Entering the movie drought

In my pre-kid days, when The Wife and I had time and money and were not chained to a pair of cute but loud distractions, we went to the movies. A lot.

We like movies, but mostly we went because we couldn't think of anything else to do with all of our time and money and personal freedom.

"Uh, we can go to the movies or do absolutely nothing again."

"Let's go to the movies."

So when The Boy's arrival was imminent, all I could think of was how many movies we were going to try and fit in by the birth day.

(While we were trying to have kids, we, uh, made various efforts to avoid getting pregnant during March and April; officially, the reason was to avoid having a Christmas baby; unofficially, the reason was to ensure that we'd be able to see Return of the King in the theaters. That said, when it was evident that The Boy would be born in July, I prayed a time or two that he'd show up only after Spider-Man 2 was released. My prayers were answered, by the way, and I indeed dragged an extremely pregnant Wife to the movie's opening. She spent most of the time in the bathroom.)

Not surprisingly, this is one thing I miss: Seeing movies unencumbered. Yes, I have Netflix, a television and a comfortable couch. And yes, I don't miss cell phones and obnoxious teenagers and the fact that I have to pawn the family jewelry to be able to pay for a night at the movies and a bag of popcorn. But I do miss the big screen, the pre-movie trivia, the clinically depressed theater staff and the decades-old unworking arcade games in the waiting area where the high scores are dominated by some dude named Ass. And the giant, in-theater movie posters. I miss them, especially because most movies hit their peak when the poster is made. I almost never want to see a movie as much as I do when I see the poster.

(A few movies hit their peak later, when the first trailer comes out; The most infamous of these was Godzilla, which years ago teased me with the single best trailer of all time, one before The Lost World, which showed Godzilla's big, green foot stomping upon the skeleton of a tyrannosaurus rex; I was hooked, and wound up being so disappointed several months later when I finally saw that horrific piece of cow dung that I've refused to see Matthew Broderick in a movie ever since.)

Going to movies these days is a chore, because we have to get baby sitters. And while we have a great baby sitter in the form of my niece, it still requires the expenditure of more money along with another layer of complex, advance planning. And I'm cheap and lazy. So we don't go to many movies. And I'm hardly alone. Parents of young kids routinely say things like, "I haven't seen a non-child movie in the theaters since Ben Hur. That was back in the days before the 'Talkies' came out."

Still, the temptation to see a movie is great, to the point where I actually wondered aloud whether I should see a movie -- gulp! -- by myself.

I have no problems with people seeing movies by themselves. I have a problem with me watching a movie by myself, mostly because I can't help thinking that a single, lone, middle-aged male watching a movie in a dark theater is just really creepy. As if to confirm this, when I told my wife I was thinking of taking myself to a movie that she didn't want to see, her first reaction was "Don't do anything creepy."

What does she think I'm going to do?

ME: Uh, dear, I got arrested.

WIFE: What for now???!?

ME: Indecent exposure.

WIFE: I thought you were at the movies!

ME: I was.

WIFE: And I thought you were watching "A Christmas Carol."

ME: Uh, I was.

And at that thought, no movie for me.

The Dork hits Vegas

In the morning I'm flying to Las Vegas to attend a "conference," which apparently is some sort of pseudonym for "I'm going to gamble my life saving's away and wake up married to the waitress of a local diner."

I actually am attending a conference, but I suspect that it'll be a big challenge trying to resist skipping the whole thing so I can see repeated performances by Celine Dion and Wayne Newton. I could get a lifetime's supply of overperformed pop music and cheesy lounge tunes in three whole days. And while I'm at it I'll get my fill of neon and drunk people.

The truth is, however, that this will be my first trip to Vegas. I've never been there, mostly because I don't gamble.

(Note: According to something I looked up on the Internet by myself, only 5 percent of people admit they go to Vegas to gamble, but 87 percent gamble while they're there. So if I succeed in not gambling I'll be in the distinct minority.)

The thing is, gambling scares the hell out of me. Don't get me wrong -- the prospect of winning large sums of money appeals to me. The problem is that I have to spend money for the chance of that happening. I'd be far happier if I just walked in the door and they showered me with heaping amounts of cash. Heck, I'd be thrilled with just a few mid-sized bills. (Perhaps, if I worked hard enough, I could convince somebody to pay me to stay out of their establishment by repeatedly yelling "I HAVE A BLOG AND I'M NOT AFRAID TO USE IT!" But the prospect of the owner using a few big, beefy guys to toss me out keeps that from being a viable option.)

So gambling is the only way I'll get large amounts of money, and I hate gambling because I'm risk-averse. I once drove all night with a friend of mine from college. He was a gambler, and we passed a casino on the way home. "Hey, want to stop by quick so I can throw away what little hard-earned money I have?" he asked.

"Uh, sure," I said. He was driving, after all, and I have a hard time saying no.

I had $5 on me. I used all of it on the slots, and won $0.

He went and played blackjack. After 30 minutes he was out $100.

Guess who was more upset? Me. Sure, $100 doesn't seem like much, but we were in college and neither of us would be what anybody would term "wealthy." $100 at the time WAS a lot of money. And as I was subsisting on deer meat and government cheese from a roommate's friend at the time, so was $5.

I HATED losing that $5. I kept thinking about the gas station burritos I was going to use that $5 on and it made me sad and grumpy -- and hungry. The memory of tossing that $5 out the window has stuck with me so much I've refused to go into a casino ever since.

Which of course would make Vegas an unlikely option for me, despite my love of Elvis and tiger-loving magicians.

The good news, I guess, is that come Wednesday night when I come home I'll likely have the same personal net worth that I had upon my arrival there -- unless, that is, I give into my intense obsession with Cirque du Soleil and blow it all on tickets. Must ... see ... people ... who ... bend in ... odd shapes!

Night of the Zombie Dork

Here's how I spent my Halloween: By walking slowly and stiffly, with a distant look on my face, groaning and grunting and scaring my boy.

Did I dress like a zombie? (BRRAAAAAIINS!) Hardly. I threw my back out.

(Excuse me now while I curse like a sailor and yell.)

I'd like to say that I threw my back out while valiantly defending my family from a gang of thieves or an army of black-clad ninjas; or that I was hoisting a piano upstairs by myself. The sad reality is that I hurt my back sitting down, which I still don't understand, because I sit down dozens of times every day. I'm an EXPERT at sitting down. At least I thought I was. Now that my lower back is screaming at me I have my doubts.

Much of the neighborhood knew that I did this because I screamed like a Packers fan after a Brett Favre touchdown (for the Vikings). This scared The Boy, who had to witness his father crumple to the ground, whining like a school girl. He usually only sees this when I realize that it's time to change the diaper pail.

"Is he going to DIE?" The Boy asked.

No, boy. I only FEEL like I'm going to die.

I hate back pain, because I feel so old. And this one was bad, too, so I feel really old -- zombie old. Every move I make is stiff and slow and is punctuated by a groan or a small prayer or a what-the-hell-am-I-going-through-this-for? Everything I do is preceded by a mental cost-benefit analysis (do I REALLY need to use the bathroom?) because its completion is just so difficult.

About the only good thing about my back is that it gets me out of baby care (either because I can't effectively pick up the baby or because my wife has legitimate questions about whether I really am a zombie) and house work. (I'm really sorry, dear, but I just CAN'T rake the yard; back problems, you know.) It also gives me something to complain about, and blog about. I'm getting waited upon by my wonderful wife, and I get to act like a zombie without her telling me "Hey, quit acting like a zombie."

(I know what you're thinking: "Hey, that back pain doesn't sound so bad!" But it's almost like I made a deal with the devil, or Alanis Morrisette: I get everything I want, but I have to endure a searing, debilitating pain to get it. I'd rather rake the yard and change diapers.)

So I'll have to go to the doctor today, and if I'm lucky he'll prescribe powerful painkillers and a cane. I've always wanted a really cool cane, which I could wave while chasing kids off of my lawn. Heck, if I'm going to feel this old, I might as well get some of the benefits.

Now excuse me. I've got a craving for some BRRRRAAAAAINS!!!

Dorky Dad and the Fondue of Death

This weekend we went to a giant fondue party. I'd never been to one before, but apparently it involves a bunch of people getting together and eating small portions of food dipped in sauces. And then everybody hits McDonald's on their way home because there's no way you can get enough small pieces of bread to make a full meal.

Truthfully, it was a lot of fun, even with the presence of about 5 million distractions in the form of loud, rambunctious school-aged children and at least one baby (mine). But amidst the whining and crying I found myself at the fondue table, where I took my handy fondue fork and began to peruse the options.

(By the way, two days later I still find myself shocked -- SHOCKED -- that The Boy not once attempted to convert his fondue fork into a weapon in the midst of the crowded living room. I've decided that he was feeling particularly generous that day, and decided to spare his father from shouting his boilerplate "Hey! That [INSERT RANDOM OBJECT HERE] is not a [INSERT RANDOM WEAPON HERE]!!!")

I found plenty of options -- chocolate and caramel for my sweet tooth; cheese for my cheese tooth; chips for my salt tooth; crackers for my cracker tooth; apples, bananas, strawberries and pineapple for my fruit tooth and bread for my bread tooth. I also came across some sort of meat, probably chicken, soaked in an Asian sauce, probably teriyaki. I took some of that.

Everything seemed good. The meat was OK, though it seemed a bit funny, so I soaked it in the pile of cheese I took for myself and moved on to the next item on my plate.

Later, as I talked with another of my fellow party goers, I noticed about a dozen fondue forks in one boiling pot, next to the teriyaki-soaking chicken.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing to the forks.

"Oh," the woman said, "you take a fork, stick it in this raw chicken here" -- and she pointed to the aforementioned teriyaki chicken -- "and then cook it in this oil. I'm not sure these are done."

Raw chicken? That chicken was supposed to be COOKED? I just ate RAW CHICKEN?!??

I just smiled and nodded in an effort to hide the fact that I suddenly felt like the pilot on the movie Airplane when he overheard the doctor's descriptions of the symptoms people feel after eating the fish dinner -- as he looked down upon his plate of fish bones.

"I'm totally doomed," I thought. A lifetime of living near and with moms has taught me that eating raw chicken is like skydiving without a parachute. I'll probably get salmonella, or I'll just gradually turn into one giant chicken.

I haven't started clucking yet. And I keep looking at myself to see if I've sprouted feathers. But if you check this blog in a day or two to find indecipherable chicken scratch -- more so than usual -- you'll know why.

See y'all -- CLUCK! -- later.

Parenting at 35,000 feet

The Wife and I decided our lives were too easy, so late last week we loaded our borderline-hyperactive 5-year-old and our teething, ear-infection-prone infant into a plane packed with travelers and flew four hours to California.

Yes, I did this voluntarily, but only two things would drain my brain of enough mental capacity to enable me to make such a decision: A funeral or a wedding. Fortunately, it was the latter that prompted this particular trip.

I've said repeatedly on this blog that I hate flying, and though I've flown enough in recent years that I'm no longer crawling the walls whenever we enter a tad bit of turbulence, the rest of my anti-flying beliefs hold true -- generally poor customer service, overpriced meals, ridiculous luggage fees, the constant prospect of being strip searched, etc.

(That said, I've got to say that my trip was uneventful and pleasant, at least from a customer service standpoint, and I'm not just saying that because my airline, Delta, is taking me to Las Vegas in a couple of weeks and thus has my future in its hands. Nice, Delta. Niiiice, Delta.)

Adding kids to a plane trip is like adding Diet Coke to Pop Rocks. Everything is far more difficult and combustible -- getting tickets, checking luggage, going through security, walking past the rows of stores hocking overpriced food and tourist items without spending an entire paycheck in an effort to keep your child pacified, etc.

The older one, wiggly as he is, is relatively simple once we get him on the plane: Just plug him into a DVD player and spend hours in quiet-child bliss.

(Seriously, in my before-kid days I swore I'd never get portable video players for a vehicle or for a plane flight and had no idea what true use they had; then I had a child and realized that my pre-child self was a complete and utter idiot.)

The infant is not so easy because he's simply try to eat the DVD player. And, upon entering the plane, the baby makes one of two choices:

1. I could spend much of this trip napping and quietly eating and playing with the small selection of toys brought to pacify me with;
2. I could decide to not sleep and instead scream bloody murder the entire trip so that most of the passengers will be wishing to toss my parents from the plane. At 35,000 feet.

Children so often pick Option No. 2 that parents actively encourage loading the baby with over-the-counter depressants. As we waited for our first flight, in a kids' play area, we talked with another parent who had taken his 3-year-old on so many flights that the kid had enough frequent-flier miles to buy an entire ticket. When we told him how long our flight was, his only tip was, "Uh, Benedryl."

So I knew that my baby would take Option 2, and so to spite me he took Option 1 on both flights (though he didn't fall asleep on the way there until two minutes before the plane landed.)

But we were provided with a little perspective on both plane flights in the form of another set of parents, with three children -- the same set both on the way there and the way back. On both flights, the youngest of the three decided to skip past Options 1 and 2 and go straight to Option No. 3 -- The Nuclear Option. She literally screamed the entire trip. (This, by the way, was an absolutely adorable girl who, at one point during the trip there, decided to say "Hello" to every individual passenger.)

All I could do is look at the Dad with sympathetic eyes while thinking to myself, "Oh, Thank God I'm not him."

But it was a good trip. The wedding was fun and I got free cake and copious amounts of decidedly unhealthy food that was funded by someone else. We got to visit San Francisco where we ate sourdough bread and In-n-Out Burger and I got chastised by a cable car operator for my wayward elbow. And then we performed a death-defying drive along narrow, windy roads up and down a mountain in search for big-ass redwood trees. And at some point a woman woke up much of our hotel by screaming and pounding on doors and breaking things. We had a bonfire on the beach and caught wafts of marijuana being smoked by this neighboring party apparently filled with people who need the drug for medicinal purposes. And I now know the definition of "beach bum."

I also got a kid story. The Boy, who is 5 and is eager to spell words, looked out the window as we ate lunch at In-n-Out and noticed a sign to a neighboring restaurant.

"I can spell THAT word, Daddy!" he said, proudly -- and in his normal volume, high.

"OK," I said, not knowing the word of which he spoke. "Spell it."

"H-O-O-T-E-R-S!"

(Pause for laughter from me, The Wife and most of our fellow burger eaters.)

"What does that spell, Daddy?"

"Just wait a few years, kid, and you'll find out."

A Sonnet For Feminine Cheese Sticks

In honor of National Poetry Day, which by the time many of you read this will be long past, I've composed the following sonnet. A poorly written, badly rhymed sonnet that will probably make Bill Shakespeare's ghost scream in agony before it searches me out and rips the laptop from my arms and tosses it out the window.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

I'VE NEVER CLAIMED TO BE A POET.

BUT THAT'S NOT STOPPING ME. BAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

OK. On with the poem. And off with the caps lock button.

A local shopping mall today we went
Because we still had some dollars unspent
Let us go all! We said, and with a laugh
For we both knew that this would be a gaff
But bribed, did we, our son so blond and tall
Not much would he not do for a gum ball
Behaved, did he as we both walked the aisles
He did not climb or run or show his wiles
But this is not a tale of his good deeds
It is a cute kid yarn, I do concede
We walked through Target looking all about
When from behind me I heard The Boy shout
"CHEESE STICKS" he said; I turned to look upon
And saw him eying some women's tampons

Holding On To Summer

It's cold here, which shouldn't be surprising because I live in Minnesota and if Minnesota is known for anything it's cold -- which I had been reminded of about 50,000 times in the month before I returned to the frozen north three years ago from South Carolina.

(Seriously: If I had a nickel for every time I heard the phrase "Minnesota? You know it's cold up there." I'd have a healthy amount of cash. It'd all be in coins, but cash nevertheless. My boy would never want for nickels to put down those, uh ... wells where the coins spin down a drain. What the heck do you call those things, anyway?)

While I like autumn here, it's tough letting go of summer. I try to cook out as much as possible in the last few nice weekends of September. I go for walks. We soak in the sunshine and schedule outings. So, in a sense, I can understand The Boy's reaction a week ago when I set out a pair of jeans for him to wear to school last Monday.

BOY: DAAAAAAAAAAAADDD!!! YOU GAVE ME PANTS!!! I DON'T WANNA WEAR PANTS!!

ME: Uh, boy, it's going to be cold tomorrow. Too cold for shorts.

BOY: BUT I DON'T WANNA WEAR PANTS! I WANNA WEAR SHORTS! (Yes, by the way, he yells. In fact, yelling is his normal voice volume. Unless you want him to talk about his day or talk to another adult. Then he's mouselike.)

ME: It'll be too cold. You have to wear pants.

BOY: NO IT WON'T! IT WON'T BE TOO COLD! NOBODY ELSE WILL BE WEARING PANTS!! PANTS ARE THE WORK OF THE DEVIL! THEY'LL BURN MY LEGS OFF! I CAN'T DO IT DAD! I CAN'T DO IT! DON'T MAKE ME WEAR THOSE SATAN SLACKS! PLEASE DAD, PLEASE!

I did not relent, mostly because I feared a phone call the next day from school, wondering what the heck kind of idiot parent would let his FIVE-YEAR-OLD CHILD risk hypothermia wearing shorts in 40-degree temperatures with high winds. And when he got on the bus wearing pants I thought the issue was done, because he acknowledged that it was cold. But the next day, he was at it again, protesting the pants. And he rejected the jeans again the next day.

I could deal with it no longer after that, and I let him wear shorts on the fourth day, fully convinced that the moment he waited for the bus with bear legs he'd realize his folly and run inside to get a nice, warm pair of pants.

Instead he stood outside, his legs coated in goosebumps, insisting that he was warm.

And it continued like this on Friday, and then into the weekend and again today. Not once did my eldest acknowledge the impact that the cold was having on his bear skin. He simply acted like it was July and he was thoroughly warm. (By the way, on most mornings his first order of business is to go from his room to the living room where he'll bundle himself up in a big pile of blankets ...)

Finally, today, as I picked The Boy up from school, he informed me that he must wear pants tomorrow.

Why, I said.

"Because nobody else at school wears shorts," he said.

And?

"And because they won't let me play on the playground if I'm not wearing shorts." Alas, the teacher who runs his afterschool program laid down the law. No pants, no monkeybars.

Hmmm ... I wonder if that will get The Boy to pick up all his toys ...