Frenzied Daddy

One sunny day in January 2009 (slightly in the future), an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he’d been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the US Marine standing guard and said “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”

The marine looked at the man and said “Sir, Mr Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.” The old man said “Okay” and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”

The Marine again told the man, “Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.” The man thanked him, and again, just walked away.

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same US Marine, saying “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.” The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said “Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been asking to speak to Mr Bush. I’ve told you every day that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don’t you understand?”

The old man looked at the Marine and said “Oh, I do understand, sir. I just love hearing it.”

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted and said “See you tomorrow, sir.”

Reminds me of the joke about that old concentration camp prisoner who found a genie in a bottle, doesn’t it? Although I can’t find a source for that joke, so I must be misremembering it.

ETA: I was misremembering it. A quick google for “joke three wishes poland” brought it back.

About thirty years ago, an old man was walking home through the streets of Warsaw. He cut through an alley and was kicking garbage out of his way when he uncovered a lamp. He figured, “what the heck” and picked it up, then began rubbing it.

A genie appeared. “My thanks, master. For freeing me from my lamp, I will grant you three wishes.”

The old man thought for a moment, then spoke. “I wish for Genghis Khan and his entire Horde to live again, to ride all the way from Mongolia to the Polish border, then to stop, turn around, go home, and be dead again.”

The genie looked at him oddly, then spoke. “Very well, Master, it is done. And for your second wish?”

The old man spoke again. “I wish for Genghis Khan and his entire Horde to live again, to ride all the way from Mongolia to the Polish border, then to stop, turn around, go home, and be dead again.”

The genie looked at him oddly again, hesitated, then spoke. “Very well, Master it is done. And for your third wish?”

“I wish for Genghis Khan…”

“Yes, yes, it is done! Now, Master, before I leave, I have to ask you this question. Even trapped in my lamp for lo these centuries, I heard the jokes about your people, and always thought they were mean-spirited and cruel and slanderous. But here you had three wishes, and you wasted them on that? What was that all about?”

The old man chuckled. “Because Genghis Khan and his entire Horde just went through the length of Russia six times.”

src

You may have heard that we’ve gotten a little snow. Eight inches, then a layer of ice, then another four inches. My brother called to tell me that he was walking in the snow thinking about us and Anchorage. And for an instant, he felt like he was in Anchorage- the cinnamon-sugar toast color of the snow in the streets, the muffling snow, how quiet it was, it all reminded him of that home.

So today I had to get out and experience it myself. The roads are still snowy, chains or studs are required on the highways. I saw a pretty blue camaro with no chains on it driving down Lombard. Not a car I would have chosen, but it’s his (I checked, it was a guy) camaro.

I walked from home to the bank (closed) and the post office to mail the Christmas Cards and package that should have gone out on Friday last. Some things come back quickly; the funny duck-walk you do to make sure you don’t slide all over the snow. I over took one couple in snowshoes. Snowshoes? Really? Did you have them just laying around waiting for the biggest snowfall in forty years? But the cross country skiiers passed me, gliding, quietly eliding into the distance.

When I got to beautiful (snowy) downtown St Johns, I saw kids (heh, kids; teenagers or twenty year olds) getting off the bus with their snowboards heading to Cathedral Park. Lots of good sledding there, I imagine.

I took the bus up to the big Fred Meyer ( at Interstate ) and back. As I came down our street, I came upon a guy with a shovel digging out his truck with chains. I dunno, maybe I wanted to feel big-hearted or something, but I offered to push him. He said “ok” with a thick accent and then got in the truck. His friend came out of the house and helped me push. We got at the front of the truck and put our backs and shoulders into it and started shoving it. He shouted “Velo!” and his friend said something in Spanish. I thought “Velo? like velocity? no, no, you —” and then his wheels spun and sparks flew beneath his rear wheels. No va.

Uh, no. No velo. Please? “Rock it.” I mimed rocking it back and forth. We got into a rhythm, rocking it back and forth. That is, we pushers rocked it back and forth, the driver stood on the pedal. Finally he got it far enough back that it caught on the snow. He pulled it out and then went forward into the snowbank again.

In for a penny, in for a pound, I helped him rock it out again. He, of course, stood on the gas pedal until sparks flew out from the back of his truck. Then “twang!” and something snapped. I went back and found a broken strap laying in the road and brought it up to him. “Chains are broken.”

“But they’re ok, right?”

“Uh, no, broken. And coming off the wheel.”

“But they’re ok. Ok, push.”

We finally got it out, the chains sliding sideways off the tire, and he drove up the road a little. He was out of the snowbank and on the road (still on snow). I gave up and picked up my groceries (about eight bags full, including a gallon of milk) and walked the other direction. I was home soon.

And worn out. Man, Definitely tired.

No, not me, thankfully. Nor Ms B. No, I’m talking about this movie. It’s about a guy who has to go to India and train his replacement, the call center manager.

It was a good movie. It was kind of quirky like Lars and the Real Girl, but absolutely not in the same way.

There’s a scene where the protagonist (Todd, who has to keep correcting the pronounciation “Toad”) says something completely idiomatic (“A schmuck who sells kitch to rednecks”) and the expression on the face of his Indian listener goes from happy to confused and he asks for explanations of the unusual words. It exactly parallels my discussions with programmers from Chennai and slipping in idioms. Like him saying “Thanks for helping me” and me saying “you betcha” … And then Todd’s listener and my listener having the same “thank you for helping me understand” attitude.

Good movie; check it out.

On the actual discussion of outsourcing; I think it’s here to stay, I’m not thrilled about it, but it just means I have to find ways to make myself irreplaceable. And that’s it in a nutshell.

Monty Python’s YouTube Channel.

For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube. Now the tables are turned. It’s time for us to take matters into our own hands.

Amazing.

You might be surprised to learn that the first time I saw a Monty Python movie, I walked out. I was a freshman in high school and took myself a mite too seriously. They were playing the Holy Grail at a school retreat and all the other kids were sitting around cracking up. But I thought it was insipid. I mean, you’ve got a guy “galloping” around with a sidekick clopping two coconuts together.

Yeah, I’m still bemused about that.

Anyway, Monty Python is releasing their entire body of work on Youtube. They just ask that you click the ads and make the purchases.

So, the DQ is 11, and in 6th grade. Do you suppose it’d embarrass her too much if I made these cute little “witches on a stick” snacks for her to take in her lunches? I’d offer them to Ms B for her lunches but I suspect she’d consider them a waste of a perfectly good hershey’s kiss.

you’re getting in my way.

Was this the three year old or the eleven year old?

HAH!

It was the three year old. I was washing her hands with her in the bathroom sink and getting a washrag all wet for her face. But it was keeping her hands from being in the water by themselves. The TT is very funny; I think her sense of humor is highly developed. So’s her sense of outrage.

The DQ, on the other hand, is cleaning her room. It’s a summer project. We lifted the loft bed back up and she’s thrilled with the new space. And after setting the “roll out desk” back up, she’s been sitting at it for almost 48 hours straight. She’s written letters and she’s been drawing posters. She’s very pleased with it.

We didn’t put the ladder back on it, which is OK for the DQ, but the TT is kind of upset about it. She wants one of her own! Which is probably a good thing, because now that she has a “real” grown up mattress, it’s just sitting with its box spring on the floor.

So, I’m cooking dinner. The kitchen window looks out over the deck, the back porch, and the grassy knoll we call a back yard. It’s lovely. Not quite weed-infested, but it will be before autumn. The TT is amusing herself by letting Perrin out onto the porch and picking him flowers and trying to get him to eat them.

She comes into the kitchen ( she comes through the back door, through the adult’s room, through her room, through the hall, through the living room, and into the kitchen) with a bright yellow flower from the yard. She presents it to me like it’s a treasure. Of course, it is a treasure. It’s also a dandelion. “Oh, honey, what is this? Thank you”… She tells me it’s a flower. “Ok, this particular kind of flower is called a dandelion. Can you say dan-de-lion?” (drmrffleon). “That’s great. ”

In all honesty, I’m trying to get the cheese grated, the spaghetti noodles cooked and the sauce properly tomatoey. I’m not totally focused on accepting her gift and giving her a learning moment.

She runs back out the door ( all the way through the house ), runs back outside, and I stir the sauce as I watch her bend down and pick a single flower and come running back into the house, into the kitchen. She breathlessly presents me with … I don’t know what sort of weedy looking flower it is; it kind of looks like baby’s breath, but stringier.

“Oh honey, this is lovely. I’ll put it here with the dandelion. I don’t know what this one is called though.”

“Daaaaa-dddd-dd-d-dddy, ” she announces, “It’s a flower. Can you say ‘flower’ ? ”

“flower?”

The recent spate of sunshine here has brought some of the craziness in our house to the surface. The TT, for instance, asked if she could go outside and play in the sprinkler. Keeping in mind that it was only 65F and only partially sunny, I said “no.” Naturally she whined. I’m trying to tell them my reasoning more than not, so I went to the mat and told her the truth… “It’s too cold, honey.” She promised to wear her jacket.

Yeah, I laughed at her, and then we went for a walk around the block with her.

The DQ, on the other hand, went to a boy’s birthday party on Friday. They went out to play laser tag and had cupcakes and then were hanging out at the boy’s house with his mother. I was supposed to collect the DQ at 10PM but hey, she’s coming home at nine. My excuse was that I had to be on call early in the morning, but the truth is that I’m not ready to loosen the strings that much yet.

And then she called asking if she could spend the night. At a boy’s house. In a mixed-gender sleepover. Am I crazy? Am I wrong? Am I a nervous nellie? I said no to that too— I know that when she spends the night at Sage’s, they stay up until the wee hours of the morning playing games, and I’m not ready yet to deal with late night truth or dare OR spin the bottle OR elevator to paradise. Yikes.

It’s bad enough that when I went to pick her up they were playing truth or dare. Oh god. My heart rate doubled. The mother was around though, they weren’t getting too bad. But, the mother came up to me and said “Can you imagine? It’s been only a year. Last year they were playing video games and monopoly. A year later, just a year later, they’re talking about who likes whom and boy-girl stuff.” Gaah.

I’m really not ready for this. I’m just getting used to an eleven year old. I’m not ready for a fifteen year old.

I could have used this refresher course a few years ago. When I took the Tiny Tyrant out and hosed her down after feeding her chocolate Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. Darn.

Well at least I used a towel to dry the screaming kid off.