropped him off the hotel balcony. This is NOT happening the viewer thinks.

Via an absurd deus ex machina of an edit, we cut to a close-up as the baby lands softly on his butt as if he were only dropped a foot off the ground. The baby says, “Gregory go boom,” and giggles with delight. The onlookers are horrified but amazed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKYSODuFs4k&feature=related

The scene is unrealistic, but the larger point is made in the next scene when one of the neighbors says to his wife, “It’s terrifying to think of the way kids are in constant danger.”

The wife says, “That’s not exactly true. I mean, whereas an adult would have been laid out for good, kids are solid as a rock. They stumble through life, but they’re not hurt. They’re much tougher than we are.”

"Children exist in a state of grace," another character remarks at a different point in the film. "They pass untouched through dangers that would destroy an adult."

My son, the Dude, is almost always putting himself in a perilous situation, whether engaged in some epic climbing expedition or just running full speed into something solid, like a wall for instance. Before I was a parent, I had always marveled at how little kids ran into things and seemingly just shook it off like it was nothing.

Little kids don’t twist their ankles, or wrench their backs or strain their obliques. What does happen is they bang their heads. They hit everything with their head like it’s a guided missile.  And hard too! Really hard it seems. Invariably at some point, the dude will bang his head, and I’ll go, “Oh, shit!” And then look at my wife, Supermommy, like “Did you just see that?”

If you don’t have children, you’re probably saying to yourself, “That’s why you have to childproof the house.” That’s what I thought too. Believe me, there is no childproofing from the forces of gravity. Their little legs will trip them up. They will fall. And they will hit their heads on something hard in a way you had never thought possible.

But what do you do? What can you do? When the Dude goes boom, I pick him up crying and I say, “Are you alright, Dude?” And the Dude's like, “Daddy, what the flip just happened?”

I say in response the only thing that can usually make the pain go away, “Do you want some juice?”

The dude smiles and says, “Duice!”

The pain evaporates, as does the memory of the pain and what risky action caused it. The Dude gets his juice and is off trying to climb the kitchen table.

There and Back Again

One of the great things about spring is taking my nineteen-month-old son (henceforward known as the Dude) outside to play. Since he last saw green grass on the ground, he has learned the finer points of walking, running and chasing anything he hasn’t seen before. And since he’s little that means just about everything.

Today I took the Dude out for a walk to the neighborhood park. I had his stroller all packed up with a bottle filled with milk and one filled with water, a Yankee cap, suntan lotion, and a Nerf football just in case he wanted to work on throwing spirals. I was ready for battle.

The walk started off well. We had good energy. We were focused.

About a hundred yards in, the Dude decided he was done with the stroller and wanted to walk. So we held hands (or really his hand holding my index finger) and he zigzagged down the sidewalk, while I dragged the now-useless stroller behind me. The park and its bounty of slides and swings would soon be ours.

Then we met a neighbor who lives ten houses away. He had his two-year old twins tethered to his waist as they pulled in opposite directions. The Dude and I practiced his hard–won new skill of waving “Hi” at the neighbor kids. Before we knew it, we were exploring all the wonders in the neighbor’s backyard: trees with dangerously mysterious berries, peat gravel perfect for throwing, patio steps that needed to be stepped on, and of course, dirt.

The Dude looked up at me as if to say, “Dad, why haven’t you told me about dirt before? We should get some of this for the living room!”

By the time we waived goodbye to our new friends, the Dude’s physical energy was draining fast. As was my mental energy from trying to stop the Dude from eating any of the weird berries or poking his eye out with the cool stick he found on the ground.

We walked a little longer down the sidewalk, but the distance left to travel to reach the park felt insurmountable. With the Dude’s interest in the stroller long past, and his little legs giving out on him, he had no choice… and the Dude wants me to reiterate that he had NO CHOICE… but to throw his arms up to the sky in the international little kid language that translates roughly to “Carry me.”

So I carried him home. And the Dude is heavy. He is a thirty-five pound medicine ball.

The walk home was long. The walk home was hard. Tears were shed. And they were all mine.

I have been working on a novel entitled, “The Dunce Caps” for a good while now. The first 150 pages were like the first 150 yards of my walk with the Dude. We had the bright idea, we had the passion, we had the tools, and most importantly we had an endgame in mind. When you leave the house your goal isn’t the necessarily to reach the park, it is to eventually find your way back home just like in “The Hobbit”. The necessary goal for a novelist is to type “The End”.

But while you’re out, you get sidetracked, you meet fascinating new characters, explore new locations, and you take a different direction then the one you had all plotted out. Then you get tired and the end seems farther away then when you started.

Looking at the bottom of the page in my “Dunce Caps” file, I see I'm on page 150 and have written 28,550 words. That’s a little under halfway … I think.

So, I’m going to track my progress on the book in this blog, with hopes that I can find my way home.