Murphy to go to the vet. Julia assumes death is coming...

Murphy has to go to the vet on Friday. She has a few problems. Rather than go into the details, let's just say that it may be that her diet isn't agreeing with her. I'll have to bring in a stool sample for the vet to check out. Yay for me! We're also going to get her checked out with some blood work to see if she's at risk for chronic kidney failure, which is what killed Moe. They were brother and sister, so it stands to reason that this may be genetic.

I'll be working that day, so Laura and Julia will have to take her in. Laura said that she told Julia that they were going to be taking Julia to the vet.

Julia smiled and asked without skipping a beat, "So she can go and die?"

Laura had been waiting for a response like that ever since we took Moe to the vet and didn't come home with him.

Laura told Julia, "No, she's not going to die! She's just a little sick, so the vet's going to check her out."

Julia thought for a second and asked with the same smile on her face, "And then she'll die?"

Laura laughed and said, "No! She's not going to die!"

Julia asked, "If she dies, can we get a kitty?"

"No! Julia, if Murphy dies, Daddy will be sad."

Maybe it's a little morbid that Julia is taking death to Murphy so loosely, but Murphy hasn't exactly been endearing herself to Julia. Julia will attempt to pet Murphy and Murphy will invariably take a swipe at her while protesting with an annoyed cat chirp.

Suzy and Boris, the two newest cats, let Julia do all sorts of things to them without protest. Even Moe, who I wrote about before, had no problem getting hassled by Julia. In his last week with us prior to getting sick, Julia could pick all twenty pounds of him up and hold him without any protest from Moe.

This isn't the first time that Julia has mentioned Murphy dying. Last year, she asked when we were going to get a new kitty.

I replied, "When one of the cats dies."

Julia though a minute and said, "Okay. I guess Murphy is going to have to die."

I was dumbfounded.

"Hey! That's my cat!"

I would worry, but I seem to recall me not being too shook up by a pet dying when I was kid. I remember my Mom telling Bill and I that she had to put our old dog, Tina, to sleep at the vet. I don't remember Tina much, but I remember her not liking Bill and I much. It's probably because we were young and prone to hassling her. She was old and probably not in the mood to be hassled.

I don't remember the response, but I'm sure it was along the lines of "Oh drag. Can we have some lunch?"

Julia gets an allowance

We're trying to instill some responsibility into Julia by requiring her to clean up after herself every now and then. As any parent knows, this is a tough task because kids have a hard time listening anyway. For example, recently I picked up a candy wrapper that Julia had left on the floor and I said, "Do something with this."

Now an average person of average intelligence would have walked over to the trash can nearby and deposited it in the can to forever forget about its previous blight on our carpet. Unfortunately, that's not how a child's mind works. Julia proceeded to walk across the living room and then dropped it on the edge of the carpet, thereby moving the wrapper from one end of the room to the other end.

I exclaimed, "What are you doing? Pick it up and put it in the garbage can!"

Julie sighed, but did go back and grabbed the candy wrapper. The wrapper did make it finally to the garbage can, much to the chagrin of my daughter who doesn't seem to grasp the concept of trash yet. I'll often find band aid wrappers that are sitting on her bathroom counter, which is literally right above where the trash can is. I guess it just didn't occur to her to throw them there. She must have been saving them for some other purpose...

Trying to get her to eat cleanly is another exercise in futility. Every night, Julia gets a small, snack-sized bowl of popcorn. This has been the routine for years in our house. As hard as we try to make this a clean routine, it just doesn't work out that way. I'm often dismayed at how much mess one child can make while eating popcorn. Most people will grab one or two kernels at a time and pop them in their mouth. Not Julia. She grabs a small handful, which then is kind of dragged across her lips into her mouth. It's like watching the Cookie Monster eat. Invariably, the floor becomes littered with broken popped kernels.

I have a fairly new Hyundai Sante Fe. I try to keep it clean, but any effort I put forth in the front seat is always negated by the mess in the back seat, where Julia sits. Since we travel about 25 minutes to work, we usually give her some sort of snack like fruit snacks crackers. Then we'll occasionally get McDonalds or Burger King when we have to travel to another city. Then there are the occasional trips to the mall complete with a cookie. And let's not forget her pre-school, which seems to have ample activities planned that end with a big baggie of treats being sent home with the kids.

These and other chances for snacks leads to a back seat that's almost always in a state of disarray. I'll open the door for her one morning and seemingly overnight, the floor is strewn with fruit snack wrappers, bits of snacks and other pieces of paper.

Speaking of bits of paper, I swear that her pre-school has an agenda to unload a truckload of art supplies...

Last year, when Julia was in her first pre-school class (she went again this year because we didn't want her to start Kindergarten yet), I would come to her locker and almost every day there was some sort of drawing, painting or sculpture. The drawings and paintings were okay, but good God were there a lot of them. We ended up throwing a bunch away, but I swear you can stack up what we saved from that class and it would be 5 feet high. I have several tubs devoted just to the drawings and paintings that Julia brought home. The sculptures were worse because they were always covered with tons of glitter or flakes or glitter flakes or something that glittered while it flaked off when you picked it up. I once joked to her teacher that for Julia's last day I was going to have Julia give her a sculpture that had every conceivable type of glitter or flakes on it, so that when she tried to pick up, a ton would fall off it.

So I digress, but the art projects build up on the seat if I don't remember to take them out and they flake...

Cleaning up with Julia is an exercise in patience in and of itself. Laura always insists that Julia needs to learn to pick up after herself, or she'll end up like a slob. Now I'm sure she didn't quite mean me, even though I was and sometimes still am horrible at picking things up after myself (When not kept in check, I get an array of trash around me that Laura calls a 'sphere of influence.' Just check my desk sometime and you'll see.), but I got the message.

The routine usually goes like this. I tell Julia, "We are going to clean up today before we go anywhere."

Julia will groan and say, "I hate cleaning up. It's so boring!"

I'll tell her something easy like putting her toys away and she'll hem and haw and groan and put it off. Then she'll ask if we can go somewhere or if she can go out and play. Again, I'll remind her to clean. This goes on several times, until I literally have to pull her along with me and I'll have to get her started.

So I was talking the other day to a co-worker about this and she mentioned that her and her husband started to give a weekly allowance to their son, who is six-years-old. He's expected to do his chores and in exchange, he gets an allowance, which he gets to spend on anything that he wants.

I had heard of this 'allowance' ritual, but I was never familiar with it. We never got an allowance from our parents. Our allowance consisted of us getting money sporadically from our parents when we'd beg to go see a movie or go to the school skate night. Most of the time, they'd give us the money, so Mom I'm not complaining. However, I was a little envious of kids that had an allowance. They were usually the kids that had the latest toy that they'd bring to school to show off.

I had also read about allowances in books. Usually, the books that I read were about the misadventures of some school-aged kid (like Henry Huggins), who had to come up with some money fast to either buy a new football or because he had to pay for damages because he accidentally broke something. So he had to pay for it or his parents would find out. The character would beg his parents for an advance on his 'allowance', but was usually shot down.

I tried to come up with an allowance one day when I tallied up a list of things I did around the house (taking out the trash, mowing the lawn) and came up with a reasonable amount, which was 5 dollars a week.

I showed this to my parents who immediately shot it down with no negotiation.

"You don't need an allowance," one of them said. "You already do all of those chores for us for free."

Crap. I learned a valuable lesson that day. Don't give up the candy store and then expect payment. They had a point.

It's just a little frustrating sometimes when you're a kid and you want money. Our parents made the mistake of giving Bill and I our own little cash register banks. They looked like the old style cash registers and worked similarly. You had a slot for each type of coin. You put the money into the slot, pulled the lever and the total changed. At first it was cool because I saw that I had about 4 dollars and some odd cents in change. Then it was a little depressing because I had no outlet for more money. I worried how I was going to get that total up past ten dollars until I struck on a solution: raid the lunch money basket.

Our parents had a lunch money basket above the sink that my Dad would put dollars and change into. It was for us kids to buy a lunch ticket or a daily lunch at school. I ran upstairs and silently as I could retrieved the basket. I fished out some change and snuck back downstairs. Growing bolder, I went back for more and more change. Pretty soon, my total had doubled. Then I got even bolder and snagged some dollars (the machine had a slot for dollars, too). Ka-ching! I was in double digit land...for a few hours.

It was a Sunday and my Dad usually filled up the basket that day. He opened the cupboard and started to retrieve his wallet when he exclaimed, "Who's been taking money out of this basket?"

My Mom asked what was wrong.

My Dad said, "There was a lot more money in here today and now it's almost gone!"

He looked over at us eating and asked, "Which one of you kids took money out of this basket?!"

We all looked at each other and said nothing.

"Which one?" my Dad asked again.

I believe it was my brother, Bill, who gave me up as he saw me put all the money into my cash machine. I was ordered to get the cash machine and empty it. Sadly, I sad goodbye to my short-lived windfall.

(Note: Bill disputes that it was him, although he does remember the incident. My point is, regardless of who turned me in, I was turned in because I don't think I'd be that stupid to turn myself in. Granted, I have incriminated myself before and after but not this time.)

So as I was saying, we thought it would be a good time to offer Julia her allowance. A few Sundays ago, we brought up the topic to her. We explained that we expected her to clean up after her toys and in her room. If she did that, every week she would get an allowance. I had originally thought 5 dollars was pretty decent considering inflation. Laura, on the other hand, lobbied for 3 dollars, which is what we offered her.

The thought of money of her own slowly sunk in and she enthusiastically said, "OK!"

That day, it was like a dream. Julia picked up the floor of the living room upstairs. Downstairs, she worked for over an hour on picking up her toys off the floor and into their proper place. She would keep asking me if she was done, but when I pointed out new things for her to pick up, she didn't complain once! She kept on cleaning and cleaning and at one point even helped me move things to give the basement a good vacuuming. Finally, at the end of the day, Julia asked for her money.

"Can I have my two dollars now for my allowance?" she asked.

There was a wrinkle. Julia had met my allowance offer and counter offered with a lower price. I thought about reminding her that I had offered three dollars, but instead I said, "Okay. You can have your two dollars."

That's what the allowance has stood at.

The next week, things didn't go so smoothly. I mentioned that it was allowance day and that Julia needed to clean up before getting her allowance.

She thought a minute and said, "That's okay, I don't think I want my allowance."

Oh she's good! She re-countered her own counter offer by saying that now she didn't need my money! I'm assuming she thought that this would get her out of her chores, but I had to disagree with her. I reminded her that with our without an allowance, that she would still have to do her chores.

She thought again and finally said, "Okay. I'll take my allowance." With that, she helped clean although with some of the old complaining of "Am I done yet?" and "This is boring."

I guess one week of bliss was all that I was going to get...

Saw the movies 'The Queen', 'Children of Men' and 'Grindhouse'

I used to be up on all the movies that came out, but then something happened in my life that put a snag into that hobby, which is having a baby (not me, my wife... although I obviously helped kick start the process...)

After the baby came, the semi-regular trips to the movie theater stopped. Also, it seemed that I didn't have as much time to watch movies that I rented, either because of many reasons (our schedules and other factors).

Now I'm trying to make an effort to stay on top of my movie viewing, which is so important on the grand scheme of things, I realize. I would stockpile them and wait until I retire to catch up on them, but I'm sure by then my tastes would have changed drastically.

Last night, we watched the movie, "The Queen", starring Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II. The movie takes place mostly during the days after Lady Diana died in a car crash. Having been stripped of her title as 'Her Royal Highness' (a few references to former HRH), the royal family did what they thought was proper when Diana passed... nothing. Their reaction, especially Queen Elizabeth's, are what move the story along.

Tony Blair had just started as the new prime minister a few months before the tragedy and it's really interesting to see the interplay between the elected officials and the monarchy. They claim that they know what the British people want even though they are sheltered miles away in a vast estate. They continue to claim that the British people will come to their senses, but as the days build between the death and the funeral, the lack of anything from the royal family causes tension between the public and the royal family until they are finally forced to action to make it look like they actually cared for a person they despised.

While I'm sure dramatized a lot, it is still a fascinating and sometimes funny movie about the Queen Elizabeth II and how she handled the death of Lady Diana. I'd recommend it.

...

Keeping with our British theme, Laura and I watched "Children of Men", a movie about a future world in which women are barren and the last birth was 18 years ago. The world is now a place where terrorism runs rampant, immigration is a crime and refugees are caged like animals. The movies protagonist, Theo (Clive Owen) is dragged into a fight to deliver a woman, Kee, who is about to deliver the first baby into the world in years.

The movie starts out a little slow, but the action gets moving fast. The action scenes are amazing in that they were often shot with just one camera following the action, which gives the movie a very tense feel to it as you follow Theo through some very harrowing situations. The action is also very unique. One scene in particular has Theo trying to jump start a car down a hill while people are running after him.

I'm sure some people might scoff at the statements made in the movie. There are many comparisons to how Jesus was born. Also, the themes of immigration I'm sure will turn some people off (as we're going through some pains with this ourselves in this country), but anyone that isn't very easily offended by that should be fine with it.

I really liked this movie. It's exciting and makes you think.

...

I drove to Lincoln a few weeks ago to see the movie, "Grindhouse", with my brother, Bill. We hadn't seen a movie together in a while. After all, with both of us with kid(s), it's hard to coordinate time for a movie, let alone in another city.

Bill secured a sitter for his kids and my kid and we were off to see the movie.

For those of you (all 5) that don't know about the movie, "Grindhouse", I'll explain. "Grindhouse" is a double feature film from directors Robert Rodriguez of Spy Kids and Desperado fame and Quentin Tarantino of Pulp Ficton and Kill Bill fame. The movie is basically split into two parts. The first is "Planet Terror", a movie about a toxic gas that turns those unlucky enough to be infected by it into skin-lesioned, flesh-eating zombies. The second movie, directed by Tarantino, is called "Death Proof", about a guy that kills people with his death-proof car, a car reinforced for stunt work in Hollywood pictures.

Now you might be wondering why we'd want to go see these pictures? Because we were weened on horror and action films, we tend to like unwinding with films that we can turn your stomach or frighten you. Remember, we're the generation with the low work ethic because of our numbness to television, so our fondness for violent pictures shouldn't surprise anyone.

When we got to the theater, Bill got in one line and I got into the next line. We continued talking about whatever it was we were talking about when a woman in front of me asked, "Are you both twins?"

We paused and replied "Yes" at about the same time.

The woman asked, "How old are you?"

We said, "36."

The woman said, "Oh, I have twin boys who are 26."

"Ooohh." We replied politely.

This happens a sometimes when we're together. People are amazed that grown men are twins and have to ask us about it. I don't mind, but Bill sometimes gets a little annoyed by it.

Bill pays for his ticket and I'm still waiting behind the woman with twin boys.

The lady with twins pays for her movie. I move forward to pay and a lady starts to step in front of me.

I say abruptly, "I was next."

The lady that stepped in front of me says, "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were with her." indicating the lady with twins.

I buy my ticket and start to think. Did she mean that I look young enough to be that woman's son or old enough to be dating her? I wasn't sure if I should be offended or complimented.

The first part of Grindhouse is a zombie flick called, "Planet Terror". "Planet Terror"'s plot revolves around a deadly biological warfare virus that's unleashed over the population of a small Texas town. It turns most of the inhabitants into puss-filled, boil-covered, flesh-eating zombies. The rest of the town has to survive.

It's pretty mindless, but pokes fun at all sorts of action movie cliques. It's a bit gross and over-the-top in it's zombie special effects, but if you can stomach that, it's a pretty fun ride.

One interesting twist to movie is that a go-go dancer named Cherry Darling, played by Rose McGowan, gets her leg amputated early on in the movie. She spends the next part limping around on a makeshift leg made of wood until she's fitted for a gun for the leg. Now if you've seen the trailer or commercials, then you've basically seen every part of this sequence with her leg-gun contraption. So prepare to be disappointed...

Of course, by the time I'm writing this, Grindhouse is now out of the theaters, but oh well...

The next part of Grindhouse is a Quentin Tarantino movie called, "Death Proof". While I'm a big fan of his most well known movie, "Pulp Fiction", I would have to say I was a little disappointed in "Death Proof".

"Death Proof" follows the story of Stuntman Mike played by Kurt Russell, who has a car that's death proof. He uses that car to kill women by slamming into his first victim's car head on.

Now "Death Proof" would be an exciting movie if it wasn't for all the inane dialog that you have to sit through. The movie starts with a bunch of women talking shit with each other about men and relationships and stuff. This goes on literally for about 25 minutes before something interesting happens. You'll literally look at your watch wondering when the action is going to start. I realize that dialog is meant to get you invested in the characters, but this dialog is all loud and ultra-witty to the point where I almost didn't care who theses characters were. Also, I can't remember much about who the different women were supposed to be. By the time, some action happens, it's much too short and I stopped caring long ago.

Thankfully, "Death Proof" has two parts. The second part follows Stuntman Mike as he targets four other women, two of which are stuntwomen and one is a makeup artist (played by Rosario Dawson). The second part starts like the first part with a lot of ultra-loud and ultra-witty dialog. Mercifully, it's a lot shorter and the action starts a lot faster. The movie ends with an extended car chase that's pretty cool and it's a nice payoff that saves the movie from its horrid beginning.

From the Vault: Just file me under Gullible

I'm in the middle of attempting to work on a book, in addition to some other blog posts, so I thought I'd repost this story from my archive, for those that haven't read it. Enjoy! A note about this story. I edited it and added a few new details.

I'm not saying that I'm gullible, but let's just say that if you were to look the word up in the dictionary, you're likely to find a picture of me next to the word.

I think it all started with my brothers and sisters. Being the youngest of 5 kids, my brother and I received the brunt end of all of the mental torture that could be executed onto siblings. My two older brothers, Joe and Paul, and our in the middle sister, Mara, were masters at manipulation. They loved to play on the fears of a little child, much in the way a cat plays with a mouse before eating it.

As a kid, I'd heard and believed them all.

Break a mirror? Seven years bad luck. I had managed to break 4 mirrors by the time I was 9. I figured I was screwed until my mid-twenties with that streak going.

Swallow watermelon seeds? Uh-oh. That means you have watermelon plants growing out of you

Swallow some gum? It'll rot there forever in your stomach.

The most elaborate tale that I heard involved the delivery of my brother Bill and I. This tale haunted me for years, but was retold to me with a gleeful disregard that only carefree older brothers or sisters could muster.

If you were to believe them, my brother and I were the result of a Buy One Get One Free sale.

"Mom and Dad really didn't want two more kids," one would say.

"They were going to the store one day when they saw a Buy One Get One Free sale sign in the window of the store, so they decided to buy Bill. You were the Get One Free."

I kept denying it, but they insisted that it was true. I didn't cry about it, but it did stick with me. And it was repeated over and over.

Not that my brothers and sisters weren't nice to me. Sometimes, they would draw me in when they were playing games. Then, when I had relaxed and gotten to trust them, they'd dare me to say dirty words. I knew that they were bad, but I was dying to get in my older siblings good graces. As a 4-year old, I didn't have much exposure to coolness, but I was willing to try and act cool.

"Bob, say Shit," one would say.

"Why?" I'd ask kind of scared. I knew they shouldn't be saying that, either.

"Just do it. We want to hear you say it."

"No," I'd say slowly and softly. "That's a naughty word. I'll get in trouble."

"Oh, come on!" They'd plead. "We're not going to tell! We just want to hear you say it."

"Please?" someone would ask.

"Oh... OK." I said and kind of gave them some nervous looks in the circle we were sitting in.

"SHit," I said with kind of a toothy lisp.

Instead of looking pleased, my brothers and sister looked shocked. I suddenly froze because I couldn't understand what was going on. I did realize that I was in trouble. Was it the way I said it? The worse was yet to come.

"MOM!!!!!" one would yell. "Bob said the S-word!!!"

My Mom came downstairs in a huff as she usually did (I came to realize as an adult that she was probably so moody because she was sick and tired of our antics) and with a little investigation in which my brothers and sister told the whole story about my saying the S-word. I was dragged off for my punishment. Sometimes a spanking, but usually I got my mouth washed out with soap. Not too pleasant.

Did it stop there? Nope. I fell for it again a few times more. Each time, believing them when they swore up and down that they wouldn’t tell on me this time and each time ended with another mouth washing.

When I was in 4^th grade, one of our assignments was to cut out a “news” article out of a “newspaper.” At that age, I had no idea that the National Enquirer wasn’t a reputable newspaper. But hey, it was lying around my house because my Mom bought it, so it had to be true right? Sure, they had articles about aliens, alien abductions and Lorne Greene getting mauled by wild dogs, but I figured if it was in print, it had to be true.

I remember coming to class with an article about aliens being found at Area 51. It was complete with photos and wild illustrations of what the aliens looked like. They were, of course, gray and thin, like any aliens you ever see depicted in the movies. The kids laughed when I was reading from the “news” story. “It’s not funny,” I said very seriously.

This is coming from a kid that used to think that movies were based on real life events (most of them anyway). I had seen a movie once about HG Wells coming to the future to stop Jack the Ripper. So when it was time to dress up as a famous person, I chose HG Wells. I looked him up in the encyclopedias that we had. He was in there and there was a mention of him writing a book called The Time Machine, but no mention of his actual time machine. This HAD to be an oversight. No Time Machine? I added to my short report on the life of HG Wells that shortly after writing The Time Machine, he invented the time machine. That satisfied me.

I grew smarter when it came to my older siblings, however, so I’m not hopelessly gullible.

I was about 13 when my older brother, Paul, asked me to do something for him.

“Put your nose up to this screen door.” He demanded.

“No way,” I of course retorted, “You’re going to hit me.”

I was no fool. After hundreds of senseless beatings at the hands of my brothers, I knew a trap when I saw it.

“If I hit you, I’ll give you $5.” Paul said.

Hey, five dollars was five dollars, so I risked it and put my nose up to the screen on the screen door.

Smack! He punched my nose from the other side of the door.

A short time later, I was five dollars richer. My Mom punished Paul by making him pay me the five dollars. Gullible, but richer.

Even as an adult, I'm prone to falling for some trick that I shouldn't fall for.

In my mid-twenties, I was working at Pizza Hut part time.

I had to go downstairs to the manager's office and make a photo copy of some information for him. Seeing as how we were a little slow and I was a little bored, I thought I'd have some fun. I plastered the side of my face to the copying machine glass and pressed the button. The machine engaged and out came a smiling half-face, stubble-chin mug shot of me.

The light from the copying machine was bright, but I had closed my eyes, so I wasn't worrying.

I brought it up and showed it to another employee. He looked at it and laughed.

"Be careful man. You can go blind from doing that," he said seriously.

"Are you serious?" I asked.

"Yeah. I had a friend of mine do that once and days later he lost his vision. It was pretty scary."

My heart fluttered a bit, but then I tried to be rational by saying, "Well, I closed my eyes when I did that, so I think I'm safe."

The guy didn't skip a beat.

"That's what he said, but he went blind anyway."

He must have noticed the shock on my face because I was suddenly getting worried that I was going blind. Indeed, the light was bright from the copying machine. Also, my eyes were still adjusting to the not-so-bright light upstairs so I was seeing that tracer effect that one sees when exposed to bright lights.

He started laughing. "Dude, I'm just messing with you! My friend didn't go blind."

I laughed and said, "Don't do that to me! You're talking to a very gullible guy!"

But I'm not so gullible that I fall for things like chain letters, pyramid schemes and internet scams. At least, I hope it stays that way. When I retire, I probably have a better than the average chance of being one of those guys that gets scammed.

I'll be on the news going, "Well, I got an email from this man in Africa that said that he was in the process of inheriting 18 million dollars and I could have half of it if I only gave him my bank account routing number, my 401k portfolio, my car's pink slip and the deed to my house. I thought it sounded a little fishy seeing as how I never gave this man my email address and didn't even talk to him, but it sounded legitimate."