Valuable Awards

So father's day came and went and I'm apparently still a father. Not that I didn't expect to be but I thought there might be some kind of "Get out of fathering for a day" card or something. The day after father's day it was back to the lunch packing, bus stop walking, feigning interest world of the stay at home dad. It's not easy pretending everything your child does, says or makes is super awesome, but I do it. It's not easy packing a lunch that won't get eaten because it was squished or gross, but I do. It's not easy refereeing every fight, misunderstanding and insult fest, but I do. I'm actually thinking of driving to the Home Depot and buying a shitload of plexiglass, brackets, hinges and a bench to build my own penalty box. They can sit there and think about what they've done while they watch me play video games, drink tequilla and smoke cigarettes.

My son got an "award" at the end of the school year for being such a good kid. The award? A free kids meal at Chili's®. For real? Are you fucking kidding me? So of course he wants to use his valuable award for father's day. A little bit about what kind of a food snob I am: I think food is mostly a pain in the ass necessity, so if I'm going to a restaurant it better be really fucking good. Chili's is not really fucking good, it's not fucking good nor is it even just good. A Chili's coupon is a lot like the "Small Fry" thing that the Sixers do, a shitty prize that your kid won't let go and forces you to go to culinary hell. Really a coupon for a free small fries at McDonalds? Why not just hammer a nail into my forehead for a "prize".

So I spent my father's day at Chili's thanks to the Cheltenham School District. Five grand a year in school taxes and I'm sitting in Chili's. Bastards. I hate prizes, they ALWAYS inconvenience me in some way. Free museum tickets? I still have to actually go and it always costs me at the stupid gift shop. Anything free with purchase is just another thing for kids to fight over. The only prize I want is a hot dog from the Fanatic's air canon.

Fellow Travelers

I love watching people travel. It's a fascinating state of the human condition and a free perk when traveling. I tend to think of myself as a relaxed, reserved and observant traveler but I'm sure other travelers have a category for people like me, maybe "creepy guy who won't stop staring at me" or "don't make eye contact". I have my categories because they make make it easier to dehumanize people and judge them, laugh at them or marvel at them with no guilt.

It's amazing to me how people tend to fall so easily into their categories. The guys with monogram cufflinks and bluetooth headset? Always speaking at top volume in a condescending voice to someone who's existence is questionable at best. The Southern guys with the polo shirt, wrap around shades and sunburn? Always smiling, always. What the fuck are you smiling about? You have painful looking sunburn. When this guy finally says something so riotously funny that he needs to flip his shades up and wipe away the tears of hilarity, he invariably has pure white circles around his eyes.

I really like the bohemian twenty somethings with the overpriced REI backpack, organic hats and sandals. They take traveling very seriously. I bet they never freeze their asses off when they get off a plane 800 miles to the North because they wore shorts and a t-shirt. Some travelers I kind of fear like the middle aged, tightly wound and slightly attractive business woman. She's smiling on the outside, but I get the idea that she would slice, skewer and feed me to the tiger she's hiding in her carry on if I even remotely got in her way. Then there's her opposite number: the over thirty, overweight and childishly dressed woman in the Pooh Bear sweatshirt. I call her the Chunky Brewster.

My favorites are the anomalies, the ones that I can't glibly file into a category and laugh at. These travelers are not the sweet old couple going wherever the hell they've always dreamed of or the college kids traveling together to some enviable, boozy destination, no these are the people who come to the airport in all of their quirky individuality. Which brings me to.......

My wife and I were in the Chicky & Pete's (I know) at the Philadelphia airport when a young African American traveler sidles up to the bar holding a very large, very sparkly silver cup with rhinestone (or diamond, who knows?) lettering. We dubbed him Pimp Cup. Pimp Cup proceeds to order a double Hennessy with ginger ale, which the bartender served him in a pint glass. He proceeded to pour it into his pimp cup. Amidst the giggles from the staff and wide eyed stares from the tourists and business class he leaned back, smiled and took a big sip.

I hope Pimp Cup had a great trip.

Dear Baltimore...

Today we visited you, Baltimore. I have some suggestions and criticisms. First and foremost? Your aquarium, the crown jewel of your Inner Harbor, is second rate thanks to the Camden Aquarium. Yes, you have a LOT of sharks and rays but so does every other aquarium; Camden has hippos for Christ's sake, not to mention the coolest jellyfish exhibit ever. You guys need a new "money shot" - the rainforest is an impressive structure but it has about four birds and some crickets. Woo hoo. Most aquariums are letting you touch shit now, sharks, mantas and starfish can be "pet" at any self respecting aquarium. Lastly, you have too many big brown and grey fish, they come in crazy colors you know...

Where to begin with the rest of the day? I'll start with the overpriced seafood restaurant. I won't say which restaurant because they're all a little overpriced for the average food you get. This one charged too much and had no AC on a 90º day, so that by the time your waiter got there with your food he was drenched in sweat. Tasty.

Then we get to the "Historic Ships in Baltimore," which has a very cool submarine tour. I love a good sub tour. I have to say that it was pretty awesome to sit on a torpedo like Slim Pickins in Dr. Strangelove. Even if I wasn't really supposed to. My only criticisms are these: In this day and age you can air condition any enclosed structure, even a submarine. Your sub smells like old people and wet dogs.

Well, after a super fun day we wanted ice cream. Our first try was the Historic Ships snack bar, we waited in line only to learn that they were out of EVERYTHING. So across to the markets we go to find ice cream and are pleased to find a Ben and Jerry's. We wait in line for some smoothies and ice cream. When we order we're told that there's no ice (really Baltimore? No ice in your ICE cream stores?) so they can't make smoothies. Ok, fine. When we order our various ice cream treats we're told there is no ice cream. Why the fuck was the guy in the stupid hat even standing there? Why Baltimore? Why? So off we go to a convenience store where we get some Jack n Jill shit from a cooler and eat it outside watching smooth jazz musicians wilt in the blazing heat. Surreal.

Parking was no better. We entered on Gay street and exited on Lombard to make our way to the aquarium. When we went to get our car we tried to enter on Gay Street. NO. We went to Lombard with confidence high. NO. Turns out we needed to go to Market street to re-enter the garage and get our car. What the fuck Baltimore?

We parked on the "Manatee" level and when we got in the elevator there were buttons for every fucking fish and sea mammal ever. But not the manatee. Twilight fucking zone. We flag down a friendly garage employee patrolling in his golf cart (really, Baltimore?) who tells us there is NO manatee level. But then he pauses to think, "......oh you mean the M level? That's one flight down" Every goddamn button in the elevator had a stupid picture of a stupid fish. The manatee? A letter M.

So Baltimore, next time I think I'll try Hartford or maybe Dover, home of tax free shopping.

RAIN

This winter had it's way with my roof, hard. My insurance company couldn't come out for two weeks and I thought that was outrageous. I had no idea. Roofers: holy shit. I had several roofers come and look at my roof and none of them sent me an estimate. My bedroom was becoming a rainforest and my concerns about our frame rotting were keeping me up at night.

Three and a half very high stories and a 90º pitch were part of the problem. When you're drowning in jobs why would you take a tough one?

So up I went. My ladder would get me up to the first floor so I had to figure something out. That meant building a cantilever out from my bedroom window, and by cantilever I mean an old cabinet door with 100 pounds of iron weight plates on one end with a bookshelf to hold it up to the window. Safety first... My bedroom window has some fancy woodwork around the top that looked pretty sturdy so I hung on to that while I tried to throw my rope over the roof. I imagined that the rope itself, rolled up, would give me the heft I needed to get it over the roof. Stupid. I ended up tying a rubber mallet to the rope and throwing it over. Note - if you plan on doing this, tie it tight. By the time I got back upstairs with the mallet that had sailed over the roof I had figured that out. Having gotten the rope over the roof, I pulled it in through my opposing bedroom window. I couldn't find anything to tie it to so I remembered some Three Stooges physics and tied it to my doorknob.

Go time. I dragged my safety belt out of the basement , filled one pocket with tacks and another with a brush and a putty knife. With some carabiners I hooked up my roof cement and a sack of shingles. I now weighed 75 more and worried about my cantilever holding me. I didn't adjust it, I just worried. Safety first. I began my ascent of mount Holy Shit These Shingles Are Hot by using the rope to climb up until I sat on the peak of my roof. It was really fucking high.

I descended the other side of the roof where the shingles were gone and got to work. The first thing I did was watch my gallon of cement roll down the roof because I didn't check the carabiner. By the time I got back up it was a thousand degrees hotter. The actual work was tedious and difficult and I only had to make two trips to get shit that I dropped, but let me tell you about roof cement.

Roof cement is a malignant substance that multiplies and spreads exponentially over your body and through the simple act of moving your door and window frames, walls, pillow case and floor. My arms were black, my jeans ruined and my work gloves were stuck to the roof. Four showers later there's still patches of black on my arms and ankles. My son asked if a dab of it on the glass panel of the front door was poop, I said no it's roof cement. He asked why it was on the door if it was roof cement.

So now we wait. It's supposed to storm tonight and I'm on pins and needles. Wish me luck.

Boots

I have returned from Nashville with a sense of pride. I'm proud of myself for not buying cowboy boots. For some uncanny reason being in Nashville made me want to buy a pair of boots that I'd never wear, not even if I was on a horse which is unlikely because I fucking hate horses. It almost seemed as though buying boots was an integral part of the whole Nashville experience, like dressing like one of the Village People would somehow make me a little bit honky tonk.

Honkey tonk is one of those things you might say out loud but boy does it look stupid written down, and it's written all over the place in Nashville. There are cool things to do in Nashville, there's Hatch Show Prints, a very unique print shop with a very distinct artistic style. Nashville also has one of the finest vintage guitar shops I've ever seen and the Ernest Tubbs record shop is like a shrine and gift shop all rolled up with a pretty good record shop. The bars on Broadway all have live music pouring out of them and the smell of BBQ is fantastic.

All of this conspired to drive me into a boot shop where the smell of leather is fantastic and earthy. To be honest though, cowboy boots just look retarded on the shelf, making one imagine how horrible they'd look on. I wear sneakers, maybe a dress shoe when I need to or hiking boots in the winter but 97% of the time it's sneakers. I would look and feel like a douchtard wearing big boots with a big heel. I left the shops on Broadway with nothing but a nice t-shirt, really proud of myself.

Happy to be up north now, away from chicken n' dumplings, Waffle Houses and overt friendliness that kind of gives me the heebie jeebies.

FRIED DUMPLINGS

When did auto makers high and low decide that most people want to drive a car shaped like a fried dumpling? BMW 3 & 5 class? Dumplings. Civic, Accord? Dumplings. Focus, Taurus? Dumplings. Mercedes C, E and S class? Dumplings. It goes on and on. Camry? The dumpling king.

DUMPLING

CAMRY

It seems to me that auto makers on every continent are making cars that may be fuel efficient, may be fun drive and may be safe but all look alike. Why pay 60 Gs for a BMW dumpling when you can get the Hyundai knock off for 25? Most manufacturers have a show pony, Nissan has the Cube, (stop giggling it's at least different) Toyota has their cool Scion line and Ford has it's Mustang, but for the most part it's a yawning festival.

I'm not talking Maserati, Lotus or Ferrari, just cars you really see on the street. When I see a new Dodge Challenger or a Ford Mustang I feel like the American muscle car is still alive and well. When I see someone driving a Mazda RX-8 or a Volvo C30 or even a Mini I'm happy to see people choosing a speedy, speedy looking car with fun handling. The Scion XD and the Honda Element work for someone looking outside the minivan or SUV. Even the new Camaro is kind of cool.

Epic fail time. Some manufacturers TRY do something different and fail but deserve honorable mention- Chrysler's PT Cruiser, Nissan's Cube, the Dodge Charger and the Prius. Thanks for trying.

By the way, the Smart Car is the new punchbuggy. We say "Blue Smartpunch no punchbacks" I''m winning so far.

You know what kills me?

What kills me is that when disaster strikes I'm wildly inconvenienced and all I end up with is a basic essential. Not a shiny new toy.

This winter we received nine million cubic yards of snow on our roof. Trees fell and then we got hit with (I'm embarrassed to call it this) a major nor'easter. The result of which was a rainforest in our bedroom. Then it rained for weeks while the insurance companies scrambled the troops to get adjusters out. Now we wait for the check and the roofer to finally get out here.

I never wanted a water feature in my bedroom, a fireplace maybe, but not eight buckets being filled one noisy drip at a time. One night we were awoken by a shift in the dripping pattern that put our bed at the epicenter of the dripstorm.

So we've chopped the downed trees, emptied buckets, tarped and cleaned. For what? A new roof. Jesus Christ we had a fucking roof! Now we get to bask in the warm glow of a new, warrantied roof. Something I guess, but we did have a roof. When I suffer I feel like I deserve a reward. Totally crazy. But I do. Really.

I don't really want anything at the moment, maybe a new amplifier, maybe a drum kit? I was thinking about one of those cool Thule roof boxes for my Mini or a Japanese Maple for the lawn? I'm a little all over the place but you get the idea. Compensation? Maybe that's it, I feel like the insurance company owes me a vacation or a new patio set or even just some Flyers tickets for not being remotely prepared to provide the necessary aid I needed. I'm prepared to pay their premium every month, year after year and the one time we need them they have their backhand to the forehead like Scarlett O'Hara because they're so (insert southern accent) "very very overwhelmed with this catastrophe".

Think I just lost all of the Karma points from my last post.