07 April 2010

Back on March tenth, I mentioned that my wife and I went to the theater to see the film The Lovely Bones. This entirely mediocre film was required viewing for my class. We sent Owen off to his grandparents and drove into my least favorite city in the metro area. We paid for two tickets, and we sat and watched this appropriately neglected mish-mash of superfluousness.

When it came time to read the book upon which the film was based, I paid special attention to the differences; I intended to fashion my essay on this foundation. I mean, it worked well with A Raisin in the Sun: I read the play and watched the film, and I wrote my essay on a contrasting of the two media. (At least, I think it went well – I haven’t received my grade for that yet.)

Anyway, I mention all of this because the course syllabus clearly states on its April 7th entry: “The Lovely Bones: Be sure to see the film version by now.” In class today, the professor asked who had taken time and money out of the busy schedules to go see the assigned flick. Only five people raised their hand (~15%).

This was fine with me. Actually, it was great: trumping my classmates is kind of my gimmick. But then – get this – the professor announces she didn’t see the film yet. And since it’s no longer playing in any metro area theaters (and not on DVD yet), she ain’t gonna see it before the semester’s end.

So she said to just forget about the film when it came time to construct our essays. Really?

08 April 2010

From age five to, oh, age 15, there were four toys that I liked best (I’m using the term “toy” quite loosely here):

-Toy cars. You know, the Hot Wheel and Matchbox variety.I had >200 of them; including a couple little cities.

-Board Games. Card games were fine, too. I had nearly 100 board/card/dice games at one point.

-Legos. I actually wasn’t much into building “sets” (e.g., Star Wars, the Eiffel Tower), but instead preferred freestyling.

-Viewmasters. You know: like those old stereoscopes that you held up to the light.

Funny thing: I still have many of those items. I gave Owen most of my toy cars, but I kept a few for myself. I still own some of the same games (the EXACT game) from when I was a kid: Sorry, Push Over, Battleship. Clue. And I have never purposely discarded any Legos. What started in a shoe box, grew into a larger cardboard box, then expanded into five plastic bins and is now in one large, Rubbermaid bin. Owen and I take them out often, and I can still identify which Legos I had from when I was a child. I think, besides money, Legos are the one thing I’ll stop to pick up if I see one on the ground, regardless of how dirty it is.

Anyway, today I’m gonna talk about my Viewmasters.

In the beginning, I had a modest collection. My parents bought me a set of Charlie Brown, Batman, Donald Duck, Spider-man, Winnie the Pooh, and others when I was a kid. I kept them all in a bin in my closet. Just scattered about, some in envelopes, some in Zip-lock bags, some just loose.

When I was around age 12, one of my Dad’s friends said he had some old Viewmasters I could have. And he wasn’t joking: he had stuff from the 1950s! Until that day, I thought Viewmasters were all kid-themed reels, but he presented me with a reel of Mt. Vernon, another one of Shenandoah National Park, and a few others. This beefed up the collection in my dusty bin.

Shortly after getting married, my wife convinced me to throw out my viewer, which had broken years earlier. The next time we were at Target, we purchased a new viewer, and a projector. Re-energized to take care of my collection, I walked through Office Depot one afternoon and came up with a brilliant idea: I bought sleeves that were intended for floppy disks and put them in a 3-ring binder. This has worked out perfect ever since: each reel is housed in its own pocket and smaller pockets, beneath each reel, identify what’s in the adjacent reel. I printed out a cover for the binder, and, on the back, I printed out a list of all the Viewmaster reels I owned. This list also helped to clue me in to what I was missing (a few reels had gone AWOL in the intervening decades).

My idea was so brilliant, my wife’s grandmother asked me to similarly sort her ample collection of reels – giving me, as payment, I suppose, the option to take any duplicates I found. This further enhanced my collection.

Later, in an effort to get my antsy son to lay his head on the pillow, I began showing him Viewmasters – some over 50 years old – projected onto the ceiling. For over four years now, we occasionally polish off the day by spinning a few reels.

Today I received a Viewmaster reel in the mail: a Mighty Mouse reel arrived, via eBay, completing a set that had lied incomplete since the 1980s. This is a good thing.

The bad thing? My book is full…and they’re not exactly selling floppy disk holders on every corner anymore.

05 April 2010

I left Cub Foods empty-handed today, despite two attempts to make a purchase.

I’m not entirely sure why I visited their University Avenue location. It’s surely the trashiest Cub I’ve ever had the displeasure of patronizing. I mean, I knew I had stop and buy cat food on the way home, but I should’ve stopped at the Maple Grove location, near my job, which offers at least a modicum of customer service.

Anyways, after grabbing the bag of cat food, I went to the self-checkout counter. After scanning the item, I selected “I have my own bag,” and then pressed the appropriate button to pay. However, the computer kept insisting there was an unknown item on the bagging area. There wasn’t, but I couldn’t get the computer to allow me to pay. So I walked away and went to an express lane.

There was one man ahead of me in the express lane (whom we’ll call “Hobo”) and, once the cashier finished scanning his items, she walked away from the register. I watched her walk away towards the customer service counter, but I was unsure what she was doing. I contemplated going to a different lane, but there were, by this time, two customers behind me, so I couldn’t get out.

After two minutes, I asked Hobo if he knew where the cashier had gone. “Yeah,” he said, “she went to get me some cigarettes.” Another minute went by, and the cashier returned, had a brief exchange with Hobo regarding the availability of his desired cigarettes, and then she walked away again. I turned around and saw the two people behind me were getting agitated, too. They were talking to each other, confused as to what was taking so long, and why the cashier had left her station. It seems to me that the cashier should have instructed the man to venture over to the cigarette counter following his food purchase to obtain the cigarettes himself. If you’re going to smoke, the least you can do is walk over (while you still can) and buy your own goddam death sticks.

I left my item on the belt, scooted out around Hobo’s cart, and exited that Cub. I went across the street to their competitor and purchased the item there.

Later, Owen and I went out to Ray’s Mediterranean Restaurant. I have only visited this place one other time, over a year ago, where I ordered take-out and brought home a scrumptious meal to my family. I really should go there more often. The lone employee working, co-owner and wife of the the other co-owner, was very friendly to Owen and me. She helped me pick out food that the whole family would enjoy and actually had an intelligent, thoughtful conversation with both of us – while preparing our meal. I told her we had recently tried to visit Hot City Pizza (see my March 9th rant for details), but left due to their unkind disposition. She agreed that they were not nice people, adding that “they think they know how to make pizza, but they do not.” She then explained that, having lived in New York for 15 years, and having been raised on the Mediterranean, she knows how to make pizza.

I’m not sure why I didn’t notice this before, but she’s right: all the best food comes from countries on the Mediterranean: Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Israel, Egypt, Morocco… Ah, the tastebuds long for more.

06 April 2010

So, my wife has been complaining about her glut of homework lately. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but her homework levels are really ridiculous. (Incidentally, I have misgivings about assigning students to read more chapters out of a book than can reasonably be discussed in the next class period.) Last week was spring-break, right? – and Jennifer still had a bunch of work to do. She seems to have piles of work; her teachers assign her multiple projects at once.

One assignment was to select a contemporary artist and write about their life. So my wife picked one and then notified the teacher as to which one she was selecting. I guess the reason for this is because the teacher didn’t want any student to select the same artist as any other student (I didn’t say it was a good reason). This paper wasn’t due until this week, so my wife kept postponing it until it finally reached the top of the priority pile. But then she realized the artist she selected has almost no available biographical information from whence to glean a paper. And this is by design: the artist claims she doesn’t want the attention (um…then don’t sell your artwork) and goes out of her way to avoid dispensing personal information.

Wow…a pretentious artist. That’s so original.

Of course, not having anything to say about this woman, and not even sure she liked this artist anymore, my wife decided it was best to switch to another artist. The problem is, to do that, she’d have to notify her teacher, and that would be an implicit confession that she hadn’t been working on the paper for the last few weeks.

So, she talked to her teacher today, and was thus given permission to switch to a less-jackass artist. Of course, he teacher was surprised that she was only coming to her now, mere days before the assigned due date, to seek an alternative. I asked Jennifer if she explained that she’d had a lot of homework and other things going on in her life, but Jennifer said: “No, it doesn’t matter anyways, they all act as if their class is the only class you’re taking.” At St. Kate’s, at least, this appears to be true.

Catholics. Go figure.

02 April 2010

TodayI received an email from one of the administrators of this site: MinnPost. He asked if I wanted to contribute to their blog site.  I haven’t responded yet.

I’m not sure exactly what this is…is it just a site that harvests news and blogs from other sites, thereby enhancing their own with little effort? And if it is just a site that collects data from elsewhere, than what’s the point? Why do they exist?

In other news, though: I have decided to speak at the Maple Grove Crticial Thinkers’ Club regarding having been a Jehovah’s Witness. The date selected for this is September 11th, which is so far off right now as to not even merit it a place on my priority list right now.

03 April 2010

Today is my wife’s birthday.

The bulk of the day was spent doing homework (she) and cleaning the house (me).  We went to Buca for dinner this evening, and met our friends (Jeremy and Charlie) there. This is a near-duplicate of last year’s birthday: same resataurant, same group of people. A few days ago, I asked Jennifer what she wanted to do for her birthday, and she said last year’s birthday was her favorite, so I decided to pretty much just repeat that. I know that’s usually a recipe for disappointment (e.g., sequels), but I think it worked out this time. Afterwards, Jeremy and Charlie came over to our place. It’s funny, Owen seems to enjoy having other adults over to our house as much as we do, and he continually tries to engage them in various activities. Charlie had to play Sorry with Owen, for example.

Jennifer’s birthday signals the beginning of the celebrations at our house: In a little over a month will be Owen’s birthday. Mine will follow in mid-June. In August, it’s our wedding anniversary. There’s no celebrations in July, so hopefully child #2 will arrive before August 1st and fill the void for us.

04 April 2010

So…Easter…yeah. Big deal.

Actually, Easter 2007 was fun. Jennifer’s whole family gathered for brunch at a restuarant. Then we went to Jennifer’s parents’ house and just sort of hung out there all day. There was even an Easter egg hunt!

But the next two years…it was kind of a let down. In 2008, Easter was too early in the year, so it was cold and we were just kind of cooped up at Jennifer’s Uncle and Aunt’s house that day, like a lesser version of Christmas.

Anyway, this year we met my sister and her husband for brunch at a restaurant in Eagan. The waitress was kind enough to not charge us for Owen, which was cool ’cause then it made it easy to split the bill in half and, also, Owen hasn’t yet learned to stuff himself when at a buffet, so we wouldn’t have gotten our money’s worth for his food.

Afterward, they came over to our house, whereupon my sister wanted to update her iPod (she does not own a computer, so she always wants to update her iPod when we get together), and Owen convinced his Uncle to play a round of Sorry. They gave Owen an Easter basket, and he adopted one of the toys in there for his robot collection, which is pretty much the highest praise he can give a toy.

31 March 2010

Today, we first tried to visit Fort Snelling State Park and go for a walk there. Alas, it was closed due to high water. So we next went to Crosby Farm Regional Park. Guess what? Also closed. But since the trails at Crosby are right by the entrance, we figured, hey, why not? Let’s go for a walk…

So, we parked the car outside the park, then walked right past the sign warning us of dangerously high water. Oh no! High water! If we don’t stop walking, we might…you know…get our shoes wet…aaahhhh!

We went for a little walk, but, wow, that water was high.

Here, we see Owen ~6 feet from the water’s edge. Normally, the River is so far away from this point that it is not even visible from here; we normally would have to wind around this trail for ~1,000 feet before cutting over, through some trees, down a small hill and then to the shore.

The water was so high that some of the interpretive signs were half-submerged; you can see one such sign in the above photo.

There was an entire pond in the middle of the clearing where normally there isn’t any water at all. A pair of ducks were swimming in this ephemeral pond, alternately paddling and diving. Yes, actually diving under the water to look for food: that’s how much water there was.

01 April 2010

Today I had another one of my clandestine, covert meetups with a Witness in hiding. I feel bad that this friend of mine knows the religion is false, yet is worried/nervous to leave for fear of upsetting their friends. It’s amazing how many people go through all the motions of being a Witness and don’t actually believe it.

Anyway, this person met up with me for lunch today to discuss their recent visit to the Kingdom Hall (=Witnesses church). Tuesday was the Memorial (=Witness Passover), and if you don’t wish to raise any red flags (sorry for the lame cliche’), then you better get yourself to the Memorial. Since it’s the only thing Witnesses ‘celebrate,’ everyone views it as their sacred duty to attend. In fact, my family all attended one year despite the fact that, moments before leaving the house, my sister burned her hand on the curling iron. She sat on the floor of the Kingdom Hall with her hand in a cup of cold water during the Memorial.

Rightly so, then, this individual figured they’d better show up at this year’s Memorial to avoid a visit from the elders, who would surely know something was wrong. It’s kind of a worst-of-both-worlds scenario, as this person is managing to maintain their relationships with their Witness friends, whilst simultaneously knowing such friendships will surely end should any of them find out. Likewise, they are free to do normal human activities, but risk getting ‘caught’ by the elders. Tough situation.

I hope we have lunch again soon.