Big Daddy Paul

Our friends Regina and Judd live on a ranch near the Oregon-California border, and we have a cool trip there every Memorial Day. This year was no different, and here are the three things I liked best about our trip this year:

1. The posse. I try to always travel with an entourage. Some say it’s because I like to have a stable of yes-men telling me how funny I am or how my skinny jeans definitely DO NOT give me a muffin top. Others speculate that I want protection for the army of would-be haters that are waiting in the wings to give me a beat down for all the trash I talk about play date disasters. Whatever the reason, I like a crowd and trips to the Hanna Ranch satisfy my incessant need to be amongst a throng of adoring fans. Sure, the posse at the ranch consists of seven dogs (ranging in size from lap dog to Saint Bernard,) but a crowd is a crowd. Instead of securing women for me to sleep with, like Tiger Woods’ entourage did for him though, our posse slobbered all over our legs and left dead baby squirrels lying all over the yard. Not perfect, but at least they didn’t tell me I looked fat. It’s actually kinda cool to see so many sets of eager eyes watching you when you leave the house, and I am considering getting Amy an entire wing of the local animal shelter for her birthday.

2. The circle of life. Evidence of life and death are everywhere on a farm, and the Hanna ranch is no different. When we arrived, we got to see a two week old foal hopping around the stable. Very cool. We also got to see a lot of dead squirrels, some from the hunting prowess of the posse and some from my icy resolve while firing Judd’s .22 to thin the herd of pesky ground squirrels who ruin the footing in the cow pastures. We saw young deer everywhere around the ranch and dined on venison from the buck Judd took down last year. (Venison sausage: tasty, squirrel on a stick: not so much!)  It’s not often you have to stop a soccer game to check to see  whether your child has picked up part of a dead animal, but it’s pretty interesting when it does.

3. The company. Judd and Regina are a fun enigma. They have traveled the world, read political science magazines and enjoy fine food and wine. They also are also surrounded by the interesting realities of country living. You are just as apt to talk about midnight raves on remote islands in Thailand as you are to discuss why it is perfectly acceptable to go to a veterinarian for a busted finger. Malcolm and their daughter Dylan had a blast playing with each other too, leaving us free to consume large amounts of alcohol and figure out whether our next event was going to be horseback riding, four-wheel off-roading, or trampoline gymnastics. Judd was even gracious enough to teach me how to swear at an 1800 pound bull, which I did before wetting myself when the bull immediately got up and started chasing us.

Visiting old friends is always an enjoyable experience, but even more so when it involves activities that are drastically different than your ordinary life. Some of you out there know Regina and Judd, and I highly recommend you make it up to the ranch sometime soon. If you can, you’ll have a posse there waiting for you.

P.S. If you are interested in learning more about the country life, check out Judd’s blog. It’s a hoot ‘n nanny!

One of the worst things you could ever do as a parent is spend a bunch of money on something you think your child likes. More often than not, your investment is met with a tantrum and the announcement that your child (who recently had expressed that the thing, whatever it is, was the best thing on earth) didn’t want it and wants something else instead. Our house is littered with evidence that you should never, ever give your kid anything that they say they want: puzzles, dinosaurs and a million other useless pieces of cheap plastic crap. Kids suck that way.

For some reason, we thought it a good idea to fly down to Arizona last weekend, taking Malcolm to his first ever Spring Training. Sure, he loves baseball, but the hefty cost of the airline tickets and tickets to the games all but insured that Malcolm would arrive down there and claim that he wanted to watch football. I’m not sure what, exactly, I was planning on doing if we got down there and he balked at baseball, but I do know it was going shorten his lifespan.

Much to our delight, he enjoyed the trip! We went to three games and spent as many as six hours at the ball park, taking in batting practice, the games, and the abundant presence of fake boobs. Seriously, Scottsdale must be the silicone capital of the world, which I find way more endearing than, say, Noxubee County, Alabama, whose slogan is, “home of the dancing rabbit festival.” Sure, we had to bribe Malcolm every now and again by plopping him down in front of a ice cream cone or blue raspberry lemonade (can anyone tell me why raspberries are all of a sudden blue?), but then again I was usually plopped down in front of nachos or this little bad boy (what I refer to as the “Anus Buster” a concoction of a cheddar-jalapeno bratwurst with mustard, onions, sauerkraut  and jalapenos slopped all over it.)

Great going down; the next day, not so much.

Perhaps my greatest satisfaction with the weekend was the fact that, while we weren’t watching baseball games, we were playing baseball. We rented a house with our friends Marj and Tracy and we spent a good deal of time in the mornings and evenings playing the baseball in the back yard and watching Tracy and Marj’s dogs hump each other. It’s hard to stay focused when your center fielder and third basemen are fornicating, but we all managed to join Malcolm in a game or two over the weekend. He loved it! Watching sports with your kid is fun, but sharing in the sport by actually playing it together is even better. I really hope that Malcolm keeps doing stuff with me, as I am having a blast sharing the things I like best with him.

Maybe next year Malcolm will even get his anus busted.

I needed to run to the airport to pick up a rental car today (our car is in the shop for a few days and I need a car to pick up and drop off Malcolm at school.)  I could have taken a cab, but with the rental car costing $17 a day, a $35 cab ride to the airport would have killed my margins. So, I decided to take the bus, and I learned a ton of cool tricks.

First, I learned how to pay absolutely no attention to your kids, except to punish them.  Stick them in a seat on the bus with nothing to do, then swear at them when they start looking for something to do.  Tell them that you are gonna smack that look off their face.  Also, it is cool if you smoke while zipping up your kid’s sweatshirt, so much so that you can see the smoke go in their little mouths.

I also learned that you can throw your trash anywhere!  While waiting for the bus, I saw the local kids demonstrate the proper technique for dealing with garbage.  Finished with that Egg McMuffin? Throw it in the street.  Done with your soda? Chuck it in the gutter!  Why, you can even empty most of the contents of your backpack right there onto the sidewalk.  See that garbage can right next to you?  Lean up against it, if you want, but under no circumstances should you throw refuse into it.  You can even throw your empty bag of chips onto the floor of the bus.  The possibilities are endless.

I also learned that people will not respond if you start acting completely crazy.  You should try it, it’s quite liberating.  The guy sitting in front of me mumbled to himself in Spanish the entire time he was on the bus, and every once in a while he took a swing at some phantom person in front of him.  A woman who looked suspiciously like George Clinton got off the bus and proceed to yell at the woman (who was nursing an infant) who was previously sitting next to her.  “You a bitch.  I heard you talkin shit about me touching yo baby.  I didn’t touch yo baby, yo baby kicked me.  I’m goin to the doctor already, I oughtta file a claim against yo sorry ass, bitch.”  No one paid any particular attention to Lady George Clinton, but I did.  I made sure to keep my distance, because I was afraid that if I got too close to her, a raccoon would jump out of her hair and terrorize my face.

I eventually made my way to the car rental counter, although I admit I got off the bus a stop or two early.  I had such a goofy time, I decided that I am taking Amy on a date that consists of nothing but riding around on buses.  At a mere $2 a pop, it is the best deal in the entertainment world today.

We visited with some friends at the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin festival this year. The festival was OK, lots of pumpkin foods, drunken hillbillies, and a sad little parade.  A raccoon ravaged my friend Austin’s garage, suggesting again that the raccoons of the world are out to ruin any fun that I may have.  I say that knowing that I was not the one shooshing the raccoon during the middle of the night armed with nothing but a tiny flashlight.  Way to fight the good fight, Austin and KC!  Malcolm enjoyed a never-ending supply of sweets, so he thought the weekend was a smashing success.

The one real noteworthy thing that transpired over the weekend was Malcolm and his 2.5 year old friend Henry slept in the same room.  For most of you, sleeping the in same room as someone else isn’t that big of an accomplishment.  That’s what prison teaches us, eh?  Henry, however, had not, so this was his first foray into cohabitation with someone other than his parents, and Malcolm played the role of the experienced older gentleman.  So, here it all is from friday and saturday nights:

The Good

Malcolm and Henry stayed in their room after it was their bed time.  This allowed us to socialize with Henry’s parents, who we like talking to and drinking wine with (although not necessarily in that order.) It laid a good foundation for the next step, a sleepover at either their house or ours.  The sleepover is perhaps the greatest invention in the history of parenting an only child: you get to leave your kid at someone else’s house and go out and enjoy yourselves, and then sleep in without having to pay for it!  The boys did not hurt themselves or the furniture, and even slept in til 7 am both days.

The Bad

The boys did not go to sleep quietly.  They stayed up until 10:30 or 11 each night, and were quite excited by having a little buddy to sleep play with.  They screamed, the squealed, they wrestled.  The second night, we all took turns going in the room and threatening them until they finally fell asleep.  Saturday night, the boys refused to go to sleep after it came to light that one of their stuffed animals had lost an eye.  Quite the animal enthusiasts, those two.  All told, the boys lost 5 hours of sleep over the weekend, and it showed.

The Ugly

To say that Malcolm was a train wreck on sunday morning is putting it lightly.  I would classify Malcolm on Sunday morning as a train running to a jumbo jet, and then crashing into a nuclear submarine, causing it the whole thing to explode.  He whined all morning long, and when we loaded him in the car to go to breakfast, he began biting, scratching and hitting anything he could get his hands on.  He threw our camera around the car like it was a football.  He was like a caged raccon! His tantrum extended to the return home (we did not stop for breakfast out of fear that he would have torn the restaurant apart, and that is saying something, because we were going to a biker bar!)  At home, he ripped every piece of clothing out of his drawers and even snapped a rubber band on Amy’s face.  He was in pretty rare form.

In the end, I am glad we did it, as the next time we get the boys together it should be easier. With the weekend safely under our belt, we can expect a lifetime of boys happily sleeping together, enjoying our friends, and drinking wine, although not in that order.