My grandma's funeral was yesterday. I drove to Arizona Tuesday night so that I could take my kids, then we spent pretty much all day Wednesday in the car. It was a long drive, but it was a pretty drive.

I got stuck in a gas station parking lot in Flagstaff, AZ. They got at least a foot of snow, probably more, and I'm not used to driving in it anymore. I had to do that thing where you spin out for a second in reverse, then in first gear, then in reverse, then in first gear to try and get out. Just as Togers offered to get out and push, the tires finally grabbed. Luckily that was the only "problem" we had on the road though.

We were on some icy roads near the Arizona-Utah border, and my kids all laughed when they saw a Forest Service sign saying that fire danger was "moderate" that day. Remember, there was at least a foot of snow blanketing the forest. The sign turned out to be spot on though because we drove by a tree that was smoldering. We have no idea how it would have ignited, but we decided we wouldn't doubt Smokey the Bear ever again. We stopped and played in the snow for a few minutes, but it was so cold we didn't want to be out of the car for very long.

My dashboard display has a thermometer that tells what the outside temperature was, and when it dropped down to four degrees, we decided to have one of those contests to see who could hold their hand out the window the longest. It came down to a stand-off between me and Tortellini. It was painful. I yelled, "I AM NOT GOING TO LOSE TO YOU!!!" but in the time it took me to yell that, I couldn't handle it anymore, so two seconds later pulled my hand in and said, "Alright, you win." She wouldn't play again when the temperature dropped to zero though. The low temperature that night? Twenty-one degrees below zero. It was the first time in a long time I felt my nostrils freeze when I inhaled through my nose.

Mr M was full of questions about the funeral the night before. Where was it going to be, how long was it going to be, etc.

Mr M: Are you going to cry like a little baby tomorrow?
Me: Probably.
Mr M: Can we have a snowball fight at the graveyard?
Me: Absolutely not!
Mr M: I'm going to let people have snowball fights at my funeral.

It was nice to see a lot of my extended family again. Some of them I hadn't seen in over five years. I drove away with the realization that it could very well have been the last time I'd ever see them since my grandmother was basically the glue that held the family together. I don't know what's worse, that realization, or being okay with it if it turns out to be the case.

After the funeral, my uncle asked all the grandchildren to stop by my grandmother's house to see if there was anything they'd like to take to remember her by. I took a crystal candy dish, and a Christmas ornament. Tortellini took some porcelain dolls that my grandma had made. Togers found an old polaroid camera (something which he'd already been asking me to get him) and a fountain pen that he kept. Mr M had the most eclectic "inheritance" though. He came up to me with a piece of cardboard and a wooden hammer and asked if he could keep those. I told him he could. Then he found a jar of paperclips that he wanted because he could use them to make a cool necklace. He also made off with an old wooden cane, and a long robot arm type of thing my grandma used to grab things off of high shelves with. He's been playing with it ever since.

The silver lining in all of this is that now I have a few more memories with my kids, and they have a few more with their grandparents (whose house I'm at now). Grandma said she wanted her funeral to be a joyous occasion, and there was enough laughing and joking among the tears that I think she'd have been happy with that.

The story I heard

Pearls of wisdom from Mr M:

You know, dentists don't care if you brush your teeth every single day.

Hold on to those you hold dear

The second I saw the name on the caller ID I knew what the call was about. I answered it anyway.

"[Minnow], it's Mom. [Uncle] just called to let us know that Grandma died a few minutes ago."

Even though it's been expected for a while, it's still hard to hear those words. My mother and I talked for a few more minutes, but then I decided I needed to get off the phone so I could call my kids and let them know. My ex-wife went and rounded them up, then called me back when they were all together so I could tell them over speaker-phone. It seems like such an impersonal way to spread this kind of news, but sometimes that's how things have to be when you're hundreds of miles apart. By the time my ex-wife had them all sitting there together, and I finally told them what was going on, I honestly think my kids were relieved to find out that it was my grandma (who we all knew was going to pass away) instead of theirs.

My grandmother was a very religious woman, and didn't want anybody to be sad when she was gone. She wanted her funeral to be a celebration of sorts. She was ninety-two years old, and lived a full life. Few, if any, of us will make it that far. I just wanted to take some time to reflect on some of the memories I have of her and share them here.

I visited my grandma a few times this year. Never for more than an hour or two at a time, but it was enough. I think. During one of those visits she told me, "I have nineteen grandchildren. Each one of them thinks that they're my favorite. And you know what? They're all right!"

She had several traditions that helped make us all feel special. Every year I looked forward to getting my birthday card from her. She must have paid a lot of postage, because she'd tape coins to the inside of the card, one of each kind for every year I'd been alive. For example, when I turned ten years old, she sent a card with a ten dollar bill, ten one dollar bills, ten quarters, ten dimes, ten nickels, and ten pennies. That was quite the haul for a ten year old back then. At least it was to this ten year old.

We always looked forward to spending New Year's Eve at her house, because we were the only kids in the world who were lucky enough to have a second overnight visitor from the North Pole. It wasn't Santa Claus though. He only came on Christmas Eve. But wouldn't you know it? There were always a few left-over toys and treats that needed to be taken care of, so Santa sent one of his elves, Johnny Green, to deliver them to her grandchildren on New Year's Eve. My parents would always discourage us from discussing what Johnny Green had brought us when we went back to school. They didn't want the other kids to have to feel bad that Johnny Green never came to their Grandmas' houses.

She had a large back yard, which was perfect for Easter Egg hunts every spring. There were dozens and dozens of colored eggs set out for all the grandchildren to go out and find. Some of them were just colored eggs. But some of them came with a cash reward. It was probably just her way of keeping the tradition alive as we all got older, but there were some competitive searches for the grand prize egg, which, if I remember correctly, was worth ten dollars. Several other "cash" eggs were set out that were worth anywhere from five cents to five dollars. It was easy for a kid to go home slightly richer than they'd arrived that day.

My grandma grew up in the Bear Lake area (in southern Idaho/northern Utah). We had a few family reunions there, but one summer she took just me and one of my cousins to visit Bear Lake for a week, where she took us around to show us all the places that were important to her. We spent time swimming in Bear Lake, water skiing behind her brother-in-law's boat, exploring the depths of Minnetonka Cave, diving off of rope swings into mountain lakes, shooting pool, and perhaps most importantly eating raspberry shakes. It was only a week, but it left a lasting impression on me.

I could go on, but I won't. I already feel like I'm rambling. I just have one more. I visited her last year, and she asked me when I was going to have another paper published so that she could read it. I told her I was working on it, and she said that I needed to work faster because she wasn't getting any younger. I'm happy that I got the chance to visit her a couple of days after defending my dissertation. Not only did I get to tell her that I'd passed my defense, but also that I'd had a paper accepted for publication. She didn't get to read it (or the second one that was accepted the following week), but she didn't want to anyway. It was just her trying to make me feel like the favorite grandchild.

I'm going to miss her.

Hustle and Flow

My ex-wife made a comment to Mr M about a girl he plays with all the time at school. She teased him about her being his "girlfriend."

Mr M denied that was the case.

His reasoning?

"I dont even hustle with her."

Yeah, I don't know what that means either.

Over the river and through the woods

As some of you know, I spent Thanksgiving in Arizona with my kids, my ex-wife, and her boyfriend. You might think that would be a recipe for a plethora of awkward moments (I know I thought that's how it would all go down), but it was rather nice. Aside from the fact that I didn't get to see my parents or siblings, and knowing that some of them probably got to eat MY banana cream pie, it was a rather enjoyable weekend.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at an old high school friend's house. I hadn't seen her in over ten years, so I thought that might be a little strange too, but it was fine. Her husband was super nice, and her kids had a good time with mine. At least I think they did.

Friday we decided to venture out of the house to get some lunch and do some shopping. Since he apparently didn't get enough to eat the day before, Togers decided to take on a one pound hamburger in an attempt to gain fame and notoriety by having his picture on the wall along with the other fatties. I documented the event.

A daunting task ahead:


But he didn't shy away:


Almost there, but looking a little like he wants to vomit:


Finished (and he didn't even puke):


Posing for his picture to go on the wall:


Couple that with the fact that I was able to get a little bit of Christmas shopping done, I'd say Black Friday was a success.

All except for when we let the kids talk us into going into a pet store. There were certainly some cute little puppies. Like this one:



We ran into trouble when we had to explain to Mr M that he couldn't get one. Especially not for the $3000 price tag. Here's the tail end of his reaction to that news:

I'm pretty sure that boy is staying in tonight

Over Thanksgiving weekend, Togers decided he wanted to try jumping into the pool. You know, because he just couldn't wait to see what forty degree water felt like. He didn't stay in the water long, and when he was done he placed his wet shorts on the fence in the back yard to dry. A few hours later my ex looked out and saw them there.

Ex: [Togers], go get those wet shorts off the fence before someone comes along and steals them.

Togers: Why would someone steal boys' shorts?

Ex: They might. People steal women's underwear all the time.

Togers: Yeah, but that's women's underwear. That's a little different.

Me: Not necessarily. You don't think there are any pedophiles around? They might be interested in stealing your shorts.

Ex: Yeah, [Togers]. You've always been a pedophile's favorite.

Unintentional tape manipulations

Today my class did a lab exercise to learn about probabilities and genetics. Part of the lab activity told them to tape a few colored disks together to simulate the way gametes fuse during fertilization. I brought tape with me to class, but forgot to put it out for the students to use. It wasn't really necessary, and most of the students finished the exercise without it, but one girl really started complaining about my "lack of preparedness."

Her: How are we supposed to finish this if you didn't even bring tape?

Me: I brought tape. It's in my bag. You don't really need it, but I'll go get you some if you want.

Her: I do.

I went and got a roll of tape out of my bag, and tossed it to her lab partner.

Me: Here you go. And while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and use that to tape her mouth shut too?

Grandma take me home

I have a friend who is renovating his house. He's had a contractor doing most of the work(painting, putting in new carpet, new hardwood floor in the living room, etc.), but wanted to do some of the easier things himself. He's replacing all the light switches, outlet boxes, phone and cable jacks, which is all pretty easy to do, just time consuming, so one of my other friends and I went out to help him for a few hours.

Once we got to a good stopping point he suggested we go out to dinner and then he'd show us around the neighborhood. At dinner, my friend asked if there were any hot MILFs in the neighborhood. He said, well, there's a little bar just around the corner that I'm sure would be full of hot MILFs for you. We'll stop by there after dinner.

We walked in, and he said, "Welcome to the MILF bar."

My other friend and I looked around, and there wasn't a single patron under the age of fifty.

I said, "I'm not sure this is a MILF bar. It's more like a GILF bar, because they're all grandmas. But, the 'L' doesn't really apply, because I wouldn't like to."

He replied, "Well then, perhaps we should call it the GIRNF* bar instead."









*GIRNF - Granny I'd Rather Not Fuck

There's an ember in the rafters and it's going to burn the whole thing down

Has it really been a year and a half since our last bonfire at the dry lake bed? Well, not anymore. We fixed that this weekend.

My friend and I were hanging out at a bar beforehand, and one of the servers asked us if we wanted to stick around after her shift so she could hang out with us. We told her we couldn't, because we were going to have a bonfire in the desert. She asked, "A bonfire? How old are you guys again?"

It doesn't matter how old you are. There's always a good time to be had when there's a bonfire involved.

A few highlights of the evening:

Someone tied glow sticks onto their shoes and took off running across the lake bed. I'll admit, it was kind of cool to see green lights bobbing up and down out in the darkness. It was even better when someone else ran out there and tackled the first person, what with the lights flying up in the air and all.

Okay, so maybe that was a little juvenile. Whatevs.

At one point someone started talking about a documentary they had seen about people who have sex with horses. Why anyone would watch such a documentary is beyond me, but even if I did watch, I'd keep it to myself.

One couple brought a some bags of beef jerky, and a bag of pup-peroni for their dog. I got the bags confused at least three different times. Luckily, the texture was different, so I didn't end up eating any doggie snacks.

Probably the funniest part of the night came when a girl told me, at knifepoint, to "get on the fucking car" so she could have her way with me. She didn't though. I don't know whether I should feel relieved, or extremely disappointed by that.

Eventually, the wind started blowing sand all over the place. Not to exaggerate at all, but it was basically just like the sand storm from The Mummy. My friend and I left at that point. It was probably for the best since i didn't crawl into bed and fall asleep until about 4 a.m. I was hoping to sleep in, but then I got a missed call from Tortellini around 7:45. My phone kept buzzing until I acknowledged that, so I called back to see what she wanted. She wanted to know if Grandma had a recipe for ginger spice cookies. Being the great father that I am I said, "I don't know. Don't you think you should call and ask Grandma instead?"

No word as to whether or not she got the recipe.

So hot, so cold

Girl Who Won't Be My Girlfriend: You're hot as a biologist.

Me: As a biologist?

GWWBMG: And you're hot as a Ph. D.

Me: Why can't I just be hot, without the qualifiers?

GWWBMG: Because there are certain things you wouldn't be hot as. You wouldn't be hot as a waiter.


Great. I guess that means I'm biology hot.

It's midnight at the starlite diner

Restaurants where you wouldn't want to eat if they in fact existed:

- Guantanamo's Fine Dining

- Sum Yung Dong All You Can Eat Korean

- Hitler's Steakhouse

- Girls Next Door Sushi

- Pizza Face's Pizza Parlor

Three words that became hard to say: I and love and you

The other day a girl I know dropped by my building to see if she could get a form signed by my adviser, whose office is just down the hall. He wasn't in, so she sat in my office for a few minutes to see if he'd show up. One of my lab mates heard me talking, but not her, so he poked his head in to see why I was talking to myself.

She made a comment to him that made fun of me somehow (I can't remember what it was).

I looked at him and said, "[She] doesn't love me anymore."

She asked me, "Did I ever?"

I answered, "Let's see, you've met me, and you're female, so yeah."

Now that I'm saved I wish I was damned

The other day one of my friends came into my office to get my take on an idea she's thinking about incorporating into her dissertation. It's funny that she would do that, considering that I'm retarded, and she knows that.

After I told her I thought her idea was interesting, and doable, and that her adviser would probably like it, she started playing around with some of the figures I have on my desk. In doing so, she knocked Pencil Top Jesus down on His face. Then she turned around to walk out of the room.

"Wait. You're just going to knock Jesus over and leave Him lying there like that?"

"I'm a Jew. It's what we do."

You'll be happy to know that Pencil Top Jesus has risen* again, and now presides over my office.



But He needs to look over His shoulder, because the devil has taken the form of a duck, and seems to be gaining power.







*Not THAT way.

Holdin' hands in the rain s-sayin' words like "I love ya', d-d-do you love me?"

Here's a new music compilation for your listening pleasure.

Just Gotta Be Brave Enough (click to download the zip file)
1. Wicked Blood - Sea Wolf
2. You And I - Wilco
3. Painting By Chagall - The Weepies
4. On The Wing - Owl City
5. Be Here - Red Shepherd
6. My Timing Is Off - Eels
7. Tell Me Something I Don't Know - The Thrills
8. Kick Drum Heart - The Avett Brothers
9. Ether - Verbana
10. Lasso - Phoenix
11. Good Ol' Boredom - Built To Spill

Take the ride as far as anyone can go

It's official. My car is hella evil:

Hindsight's given me too much memory

Eight years ago today, at approximately 3:30 a.m.

"Where have you been? I'm going to be late for work."

"Well, I made it back in time, so don't worry about it. Go to work."

"Where were you?"

"With my cousin."

"Until three in the morning? Doing what?"

"I don't know, just hanging out with him and his friends. They're more fun than you."

"You need to stop doing this. You know I can't just leave the kids and go to work on the assumption that you'll be back."

"I think you need to move out."

"What?"

"It's over."

And I get lonely, but I ain't that lonely yet

I got a spam email the other day from a "woman" who is apparently looking for love:

Hello
How are you today? I hope you are fine.My name is Anna Luck,26 years I am single girl looking for honest and nice person. Somebody who i can partner with .I don't care about your colour or ethnicity.I would like to know you more,most especially what you like and what you dislike.I'm sending you this beautiful mail, with a wish for much happiness.I am looking forward to hear from you,
Love from,
Anna

I'm going to go ahead and not reply, and she's going to have to continue "looking forward to hear" from me.

Too much never seen

Me: Not it.

Friend: Not it? On who?

Me: That girl over there.

Friend: Really? I didn't get a good look, but I didn't think she was not-it-able.

Me: Nevermind. I take it back. I just got another look, and while she's not super cute, she's not terribly ugly either.

Friend: Whatever. You'd totally do her.

Me: Yeah. In fact, why don't you go over there and tell her that? My friend over there takes it back: He'd totally do you.

Adjectives on the typewriter, he moves his words like a prize fighter

I'm slowly but surely revising my dissertation according to comments given to me by my committee members. Four of the five had very little to say about it, but one had a lot of suggested changes. A lot of suggested changes. Some of them were helpful (very few), and others not so much (most), but he refused to sign off on the manuscript, so they're not exactly "suggestions" at this point since I have to go show him that I've made them all before I can his signature and actually graduate.

Since I'm a procrastinator and all, sometimes I like to do things that aren't exactly work, but make me feel as though I've done something productive with my time. A few days after I defended, before I really wanted to think about making the changes themselves, I went through the marked up copies of my dissertation and added all the suggestions from my committee to the electronic document using the 'Track Changes' function in Word. At the end of each comment I put the last name of the committee member who'd made it, so that when I went through to deal with them all, I'd know who to ask if I was confused about what they meant. Since some of the one committee member's many, many comments were not useful (dare I say stupid?), I found myself getting a little annoyed as I added his comments to the electronic file.

A few times I noticed that I'd typed his last name beginning with a lowercase letter. I started to go fix it, but then, in an act of childish behavior, I decided to leave it. I know, right? That sure showed him.

Anyway, he got the last laugh without even knowing it. The reason? As I have been dealing with each of these comments in the revised manuscript, I delete each one. The problem? Each one of the comments where I failed to capitalize his last name now requires an extra step, because I have to acknowledge the grammatical error before Word will allow me to delete the comment. The lesson? Some people are just here to make life difficult for others, even when they're not even trying. That, or that childish behavior doesn't usually give the desired result.

Here he comes again, my evil twin

I dressed up as Bill Clinton for Halloween. Alas, I didn't have someone with me dressed as Monica, but I did buy some cigars and rented a pretty cool saxophone to complete the outfit. The costume was a smashing success judging by the number of people who commented.

I went with a few friends to Fremont Street. We parked the car, and walked past the Greyhound bus station where all the crackheads called out to me: "Hey Bill! Tell me the truth, did you inhale?" I wanted to tell them, "No, and you shouldn't have either," but instead said, "I did just once, but don't tell anybody." The crackheads really seemed to love that. They would.

As soon as we stepped onto the pedestrian walkway, a go-go dancer spotted me, stopped dancing and called out to me. My friends told me I should have gone up and posed for a picture with her, but I didn't feel like maneuvering my way through the crowd. In hindsight, I kind of regret it, because she was hot. Oh well.

After that, my friends made me walk ahead of them so that they could watch people react to seeing me. I couldn't walk ten feet without someone calling out to me to say something. "Hey, Bill! I'd vote for you again right now if I could." "Bill, where's Monica?" But perhaps my favorite was when someone came up to Girl Who Won't Be My Girlfriend and said, "We know he didn't inhale, but did you swallow?" I guess it didn't matter that she wasn't dressed up as Monica, she got to be my Monica anyway.

It was a small taste of what it'd probably be like to be a celebrity. I probably had thirty people ask me to pose for pictures with them. One guy asked if I'd take a picture with his wife, but then asked if "I could put a little something on her blue collar." I posed for a picture with another guy only to look down after his friend snapped the shot to see that a girl had snuck into the frame and acted like she was performing oral on me. Another time I started to walk off after posing for a picture with one lady, but she grabbed my arm and asked for another one, and added "Only this time, could you place the cigar 'down there?'" Shortly after that I accidentally broke my cigar in half. Girl Who Won't Be My Girlfriend didn't have much sympathy: "That's what you get for being disgusting."

I posed for a picture with a religious guy who was holding a sign that read "Sexual sin leads to Satan." His wasn't meant to be a costume, but he seemed to appreciate the humor.

Another guy was holding a sign with questions written on it, and asked me if I wanted to take an IQ test. I agreed to, so he asked me to read the questions and then answer them.

Q1: How many of each animal did Moses have on the ark?
My Answer: Two.
His Answer: Wrong. Moses didn't take any animals on the ark, it was Noah.
(I decided to pay closer attention to the questions after that - After all, I couldn't allow myself to fail an IQ test.)

Him: Spell the word silk.
Me: S-i-l-k
Q2: What do cows drink?
My Answer: Water.
Him: Alright, good job.

Q3: Is it ever possible to end a sentence with the word "the"?
My Answer: Yes. You just did.
Him: Wow, good job, Bill. I'm impressed.

There were more questions than that, but I don't remember what they were. I did get them all right. He complimented me on doing so well. I said, "Well, you don't get to be president if you can't get shit like this correct."

Then he started preaching to me.

Him: Bill, have you ever lied?
Me: No. Well, there was that one time, about the whole Lewinsky thing.
Him: Have you ever stolen anything?
Me: No.
Him: Never? Not even something when you were a little kid?
Me: Nope. You don't get to be president with skeletons like that in your closet.
Him: Have you ever lusted after a woman?
Me: Alright, you got me. Five times.
Him: So by your own admission, you've broken some of God's ten commandments. Do you think you're getting into Heaven?
Me: Yeah, I do.
Him: What makes you think so?
Me: I'm Bill Clinton.

Then I walked away.

All in all, it was a fun night. I left Fremont Street early to go watch a movie at my house with Girl Who Won't Be My Girlfriend. I thought we'd watch something scary, you know, it being Halloween and all, but when we got to my house she didn't want to see the one I'd rented (Drag Me To Hell), and asked if we could look for something different on HBO On Demand. I thought there would be something like Nightmare Before Christmas, or Coraline, but there wasn't and we ended up watching Marley and Me. And that might be the scariest thing of all. According to my friend, the fact that I watched a "romantic" movie on Halloween indicates that I have a ball and chain even if neither of us admit to it.