Vintonville

Blog-Tagging, bless its heart, is the bane of the blog world. And I say that only because I’m a guy and it totally feels like a girl thing to do– like filling out and forwarding crazy emails where you answer all these questions and your wildest dreams will materialize ala Kelly LeBrock in Weird Science. The Blog-Tag idea is: someone writes 5-6 things about themselves not many people know, then lists about the same amount of people who must next do the same thing, ad infinitum.

I’m feeling particularly ego-centric today, and having received a challenge to do it, by crikey– I’m gonna. All self-respect and shame aside. After all, if I feel ashamed later I can always delete the post.

1. Over 2006-2007 I wrote for the oft-offensive but always relevant and insightful movie news website CHUD. My claim to fame? I was read by Shia Lebouf, Will Ferrell and John Favreau (Director of Iron Man, Zathura and Elf). Sadly, that torrid love affair ended after about a year, seeing as how I was putting in a lot of time and it didn’t pay, which was making my real, paying job jealous. And angry.

2. I once put a fearsome block on gold medalist Ryan Millar in a two on two grass volleyball tournament. We lost, but I’m tellin’ ya, I got a clean block on and stuffed one of the best volleyball players in the world.

3. I love kids. Love ‘em.  I’m always getting grief from ditching the “adult” conversations to hang out with the kids at family functions, but running around outside, playing hide and seek and having fun with a no preconceptions crowd is far better than pretending I give a crap about golf, the latest gossip or trying to invent a conversation about either.

4. If serving paid enough to make a real living, I’d do it until I was soaking my teeth in a cup on the nightstand. There’s nothing better than making people laugh/smile, exceeding expectations and getting paid like a whore to do it.

5. My childhood was terrorized by two cartoon characters: the Rankin/Bass Gollum and Secret of Nimh’s Jenner. I still keep the lights on and and consciously have to keep my bladder in check when I’m watching either of them.

6. I have 3 nipples. Ok, not really. But imagine if I did! It’d be like the next step in human evolution or something. Honestly, I’m having a hard time coming up with 6. I guess it’s that I was roughed up and made fun of quite a bit throughout my illustrious K-12 career. My senior yearbook has 3 signatures in it and, incidentally, not one says, “Stay cool”. Not even my girlfriend signed it. But don’t cry for me, Argentina. I was high fivin’ dudes and rolodexin’ ladies when it mattered: College.

So there you have it. Challenge accepted and completed. Now, back to the regularly scheduled posting.

So our friend Jenny has a blog (as you may have noticed in our blog roll at right). She’s got this cute little guy (Owen) who’s Joshua’s age. Sadly, they thought Oregon was a cooler place to live than Cache Valley and beat a hasty retreat a couple months ago, leaving Mari-Catherine and Joshua all sad and crying drippy tears of longing, abandonment and sorrow into their respective pillows. Luckily, these fine folks have some serious familial roots around here, so the little gentlemen are able to have a reunion every few months- which they happily did at the “Halloweenie Roast”. Jenny’s got the whole thing covered in her blog if you’d like to read it here. Our camera battery died on said expedition, so I’m stealing this fantastic pic and posting it under the protection of fair use laws.

As for the Halloween extravaganza you’ll see pictured after the jump? All homemade. We were invited to it last year (see a toothless and happy Joshua below) and effort these folks put into making their little Paradise “farm” a kids Halloween dream come true is a feat to be reconed with. I mean, with a life-sized Optimus Prime made from everything (and maybe including) the kitchen sink, you know it’s good.

Well, it’s official. MC is on jury duty.

And not just any jury duty. Oh no. This isn’t sissy stuff. This case? MURDER. That’s right. Murder.

Mari-Catherine first received notice of jury pool selection a few months back when we felt her chances of being called were scant. When she went in for interviews last week, I gave her the best advice I could, “Tell them you’ve been following the case for years and are convinced the defendant is guilty and should burn in hell for all eternity to pay for his senseless crime. Then tell them you need to get home because you’re an hour late on taking the “happy pills” your doc prescribed to keep the voices in your head at bay.”

Obviously, she thought that was stupid. Something crazy about “I need to be truthful” or somesuch.

Her first official–and decidedly grim– day on the job was today. The bright side? $50 a day, which means I’ll have to start stuffing the mattress.

To be honest, she was pretty upset, as it means leaving Joshua for 3-4 days a week, all day. I guess she can take comfort in knowing she’s performing her civic duty and, if the guy on trial is found guilty, helping deliver a bit of justice to a family 20 some years later.

Yay.

Instead of Vintonville, I think I should rename the site JoshuaBurg. Or Joshua Junction. Don’t act like you haven’t noticed– this site’s been on a Joshua roll the last few days… which is OK with me because I can’t get enough of the kid. Still, I’ll try to even things out by working on more posts involving things like “I remember when my pants weren’t as tight”.

Ok. Who am I kidding.

Anyway, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s Halloweentime. And for the first time in many years it really feels like the Halloweentimes I remembered as a kid. There’s leaves everywhere, and there’s a good chance Trick or Treating will be carried out sans parkas and Long Johns or post trick or treat visits to the Active Core Rewarming Technique Center (AKA the closest ER’s hypothermia chamber) or worse, unpleasant naked time in the sleeping bag.

Maybe the “halloweeny” feel has been because Joshua’s been all over it. I’ve tried explaining it’s the Devil’s Holiday and a celebration of murder and debauchery, and furthermore that even thinking about it is an affront to all things good and holy, but he’s not buying it.

Ah, well!

Thing is, I’m not sure where it all comes from as he’s not in it for the candy, No, for him it’s all about the spideeeeeeeeers and ghosteeeeeeeees and mummies! and punkiiiiins and houses that are “all ready for halloweentime”.

Needless to say, we’ve accommodated the excitement with all kinds of crafty stuff like gingerbread “haunted” houses, painted pumpkin bats, jawbreaker ghosts and after much pleading, a trip to the store for  decorations.

Speaking of cheap decorations, there’s nothing like your very own Halloween tree. Think Christmas tree, but as a burned out corpse strung with Satan’s little helpers. Kinda like the one at left. If you look closely, you’ll notice the ghosts are the gumball wrapped in toilet paper variety and meant to be there. The missile, Star Wars guy, Jeep, Scorpion, gum ball and praying mantis are not. Those were Joshua additions. When I saw him meticulously arranging, balancing and rearranging his decorations, I said, “Wow, that tree is looking cool!”  “Yeah, Papa, it really is.”

A slap in the face to happy, jolly and minty gingerbread houses across the land, this gingerbread house is chock full of spideys and ghostes and dripping orange stuff and spikey things. Who says Christmas has the gingerbread house monopoly?

Joshua was dying (and not throwing tantrums, just innocently asking… which inevitably leads to parental submission) to have a spider and lights in his room. We obliged and now he goes to sleep gazing and smiling at the orange glow of his “punkin lights”.

ANOTHER idea pushed forward by Joshua– the pumpkin bat. He picked this out of a parent magazine and couldn’t talk about anything else but making “Cool bats!” We kind of swept it under the rug, thinking he’d forget, but days later he was still asking. Being suckers we again submitted, which ended up being pretty fun. “Crazy eyes” which has a mouth inspired by a pumpkin drawing Joshua did.

Happy Halloween and stuff!

Consider these pictures on the digital fridge. While scribbles and stick men hold a special place in parental hearts, I’m not all that endeared by seeing the doodlings of other kids. Of course, when Joshua picks up the crayon, he’s the next Bill Waterson, Mark Teague, Steve Purcell, or Chris Sanders.

It’s just fun to see Joshua actually drawing SOMETHING instead of watching what marks the crayon makes. And I think they’re pretty cool at that.

Octopi!

Smiley Frog!

Crazy Shark (wearing a hat)!

Thing about having kid? Sleeping in takes a masochistic nosedive into the empty pool of things hoped for but never seen. Make like a teenager and go to bed at 3 am? Wake up at 8. Make like Old Man Winterbottom and go to bed at 10pm? Wake up at 8. Put the kid to bed at 11? Wake up at 8.

Still, all the nostalgia of sleeping in gone by is quickly erased when you wake up to mornings like these:

One time, two weeks into the future, I tried to wake up before 8pm on November 4th, but I’d stayed up too late on November 3rd playing video games and trying to come up with posts for the blog.

*This clip has bleeped naughty words.

So I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with some kind of interesting content for the blog when vacations are slim, the camera sits idle, life is day to day and I’m not fired up by the latest political shenanigans perpetrated by guys named McCain and Obama and streets named “Wall”.

And I’m drawing a blank. I thought about reviving the Weekend Movie dump (a feature I used to do for the Dude blog), but then realized no one (besides we) really hit up movies too often and those who do would skip most new releases anyway. I also thought about some feature or highlight, but nothing’s crystallizing.

So, I turn to you, Dear Readers. All two of you (Hi, Mom!). Any ideas?

Joshua enjoys the occasional shower. The occasional LONG shower. He’ll load his cars, boats, submarine, sharks, action guys and octopi into the shower and shout orders (“FIRE!”, “HERE COMES THE DOCTOR!”, “WATCHOUT!”) and explodey sound effects until his hands are prunetastic and the water gets cold. As MC pulled him out of the shower today, she said “Whoah! You’re hands are like raisins!” Joshua quickly replied, “Yeah. Grampas must stay in the shower all day.”

Despite my disdain for the prequels, I’ve been slowly introducing Joshua to the world of Star Wars thanks to its kid friendly robots, lasers, ships and explosions. Tripping droids are hilaaaarios! General Greivous (until recently known only as “the bumpy guy”) isn’t scary– he’s “my favorite!” And so it is that Joshua and I have been watching the new Clone Wars cartoon together. As mentioned, Joshua has just grasped the “bumpy guys” name, which he is currently and innocently pronouncing as “General Grab@$$”. Which I guess is better than how he used to pronounce “Truck”.

Joshua thinks Iron Man is really cool. We picked up the Blu Ray and entertain Joshua with choice scenes and laugh as they get all hyped up, excited and literally yelling with wonder. The “go-to” scene is where two F-22s chase Iron man over the Afghan Desert. The pilots refer to him as a “bogey”, which caused Joshua to ask, “Why do they call him a boogie, Papa?”

MC has recently returned to her country roots, blasting country music in the car. I think that’s close to reckless child endangerment but it’s all a matter of perspective, I guess. Either way, MC likes to sing the Carrie Underwood song “Jesus take the Wheel“. As they were driving the other day, Joshua must have been a little concerned as he said, “Mama, you’re driving speedy. You need Jesus to take the wheel.”