It's a dog's life...

No doubt about it, I am a sucker for dogs. Cats too. Horses, cows, come to think of it, I am pretty much at the mercy of the entire animal kingdom. This is why I am not allowed to go to the dog pound, humane society, or republican fundraisers. Animals must have some kind of communications system which far surpasses anything AT&T could put together. Come to think of it, a couple of tin cans and string surpasses anything AT&T could put together, but that may be a topic for another day. We babysat my sister's dog this past holiday weekend while she visited the rest of our relatives from the hills of Virginia. Talk about a topic for another day...
We have our own dog and we take turns caring for each others dogs whenever we go on any overnight trip, which is easy on the pocketbook, and great for our dogs. They like staying in kennels as much as I like watching Nancy Grace (just curious, but does she give anyone else an industrial strength case of the creeps, or is it just me?).
Ginger, that's our dog, and Elvis, my sister's dog, get along great. But Ginger tells Elvis and any other dog she comes into contact with, either with telepathy of very expressive dog pee, that I am the one in this house that is the soft touch. Same thing with my daughter's dogs. She has two rescue dogs, and whenever I visit, you'd think I was the bacon man. I'm sure that this vicious rumor about my being easy comes from Ginger. She has just been using me for people food for years.
My sister and my daughter both swear that "WE NEVER FEED OUR DOG(S) TABLE SCRAPS". However, let me even think about going to the fridge for anything and those dogs beat me there, promptly plant themselves at my feet with big doe eyes and a look that says "Oh please, please, please give me a bite of whatever you have. I know it could be aardvark droppings, but if you're eating it, I must have some or I will surely die! Oh please, please, please, please, PRETTY PLEASE!"
Of course, I always give in and then hear the following from the owners. "How come my dog always begs when he (she) comes home from your place?" And I always swear that Sandy was the one feeding them junk food. Somehow, they always know I'm lying.
Actually the dogs have foolishly tried to beg snacks from Sandy but she ruthlessly wolfs down every bite and then gleefully shows the dogs her empty plate or hand, and cackles "All gone." This is exactly what she used to do to me when I would beg for conubibal relations, if you get my drift. The dogs learned much quicker than I that big eyes, a sorrowful look and pitiful whimpering gets you no where with Sandy.
I am not sure that I have any real advice for the kids on this topic, unless it is don't let your pets get the upper hand, and don't, whatever you do, let my dog chat with any spiders.
Awww, look at those cute 8 eyes. Isn't it sweet?

Love
Dad

Send in the clowns

This past weekend my wife and I made another in a series of jaunts to Chicago to attend my daughter's graduation (did I mention she became a PhD?), visit with both our children and to add severe poundage to my already sizeable, and I do mean sizeable, girth. These trips invariably consist of too much food, drink and Sandy and I being ridiculed by our kids. I am not quite sure why that is, but my guess is that it is due to a lack of discipline and respect. I doubt the Soprano and Gotti kids mock their parents with the reckless abandon of our children. Not to their faces anyway. I blame myself, as I was much too lenient in their upbringing.
It can tend to get annoying, especially when you are engaged in such side splitting activities as eating, sleeping, driving or breathing. The only possible exception to this ability to send our children into gales of laughter happens, as every parent knows, when the offspring need money and/or a vehicle. Sandy and I are constantly puzzled by our incredible ability to evoke our children's laughter, at such things as ordering a meal in a restaurant.
"I'll have the cheeseburger"
Roars of laughter, followed by a nearly fatal choking on their glass of water.
I guess it's not so much what you say as how you say it.
I fully expect this reaction at my funeral. The kids will come to the funeral home, Dustin will say "Get a load of that urn!" and he and Melanie will have to be taken to the emergency room.
It has gotten to the point where they now influence non blood relatives to do the same. My son in law David, the young man who so impressed me by coming to my home to ask for my daughter's hand in marriage (As I understand it, this is as rare as finding a congressman that is not taking bribes), now literally begs for mercy within 10 minutes of our arrival.
I am just wondering at what point the laughter will cease. My guess is about the second time they have to change one of OUR diapers. What goes around does come around.

Love
Dad

Houston we have a Doctor

This past week my daughter became a PhD. That's right, a Ph friggin' D. Alright, this is too much. Last month she was tricycling like a banshee around Jordan Drive. A couple of weeks ago, she was playing a munchkin in the Willoughby Fine Arts production of the Wizard of Oz. Last week she was posting "No Trespassing" signs on her bedroom door, harassing the hell out of her little brother, and scaring the hell out of her mother and me, learning to drive. I swear to God it was just a few days ago she was a pirate from Penzance and graduating from Riverside High School. She just got married yesterday, for cryin' out loud. Where did it go. Time is supposed to be sands in an hour glass, not water over Niagara Falls!
Today she is Dr. LaForce. DOCTOR! This is just nuts. Our Melanie. "The Goose", is a doctor. I find little comfort in the fact that every parent, with the possible exception of Mrs. Hitler and Barbara Bush, has felt this swelling of pride and then the poignancy of that pride being gnawed at by the concrete realization that a crapload of time has gone by in the blink of an eye. And our kids don't stop. Every time we turn it around it's "someone graduated" here, someone "got married" there, someone "got an award" for this, someone "won the Nobel Prize" for that. OK, let's not get hysterical here.
My point is that these kids were supposed to stop costing us so much money, but we're always celebrating something or other. If they don't knock it off, we are going to go broke just in "congratulations" cards. And of course, it's not just our kids, it's all of our friends kids. I guess I shouldn't gripe. At least none of them have gone into social work.
I just hope they're takin' care of those gums.
From all us parents to all you kids, Thanks.

Love
Mom and Dad

Is it trust, stupidity or Memorex? Only her hairdresser knows for sure!

Some people say that we get wiser as we get older. These people also said, the Titanic was unsinkable, a team from Cleveland will someday win a championship and that George W. Bush would make a great president. They chronically get it wrong. I know, I am their leader. My point here is, people actually do NOT get smarter as they get older, they don't learn from their mistakes nor do they mellow with age. In fact, a person's crankiness ratio is directly proportionate to their proximity to the grim reaper. Can you blame them?
As to the first point on wisdom increasing hit me like a ton of bricks the other day when Sandy, she's my wife, was eating something or other that had been in the fridge since the Kennedy administration. I'm not sure whether this is a gender based thing or not, I doubt it. Anyway, Sandy took a sniff of the mysterious substance, crinkled her nose and tasted about three molecules of the stuff.
"This stuff tastes like dog caca!" (She didn't really say caca, but this may be a family blog, don't laugh, it could happen.) Anyway after she said "This stuff tastes like dog caca!" She pushed it toward me and followed up with "You taste it and tell me what you think." Now, I can tell you that at an earlier age I might have responded as my kids would respond. Gales of laughter followed by gasps for breath and an immediate phone call to all their friends to say "Guess what my moron parent just said..." If we were in fact, intelligent older adults we would in fact respond the same way.
But as we get older common sense goes out the window. I didn't stop to ask myself "How can my wife be an expert on the taste of dog caca?" No, I responded the way anyone else that his been married since the Ice Age would. "Sure, I'll try it," I said.
Now how stupid is that, but I know that anyone over 50 faced with a similar situation has done the same thing. Melanie and Dustin may be convinced it can't happen to them, but as I mentioned in a previous post "the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree." We are genetically doomed to become blithering idiots. By the way, the cliche' is supposed to be "the APPLE doesn't fall far from the tree" but as with all things these days, those things get a tad fuzzy.
Gotta run now, I'm feeling a bit peckish.

Love
Dad

SCUBA, God and redundancy.

This week I signed up for a SCUBA diving class. My wife, some college friends and I are going to Tahiti this summer and I thought it would be a good idea to learn so that we could do something adventurous on the trip. In my normal line of thinking being adventurous on a beach vacation would be trying the free range chicken as opposed to the regular kind at a dinner out. Adventure is not exactly my middle name, so I dodged and procrastinated for about as long as I possibly could before signing up for the class. Anyway, this past week I decided to go for it, damn the torpedoes, go for the gusto and all that rot.
No sooner had I made this decision, did I read in the local paper about a 60 year old guy (obviously light years older than me) that evidently decided to try something adventurous. This fellow chose to try hang gliding. On his maiden attempt he came back, uh, how should I say, er, in a word, DEAD. This got me to thinking that maybe God was trying to tell me something. My normal reaction to God's messages is "What? I can't hear you!" Anyway, I got to thinking of all the prior messages I had been sent and ignored and I had a real crisis of faith. OK, so it has been building for awhile.
I know God exists (his existence was confirmed in a wrestling match on Monty Python). But lately, I have been having doubts about the goodness and loving nature of God. I mean if God really loves us why did he create death, disease, pestilence, and lawyers? Wait, that's redundant. But you get my drift, right? I mean it seems to me, that the God Pat Robertson, Joel Osteen and Jerry Falwel preach about would not have made our existence a "hell on earth" just because SOMEBODY A LONG TIME AGO, SNACKED ON A DAMN APPLE (not that I'm bitter).
I mean wasn't God's reaction a tad harsh? Oh sure, I know God also gave us love, music (with the exception of anything by Neil Diamond), beautiful natural scenery, Catherine Zeta Jones (there I go getting redundant again) and lots of other neato stuff, but why all the bad. Pain, suffering and republicans just to name the obvious. (For all you Neil Diamond fans I know it's alright for me to slam God but that hitting Neil is just too much. So please don't send me any angry missives, I am just stating my opinion. It's a free country despite what the Bush administration says.)
We Christians believe that God has a plan and that everything happens for a reason. Of course we only say that in the face of grief, disaster or a really lousy Tom Cruise flick. I know, redundant.
My point here is why shouldn't I be able to just enjoy signing up for a simple class without constant reminders that I might get very sick or possibly even die. These risks are clearly spelled out in the application to sign up for the class. The application requires a doctor's consent if you have ever had virtually any malady known to man, with the possible exception of being an insurance salesman. Somebody please tell me why God created "the bends". My guess is he is still ticked off about what we have done to everything else he created and doesn't want to see McDonald's billboards next to the wreck of the Titanic.
I guess there are no real answers to these profound issues, and I'm not really sure why I brought them up, but advice to the kids... if you are going to do something adventurous don't wait until you have one foot on a banana peel and the other in a bingo tournament.

Love,
Dad