Looky, Daddy!

That's the Way I Like It

It's a two-hour round trip from our house and the apple-picking farm.

It takes ten minutes for three kids to pick more apples than we could eat in a month. Half that if there's a gentle but unexpected rain falling.

There is something wrong with this.

There are probably closer pick-your-own farms, but honestly, despite the unequal drive-to-fun ratio, I doubt we'll try any of them. We really like ours. It's cheap. It has none of the things that many suburban New Jersey families seem to crave in a farm, there's no corn maze, no petting zoo, no haystack pyramid, but what the farm lacks in family-friendly amenities, it makes up for in surliness.

"How are the trees this year?" my wife asked, spreading across her face her honest but twitchy smile, the only kind she can make anymore.

The woman just stared at her. Somewhere down in her phlemy, leathered throat, she made a grunt. Perhaps it was gas.

"Good! Good!" I jumped in, clapping my hands and rubbing them together like she had just told us the apples were made of gold this year, or the trees had won a battle with cancer.

The woman spoke. "You gonna want the hayride?" Hayride? There'd never been a hayride before. I don't know which shocked me more, the awkward attempt at commercialism or the woman's voice, sounding like a uneasy cross between barbed wire and hate.

"Sure!"

There was neither hay nor much of a ride in the hayride. It started at the farmhouse an ended only about a hundred meters away in the apple orchard. As the driver pulled our hayless trailer down to the rows of apple trees, he yelled back to ask us what kind we were picking today. At this farm there are dozens of varieties of apples, jonagold, gala, empire, macintosh, and many more, each with their own section of the farm. "The red kind!" I yelled back, just to see the expression on his face. It didn't disappoint.

When the ride stopped less than a minute from when it began, the girls unanimously declared it the best hayride ever.

The apple picking went quickly. Preschoolers exercise no judgment when picking apples. If it is red and in reach, it gets picked. They might as well be choosing vice-presidents for all the care they take. I started off trying to stay on top of this, trying to sort the good from the bad as the apples were dropped into the basket, but I had only two hands and they had four, and I simply couldn't keep up. Besides, most of these apples were going to become applesauce anyway, so what did it matter if many of them were halfway there when they were picked. Kathryn did try to help, calling out repeatedly, "No, Honey! Not that one!" when a twin reached for a particularly mushy specimen, but because Kathryn neither tries nor cares enough to tell the twins apart, nobody knew to whom she was yelling. The helpfulness of her strategy was compromised from the get-go.

Halfway through, a light but surprisingly cold rain began to fall and by the time we had our apples bagged and paid for, we were all wet and chilled to the bone. We loaded the apples in the minivan, stripped the girls down to their underwear, wrapped them all in blankets and towels, and drove the hour back home, listening to Ben Lee's Catch My Disease thirty times in a row, because that's the way we like it, that's the way we like it.

At one point on the drive home, Sharon swiveled around in her seat and asked the naked masses, "Who had a good time picking apples today?" "ME!" three voices yelled in unison, and as Sharon turned back around, I caught a glimpse of her honest but twitchy smile, the only kind she can make anymore.

Where's Flick? Has Anyone Seen Flick?

I'm going to tell you one story in order to tell you another one. Neither puke, nor poop, nor seizures will be featured in either, although the second story still has a healthy dose of suffering, lest you think you are reading someone else's website.

Friday was Kathryn's third birthday party this month. There's just one more to go. Four birthday parties in one month was, of course, my wife's idea: The four-part-Indiana-Jones-birthday-party marathon. It had started with a casual "Let's take Kathryn to the new Indiana Jones movie for her birthday," and had turned into a "Let's invite all of Kathryn's friends over every Friday night for a month to watch each of the old Indiana Jones movies and then take them all to see the new one when we're done," all before I even had time to remind her that Kathryn's birthday comes in late July. By the time I did get that not-unimportant fact out, it was moot. "...and each night can have a theme and games and, ooooh, I wonder if the movies come in a boxed-set," my wife rambled on to herself. When she turned to me and asked if we should have a fifth party night just for the DVD bonus features, I admitted defeat and mentally added one more layer of bricks to the internal tomb in which I keep my poor dead soul.

Now that we are three movies into the saga, even my wife admits she thought there would be a lot more movie-watching involved at a movie-watching party. Instead, what we had for the first movie-and-a-half was a bunch of girls screaming at odd intervals for no apparent reason, and for the second movie-and-a-half, screaming because Camilo wouldn't stop saying, "Ah, dessert! Chilled monkey brains!"

He's like the son I never had.

But it's not the screaming girls I wanted to tell you about; it's the screaming men. Well, screaming man. To be precise, the screaming me. I know you're surprised.

Late last night, I found a forgotten casualty of the three weeks of partying: an untouched bowl of ice cream, spoon and all, stashed away in our freezer. Cookies and cream, it appeared to be. Delicious, it appeared to be. Waiting for me, it appeared to be. And cold, it appeared to be.

The only one of the above I can actually confirm is that it was cold. Because when I spooned that first bite into my mouth, using the spoon so conveniently left right there in the bowl, and I know you can see where this is going, that metal spoon froze to the inside of my mouth so quickly I didn't even realize what had happened before, in shock, I pulled it out, taking with it the tender skin of my tongue, my left cheek, and the back of my bottom lip.

Cue the screaming.

The bleeding stopped within an hour or two. I'll let you know when the pain does.

As a Child, the Only Time I Was Quiet Was When I Was Trying to Use the Force

Tikal, Guatemala:

Luckily, my wife didn't let me pack my replica helmet, or I would have posed in the picture, too.

(Also, to those of you who wrote and called, yes, I seem to have been on Oprah yesterday. That was me, in my Mets cap, standing in front of the car of a drunk woman who had already had her keys taken away. Just doing my part, keeping the roads safe from drivers with no ability to start their cars. I was thinking for my second appearance on her show, I would attempt to resuscitate a person who was having no trouble breathing. Because that's the kind of hero I am.)

All Over but the Crying

Santa Claus must work fast at my parent's house. Between the twins and Kathryn, there's only a 45-minute window the night before Christmas during which all three kids are actually sleeping. Thank God for coffee. If my brother ever has kids, too, Santa might have to switch to methamphetamine.

At one point late in the evening, someone without kids had the idea to go outside and make simulated Santa noises to coax my kids to bed, a technique about as effective as waterboarding in creating a rest-conducive environment. Does anyone remember back in the 80s when Manuel Noriega was holed-up in the Vatican's embassy in Panama? For days we tried to get him to surrender, surrounding the embassy with loudspeakers and playing non-stop rock music at excruciating volumes. Far more effective would have been to send in a two-year-old and, very softly outside, ring a single sleigh bell. Noriega would have surrendered within the hour.

Kathryn's list to Santa was a short and inexplicable affair, the two major items being a digital camera and a mood ring. She got them both and proceeded to use one to snap hundreds of 5-mega-pixel shots of the other, resulting in photographic evidence that she experienced every possible emotion all before 7 AM Christmas morning. Like we needed proof.

The mood ring has been on her Christmas list for months, ever since she found one on the playground of her school. It wasn't hers, obviously, and she knew it had to go to the lost and found, but first Kathryn had to assess the mood of each and every person she encountered along the way. It took hours. The last person to wear it was the principal who, Kathryn reported matter-of-factly, was "aggravated."

The twins celebrated Christmas as countless two-year-olds before them have, by screaming with glee about each present that was theirs and then simply screaming about each one that wasn't. They asked for no specific present from Santa, mainly because they were not yet aware that they could. Santa-wise, the twins were in that blissful state of ignorance that allowed us to set our own rules, kind of like those delightful summers long ago when Kathryn still thought the ice cream truck was the "free music van." It will be sad to see that time go. Still, the twins handled the excitement of the day well, and only sporadically did they gift us with their own special presents of snot and tears, which is probably more than the Vatican can say about Noriega.

Boundless

I do these things so you can feel better about yourself. I do them so tonight, you can kiss your spouse and say, "At least you are smarter than that guy in that blog that I read.  Not as hot, sure, but a hell of a lot smarter." I do these things because deep down, underneath the gruffness, underneath the facades, underneath the cynicism, I am a moron.

And these things I do are camping trips.

Every night since our last attempt, when the twinlings are tucked into bed, Lila has asked hopefully, "Are we going camping tomorrow, Mommy?" (Of course, it is Mommy she asks because my wife has requested that my "interactions" with the children be kept to a minimum after dusk, since that's when I'm more likely to "lash out" at them "with my words." Or my "foot." Or my "car.") Yes, Lila asks this. The same Lila that woke up screaming every 40 minutes the last time she slept in a tent. So after putting them to bed, The Mom always comes over and unlocks me from my room and we all have a good laugh at Lila's ridiculous question. Then, one day, I said--I said--"Why don't we try it again in October." It's like I was watching someone else say it. Someone with different kids, or no kids at all. Or maybe I was thinking that October only comes every twenty years or so, you know, like it does for the Mets.

But October has come. And camping we are going. Tomorrow. Now that last time we tried this, you, Gentle Reader, commented with suggestions both good and wise, telling us to buy a trailer or rent a cabin or screw the whole thing and stay in a hotel, and I'd like you to know that we are completely ignoring you.

Our stupidity knows no bounds.

Yon. And Hither.

This summer has been a terrible time for posting; there was way to much yon and not nearly enough hither. And the hither that did come was far too hot and sticky to be spent in any way other than drowning out the sounds of my kids with the whir of my blender as it introduced ice to tequila in its peculiar and violent way.

For her part, The Mom has been absent, working the kind of hours that most people only work when their jobs come with expense accounts at places named "Happy Endings." The twins are aware of her absence and enjoy passing the time hypothesizing about her whereabouts. Most of the time they agree that she lives at the train station, although sometimes they'll just point to a random house and declare that to be where their mom now resides. Through careful questioning, I have ascertained that their mom lives in these new places because our house is too small and it smells like feet.

One day last week, when Victoria awoke early enough to spy The Mom as she walked out the door, Victoria turned to me and exclaimed, "Look, Daddy, look! It's Mama!" Then her little toddler hand twisted the knife in her mother's heart when she ran out on the front porch and bawled, "Mama, will you visit us again soon?"

That morning The Mom left a trail of deep red blood all the way from our house to hers.

So Friday, The Mom took us all to the shore. And by that I mean she sat down that morning at my computer and said, "Come get me when everyone is sunscreened and in the car. And don't forget coffee."

The shore was brilliant. As any long time reader of this site knows, I'm not adept at writing about actual good times with my kids, but a good time this was. For a whole day we attacked that beach, running and swimming and building and destroying. The sea was surprisingly choppy, and Kathryn stood out in it for hours as wave after wave battered her tiny frame. "That was nothing!" she'd roar out to sea after each one crested over her. "A big bottle of nothing!" Then she'd get pounded off her feet by the next wave and resurface ten feet away, sputtering and coughing up sea water, but that's just because she's seven and hasn't yet learned to stop talking while underwater.

As much as Kathryn couldn't be pulled away from the water, the twins couldn't be pulled from their mother. Not that I tried, mind you. And thus I was free to spend my time doing what I wanted. Like digging a big ol' hole in the sand and then finding a seven-year-old that fit into it perfectly.

We stayed on the beach for almost seven hours, until Kathryn could barely stand and the twins were seconds away from losing their minds with the fun of it all. It was Lila who finally called the whole thing to a halt by gently whimpering the word "home" and then adhering her face to my wife's shoulder using her patented mixture of tears and snot. So home we went, where for the rest of the Labor Day weekend, The Mom stayed put. Even if it smelled like feet.

Six Flags, August 9, 2007

El Toro: 70-mph wooden roller coaster.

Dodging the Severed Finger of Blame

There is a startling disconnect with my daughter, Kathryn. Packed deep in her petite frame of blond tresses and winsome smiles is a frighteningly morbid little creature. Many of you, in comments and emails, have blamed me for being the tree from which this particular apple did not fall far (read it again, it makes sense) but I think the fault lies firmly with The Mom. To wit:

The cupcakes made by The Mom for Kathryn's birthday:

And the cookies:

Sure it was Kathryn's idea to have her birthday party be a "Summer Scare," but it was her mom who jumped on the idea and ran. Far.

I won't even mention the takeaway goodie bags, stapled shut so that the guests wouldn't open them on the spot and ask us the question that I'm sure they asked their moms later: "Where is the head to my new Barbie?"

Those two should really be separated.

Being Near John Malkovich

Where was I, you ask, while The Mom was hijacking my blog and racking up 20 times my usual comments not that I'm bitter? I'll tell you. I was not sitting in front of John Malkovich. That honor was instead held by Lila's godmother, Alexa. She had flown in for the weekend to see what's left of her self-destructing goddaughter and drink Dark and Stormies with The Mom into the wee hours while I, in turn, took the weekend off and traveled up to her place outside of Boston to drink beer and play cribbage with Alexa's husband, Mr. Paul.

Alexa and Mr. Paul are one of those modern couples who have eschewed children of their own and have filled that void in their lives with a fully-stocked liquor cabinet and fistfuls of disposable income. Which is why Alexa was within a peanut's throw of Mr. Malkovich on her trip, while I was traveling to her place, totally celebrity free, on the Chinatown Bus.

The Chinatown Bus between New York City and Boston is a fantastic way to travel. It picks you up on a seemingly random street corner in one city's Chinatown and deposits you hours later on a street corner in the next. You never really know where it is going to appear and, having traveled it a few times, I have learned that the best approach is just to walk the streets of Chinatown until it finds you. But before you head down there yourself, keep in mind the Chinatown Bus is only for you if you have all of the following: Fifteen dollars, a flexible travel time, and a complete and total disregard for your own personal safety. A disdain for celebrity sightings also helps, as does an acceptance of others who may or may not try to sleep on your shoulder. And drool.

The bus itself has all the amenities you need if all the amenities you need are tires. There is a bathroom in the back, but in the one English phrase I heard him deliver all trip, our bus driver warned us not to poop in it or we'd "be sorry". I'm not sure just how the sorry would evidence itself and I don't wish to dwell too much on it either. I recommend a seat near the front.

Of course, the front of the bus has its problems, too, namely that you are granted the ability to see the other vehicles on the road and take note of the various distances between them and your bus. If you are really foolish, you can sit close enough to the driver to see his reaction, or lack thereof, when said distances become closer that the one between you and Capt. Sleepydrool, your shoulder-nuzzling neighbor.

But, c'mon people, its fifteen dollars. So if your blog is getting hijacked and you've got an iPod loaded with hours of Savage Love podcasts (don't click on the link, Mom), then there's really no better route to Boston. Especially if you don't like being knee-deep in John Malkoviches.

The Cold Ones Are on the Bottom

At some point, the horrible turns fun.  There is a point, a tipping point, when things go too far beyond the acceptable, and they become a laugh riot.

A drop of chocolate syrup on a clean shirt is annoying. A food fight, sublime.

A slip in a mud puddle can ruin a whole day. A mud-wrestling match can make one.

Half an inch of water in your basement, soaking laundry piles and wetting the bottoms of those boxes that you meant to store better can be quite nettlesome. Enough water that you can fill an ice chest with beer and float it to your spouse? That's a party.