New Months

I explained to Dakota that July through November was in honor of little boy because he is so sweet and likeable.

This drove Dakota into a Veruca Salt fit of envy. And because I am a super villian, I have done something that the Coopenhagen conference cannot: force all 193 to do something for ME and my kids.

Anyhow, just for 2010, you can enjoy some "special edition months"

• Awesomary
• Krapactulary
• October
• Tarch
• April
• June
• July
• August
• September
• October 2: The Squeak-well
• November
• December

Mark your calendars now. Or else.

Discussing the meaning of irony with Dakota

"Dad, do we have any Lays?"

"Check in there," I say, pointing to the Frito-Lay variety pak.

Cheetos, Fritos, Regular D'Oritos. The kids love the lays. I had purchased Pringles snak paks as a decoy but Jason, outraged, opened them all and stomped on them.

Dakota was disappointed. Consoling her I said, "Gotta stop Jason from opening the chips, eating two and then opening another. Jason can eat just one."

I looked up at the ceiling, as I often do when I am pleased with how clever I am to talk over the head of a child. That's when we both spotted the 6-pak of Lays.

"Hey!" we shouted in unison.

Opening it up, Dakota asked me, "Why did you put it up there?"

"Its my stash for when I want chips not broken up by Jason, I forgot about it."

"How ironic."

"Dakota, what do you think ironic means?"

"Very silly."

I paused, reflecting on how Eugene talked me out of saying "a keen sense of irony" was one of my greatest strengths on my Rice application. I thought about the nights I spent puzzling over my Swearingen's "Rhetoric and Irony" readings for Tyler's class, wondering if maybe I had the book upside-down.  I thought about how I was sent back to physical therapy because after finally completing physical therapy for my achilles, I decided to get some shorts at "sports authority" and I got whiplash and aggravated a herniated disc in my lumbar from being rear-ended in the parking lot of the "sports authority." I remembered the first time, as a senior developer, that I told an end user that a feature he hated wasn't a bug, but the correct and intended functionality; and the first time, as an IT manager, that I told an overloaded employee to work smarter instead of harder. I thought about how badly I wanted to have a real conversation with my father but how unbearable it was to listen to his spiel on any topic until we found that we could talk candidly and without acrimony about my career, then he died just as I started to have one.

. . .

While all of these thoughts and memories raced through my mind and Dakota looked at me, searching for approval: her big wide eyes, paired with a sly sideways smile.

"I can't think of a better definition that that. Enjoy your chips."

High Comedy

Thinking about the best family moments growing up, it was the high
comedy that just came from Mom, Eugene, and I taking a funny situation
and making observational humor. All great improv high comedy relies
upon the players catching each others' groove and keeping it going.
You know what I mean, right?

Haven't you ever thought, when you were with your family or friends,
"Wow, that could be on TV"

I have a segue here jealously against Bill Cosby actually putting that
experience on TV but anyway...

It makes me happy to see the kids crack each other up. In particular,
I can see how each has their own shticks and style of madcap humor.
Nevertheless, both do impressions, props, spit takes, prat falls and
irony. Dakota seems to also like puns and observations. Jason likes
funny faces. Neither kid goes blue.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Kids, watch this!

Whatever is the opposite of self-doubt

This is how my kids see me. I was going to post this a week ago, but I got bronchitis. And the cat ate my homework. And gentrification, let's blame gentrification as well. Ok, back to the story. This is how the kids see me.

I was going to rent a costume at the RenFest, but Dakota had a very clear idea of how I should look and couldn't articulate it. But at the "House of Dra" as I was talking to the shop wench (chortle) Dakota jumps forward with the green tunic. At the "haberdasher of doom" (not the name, I just forgot what the other shop was really called), Dakota picked out the Robin Hood hat, which I was skeptical of because it is too small for my giant noggin. But Jason liked it too, and the kids begged me to get it. So I say, that's how they see me.

A few months ago, I was out with a friend who told me that my problem was that I aspired to be my family's "White Knight" and how that wasn't realistic or healthy. She observed that White Knights are chaste, delusional, violent, and ultimately suicidal. (Nice!) Her advice was that I needed to change the story; be something else; see myself as something else.

"Maybe I could be a rouge, like Han Solo?"

"Great choice, but I just don't think you're Han Solo."

Maybe not. And at 265 lbs, I am a bit more Little John than Robin Hood, but I certainly can be a "Merry Man."  Somehow, that term always makes me think of Mermen, then Ethel Merman. But, I digress.

Maybe I could be the portly Robin Hood, the Howard Cunningham Robin Hood (think about it...) Anyhow, I wasn't going to post this one either, but after 2 AM Walmart shopping this morning, I watched "Robin Hood" (the one with Uma Thurman) on cable and saw the movie as a sign (yeah, a sign of bad sleeping habits!)

Actually the sign, or signs, are the two "blessings" that my kids picked up from the vendor who sold me the tunic. There was a stack of cards ("Imbued with magick... pick one m'lord") But because, I feel fairly cursed with when it comes to inanimate objects that predict my fate (I once got a fortune cookie that said "You suck!") I told the kids to each pick a blessing. And this is actually the point of this post, as each picked the perfect blessing for them.

Dakota picked:

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
-- Albert Einstein

Jason picked:

If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.
-- William Penn

Dermabond, America

It is 11 PM. The kids and I are at the 59 Diner on Kirkwood. Dakota and Jason split a plate of Mac n'Cheese, and a vanilla shake. I had a Buffalo Burger -- all the way Texas style, and a black&white shake. We all split my fries.
Jason is talking to me. I can't focus on what he is saying because I am looking at the purple sparkly Dermabond that has sealed his Harry Potter scar. Earlier this evening, I had the idea to have the kids actually help me clean the house, so that they'd be tired before bed. That lasted about 3 minutes before Jason managed to lacerate his forehead on the kitchen counter like Leland Palmer possessed by evil Bob at the end of season 1 of Twin Peaks. My smallbig boy was crying and holding his forehead. When I pulled his hands away to inspect the cut, he started screaming from the blood on his hands, but I was calm. At least I was in the house. Driving through the inky blackness of 99 at night, the humidity and the darkness just feels like uncertainty. Somehow I got to thinking about past medical bills and about the mendacity of the insurance system. Nevertheless, my anguish and trepidation dissipated as I pulled up to the ER entrance.
When I was just a bit more than Jason's age, I cut my chin on the water slide at Sprain Ridge pool. They shot me a local and gave me a stitch that took several weeks to heal. I have a sweet scar; still visible. I was calm in the kitchen because using a butterfly closure to staunch the dripping from the fresh roast beef sandwich on my son's forehead brought back familiar memories. But medical technology has improved a lot in 29 years. Dermabond is essentially a skin glue with scar-preventing properties, and that's all they needed.
Jason looks at me and smiles "This shake is so yummy!" He rubs his belly through his "Woodsie the Owl" t-shirt (give a hoot don't pollute) and laughs because he is tickling himself.
Dakota is coloring in Disney princesses. When we got to the ER, she drilled the intake personnel with the facts (thisisjasonheismybrother. thatsfirstnamejasonlastnamelispelled "L-I" andhehithisheadonthekitchenisland AND I AM REALLY WORRIED!) And truly, she was trembling. Her eyes were wide like saucers; becoming moist as she fought to maintain her composure. The hospital staff seemed genuinely touched by this sincere and sincerely smart big sister. So they gave her some crayons, some pages to color, and they reassured her.

"Daddy, may I be excused to play the jukebox?"

"Knock yourself out, princess. It's free"

After selecting "the big bopper" she comes back and neatly finishes Cinderella's ball gown. The other dining patrons are diggin' the tune, too. All around us are high school kids, these are the clean cut ones who don't drink and who went to the football game. Apparently some of the high school games are also on saturday night. They are also enjoying burgers fries and shakes.
We could only be in America.
When I was young, I would watch "Happy Days" and dream about an America that cynical adults said never was and didn't exist. Here it is, though. An actualization in the present of a past that never was. And I am living it.
Its not a place without its problems. Behind Dakota's touching concern for her brother are the beginnings of the unhealthy anxieties of a divorced kid. This phenomon is now decades old here and I would have recognized even if I wasn't myself a divorced kid, but as I am, it's quite plain. And speaking of unhealthy, if the cholesterol in my food, speeds a fatal heart disease, apparently I will be part of the plurality. All of which inevitability points me to the class tensions and racial tensions lurking in the background; a legacy of ancestral evil that stubbornly refused to be extricated from heritage and thusly endures.
But these problems are also somewhat evidentiary of the conclusion that, ultimately, this really is a good place. Not because America is perfect but because of how it aspires to be all the right kinds of better. Cynics can rightly observe that many of the measures enacted to realize improvements are baby steps or two steps forward mixed with one step back, but I'll take that.
The kids see both their parents almost every day, the menu boasts "no trans-fats!", delicious moderately priced food is egalitarian, and tonight in this simulacrum of a late 1950's diner, there is mosiac of different races and ethnicities co-existing thanks to a veneer of friendliness and hospitality which forces an indifference to whatever tensions still exist today. All of this combines to make this place that never was, much better than any place that actually could have been in 1959.
As I share a meal with my family, and appreciate America, these patriotic lyrics play in my head:

These days are all, happy and free.
These days are all, share them with me.

Dermabond.

Two Songs By Jason

Jason composed two songs. I made a video of one and I figured out the chords for the other. I wrote down the lyrics for both. They are as good as anything I have ever written. I mean, maybe not as "clever" but certainly every bit as expressive as I try to be and a whole lot less cautious about exposing emotional vunerability. In short, I love these songs, like I love my son.

Without further ado:

A year with packpack
Last night
they drop stuff in packpack
And packpack is for me
And I go to school
And I put packpack on school table
And play
and play and play and play and play and play and play and play
and play and play and play


Go
To
And go and go to
And go to sleep
And its snowing
And Santa puts presents
everywhere
and go back to the moon


One day there was stuff in
packpack
it was under 'puter and 'kota play games
'kota play tool game
and car fix

One day there was stuff in packpack and
Go
To
party -- dance party
I mean, it was his birthday
and his present was
a funny bear and 'inosaurs
and stuff
and throw 'way present paper
presents for trashcan

GOOD NIGHT!


====================
Bad Monkey Dragon (chords in italics)
C
there once was a monkey dragon
em
he's destroying houses
F
and destroying pictures
C

and destroying shirt
em
and destroying tv's
F
because tv are not turned on
C
monkey dragon wants to turn tvs on
em
but he wants this song ending even more
F
so he destroyed some toys
F
and stepped on them
em
and that's a bad
F
monkey
c
dragon

and goodnight!

Pink Panther

Dead ant. Dead ant

Jason also gets itchy ant bite blisters that freak him out. Like me he
neither knows nor cares about the difference between fire ants and
non-fire ants.

But Dakota does. As Jason stood on a bar stool shreiking "ant! Ant!".
I stomped on it with an exagerated repeated lift of the foot above my
waist (no longer easy with the achilles and back) growling "death!
Death!" Like a democrat of your conservative grandma's worst fears.

Dakota, sounding like a Budhist Monk, chastened me.

"Dad... How do you think the ant feels?"

"It feels nothing except the embrace of obvilvion"

"How do you think it felt right before you stomped?"

"I hope it felt remorse for having frightened my son, but I imagine
all that it felt was a shadow and the rush of air"

"But it never got to visit London, England, or to see the Eiffel Tower
in Paris!"

--
Sent from my mobile device

Post-Script about Eric Hewett: Once I saw a production of Titus Andronicus where Eric Hewett had a small role. In this under-appreciated Shakespearean revenge fantasy, Titus mourns the death of an innocent insect before later feeding two murdering sons to their sinister mother. Eric was pretty good.

Jokes are like alchemy

I happily let Jason tell me cookie jokes for an hour last night as he tried to settle down his mind and go to sleep. Although dakota was able to tell ne funny joke before she could talk, its more of a struggle for the boy, who is more about physical comedy. But he had good material with cookies, and a good understanding of his audience. I admit most of the jokes are like:

"Why cookie oval? Cookie is oval and triangle and spinkles and I eat it!"

Which is what makes the few funny jokes seem so amazing.

Eric Hewett once wrote a really good paper for McEvilley comparing Yves Klein to the alchemists of yore, but to me a four year old actually putting together the elements of a funny joke (good delivery, timing, engaging material, unexpected punchline) is as surprising as transmuting lead into gold.

Wow that's quite a build up for this joke. It better not be like my last words joke (only funny because my grieving grandchild says the punchline). In any case, its bound to be a disappointment, aint it? It reminds me of Hendrix playing the national anthem at Woodstock. People rave and rave and rave about how original and surprising and incredible it was. In fact, the people who do that are all on the documentary because they were there. But the thing to remember is that (a) it was the last day of Woodstock so even if they weren't high, they were physically tired and thus emotionally worn out (b) people
act like only awesome acts got booked for woodstock. Untrue.  Hendrix followed Sha-Na-na. I mean... carp! Unless Hendrix decided to forego his guitar and also sing some doowop, he was going to be a hit that morning. But, I digress....

In fact there were three jokes that Jason told. Wouldn't it be just like me if in the middle of my sentence
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Ok,  just kidding. In fact, I almost forget one of the jokes because I just woke up and this blog entry is part of hitting the snooze bar and doing my back stretches from the physical therapist and TELL THE DAMN
JOKE ALWEADY!!!!

"Why cookie go up ladder of fire fighter?"
I dunno, Jason, why?
"He craaa-zy!"

"What mean boss do that for; put cookie dough oven?"
I don't know Jason, why did he do that?
"Cookies fired! Ahhhhhh, Ha ha ha ha ha"

"Do you eat cookies Daddy?"
I dunno, Jason.
"Da-dee! You eat em!"
--
Sent from my mobile device

Vignettes of suburban life for single Dad

These were going to be FB status updates, but they work better as a series.
--------------------------------------------
Juice boxes are on the same aisle as candy. Bad HEB; evil store layout.
--------
The kids make tons of noise at the checkout, they are fighting to help
daddy more. Neither are providing any help (with respect to net
effect) but the sentiment is touching.
--------
You know how people will have a bumper sticker that says "I break for
baby ducks?" Well a moma duck and three baby ducks were crossing
Morton Road and I breaked and honked like a mad man. The oncoming SUV
driver looked bewildered and I gesticulated wildly at the baby ducks.
Then the lady driving the Sequoia saw it too and looked relieved that
she didn't make roadkill.
Anyhow, I was thinking about the bumper sticker and, well, so what?
What kind of sick bastard WOULDN'T stop?
--------
Dakota: Did you notice that no ants bother the cats?
Dad: I suppose
Dakota: Well, that could be the answer to our ant infestation...
Cats. You should let Sophia have kittens.
Dad: Impossible. She's been fixed
Dakota: Can't we un-fix her.
Dad: Afraid not, Princess
Dakota: I hate that about life. Sometimes, things cannot be undone.
--------
Jason is eating a lunchable. He seperates all the crackers and all the
cheese slices and all the ham slices. He looks pleased. Then
concerned. Finally he sighs in true anguish.
Slapping his forehead, he declares, "Too many choices! Ah jeesh."
--
Sent from my mobile device

The Bad Guy in Dakota's Comic Universe

I've talked about super personnel person before. See link (here). I am
watching Dakota play with Jason's action figures. Her bad guy is an
unstable boss who randomly hires and fires people for no discernable
reason.

This has hilarious effect for Star Wars action figures carefully
positioned for an epic battle. Suddenly storm troopers are bus boys
and Lando is a Maitre D. Then Lando is promoted to Darth, after Darth
Vader is fired. Then Lando is fired and Darth is re-hired, but as a
singing waiter.

In observing the insane but basically mean-spirited nature of unstable
boss, I think "Yes, this is the correct bad guy for super personnel
person"

--
Sent from my mobile device

Things I have learned by being a parent (canonical rant)

My children are both asleep. I often watch them sleep now. My old friend, insomia has returned after many years. Of course, now that I am older I understand that back pain and drinking a pot of coffee have something to do with it. A bigger contributor maybe is that the price for having a certain flexibility about who I can be turns into a cavernous echo when I am alone and don't have to be anyone but me. But self-pity and self-loathing are merely cleansing the palette of a canonical rant, like a salty fish followed by sorbet. Here now is the plat principle:

As my children sleep, I reflect on Jason's ability to do so without a diaper. Its an important milestone because the end of diapers changes the parent routine. I no longer need to carry a support bag.

It is also the end of the relevance of certain advice books, and that is the topic of this rant. Middle class people tend to buy (and to urge other people to buy) particular parenting advice books. Some of these competing books have caused cultural wars of Aesthetics. One thing that I have learned by being a parent, is that people do not read those books because they want to be instructed. People find books that match the way they already treat their kids and their life. Its a post-hoc rationalization of why their way is right.

Therefore, for these books to sell very well, they must be vague and general. So cliches are important. My least favorite of these cliches is "children are our future" That's ridiculous.



I started writing this last night as I was trying to cure my insomnia. It worked

Canonical rant: kid food

I am at the Pantera house of soft guitar, salad, and overblown rolls.
Its only because Dakota likes the chicken noodle soup served in a
"bread bowl" that we are here. The other customers are glaring at me
because Jason is playing missile command with imaginary nukes falling
over the table. He is using the table number holder as the missile and
making not only launch noises but "incoming target acquired... Ready.
FIRE!!!!!!!"

Who said "F*** 'em if they can't take a joke"?

Anyway, what Who said. Besides the aggravating factor is probably that
to the other patrons, I seem disengaged with my kids' antics, as I
gamely tap away at my Blackberry. Foolish suburbanites, I am merely
typing the prologue to a Canonical Rant (tm).

[Mental note, register trademark]

Canonical Rant: Kid food.
Our paternalistic society lectures parents and everyone else about how
we are unhealthy in our eating choices, starting from childhood. The
blame is placed on mixed messages from society. True, but the gun is
pointed at the wrong hypocrisy. The problems are the odious paring of
toy food and toy-shaped kids food.

What the hell is wrong with people? We tell kids:

"Don't eat your toys" and give them impossibly tasty looking plastic
hamburgers, Play doh sushi makers, wood block carrots.

Then we say;

"Don't play with your food" and give them chicken nuggets shaped like
rocket ships and dinosaurs. By the way the word "food" for kids food
ought to be used loosely. There is little substantive difference
between the nutritional contents of a nugget and of the box it comes
in.

Nor do I accept the whole "make your kids fun easy organic food"
notion. This is America, damnit. its the land of convenient service.
Kids food should look like food and taste good and be healthy and be
cheap. Its a market failure when middle class people "opt out of
consumerism". Whatever the hell that means. Yeah, all those organic
food making appliances and supplies, not to mention your fetish farmers market food.
Way to opt out, comrade.

There is are several finishes to this canonical rant. I'll do all the variants.

Variant 1: regulate
There outta be a law.
The only really good way to change the balance of power between
relatively weak and diffuse consumer and the relatively large number
of offending food producers is to make kids food required on all
menus and to prohibit terrible kids food.

My conservative libertarian friends recoil in horror "you'll drive
restaurants out of business" and "its not free market. " There are
times I can see your point and not disrespect it, but in general this
isn't one of those times. Its hardly axiomatic that free markets
require caveat emptor and that society should accept the cost of
vendors selling Styrofoam sandwiches sprinkled in glass shards.

more importantly the claims that its overly paternalistic on consumers
is nonsense. Consumers don't want Styrofoam sandwiches but if vendors
refuse to stop making them, they will be forced to buy them. If you
don't believe that, then how else can you explain that I bought a
Yaris? Anyhow its the conservatives who are being paternalistic to
capitalists. Capitalists are ingenious. Tell them: make money selling
food but the rule is no Styrofoam sandwiches and they will figure it
out.

Get to work, Congress. Ban food that looks like toys and toys that
look like food.

Variant 2: litigate

Replace para 1 of the above with:
Everyone ought to sue everyone.

Replace the last paragraph with:
Civil litigation is a great tool of reform, especially against a
recalcitrant defendant with lobbying power. We owe the plaintiff's
bar a great debt for protecting our democratic ideals. I refer you to
Federalist Paper No. 51. Yes, its about a system of checks and
balances in the offices of government, but its also about the nature
of our courts to make power more diffuse. The diffusion of power
amongst all members of society is a disruptive but critical aspect of
society.

Variant 3: heartwarming anecdote
(This is an add-on to variant 1)

When I was in elementary school and my parents marriage was nearly done
for, my mom purchased a glass top coffee table for the living room.
The living room itself was an area ironically named in the waning days
of the marriage. In the 70's my parents entertained guests there and I
think when Eugene was left at home by himself he'd get into "risky
business" type mischief there; maybe that's just hero worship on my
part.

Anyhow, my mom decided that the thing to put on the monstrosity was a
glass candy dish and these horrendous hard candies. A glass bowl on a
glass surface + elementary school kids. Insanity, but somehow I didn't
break it. Instead, after a layer of dust got on the candy, I slid it
into the sun and it got gooey. Then I threw the candy out

"William, where did the display candy go?"

"Display candy, display for who?"

"Whom"

"Anyhow it got sticky... Gross"

"Oh... Good. Did you put your marbles in the bowl?!?"

"Yes... Don't they look tasty?"

"They do, actually"

Inside I was thinking about the fact that glass candy was hysterically
immoral and laughing.

It was a tough time for us (mom and I) back then but in retrospect, I
have a lot more sympathy for the idea that as her life became a
shambles, and the things she built up went down in flames, why not have
a piece of gleaming crystal interior decor on top of an ostentatious
and impractical furnishing? It could hardly be the worst thing that
one could do in response! Except if toy food was illegal. Then they
would have arrested me. I wonder if I would have been tried as an
adult.

Probably. Reagan was tough on crime.

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Words of advice for young people

I had a different post here that I wrote last night as I was falling asleep. I didn't like it. So here's the new one.

"A journey of a thousand steps, starts with a thousand steps. Oh,then its pretty much over"

I was watching TV yesterday. The worlds largest man (1,032 lbs.) was the subject of a documentary about how they removed over 700 lbs from his body; mostly by surgery. He was from Houston. As was the worlds largest woman; over 900 lbs. And the world's heaviest teen, he wasn't all that heavy, but was he ever miserable! And the largest concentration of super morbidly obese people (over 560 lbs.)
I turned off the TV and took the kids to the pool and swam laps during adult swim.
Truthfully, I got much more exercise treading water next to Jason's floatie. By "treading water" I mean standing on my tiptoes in the pool, which with the Achilles is a really good exercise, just the right balance of support and resistance. I also packed my sneakers for work today, but I will likely work through lunch; as usual. Also the kids and I got ice cream from the ice cream man. And we had cookies for a dinner appetizer.

This is my idea of living large. I am like Wonko the sane, but more plain. I don't need a secret volcano lair, nor an army of robots; I can still be a supervillian, if someone wants to battle me in googles, armed with pillows. I can boil a mean pot of water. I can microwave too. My kids know how to Tivo, and they understand what I mean by "this is a tube of plenty." In my mind's eye, I see that my ear's nose is the liver of my soul, which was always middle-aged. And now I am too.
So now... this is it! This is my movie. And though I've seen this movie, I like it. I might channel surf a bit, but I'll keep flipping back.

Jason has discovered that "I have an idea!" Makes me drop everything and listen to him.

Fighting Pink Eye

Jason recently recovered from pink eye. It was a memorable experience, I'm sure, in part because of the trip to the night-time children's clinic and Jason being such a good boy about taking eye drops. Or maybe it was the yellow eye boogers that would squirt out in a sudden sticky discharge when the medicine was applied.

Under Dakota's theory, the pharmacological effect is that the membrane of the uninfected cells are given multiple layers of resistance against the infected cell's attack. Note the realistic depiction of the canal of Schlemm. (pink)

If my father could see this, I am sure he would be extremely proud of this fantastic illustration of drug disposition and metabolism happening on a cellular level.

Jason says he likes "alphahat song" but "letters words tricky" and he prefers to sing it as a puppy with me singing as a chicken.

Chocolate Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Batches

Batch 1
  Actually these came out ok, but it tastes a bit undercooked in the middle. Not in a bad way, its the molasses.
Dakota's comment: Next time you should do something like the crust of a pie.
Jason's reaction: wildly enthusiastic
Adjustments: More flour and baking soda


Batch 2
  Headed in the wrong direction here. These came out dry and crumbly. Also the almond extract flavor is now very noticable. Almond extract is a curse; a pox on my cookies. Fie! Fie! Yarrrrrrrr.
Dakota's comment: Next time use tortillas instead of oatmeal. Why? You might as well have used tortillas the way you are covering up the good chocolate flavors!
Jason's reaction: wildly enthusiastic
Adjustments: added cinamon, dark corn syrup, mayo, cook for 12 minutes rather than 10.




Batch 3
 This is more like it, but they just don't taste as yummy as I want them to taste
Dakota's comment: Hey these tast great!
Jason's reaction: wildly enthusiastic
Adjustments: FOUND THE DAMN BROWN SUGAR! Also going back to 10 minutes and making the footprint of the cookie smaller on the tray


Batch 4
 Like the American auto industry, I have burned through all my dough. This last batch was a little sticky but very very taste-tay!
Dakota's comment: Wow!
Jason's reaction: wildly enthusiastic




Lessons Learned: Cookie dough is like pancake batter, in the sense that if it tastes lousy in the bowl, it won't get magically better in the oven. Also, there are many subsitutes for different ingredients and mayo seems to work ok for eggs and oil but there is no good substitute for brown sugar. Almond extract? Its bad, horrible. If you ever buy oatmeal cookies rather than another type because you think its healthier, then you are fooling yourself.

Additional characters in the "Super Personnel Person" Universe: Jason's Characters

Can a 4 year old think up characters for my comic book universe? Yes!

Characters:

The Bad News Monsters. They fight. They have bad news space ships.They fly up-down up-down and then.... Crash.
Good News Guys. They fly. Good news... Bad news lose.

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Big yellow taxi

Westpark tollway like a river of no dreams allows time to think.

I saw a taxi at Dakota's school today. It pulled up to the grass
rather than a sidewalk and a sad looking boy was ejected from the
vehicile. No jacket, No backpack. He turned to look for... Goodbye?
Have a good day? Some sort of recognition that he wasn't just a
shipment. But the cab already pulled away. Resigned, he trudged
across the dewy grass. His socks will be wet and I can see his breath.
The temperature this morning is what us content suburban types call "crisp"

I find myself incurious about what happened. I heard enough from
Eugene and Louren to know that sad situations aren't just elsewhere.
They are here, too. But... Damnit, Couldn't the cab at least brought him
to the school door? Why the walk of shame?

The kid's got the countenance of a 4th grader; last traces of baby fat
being replaced by grown-up fast food fat. Whatever vunerability his
expression and posture betrayed before are replaced with every step he takes towards the school by a
mendacious scowl.

Is this the bully who kicks Dakota"s wheeled
backpack? If he is, I won't hesitate to demand that the school protect
Dakota from him.

My exit approaches. I still need to drop off the boy. I am crazy late
for work. Not so late not to hug jason all the way to his room, talk
to his teacher for a moment, and then leave when jason is eating or
playing. Its never too late to do that.

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