The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

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Happy (Belated) Clone Creation Day!

This is one of my favorite stories about my dad. Here are a few other stories about the pops. Now for another fun pops story …

Happy Clone Creation Day!

In the 7th grade my dad and I made a habit of playing a baseball game on the Nintendo. If I had to guess, I would say that my mom told my dad that he and I needed to bond, and to think up something. My dad, brother and I had played a whole season (which is fairly impressive) on Ken Griffey, Jr. baseball back when I was in the 4th or 5th grade. The baseball idea had come around again, this time with an upgraded system – the 64.

We played as the Arizona Diamondbacks, which was the first or second year of the team’s existence. I have no recollection of how often we played, but I remember sitting in the basement with my dad, playing that game.

  • He never swung at the first pitch. Usually not the second or third, either. He was always wanting to wear out the starting pitcher. With the game’s AI, you could expect with about 99% confidence that after three pitches you’d have 2 strikes and one ball on you.
  • The first two pitches were usually strikes. During them, he would sip his beer.
  • After the second pitch (which was usually your second strike), he would pick up his controller.
  • If he got a hit, then he got a hit.
  • If he struck out or had a bad pop-up the same sound would generally escape him – an aggravated, quick, “agh!”

On one particular day, we were playing the game and my dad was up to bat. After the usual ritual, he struck out. The familiar grunt/sound of exasperation came.

I smirked. My dad is a funny guy. He’s like a monkey over there with those crazy grunt noises. I thought, ‘ok, my turn … I can do better.’ After all, I’m young and I play a lot of video games – this is what I’m built for. I waited out the strikes like my dad, not because I wanted to necessarily, but because it was a good strategy. It’s a video game! It’s not the place where you exhibit patience and strategy! Nevertheless, I did it (when he was around).

What do you know – I also get out.

And what do you know, the same, “agh!” came out of me.

Holy crap, I realized, I am my dad.

All the times I’d laughed at him, poked fun at him (just in my head, not out loud) … those would all be coming home to roost. Shoot.

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Memorial Day Weekend Hyjinks

Over this past weekend I flew home because of the extended Memorial Day weekend. It was great to get to spend four nights in Arizona with the family.

We headed to northern Arizona, to spend time at a family cabin in the woods. It’s very beautiful there. While my parents, brother, and sister normally endure 100+ degree summer temperatures – the cabin has 70s and 80s. It is heavenly. Plus it just plain smells nice.

The crew at the cabin for the weekend was: myself, E$, my bro, sister-in-law, their FIVE kids, and my parents. It would be a relaxing weekend if not for the number five.

Here are a few highlights from the weekend (I will leave the infamous nephew’s name off).

Luxurious Armpit Pillow

Originally, the brotha-in-law was supposed to come up. Unfortunately, work reached out its evil paw and kept him in its clutches. The sleeping arrangements were then revised accordingly. I no longer had to sleep on the couch. Instead, my sister and I would be sleeping in a king bed together (I created a wall of pillows and said DO NOT CROSS – I’m a sweetheart). E$ and I taking this bed moved my brother and sis-in-law to another bedroom. No biggie.

That is, until about 3 am.

At 3 am the door to E$ and I’s bedroom started to open. You really have to work at the door. It creaks like a song in remix mode. Ree-ree-ree-ree *opened.* This woke me up. I heard a little noise (my sister guessed the poor little kid was crying) and then tiny hands moving along the bed. All the sudden the kid was up and crawling on me. I responded, in a loving voice, “which one are you?” The kid didn’t say a word! I would’ve thought that someone saying, “which one are you?” would be an upsetting question but the kiddo was unfazed (E$ aptly pointed out later that she could very well see our brother asking the exact same question).

My follow-up question was shock, “are you already asleep!?” That is just plain impressive. This kid had walked around, crawled up on me, stuck his head in my armpit (it apparently makes a heck of a pillow) and boom he was out.

E$ and I were wide awake. She decided to head to the bathroom. When she got back I figured I’d do the same. I tried to very gently roll the sleeping prince of unawareness off of me. It took. Phew! I got up and then a sad little voice, “daddy! … don’t go!?” Awww. Adorable right?

“All right, let’s take you back to your proper owner.”

The kid was returned to the parental units and sleep was soon restored.

He’ll be a Private Eye Someday (ya know, a dick)

Unfortunately this happened while I was outside talking to a friend on the phone – but it’s too good not to relay on.

The same prince of unawareness from the night before was in the little boys room. The door, of course, wide open.

His older brother asked about his whereabouts and the kiddo responded, “I’m in the bathroom!”

A minute or two later the kiddo yells out, with some concern, “you guys …. I can’t find my penis …”

Yep. That was said.

My mom offered to take the baby from my brother so he could go help a brotha out. He politely declined, choosing to let time heal all wounds. Thankfully it worked. Another minute or two passed and,

“Nevermind! … I found it …”

The youth of America, ladies and gentlemen.

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Pictionary with Cheaters

Recently I embraced the 21st century by getting a smartphone. This was a big step up from my old phone (which I was made fun of quite a bit about – which led to jokes like “the sexting pigeon” … more on that some other time).

For now, a little story about “Draw Something.” My buddies Juicebox, Airplanes, Rainbow Speak and I all downloaded this game this past Friday and we have been playing it quite a bit. I now also have games going with my sister E$, and my brotha-in-law.

Juicebox is by far the best at this. (It’s no wonder when you recall he’s the genius behind the work post-it-portraits. And you can now read his foreign guy insights – for example he wrote about “soccer” at his own blog!)

Also, for clarity, this game is like Pictionary (with a bit of Hang Man mixed in). You draw something and then send it off to your friend. Then your friend has however many blank spaces the word is, and twelve letters. The word isn’t necessarily twelve letters long, so you may ignore some of those letters.

My drawings for this tend to be incredibly simple and stupid. Really, they just plain stink. But as bad as they are, in my mind, they are still much better than my mom’s drawings when my family plays Pictionary. When she and my dad are on a team it is the worst. They’ve been married for thirty-fuhasugiha years (that’s my pretending to cough-type, because I can’t remember how long). In all those years of marriage they have formed special bonds which defy logic. This is best exemplified by Pictionary. I drew some examples.

My dad would look at this and say, “Marko Ramius.” HUH? That’s Sean Connery’s character inThe Hunt for Red October. Ok, sure, you can kinda get it after you think about it. But still, how does this happen?

“Key Lime Pie.”

At this point I’ll let you in on a secret – my mom cheats. This will upset her and I’ll hear about this later for saying this … but yes, mom, you cheat at Pictionary. Here’s how this one would happen.

“Is he famous?”
“Mmhmm.”
“MOM! You can’t answer questions!”
“What? I didn’t tell your dad he’s a President.”
“MOM!”
“Martin Van Buren?”
“Yep!!”

This is one of those where my mom would just keep circling the same thing over and over and drawing arrows to it. We’ve all done it. We draw something that we think is so obvious or we just can’t think of other clues and the only thing that comes to mind are more mind-numbingly-annoying-from-the-guessers-perspective arrows.

And yet …

“20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.”
“YEP! WE WIN!!!!”

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