A Letter to My Son

Dear Antonie,

Your recent email nearly moved me to tears. It reminded me of a similar letter a friend received a while ago. I'll admit I'm woefully uneducated on the political climate of Zimbabwe, but learning of your plight has really opened my eyes. It's bad enough that your poor father, Mjaly, has been murdered in a land dispute, but now you and your family have fled to South Africa, living as refugees. Thank the Lord your father had the foresight to deposit eight million US dollars worth of gem stones in Johannesburg.

If only he had known that he should have put it into a foreign account, since the South African Foreign Exchange policy doesn't allow refugees to invest. You'd think he would have known something like that. But no matter, I'm honored that you came to me, a complete stranger who doesn't know the first thing about investing money, to help you. If helping a poor refugee move eight million dollars into a foreign account isn't noble, well then I don't know what is.

But first, I have a question. The subject line of your email was "PLEASE TREAT ME AS YOUR SON," but your salutation starts, "Dear friend." Well, which is it? I can be your father, or I can be your friend. You can't have it both ways, son.

Now, speaking as your father, are you sure this is the best course of action? Reaching out to someone over the internet without knowing anything about their history? You could be giving your money to a con artist! Better think this through a bit more, son. And as for finding a way for the government not to know about it, I don't know what it's like in South Africa, but if it's anything like in the United States, the government's already read your email and could be at your door any minute.

Oh, and speaking of your door, I may actually have a solution for you. I typed your street address, 123 Louis Botha Avenue in Johannesburg, into Google, and it turns out that it's the registered address of a retirement fund called Chemline CC Provident Fund. Now I'm not sure what all that means, but I'll bet they know a lot more about money than I do, and you don't even have to leave home! What luck!

I hope you take this to heart, son. Sure, I could set up an account for you and collect my 25 percent, but I think that would rob you of valuable life lessons. Life's going to throw you some curveballs, kid, but I know you'll manage to work things out. You're my boy. Now go clean your room. You don't have to live like a refugee.

Love,
Dad

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XXVII

A few weeks ago, my mom saved everyone's hash at her work. In gratitude, the salesman she works for gave her a hundred dollar gift certificate to a fancy restaurant. The very same restaurant my family had dinner in Sunday night.

First we saw The DaVinci Code, which left me a little disappointed. Not because I didn't like the movie, but because I did. It was a perfectly good movie, maybe not the best work ever put onto film, but certainly not the worst. What was with all the bad reviews? All I heard in the week leading up to it's release was how bad it was, so I went in expecting the worst. Instead, I was entertained and engaged. One reviewer wrote that the theater he was in burst out in laughter at pivotal dramatic moments. I kept waiting to see what moment that might have been, but it didn't happen at my theater. I guess the theater that guy saw the movie in was filled with a bunch of cynical assholes.

Anyway, after the movie, we went to Tosca, the kind of restaurant you take your girlfriend to on the first couple of dates until you're "in" with her, at which point you can switch to Chili's. It was pouring when we pulled into the parking lot, and my brothers and I, who were all wearing shorts and no coats, made a mad dash to the door. Michele was dressed for a North Pole expedition so she took her time.

We all ordered our drinks, which invoked the time-honored tradition of asking "Coke or Pepsi?" with the answer being Pepsi. Everyone ordered either a ginger ale or Mountain Dew, except my dad, who looked up from his menu and said "Coke." He was informed (again) that they had Pepsi and asked if that was okay. He scrunched up his face in disapproval and ordered a ginger ale.

The drinks came, and the waiter placed them all carefully one by one on the table. First Brianna, then my parents' then Ryan and Glenn, and then walked around to Michele and me. And that's when he tripped, knocking uncola all over the better part of my and part of my better half. He apologized, and gave us some napkins to clean ourselves off with. Michele's sleeve got wet, as well as part of shirt and most of the seat of my pants. It's as if I was still out in the rain.

Wait. I guess I should go back to earlier in the day, before we left for the movie. I had just tried on some new khaki pants I got for my birthday, and my mom told me to take them off so they don't get wrecked. It's not like I was going to be rolling around in the dirt or getting finger paint all over them, but I decided to appease her. Besides, it was still warm out, so I put on some shorts. Several hours later, it wasn't so warm, and it was raining buckets. The shorts didn't seem like such a good idea.

And then, in a twist even M. Night Shyamalan couldn't have thought up, an otherwise competent waiter spills Mountain Dew all over my shorts, which is much better than getting Mountain Dew on all over new pants. Perhaps fate was smiling down on me that day. But not enough to keep Mountain Dew from soaking into my underwear, which even on it's own wouldn't have been so bad it the place didn't have the air conditioner on.

That's it for today.

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Uh-oh

The first thing I saw when I got out of Arlington Station to day was a bomb squad truck. There's a large sphere on the back of the truck thant says "Bangy." I guess it's their bomb-diffusing robot. I don't know if this is the time or place to mention this, but I really like robots. Especially the kind that keep me from exploding. There's about a dozen motorcycle cops lined across the street in front of the Public Garden. And in front of our building, there's a state police K-9 car, a couple of BPD cars, an ambulance, and a caravan of black SUVs with blue lights on the roof. That can't be good.

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I Smell Like Bengay

When my grandmother feels that she's overdressed, her common remark is, "I look like a circus horse." If she goes out without makeup or her without hair curled, she'll say she looks, "like a foot." She's filled with sayings like that.

"It's dark as a pocket outside."
"I'm dressed like a flapper."
"I feel like a nickel."

One of my favorites is "My back is falling off." Your back can't fall off; it's what's holding everything else together. Your arm can fall off, but your back is pretty much secured in place.

With that being said, my back is falling off.

It started hurting yesterday and today I can't even bend down. I stayed home today, but thanks to our company-issued laptops, I can continue working on the project I started yesterday without missing a beat. Plus I get to stay in my pajamas and rest my back against a stack of pillows. All for giving up the ability to bend at the waist. Not a bad trade-off, really. I just took some expired Bayer (10/04), which eased the pain a little but made me sick to my stomach.

And why does my back hurt? Well, I haven't slept in an actual bed since November, and I haven't slept in my own comfy bed since August. But if I've been sleeping on the air mattress for that long, why didn't it affect my back until now? For the past two nights, I've pumped the bed up extra firm, maybe my back can't handle it. Michele likes it the way it is, but fortunately, we have the model that lets you adjust the two sides separately. I'll let a little air out of my side tonight and see if I feel any better tomorrow.

I get back pains every now and then, and the other guys at work like to give me a hard time because you're not supposed to have these problems at my age. But I've got this swell little disease called Kyphosis. Basically, my spine curves too much. In high school, I wore an extremely uncomfortable brace to bed. I didn't wear it nearly as often as I should have, but that thing hurt like hell. Aside from crushing my insides, my pointy collarbones alway rubbed up against the metal crossbar and the neck hole dug into my adam's apple. Fun times.

Michele says if I'm still hurting tomorrow she's going to take me to the doctor. I really do not want to do that, because the last doctor wanted to break all my ribs and reset them into place. I'd be in a full body cast for nearly a year, but after that I'd look and feel like a normal person. Incidentally, the dentist wants to break my jaw to fix my overbite. What is it with medical professionals wanting to break me?

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The Poseidon Adventure

For the past two days, Joe has been inserting our names into the Good 'N Plenty song. It's not the first time he's done this; only the most recent. You might be thinking that not every name has the right amount of syllables to fit within the structure of the song, but by God, he makes it work. I guess that's what makes him Joe.

Anyway, yesterday was movie night. Michele has been taking spinning classes at night, so she didn't go. Oh, and if you're wondering what spinning is, it's just a stationary bike. At first I thought she was doing plate spinning. It didn't make much sense that they'd offer that at a gym, but all I could think of was her balancing a plate on the end of a pole and then perching it on her chin while she juggles bowling pins. Even now, every time she mentions it, I hear that plate-spinning song, you know...

do do do do do do do do doodle-oo do do do do do do
doodle-oo do do doodle-oo do do doodle-oo do do
do do do do do do do do do wah wah do do wah wah

Anyone know what that song is called? Sometimes they play it when poodles jump through hoops, too. That's the problem with songs with no words. If you don't already know the title it's nearly impossible to find it.

Alright, back to movie night. Since we were parked at Quincy Adams, I asked if she'd just drop me off at Nick's house, which was only a few minutes away. I called Nick to let him know we'd just left the station and asked what the quickest way to get to his house is. He started to give me the directions, then thought better of it and said to give the phone to Michele. But she was at the toll window and didn't want to take the phone. So Nick repeated them to me one more time and said he wanted to leave his house by 6:30. That gave us a good ten to fifteen minutes to get there, which should have been more than enough time, considering he's just down the street.

I don't really know what happened. But we went the wrong way. Part of me knew we were going the wrong way, but I followed the directions the same as if we were going the right way, which put us even further away from where we were going. It didn't help that for a good portion of this little excursion, the woman in front of us was practicing for the World's Worst Driver Competition. I think she's got a shot. When she finally decided to turn, a bus making stops at every corner took her place.

When I finally got dropped off at Nick's house, Michele wasn't particularly happy about what had just transpired. And, given that it was nearly 7:00, Nick wasn't all that thrilled either. The movie wasn't unitl 7:40, so I didn't see what the problem was. Yet.

Nick was waiting inside with Allen. one of the guys he works with. Nick's car crapped out on him, so Allen drove with Nick giving directions. It went a lot smoother this time. We stopped to pick up Josh. I haven't been able to make it to movie night very often over the past few months, and apparently Josh was my replacement. But I was there last night, so he had to be himself.

I asked what we were going to do about dinner. See, that's where the thing about 6:30 came in.

"Well, the PLAN was to go to Papa Gino's where the hot waitresses like us because we work at Bust Buy, but it's too late now."

In all the time I've known Nick, Papa Gino's has always been reserved as a final resort when looking for pizza places. He never really liked their stuff. But now he likes going there because of the hot waitresses. And now, thanks to me, there would be no hot waitresses.

Instead of pizza and a show, we went to the Burger King near the theater. There was a big poster in the window for a new Spicy TenderCrisp Chicken Sandwich™. Heed this warning, friends, that poster is a dirty liar. The sandwich in the picture had jalapanos. Mine didn't. The poster sandwich had some kind of orange sauce, probably some kind of chipotle sauce. Mine didn't. You know what mine did have though? MAYONNAISE! I HATE MAYONNAISE!!!

Now before Michele chimes in and says that she used to work at a restaurant and the honey mustard and chipotle sauces I like so much have mayonnaise in them and blah blah blah, yes I know. I get that; no need to be cute. But pure, untampered-with mayo without anything to offset it's taste has no business anywhere near my sandwich. And they slapped it on both buns. I scraped as much of the white stuff off as I could, along with the lettuce. The hell with lettuce. But the most interesting thing about my Spicy TenderCrisp Chicken Sandwich™ was that it wasn't spicy! I'm guessing the "Spicy" in the Spicy TenderCrisp Chicken Sandwich™ came from the jalapanos and chipotle sauce, the two things noticeably absent from my sandwich.

I was able to get in a couple of bites before we had to pack up and head to the theater. Most theaters don't allow outside food or drinks, and Hanover is no different. So I put the non-spicy TenderCrisp Chicken Sandwich™ back in the bag with my fries and tucked it under my arm. My coat convincingly concealed any evidence of outside food or drink, although I think I've got third degree burns in my armpit now.

So now let's discuss the movie. We saw Poseidon, a disaster movie that seemed to fit nicely with the events of the day. What can I say about Poseidon? The first thing I noticed is everybody in this movie looks like someone else. Josh Lucas looks like Matthew McConaughey, if he got a haircut and laid off the naked bongo playing. There's a character called "Lucky Larry," played by Kevin Dillon, that looks and act's exactly like his brother's character from There's Something About Mary. The guy that Richard Dreyfuss shakes off his leg looks like Richard Grieco, circa If Looks Could Kill. (Speaking of movies that aren't this one, I remember a spy movie from around the same time starring one of the Coreys. I don't remember much about it, except chess was involved somehow and at one point, Wallace Shawn, aka Vizzini form The Princess Pride says, "You...you little shit!") Even Kurt Russell looks like a doughey, older version of Kurt Russell.

I don't think I need to explain that this is a remake of the 1972 disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure, but just in case, this is a remake of the 1972 disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure. It's New Year's Eve, and the passengers of the cruise ship Poseidon are counting down to the new year, but most of them won't live long enough to have a hangover, since a freak mega wave is headed right for them. The wave crashes into the ship, wiping out everyone unfortunate enough to be out on the decks. Except for sadsack Richard Dreyfuss, who ironically was about to take a swandive off the side when he saw the massive wave rapidly approaching and suddenly decides he wants to live. Dreyfuss' character is gay, and he'd recently been dumped by his boyfriend, sparking his urge to off himself. I've got to say, Dryfuss didn't play up the typical Hollywood gay character, the kind that prances around making fun of the way everyone's dressed. He was pretty subdued, although he was wearing a diamond earring the size of a baseball.

Anyway, the wave hits, the boat capsizes, people die, the captain insists that everyone remain in the ballroom, but Kurt Russell demands to be let out to find his daughter, who is in the disco on the floor below. Which is now above. Obviously, Kurt Russell doesn't listen to the captain, and follows Josh Lucas, who says he knows ships and can find a way out. A woman Lucas was hitting on earlier and her young son join them. As does Dreyfuss, although I'm not really sure why, as we wasn't part of the initial conversation (Lucas was going to help Russell find his daughter, and help the woman and her son escape) he just sort of tagged along, even though none of the other hundreds of people in the room did.

I'm not going to run through the whole movie, so I'll just touch on a few subjects. First off, as much as I loathe film critics (and I do, with every fiber of my being) at least one of them was spot-on in their review of this movie when they asked where all the old people were. Cruise ships are like 90% retirees. Dreyfuss' white-haired loner seemed do be in be in the minority on this cruise. I didn't even see one shuffleboard.

One thing that really bugged me was the fact that at the begining of the movie, pre-devastating tidal wave, Josh Lucas starts hitting on a woman with a young son, and after a brief introduction, she sends the kid off to go blow the ship's horn. Seriously. She said the captain said it was okay, and I'm not doubting it, but she just let him run off unattended on a giant boat full of complete strangers. She couldn't have walked him there herself, or at the very least had a crew member escort him? That's just crappy parenting right there.

Kurt Russell's daughter's boyfriend (KRDB) survived the disco flipping over, but got himself trapped under some stage lighting. She finds him, but can't lift the heavy structure off his leg by herself. So she surveys the area and grabs the skinniest, tiniest woman she can find to help her lug this hulking piece of metal off KRDB. Her helper turns out to be a stow-away who was staying in a bunk with a friend of a friend who was a cook on the ship. And the bunkmate happens to be the guy Richard Dreyfuss reluctantly shakes off his leg and sends plummeting down an elevator shaft to his death.

Another thing is the startlingly low number of electrocutions. When the ship flips over, all the lights go out, and then we see the generators kick on. So most of the electricity is still working and partially submerged when our heros are wading around in the water. How come nobody fried? There's tons of logistical nightmares in this movie.
And I don't want to ruin the ending for you, but Kurt Russell=Bruce Willis, KRD=Liv Tyler, and KRDB=Ben Affleck.

Anyway, it's got some unintentionally funny moments, and most of it requires near fatal levels of belief suspension, but it's not the worst way to spend five bucks.

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Wally

Last night I walked into the kitchen and found Michele standing in front of the stove making some kind of tofu noodle stir-fry thing. She poured it into a bowl, brought it into the dining room and started eating it with chopsticks. She said she'd been dreaming of it all day, whatever it was. I thought it was a pretty weird thing to dream about, and briefly thought of mentioning the dream I had one time where I was in a buddy cop movie with a talking turkey on the run from the mob. I ultimately decided it wasn't the right time for that particular conversation and went over to the refrigerator to get a drink.

On the refrigerator door, there was an interesting drawing.



Brianna was already asleep, so I couldn't ask her about it. My mom said she draws Wally all the time. It's great that she creates these little characters, but that picture kind of freaks me out, and not just because he looks like a rocky mountain oyster.

Wally is five years old, but he was born in 1983 and has wings and a halo. Maybe I've seen one too many movies where a little kid's imaginary friend turns out to be a ghost, but that picture's a little creepy. Where did she get that date from? Did Wally tell her? Why does she keep drawing someone who apparently died eighteen years ago?

I slept with the blankets over my head.

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The Mother of All Posts

Sometimes I wish I was back in school. As each year of adulthood rapidly fades into the next, the desire for a return to those simpler days grows ever stronger. Such thoughts could be born out of a grown man's lament over his misspent youth, or out of a desire to get one's hands on some of those little yellow lunch money envelopes they used to hand out, which make for a perfect miniature puppet theater troupe when hoarded. I have a different reason for wanting to turn back time, although I do love making flappy-mouthed finger puppets. No, what I long for is the carefree days of school-supplied Mother's Day gifts.

Back then, if there was even a hint of disappointment in Mom's eyes, you knew it wasn't because of you. How could it be? You just handed her a bouquet of construction paper flowers. It must have been something Dad did.

Brianna presented Michele with a tiny potted Morning Glory yesterday morning. But by the time she gave it to her, it looked more like a limp stem draped over a box of soggy dirt. Brianna was obviously crushed about it, and included a note explaining that it's real, but she gave it too much water and it broke a little, so she drew a picture of one at school and made a card, too. Next to that, in big red letters, she wrote "I'm realy sorry." As promised, there was a picture of a purple flower, surrounded by butterflies and the words "Morning Glory." And there was also the card. The front said "Happy Mother's Day Mom" and inside was a story she wrote this story:

Once upon a time there was a girl. She had a brother and a dad but no mother. They kept looking for a mother befoure Mother's Day. One day all three of them were watching the news. The news said everyone on earth had a mom except them but one mother was untaken but she was too far away. The girl said, "Come on Dad let's get ourself a mother." Dad said All right. So they went on and on. Okay we are here. The lady said, "are you my family?" Yes. Happy...

(the rest was on the back of the card)

Mother Day!"

My mom still has the mug I made for her when I was in fourth grade. I remember really wanting it to convey that I thought she deserved so much more than my humble plastic cup, so I covered it with drawings depicting the treasures I would bestow on her, if only I had the means to do so. And so, in a sweeping panoramic image around the mug, I drew a red station wagon, complete with roof rack and tag reading "To: Mom"; a dog, also with a "To: Mom" tag, a bouquet of roses; a bunch of balloons; a banner reading "Happy Mother's Day! May 14, 1989"; and, standing in the center, a mother and her son. The son, curiously wearing a propeller cap and overalls, proclaims, "You're the greatest!" The mother has a large purple gift box at her feet, and stands knock-kneed while trying to balance another large box in one hand and a bottle in the other. I knew that champagne was used for celebrations, but I didn't know how to spell it. So instead the bottle said "Wisky." Yes, I spelled that wrong, too, but the bigger issue is that the woman is now holding a bottle of hard liquor. But I didn't know. I didn't think there was any difference. Alcohol is alcohol, right? When she asked why she was clutching a bottle of whiskey, I remember almost feeling disappointed that I'd let my mother down, and I was quick to point out that the people on the mug weren't necessarily us, just a mother and her son. That would explain why she's a dink-toed lush and he's got a propeller cap and front teeth the size of Buicks.



I'm a full-fledged grownup now. That means I'm on my own for Mother's Day gifts. No more arts and crafts freebies. As much as it pains me to admit it, ever since I've been old enough to be yelled at for not shaving every day, Mother's Day has been lackluster at best. Sure, we've got our annual Chili's lunch, but that's about it. Thankfully, Michele planned a brunch this year and made reservations a month in advance. But not at Chili's. This year, we went to The Cheesecake Factory.

Even simple things like going out to eat involve some planning. My Dad and Ryan usually work Sunday mornings, so we had to make sure they could take the day off. Then we had to collect money from everybody. And finally there's the matter of finding the place. A few minutes before we left, I got onto Mapquest to find the right exit for the Prudential Center. I couldn't find a piece of paper (or a pen) so I grabbed one of Brianna's felt markers, whose tip had been blunted and frayed from heavy use, and scribbled some directions on the face of a paper plate. Our reservations were for 10 AM. At 9:15, we loaded up the minivan and set off for Boston.

Normally, it's about a twenty minute ride, but unrelenting sheets of rain kept traffic moving at a snail's pace and rendered street signs nearly unreadable. After a minor detour that brought us into Dorchester, we were back on the highway and headed back on course. Finding the Prudential was easy enough; it's one of the two skyscrapers that tower over the city's otherwise modest skyline. But finding the restaurant from the parking garage was a little trickier.

I left my jacket in the car, but everyone else kept theirs on. Suckers. We were going to be inside the whole time anyway. We then spent a few minutes wandering around the cold, leaky parking complex. Glenn found the door to Lord & Taylor, but with it being quarter to ten on a Sunday morning, the store hadn't opened yet and the doors were locked. But not too much further away, I spotted the entrance to Shaw's supermarket. They were open, so we went in through Shaw's and made a b-line for the elevator at the back of the store. Outside the window, we could see the rest of the mall, but no way of getting to it without going out into the rain and crossing the street. I knew all these buildings were interconnected, so there had to be a way to get there without getting wet. There was a small staircase with maybe a dozen steps next to the elevator, so I went down there and looked out the glass doors. I saw an enclosed walkway above us that lead straight into the mall. It was a walkway I've used many times before, one that connects the shops and businesses of Copley Place across the street to the shops and businesses of the Prudential Center. Everyone else was over by the elevator, so I got in with them and looked for the proper button. Hmm..."Street Level" looked promising. The pulleys and gears started whirring and clanking, and three seconds later, the doors opened up, and we walked out to find ourselves at the base of the tiny staircase. We'd just moved about three feet. It was already after ten now, so we just opened the doors and walked across the street. And me without my jacket.

When we got inside, I found a directory map and immediately found the Cheesecake Factory. What I couldn't find, was that pesky little "You Are Here" mark. It does no good to find the restaurant if you don't know where your starting point is. I found it eventually and once I got my footing, knew exactly how to get there. But I guess the rest of the family felt better asking a complete stranger for directions, since that's what they did next. The stranger's words rang true, and incidentally placed the restaurant just where I said it would be, and the rest of the day went on without a hitch. Except for Glenn ordering an apple strudel cheesecake for dessert and eating half of my heath bar crunch cheesecake before realizing that he had the wrong plate. How could he not notice there were no apples?

Oh, and, um...we got lost in the parking garage again on our way out. The less said about that, the better.

Anyway, to all the mothers out there, I hope you had a wonderful day yesterday, and I hope today is okay, too. And to my own mom, thanks for letting us sleep in the basement, and more importantly, (considering it's been raining for a solid week) for getting that waterproofing system installed.

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Mailbag

Hey, let's check a little Blogger mail. Because I get that. All the time.

Here's the first one:

"Dear Guy who writes Random Squeegee,
Why haven't you been writing lately? Did you contract some sort of flesh-eating disease that resulted in the loss of both your arms? That seems to be the only reasonable explination for the disturbingly low number of posts recently. I am not a made up person.
Concerned in Hoboken"

Thanks, Concerned! I'm sure you're as real as everyone else that wrote to me. You will be happy to know that my arms and most of my other body parts are completely intact, and as far as writing goes, well, I'm writing at this very moment. So you have nothing to worry about.

Oh, here's one from Convenient Segue, who writes:

"Dear John, I just realised I don't have anything planned for the last weekend of June! How can fill this empty space in my social calander, and by extension, my very soul?"

Well, Convenient, it just so happens that on Friday, June 23, there will be a special showing of the 2005 sci-fi adventure Serenity at the Palace Theater in Albany, NY, a movie that raked in over $25 million at the box office (a whopping seven times the total gross of 1997's Cat's Don't Dance! ) The event was orchestrated by NYPinTA, and will benefit the organization Equality Now. Tickets are available at the Palace Theater website.

But wait, there's more! Some time last year I half-jokingly suggested to Jose, late of Fresh Vs. Stale En Español, that we should invite everyone to Six Flags, New England in Agawam, MA. Well, the little guy took the idea and ran with it. Now he knows more about it than I do, despite it being my idea. Anyway, the 24th will be a day of fun and standing in various lines.

Albany isn't too far away from Agawam, so you could plan to hit both of them like I am. Or, if space cowboys aren't your bag, baby, then you could just go to Six Flags. I'm sure the battered women won't mind. Well, Convenient, I hope this gave you some ideas on how to spend your time. And if I don't see you on this trip, you can at least expect a full report when I get back. You know, at some point.

So that's it for this edition of the Mailbag. If you have any questions, like real ones, drop me an email. If nothing else, it'll give me something to write about.

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