Macaroni-and-Death in the Garden of Good and Edam

As those of you outside what I'll call The Snow Belt may have heard, the rest of us are currently dealing with the kind of snow that builds you a fort all by itself, and the kind of cold that freezes your tongue to your coat zipper the second your foot hits the front porch.

Sharp cold wave shocks upper Midwest, temps to -36

In times like these, disaster is rarely located anywhere but Right Around the Corner:

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"Indiana police reported numerous crashes on slippery highways, including a truck that overturned and spilled 43,000 pounds of cheese, closing a busy highway ramp during the night in the Gary area."

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Far be it from me to provoke an intra-national incident or incite legendary food-fight-related violence, but I think I speak for all of us when I say it should be clear to the people of Wisconsin that this willful distribution of copious amounts of free cheese to the public by the people of Indiana constitutes an act of war.

I believe I'll munch on some gravel-laced Gouda while I mull the implications of this tragic, region-shaping attack.

Name that tune!

At the behest of my wife J-, who conceived this post, I bring you a list of children's songs as identified by my extremely verbal 1-year-old daughter M- (who can sing most of them in their entirety):

• Din Dan Don

• Ants

• Ebbysee's

• My Son

• Weensy Eensy

And finally, the true tiebreaker:

• Tree-Ba's-ful

How many can you recognize? I would be floored if anyone who didn't know her got all six, and very impressed if someone got four.

A conversation between M- & D-: Just after eleventeen

As I mentioned recently, my four-year-old son D- has a beloved Corduroy bear who's seen more than most bears his age ever will or want to.

His nearly four-year relationship with Corduroy is slowly becoming something of an obsession for his almost-two-year-old sister M-, who seems to have taken the concept of hand-me-downs to the extreme of now excitedly waiting to consume her brother's entire existence as she grows up.

Case in point, this conversation that took place in the hallway last week while I was in the shower:

M- (pleasantly, with her hands out): I can have Corduroy.

D- (graciously, as he often is): No, not right now, sweetie.

M-: Yeah, when I'm BIG-GER.

D-: ...No, he'll always be mine, even when you're bigger, but you've got a bear, too, remember?

M-: No-- I can have Corduroy when I'm BIGger.

D- (remixing lines he's been fed before): No, M-, you can't have him when you're bigger, cause even though I'll be bigger, too, he'll still be my friend. But you can hold him sometimes, still.

M- (with an audible blank stare): ...And I can have Corduroy when I'm bigger, when I'm fifty-bigger!

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For more such posts, check out the other (4 YO son) D- conversations, (1YO daughter) M- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

Book Review: K is for Kwanzaa

Once again, I am here to nobly perform a public service in reviewing one of the many pillars of the world's greatest literature that crosses my desk. Or my lap, as it were.

This time, it's Juwanda Ford's K is for Kwanzaa, a title my 4-year-old son D- recently selected at random* from the library:

This book is exactly what it seems-- go ahead and judge it by the cover, I can vouch for you.

But what surprised me, after picking through pages defining items like Gele, Mkeka, Ujamaa, and Vibunzi, is that even though they rolled all the many cultures of Africa into one catchall holiday, X still just stands for Xylophone:

Stay strong, brother! You will never be unseated!

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* To follow up his previous random selection, Fran Manushkin's Starlight and Candles: The Joys of the Sabbath.

A conversation between M- & D-: Let's not get carried away

The following is a conversation that took place recently when my 1-year-old daughter M- met my 4-year-old son D- in our kitchen while holding a sock monkey (made by my sister) in one hand and D-'s much-loved Corduroy bear in the other.

M- (proudly holding out both animals to D-): I have a bear!

D- (in a well-practiced patronizing voice, somehow even higher than usual): Yeeeaaahhh, I let you hold Corduroy for awhile.

M-: He has pants!!

D-: ...Yeah, Corduroy does. The monkey doesn't, though, because he's just a monkey, and that would be silly.

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For more childish nonsense, check out the other D- conversations and M- conversations, as well as a select few J- conversations.

Let's call this an adverb-filled do-over

I've had a taste of life not posting religiously, and I must admit I liked it.

But that doesn't mean I don't like blogging anymore-- I'm just a lazy, procrastinating shell of a man who can only function within the framework of compulsive habits.

So, not unlike a car --say, my stupid car-- stuck in a little rut of slush and ice, I got complacent and couldn't get back over that hump since the Pinko-Commie calendar insisted I acknowledge its existence in some way.

I briefly thought about not noting the, shall we say, recent collapse of my Previous Posts drop-down menu, but every time I sat down to write, I found myself either blathering about things more boring than usual or writing amusing bits that weren't worthy of being the Last/First Post of the Year.

So instead, I'll sum up: 2008 was a crazy year, but a great one overall, and 2009 will likely be more of the same, though under the guise of more unsettling numerals. Life's like that.

Lastly, though I've never been one for resolutions on an arbitrary timeline, I'm a big fan of arbitrariness in general (I think of it as an homage to my pagan god, Nature), so I'll allow the following statement:

During the next year, I may perhaps be more than gently urging my life into a more stable and at least slightly more conventional form, so I will most definitely be posting somewhat less often as a side effect of that effort.

Not less often than the past week, mind you, but just not five days a week on average, I'm sure. Furthermore, while my newly mobile and freshly independent wife weans herself back into the world (starting with going to work today for the first time in six weeks*), I will likely be back visiting many of your blogs more frequently than I have been recently, though I'm sure I won't be commenting nearly as much as I used to.**

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* Where, by the time she's reading this, she'll likely be praying already that they had just cut the leg off and replaced it with a shapely peg, with which she can create the Greatest Legend of All Legends of Scary Teacher Biographies Passed by Fearful Whispers at Recess.

** I'm almost as sad as you are, I'll bet.

A heart-rending ending?

In case you're all wondering where Santa has gone now that Christmas has passed, I have some sad news to bring you:

Ho ho ho! Kids share economy woes with Santa*

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"You see things behind the beard that nobody else will ever see or hear. I've had children just literally tear my heart out."

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So therein lies the end of a long, productive career spreading joy throughout the world... painful death at the hands of some psychotic, bloodthirsty children who've apparently spent too many hours playing Mortal Kombat.

Then again, the tone of this statement suggests an acceptance that only experience can bring. So perhaps this is an annual tradition, like a simple shedding of the skin. Maybe the Easter Bunny drops those eggs in our baskets on his way to deliver the Kiss of Life to kindly old St. Nick each year.

It seems that matchup between Jesus and Santa might be more even than we thought.

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* I don't suggest you actually read this article unless you want to feel quite depressed.

Editor's Note: If you enjoyed this forest-missing nitpickery, you might want to peruse Literally, A Web Log.

Sharing only the best

The best line by far from an action-packed Christmas came from my 4-year-old son D-, holding up a few very nice shirts my parents got him (along with a hearty portion of his mountain of new Stuff) and matter-of-factly stating:

"... I already have some shirts at home, so we can just give these ones to poor kids."

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Editor's Note: It seems no one has told him that technically, living in a household of four supported solely by the salary of a new teacher at a school in the very worst part of town definitely qualifies you as a Poor Kid.

Important Question: Jesus Claus?

The latest Important Question is a straightforward but timely one, though not nearly as important as the last one.

For those readers who are religious*, I respectfully ask the following:

Do you find that as your kids mature, the inevitable revelations about Santa Claus undermine or strengthen your teachings about God/Allah/Yahweh, even if you didn't take much of a part in this particular cultural/quasi-religious tradition?

This occurs to me every year, but I've never been in a situation where I could ask it with any hope of getting a thoughtful answer. I've just never imagined a way to teach a child about God and Santa/the Easter Bunny without setting up a significant crisis around age 8-10 or even earlier.

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In case the above question is too deep for you, answer this question instead: Who would win in a fight, Jesus or Santa Claus? (And I don't mean a wimpy South-Park-style fight, I mean a genuine, few-holds-barred brawl.)

Ground rules: No reindeer, no hitting below the belt, and no resurrections.

Keep in mind that while Jesus of course has some notable powers and one heck of a tag-team partner, Santa clearly has supersonic speed, incredible stamina, and the ability to change his shape and size at will.

The comment board is now open-- discuss either question, or both, at will!

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* I myself come from Catholic stock, mostly Irish immigrants, but I've only ever attended church for weddings, christenings, and the occasional funeral/communion/confirmation.

Hee, hee, I said "Siemens"

Because I'm still a little overwhelmed from Holiday Party Season (along with the continuing Hip Surgery Recovery Season), I'm just here to share my amusement with this otherwise depressing testament to the corruption of the handful of global supercorporations that exploit each of us daily.

At Siemens, Bribery Was Just a Line Item

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[Siemens'] telecommunications unit was awash in easy money. It paid $5 million in bribes to win a mobile phone contract in Bangladesh ... [and] also made $12.7 million in payments to senior officials in Nigeria for government contracts.

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The most tragic part of all this, even more than Siemens' strategic enrichment of Saddam Hussein before his fall, is that they were duped into making those payments to the Nigerian officials by sweet-talking e-mails proposing a joint effort to secure much greater sums being held in probate.

How many more innocent, hard-working folks must be lured into clearly shady transactions for nefarious purposes before The Internet Police finally clamp down on these wiseacre Nigerians?