Things that make my head hurt #1

The publicist for Norman Mailer recently said of Kurt Vonnegut that he was

“the American Mark Twain.”

So who would be the British Shakespeare?

Sigh…

How many times?

After taking a break from blogging for a few months (2 1/2, but who’s counting?) I am once again feeling the mojo to rejoin the blogosphere and start blogging again.

To say I’ve had blogstipation would be a cheap cop-out… so instead I’ll say that the inspiration to write again has struck and I have found my muse.

Also, the issues in my life that led to the, well we'll call it a sabbatical for now, have slowly evaporated, and I find myself feeling good… looking good… and doing good…

Besides, there’s a lot of stuff to talk about…

My "confirmed bachelor" brother gets married this Friday in downtown Chicago... and I am the Best Man for said wedding and The PB & The J are the flower girls...

I am having a male-oriented "pro-ce-dure" in December...

HoneyMustard and I have decided, due to her PCOS & diabetes, we are done having children but are indeed looking into adoption...

The family in-laws are heading to Disney World after Christmas… All. 18. Of. Us. (eep)

The PB & The J are enjoying school, dance and gymnastics and are as full of life as ever...

The PB is being weaned off her seizure medication and will have a 3-day test in December to see if she has grown out of her seizure disorder...

So I am looking forward to regaling you with tales of whimsy, fun, drama, horror, opinion... in short; life.

I am in the process of re-designing the ol' blog, and it's a mighty task... so bear with me.

Returning in five... four... three... two...

“… good things don't end with 'eum,' they end with 'mania' or 'teria.’”

Or they simply end…

Here comes the smackdown

Tonight is my fantasy football draft with a plethora of my blogmigos from around the Blogospehere… we call our league; The Blogpound (sense a theme here?)

Below, in our league’s draft order, are the poor souls whose money I will be collecting after the season… (yes, I stole the links from Sarah):

Kaiser

Child’s Play x2

MetroDad

LA Daddy

ME (AKA; 2007 Blogpound Champion)

Marginally Clever

Bump

CroutonBoy

Queen of Spain

BIYF

More Diapers

Sarah & the Goon Squad

GAME ON!

Is it a bad sign...

...when you find yourself singing the songs from "High School Musical 2" and your kids are nowhere around???

Guilty-feeling Inquiring minds want to know...

Um, ok...

We took The Peanut Butter & The Jelly out for dinner last night and as we’re sitting down at the table The J says; ‘I need a beer.’

She meant root beer, but still...

'Blogfather'ing Alert!

Hey, I've got a post up at The Blogfathers today, why don't you go check it out? It's a moral imperative...

eep

Woman Has Rare Identical Quadruplets

Here my wife and I were, thinking that having two that are identical was (is) hard and this brave woman goes and has four babies that are identical.

She wins.

Regression

I have a temper… always have. I could easily chalk it up to my Spanish heritage and the infamous Spanish-temper… but that’s a cop-out.

I have never struck anyone in anger… not my wife or kids, nor my friends and family. My temper is not like that, it manifests itself in a much more childish manner…

A blow-up.

My temper is the precise reason I took up Tai Chi and meditation in college… because my temper had gotten the better of me one too many times and I needed to, for lack of a better term, channel it.

And it worked… granted, I still get upset (who doesn’t)… but I don’t have the blow-ups that I used to.

Until yesterday.

I had an adjunct faculty meeting last night and when I got home I noticed right away that Honey Mustard was upset… no details here, just that she was upset and it involved a couple of my in-laws.

I ended up calling the in-laws myself and had an abrupt conversation that ended in me throwing the cord-less phone across the room and slamming the door.

No one witnessed this, The PB & The J who were playing downstairs and HoMu was putting the dog out… it was just me being incredibly stupid and childish. And now I feel ashamed, upset disappointed that I lost my cool and blew up and thought that ‘airing it out’ on the blog would help.

It’s not…

A Sign of Things to Come

“The female of the species is more deadly than the male.” - Rudyard Kipling

Oh you have no idea Rudyard… you have no idea…

This past weekend, Honey Mustard and I took The Peanut Butter & The Jelly to the Illinois State Fair in Springfield to see Corbin Blue/Drake Bell in concert.

Who’s Corbin Bleu you ask?

He’s one of the stars of the evil empire’s Disney’s “High School Musical,” he also starred in The PB’s favorite movie; “Jump In.”

There were approximately 7300 people at the concert, with the breakdown something like this:

• Girls anywhere from ages 3-17; 6899


• Boys anywhere from ages 3-17; 100


• Mothers/grandmothers/etc; 291


• Fathers/grandfathers/etc; 10

Ok, there were probably more than 10 men there, but not a whole-lot more… I was definitely outnumbered and realize I could have been trampled and overpowered at any given moment, but that is part of being a good father. And when The PB & The J told me that I was the best Daddy in the world for taking them to the concert... well, my heart was bursting with pride and joy.

When the first act, Jordan Pruitt, came out the audience response was a succinct; meh.

When Drake Bell (of Nickelodeon’s Drake & Josh) came out… the audience roared with approval.

When Corbin came out, all I heard was the squealing of thousands of girls… something along the lines of "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"

That was immediately followed by a semi-constant ringing in my ears that went away… well, it really hasn’t yet…

The PB & The J enjoyed themselves immensely… and were dancing and singing with all the other girls in attendance.

The PB & The J are five… and we saw plenty of other girls around the same age… with their High School Musical or “I heart Corbin” t-shirts on… teeny-bopping around, screaming, and generally acting like a concert-goer.

But seeing all of this – seeing the throngs of girls in a tizzy ready to rip the eyes out of any other girl that made eyes at Corbin – made me realize one thing;

I am oh-so-screwed…

It’s gonna be me… HoMu… and The PB & The J… no other males in the house…

Me… and three females…

Pray for me…

In all seriousness though; Bell wasn’t bad. His musical influences are The Beatles, and you can definitely hear it in his music and also in his fashion with his publicty photo on the state fair’s website looking very early-Beatlesesque;

As far as Corbin goes, he’s been working out since “High School Musical.” Midway through his show he removed his shirt to reveal a tank top with a glittery peace sign, and his muscles were a’bulging with more than a few of the mother’s oooing and aahing… never mind the fact that he’s only 20…

And one other question; when the HELL did concert t-shirts get so ridiculously expensive? $30, are you kidding me?

Best Greeting Card Ever

Friday was Honey Mustard's birthday, and yesterday I threw a 35th b-day bash for her (more on that later).

The card my brother gave her is one of the most clever cards I've ever seen... even though it took a potshot at me.

[front] "Sister-in-law; I thought about getting you one of those gag gifts for your birthday...

[inside]: ...but you already have my brother."

Ouch

Headlines that give me hope for humankind:

Critics bash new 'Caveman' show

Wow... I never saw that coming... (he said with sarcasm oozing out of him...)

A sad and pathetic threat*

Kemp’s Note: I know I haven’t posted anything political here since I started TBWA, but this story just pissed me off so much, I had to take any soapbox I could get to let my anger known. Here ya go…


As I mentioned briefly in this morning’s “’BushWhack’ing”, there is a bi-partisan effort underway in the Senate to renew a program that provides health insurance to poor children, and they’ve reached a compromise that would expand the program by $35 billion over five years, an increase agreed to by both Democrats and republicans.

The program currently insures 6.6 million low income children from families that do not qualify for Medicaid, but are still too poor to afford private insurance coverage, and under the Senate’s expansion plan, an additional 3.3 million children would be covered under the program that was developed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and republican Sens. Charles Grassley (r-IA) and Orrin Hatch (r-UT), among others…. and they plan to pay for this with a scant $0.61 increase on the federal excise tax on cigarettes.

“President” Bush opposes both.

Now I could give a rats-ass as to the cigarette tax… but the one that really frosts my preserves is his opposition to insuring more children whose only strike against them is being born into a poor family.

This isn’t a partisan issue, as republicans have tried pleading with Bush to compromise with Democrats on the legislation and he’s ignored them (and he wonders why no one likes him and why no gop candidates want their picture with him… it’s because he’s a train wreck that’s turning into a disaster who only cares about his beliefs and no one else’s, but I’m getting off-topic)

And no, he doesn’t have a better solution in mind; he wants to kill the expansion because… well, let’s let him speak for himself;

“My concern is that when you expand eligibility . . . you're really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government.”

You read that right… he’s essentially saying that he cares more about private insurance companies than he does about children's health, (which seems, to me, to exemplify how he and other republicans don't care about children once they are outside the womb or outside the Petri dish)

Bush went on and said that he objects to the proposal based on “philosophical grounds”…

‘Philosophical grounds????’ Whose philosophical grounds; insurance and healthcare companies?? Or more specifically, insurance and healthcare company’s political gop contributions???

And what’s more, his comments seem to imply that he wants private insurance only… now I could get into the whole socialized medicine universal health care spiel, but after reading this, I’m just too frustrated to do it.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), the House Democratic Caucus chairman, said that he’s “bewildered” that Bush would be fighting an expansion in funding for a program that is not only supported by Democrats, but republicans as well. Said Mr. Emanuel;

“This is the chance for him to finally be a uniter and not a divider. You have consensus across party and ideology, and a unity on the most important domestic issue, health care -- except for one person.”

Bush’s ignorance here is unnerving… this isn’t a program to increase handing out condoms in schools or to teach evolution, two things that cause conservative’s skin to crawl… it’s ensuring that children who can not fend for themselves and have been born into situations that they are not able to control or change have health coverage…

I mean… shouldn’t it be a necessity to ensure that children (who are, as trite as it may sound, our future) are healthy?

Billions and billions of dollars for Iraq… but let’s screw poor kids.

The man is a tool… and I hope Bush can explain to the sick and dying kids what his "philosophical" reasons are for letting them suffer… and I won’t even bring-up his pre-presidential pledge to be a “compassionate conservative” because he obviously only understands the definition of one of those words.

Your guess as to which one I’m inferring to…

*cross-posted at The BushWhacked Administration

Glorious Self-Promotion Post

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEMP!!!!

Hi everyone, it's Honey Mustard... wanted to give a blogosphere shout-out to hubby, to one of the most intelligent, creative and thought-provoking bloggers in the blogosphere...

at least that's what he wrote down for me...

He's 34 today, so if you have a chance, come wish him a Happy Cyber-Birthday.

Happy 4th of July!! Have some Hendrix

What better way is there to wish everyone a happy and safe July 4th then by showing this...

Maybe we can hire Bob the Builder

Well… apparently Honey Mustard and I are gluttons for punishment.

First, we made an offer on a lovely house…

Second, we rescinded said offer after the home inspector said the house was a ‘fire waiting to happen’ and was… well, I can’t really say any more as I’ve suppressed those memories…

Third we thought about adding on to our house. Uh… no…

Fourth, and current, we have purchased a lot… a lot in which we will build a house.

We are going to build… a… house…

Bui— Oh my God…what the hell are we thinking?

Didn’t we see “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House”???? Or “The Money Pit”? Or “Drömkåken”????

Didn’t we see Ice Cube’s “Are we Done Yet?”? (wait, that’s right; no one saw that movie…)*

Oh my God… building a house?

...

...

Is it possible to hyperventilate in the blogosphere?


*BTW, I’m ignoring the fact that all of these movies are all in some way remakes of ‘Mr. Blandings…’

Quick post from Oklahoma...

So Julie was driving the last 2 hours of our trip to Oklahoma yesterday afternoon when it starts to get really, really dark.

I’s about 88 degrees… then, suddenly the temperature drops to 70…

And then I see this dropping out of the sky to our right…

Have car, will travel

At first I was supposed to go out to L.A. on business…

Then that changed to Boston on business…

Then that got cancelled altogether and now I’m going to Norman, Oklahoma…

From LA to Boston to Norman… that’s a rather strange progression isn’t it?

One of my cousins got married recently and they are having a reception on Saturday. And seeing as how this is one of only two cousins on my Mom’s side, Honey Mustard, The Peanut Butter, The Jelly and I – along with my parents, my brother and his fiancée – are making the trek down.

Twelve hours in a car with two 5-year olds…

Oh. My. God.

Sure, we’ll have the dual DVD player… and The PB & The J will have their Gameboys (which, quite frankly, they don’t really like)… and they’ll have enough books that they would be able to take over for the Library of Congress… and coloring books. But even with all those diversions, it’s still going to be a bumpy ride so to speak.

Why? Well, save for a short portion through the Ozarks, the states of Illinois, Missouri and Oklahoma are pretty damn flat…

For those of you in New York or Virginia or California or Florida who have never driven through those states, it looks something like this:




Okay, maybe not that bad, but you get the idea.

So… I’ll be back Tuesday with tales to regale about a trip that, while shorter than last year’s jaunt to Washington DC, will surely be…

Be…

...

... well... how about we just say ‘interesting’ at this point at leave it at that?

Oh... and a prize to whomever can accurately guess what the total expenditure of gas on this trip will be while driving a Ford Explorer.

Happy Father's Day!!

To all my fellow dads out there Happy Father's Day.

And to my own dad, Happy Fathers Day, I love you and truly appreciate everything you've ever done for me in my life. Thank you.

I am part of a special collaborative post over at The Blogfather's today about our thoughts on being a father, go check it out with this handy, dandy link.