Month: May 2015

Went To Colorado But Not For What You Think

We recently took a four day road-trip to Colorado and you won’t believe why. Or maybe you will. I’ll tell you why but along the way let’s look at some pictures. I rarely do anything that doesn’t become interesting/complicated/frightening and this trip was no different. The easiest way to tell you everything is probably a list and everyone likes pictures right?

Here is our roadtrip! Eleven notable things.

1. Turns out that Summer’s Eve feminine products is exploring a new flavor, Urban Musk. It smells like a Convertible Honda S2000 + Gold Rims, Backwards Basketball Hat, Super-white Acne Shoulders Peeking Out of a Tank Top, and an Undeserved Sense of Self-worth. This guy couldn’t have been more douche-y if he was a rubber bag with a plastic nozzle. Yes, I used the word flavor on purpose.

It makes it creepier which matches this guy.
2. It is always concerning to look up and see something like this.

3. One thousand miles is a hell-of-a-long drive so we stopped halfway at Salina, Kansas and attempted to stay at a Best Western. There were several things that bothered me about the hotel. Maybe it was because it was 1:00 am or maybe it was actually creepy.

Horror movie hallway.

Why is this here? This is an elevator.

The conversation with the front desk manager was awesome and it may get its own post. Suffice it to say that I support the Kansas gun laws because I locked the door and sat facing it waiting for a Scarface level gunfight to erupt.

4. There is nothing in Kansas. It is so boring that they moved Kansas City just over the line into Missouri. It is like “The Hills Have Eyes” movie but there aren’t any hills. Super creepy.

5. We think we saw a tornado and we know that our car received hail damage.

No houses falling on witches though.

6. After arriving in Strausburg, CO we went one mile south of I-70 and stopped to get the object of our trip. A baby Wallaby named Sir Tobias Dashnap.

Meet Sir Tobias Dashnap

Toby for short.

Sleepy Toby

The conversation with anyone is always exactly the same;

“We are getting a Wallaby.”

“A what?”

“A wallaby. Like a kangaroo but smaller.”

“Is that legal?”

“Yes.”

“Okay… (Reads: WTF?)”

Then people usually try to find something positive to say but are too shocked to think of anything. I’m sure if you are like me, there are several questions that pop up later so I will help you out.

Yes, we are crazy and this isn’t the first symptom of that fact.

It will be small and stay inside sometimes in a playpen and outside sometimes in a little house.

No you can’t ask what it costs because that is crazy too. Less than a private jet but more than a free stray cat.

We did it because life is meant to be lived and I would rather be interesting than normal any day of the week. In short, we did it because we could, why not? Don’t answer that. There are plenty of “why nots” in life and I can’t be bothered with those.
7. Part of the impetus to begin blogging was my admiration for a couple of funny stories by The Bloggess. The metal chicken story and the taxidermy monkey story. Supermom and I have a habit of relaying anything related to those stories to our friends (Familydoctormom and The Professor). On this trip we found a Metal Chicken and a stuffed Puma. Thanks Jenny for the gift that keeps on giving!

Someone was told not to buy towels.

The eyes follow you…

8. We visited downtown Denver and ate lunch with one of the few college friends I have managed to keep contact with and he took us to the Cherry Cricket. A famous burger spot that was amazing. Thanks to the Duke-of-Earl for being our tour guide. It was really good to catch up!
9. Then we visited Georgetown just inside the Rocky Mountains. A beautiful spot built on a valley between two large mountains. We collected some rocks from the Rockies which the girls loved.

There was a house that concerned me though, it had a creepy stuffed clown with skis mounted in a window because that is normal?

File under WTF?

10. The line between the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains is abrupt. Denver is flat and at the exact base of the mountains. Driving though the plains was beautiful just because of the views. We saw really cool windmills, oil wells, tumble weeds, stone fence posts, NO TREES, plenty of wheat and cows.

Those black dots are cows. Windmills are huge.

Drill baby drill.

Also, if I were to try and decide the current events of Kansas just by propaganda on billboards I would think they had three issues; People are unfamiliar with Jesus, Everyone is having recreational abortions, and McDonald’s has a shortage of French fries. These were seriously the only billboards I saw on the entire drive. The Jesus billboards were awesome because they were paintings of Jesus but they were placed in fields and sometimes he was painted holding whatever the actual crop planted around the sign was. For instance, one sign had him holding a fistful of wheat and the sign was in a wheat field so it felt like he was hiding and jumping out to surprise you. I have a collection of awesome pictures on my Facebook Page. Go check them out and Like the page if you want to see more of my stuff.

11. The drive home was an uninterrupted nineteen hours of driving. We started home with the intent of stopping halfway but each milestone was at a weird point in the journey so I kept going each time and by 4:00 am I didn’t see much point in getting a hotel room. Power through! One thousand miles is a long way to drive and I am a little delirious. I got back into the car to go get drive thru chicken and I had a small panic attack. Can you get PTSD from too much driving?

The kids had a fun time at Mamaw’s farm while we were away and even diaper dog was thankful for a break. Life gets routine sometimes and a little bit of spontaneity was good for us. What other time would I get out to see Kansas? I don’t recommend going and buying livestock when you get in a rut but for us it seems to work. So if you like to live life on the edge of social acceptance, this post is for you. You’re welcome.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.

You May Be In Danger Right Now

To the people I know, you are going to want to read this. I have some inside information and parenting code of ethics makes it a little tricky but you should know that you are in grave danger. Recent interrogation of my children has produced some valuable intelligence. I wish I could tell you this info directly but that isn’t an option.

Stay calm. You have time to fix this but I will need you to follow some guidelines. We have an opportunity to set up our parenting spy network.

Here are the rules:
1) This will be like a scavenger hunt. I don’t know where this weapon of mass destruction is located and you have to search discreetly.
2) Search carefully. This item will explode and release a noxious fume.
3) How you came to know about this item is classified. Friends share secrets sometimes and if one friend’s dad overhears something and tells the other parent trust can be lost quickly. These two kids are really close and I wouldn’t change that for the world. If you are questioned I would go with Santa, Elf on the Shelf, or the NSA.
4) I promise to keep your anonymity if you keep mine.

Agreed? Pinkie swear?

Okay let’s proceed.

From what I understand, your child is wanting a pet chicken. Probably because my child talks about having chickens so I apologize. Both children have a basic understanding that eggs become chickens. Together the two of them smuggled an egg out of your refrigerator and hid it away in a desk. My sources say the plan is to allow this egg to incubate for two months in the hopes a small chick will be born. If the plan succeeds then your carpet will be screwed. Chickens are the artesian wells of poop. Due to some macro-physics they poop more than they actually eat.

If the master plan fails you may have to fumigate your house. It is a nice house and nobody wants that. I stepped on a six month old rotten egg and it would make a skunk vomit. I think that is actually how frosted glass is made. Death row inmates are forced to smash rotten eggs near virgin glass and the individual particles try to escape thereby fracturing the crystalline structure of the glass and giving it the frosted look. But enough about that, you are wasting time. Go search your children’s desks for no reason at all.

If you find this ticking time bomb please email me a photo. If you find yourself saying, “Could this be me or someone I know?” The answer is yes so you better spread the word. Henceforth, I know nothing. Our conversation never happened. This message would be cooler if it self-destructed but it won’t. (I loved Inspector Gadget) You’re welcome.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.

My Kids Continue to Be Smarter Than Me

Prima may not have as much gracefulness or attention span as your average 5 year-old but her wisdom takes me by surprise. It shouldn’t since the premise of my blog is that I am an idiot 90% of the time but some dad part of me thinks I am teaching my children. Passing the flickering torch of knowledge. However, she did break her wrist by falling off the couch watching Dora the Explorer so I can’t have her take the MENSA test just yet.

This week my children were the surviving flame and I continued to be the wind. I didn’t freeze my tongue to a spoon again but I did get a bug in my eye and it rolled back into my head. Three hours later it moved around and came out. Here’s a picture of that.

That little green piece of junk was a crawly bug inside my head. Gross.

I left a jar of sprinkles in reach. So here is how that turns out.

All the multi-colored sprinkles. Yay!

Then I saw something smeared on the doorframe to the bathroom. No its not another poo encounter. I think it is toothpaste and it is high enough on the door that the ones who could reach should know better.

Toothpaste painting. Yay!

So at the end of this day I was giving a bath to Threeto and she can sense when my give-a-shit meter is near the bottom. At that exact moment when I can’t take anymore I say, “Just put down the bath toys and get out right now!” She replies, “Okay take my rag.” And she squeezes a full washrag into my lap as I am looking the other direction talking to her mother. It was the perfect cherry on top and I just laughed at the apex of chaos.

A few deep breaths and we all gathered for some Lego’s before bed. I asked Prima how her first year at school had been. The short paragraph I got was a stream of consciousness but was impressive. Still waters run deep;

Prima: I have liked learning to read but I really like to draw.
UD: Oh yeah? What do you like to draw?
Prima: I want to draw. I want to draw how life IS. Like what life looks like.
UD: Wow. That is deep, can you do that?
Prima: Yes. I am courageous in my use of markers.

I got out some markers and paper because after that how do you not? She continued to talk and lay down some deep knowledge.

Prima: (Drawing intensely) Dad?
UD: Yes?
Prima: Did you know that in the future I am a teenager, right now. And if I think of a cheese sandwich and remember it, then it happened in the past. Yeah, you remember stuff in the past and you can’t see the future until right now.
UD: Did you eat mushrooms on your pizza?
Prima: …..

Then Threeto rushes into the conversation to tell me about a race they always have at the Grandparents house. “Papaw beats me every night!”
UD: He beats you?
Threeto: Yup. Every night (smiling).
UD: He wins?
Threeto: Naw, he just beats me.

But let’s not leave Lady Bug out of the rotation this week. I got this text from Supermom while I was at work. The only thing worse than finding a cap to red lipstick is this…

How do you respond? Good luck? That stinks?

So I got bugged, heard the wisdom of Plato, saw a man be misrepresented, and was entertained by my wife’s struggles. Oh and one day while cleaning I found this and could have cried from the proudness…(It says Fosl Resrech, she likes Paleontology)

So if you had a fun rollercoaster week, this post is for you. Me too. You’re welcome.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.

Today Im Mr Brightside

Catharsis Is Not the Left Side of a Battery.

I try to be upbeat. I am typically a glass half full kind of guy. In fact, I am an engineer so if my glass is consistently low I start using a smaller glass. Why pick up more glass than you have to? Laziness is the fertilizer for innovation. But back to positivity… I am pretty evenly split between moments of tearful joy and finding myself teetering on blind-rage-toy-smashing. Most of the time it is sleep related. Couple that with a frustrating day where a series of things I encountered could be explained with a heartfelt, “No shit Sherlock.”

If you are looking for some sunshine keep scrolling because I’m party cloud with a chance of an opinion storm. Where to begin? Who is my first innocent bystander in this literary drive-by?

Maybe I’ll start with inspiring quote status updates. Dear inspirational quote person: You are having the exact opposite of your intended effect. Showing me a video of some dog named Skippy with only two legs serving soup at a homeless shelter and jumping rope does not make me want to get up and change the world. It does make me feel a little more worthless since I slept the last two nights with a pile of shirts on the foot of my bed and I can’t find the time to put them on a hanger. Seven shirts from what I can see but who knows, it might be eight. Somebody should move that top one so I can be sure. I would do it but I’m busy not hanging things right now.

Who is next? Pinterest person? Okay pinterest person. Those things you pin look amazing. I personally want a pirate ship bed, the soup can drawer beside my refrigerator, and a patio set made from recycled pallets. I would also like a Unicorn and for any one of my four kids to be able to eat cereal without the surrounding area looking like someone turned on a blender without a lid. Maybe you could figure out a neat way for that shit to happen and pin some instructions. Then I can focus on the important things in life like making cute cookies or turning bed frames into weird high-backed chairs.

What about all the life tips floating around? Doctors find that lack of sleep destroys your body. Wow! The story should read, “Idiots pay money for sham of a study.” Any person who has been around a toddler at 2:00 in the afternoon knows sleep is a remedy. It is probably the sole reason teenagers look so youthful and exuberant. They sleep until noon, why shouldn’t they?

The formula for healthy living is the catch 22 of life. All you need to be healthy is a reasonable diet, proper rest, and regular activity. Yet for some reason the world keeps writing books about diets, searching strangely malnourished countries for super foods (that one baffles me), and creating drugs to address all our ills in exchange for side effects that cause similar issues.

Why do you suppose that is? All that effort towards healthiness and the basic answer is a)Don’t over eat, b) Sleep, and c) Move Around. I shouldn’t be confused about my health because I do the exact opposite of those three things. But when I see some new berry that is a health miracle that Ethiopians have been hiding for years, am I suspicious? Yes but do I still read about it with a faint hope? Yes. Every. Time.

What else? What else? Oh I could do a little something on parenting advice. Step one: Don’t writing parenting advice for say… parents of toddlers, if you have never been within ten feet of a toddler. I don’t try and explain to pregnant women how it will feel to push out a baby because I haven’t had that pleasure. For all I know it feels awesome and the women are lying to us men. Sounds like a crazy theory but we have four kids soooo something isn’t adding up. Telling me about discipline and how they are these developing rose buds sounds nice but sometimes they are self-centered sociopaths who need a little reality to prepare them for not getting their asses kicked on the playground.

How about organic food posts. Eat organic cucumbers for your depression…blah, blah, blah. These are my favorite. First let’s pop the organic balloon. Organic doesn’t mean pesticide free. It means they don’t use a list of certain older pesticides with long term studies that show the effects of exposure. In fact, the farmers probably use newer pesticides that haven’t been researched nearly as much and may in fact be more dangerous that the ones that the organic label promises to protect you from. Something will try to eat the fruits and the farmers will do something to stop it. The word organic blows my mental circuitry anyway because I learned in Chemistry that compounds containing carbon are inherently organic. You show me a non-organic plant and I will show you an interested scientist somewhere.

And all-natural ingredients? Thank God! I can’t stand those cheeses made with moon rocks. Or those carrots grown in clouds. They just aren’t natural. Unless you live on acorns and forage native grasses you probably enjoy foods that are mostly domesticated and far from natural. Crude oil comes from dead animals, fossil fuels? What is more natural than methane and gasoline? Anyway.

Okay I’m back. That felt good. I hope I didn’t injury too many relationships or feelings. The truth is that I like interesting quotes, cool pinterest ideas, wish I could do healthy living, and even exercise. I hope to raise good and happy citizens of the world and I want them to eat healthy things. But I also struggle getting motivated to do any of it and my inner five year old likes to throw rocks at things that frustrate him. I’ve put him away and am prepared to read more about the right vitamins to develop an infant’s brain or a new strawberry quiche. We can all be friends, I just need my 2:00 nap.

If you get moody and deconstruct everything in your path, this post is for you. You’re welcome. Me too.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.

I’m An Idiot. True Story.

People don’t always use critical thinking at critical times. You know the whole shtick of common sense being uncommon. My default reaction is to wonder, “What were you thinking? You must be an idiot.”

Tonight I had to question myself and I discovered that: I am, in fact, an idiot. True story.

A brief reflection on my life renders many vivid examples. Several examples were during Kindergarten. I would almost include a fart that fooled me but that is technically an accident. It would be unfair to saddle a five-year-old-me with the “idiot” label for crapping his pants and sneaking through the second half of the day commando style. No sir, that lesson is called life and is an important skill. However, I do remember playing with some construction blocks and two were stuck together really well. I anchored one with my right hand and pulled upwards in a jerking motion with my left. Directly in-line with my face. I punched myself in the eye and lay in the floor writhing in pain while quietly wondering if I was blind. I wondered if the inside of my eye was like a grape or a water-balloon and if the liquid pouring down my cheek was tears or eye-goo. I felt like an idiot for that one.

I’ll just put all my energy here so if it breaks I can do some real damage.

Fast forward a few years and I was twelve or thirteen, working on a vegetable farm for nine to ten hours a day during the summer. My job was to help harvest things like okra, greens, tomatoes, and peppers, etc. Some days consisted of being dropped off in a field with a water jug, bushel baskets, and a large knife. There were no cell phones or even much chance of car traffic on the rural roads nearby. Similar to “Naked and Afraid” but more likely to be named “Flanneled and Farming”. It was on one of these days that I felt like an idiot again.

About four of us had been dropped off in a turnip greens field and we spread to begin picking. The day was hot and after about an hour it was time for a nice cool drink of water. My trusty water jug was nearby and had just been filled with ice from my home refrigerator that morning. The ice came from an automatic ice maker in the old style where the water is frozen into a row of half-moon shaped cubes that are connected on one end. Little torpedo shaped ice cubes.

Love this little miracle of modern technology. Saving lives every day.

I walk over to my jug, open the nozzle, and turn it up for a chug. Cool water rushes out and it makes the familiar bubbling sound as air rushes back in. Apparently one of the arrow shaped cubes melted just enough to fit through the nozzle and a bubble of air or a burst of water allowed the ice to launch into my throat. It was a perfect fit and lodged in the back of my throat. Holy Shenanigans, Batman. I am officially choking. I didn’t have enough air to push out because I was drinking so fast and the ice was lodged perfectly enough that no air could get in. The valve was closed. It felt like trying to pull a frozen milkshake through a straw, I tried to breathe but nothing was happening.

Time seemed to slow down and I gained some clarity. I was suddenly very angry that I was dying from a piece of ice. I pondered things like; Will they ever know what killed me? Will my body heat melt the ice quick enough for me to start breathing again? Should I get in the downward dog position and hope for the best? I am standing in a patch of greens holding a 12” knife, I have a bee allergy, it is 100 degrees before lunch and the damn ice water is the most dangerous thing I faced.

It is a humbling place to choke on a piece of ice. Life is fragile. Especially for an idiot. Even that is pale in comparison to what I did tonight. I hesitate to even tell, but I must. Here goes…

I mentioned previously my addiction to my new homemade ice cream recipe. That problem hasn’t improved and tonight I set out the standard single serving in a Tupperware container. After about thirty minutes I took the top off, took a big metal spoon and broke up the remaining ice chunks then, stirred the ice cream around. A couple of sample bites and I was almost ready to carry it to a comfy chair and consume. Supermom asked me to help her with something and I knew that my ice cream was in jeopardy so I placed the container back in the freezer with the spoon resting on top. I helped with the required chores and I returned about fifteen minutes later to retrieve my sacred ice cream.

The ice cream was not completely re-frozen which was good… I thought. I grabbed the spoon off the top and a large chunk of sweet goodness was frozen to the inside of the spoon. I rolled the spoon over and placed it directly on the end of my tongue. A simple move that I have done hundreds of times to clean peanut butter off of a spoon. The only difference is that previous spoons were not thick metal ones that had been sitting in a freezer. The moisture froze and my tongue stuck instantly. Even as it started I knew what I had done. I panicked. I jerked the spoon away from my mouth and there on each side of the spoon were the upper layers of my taste buds. Frozen like awesome lightning bolts or pin stripes. Pointing at the ice cream I had been trying to enjoy. What an idiot.

The only time I felt dumber was trying to eat popcorn an hour later. Salt on raw tongue is every bit as unpleasant as it sounds. I passed these genes on to my children and I watch them verify it every day.

You have my sympathies. At least mine had ice cream on it.

So for anyone who is intelligent most of the time but makes some real bone-head mistakes. This post is for you. I donated a physical part of my body for a lick of ice cream. Not my proudest moment. You’re welcome.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.