Laid-Off Dad

Suburban dissed

So did you see Melissa on the Today show on Friday? As luck would have it, I was home on Friday (tending to two boys who were setting new benchmarks in gastric turbulence), so I turned on the TV at around 7:30. From the moment they started with the teasers, you knew right away how they wanted to frame the discussion. And that Melissa was screwed.

• In one teaser, a talking head said "women who have cocktails during playdates" with the same disdainful incredulity you might use to say "women who pick scabs off their dogs and eat them."
• Meredith Vieira begins the piece: "Whether you call it 'tots and tonic,' 'cocktails and chaos,' or 'booze and babies'...." Funny. I've never called it any of those things. Nor would anyone with an attached brain stem.
• "And it's got everyone buzzing." I'm not buzzing. Doesn't "everyone" include me?
• Lots of b-roll of clinking wine glasses, unfocused shots (it's DrunkVision!), and kids sitting precariously close to open wine bottles.
• Here to personify our indignance is Dr. Elegant Pantsuit, a credentialed professional and mother of four. And here to champion drunk, depressed, inept parents is ... a blogger.
• They seated Melissa on the outside, so that when the time came to sandbag her about drinking baby sitters, Meredith and Dr. Pantsuit could fix her with j'accusing looks.

I can't believe Melissa would have agreed to be on the show if the producers had been entirely truthful about the tone of the piece. Yet she held her own as well as she could in the face of this stacked deck (although she may have lost the room with the "sell my son on eBay" joke). But in the end they flew her in to be a pinata on national TV, in yet another ham-fisted attempt to wedge a complex discussion into four minutes of pap. (That fourth hour is going to be just magical.)

A few years ago, I had the singularly unpleasant experience of participating in a blog called Opinionated Parenting, in which a mom and I "discussed" differing beliefs on several parenting issues. Most of our views weren't all that different, yet the Oxygen people told us to select the most polarizing topics and have at each other, for entertainment's sake. The result was a bunch of obnoxious screeds that no one read and that rightfully died as soon as our contracts ran out (which was several weeks too long). It remains the most regrettable experience of my blogging life, and if I hadn't needed the money to pay for Robert's first year of preschool, I couldn't think on the experience without gouging my eyes with a spork.

And fwiw: Over the weekend I brought the boys to my sister's house for a playdate with their cousin, and over the course of eight (8) hours I had two (2) beers. It's a wonder no one was crippled.

What are the lessons here?

• You can't trust big media. They need to stir up trouble and then cover it in order to feed the content machine.
• If you're a male care-giver, you get a free pass. 'Cause all men can handle their liquor, and all women should be Mary Poppins.
• If you feel the need to judge other people, or marriages, or parents, don't.

I sing the body emetic

Earlier this week, TwoBert an important First. Sure, parents make a big fuss over a child's First words and First steps, but to me one of the most important Firsts a toddler can experience is the First Projectile Vomit. TwoBert's problem came on rather suddenly. He was walking around and on and under things, as usual, when his eyes suddenly bulged wide and barf starting pouring out of him. It has to be a transformative feeling to watch your innards eject themselves uncontrollably for the first time, as if you've got some kind of gastric ebola virus. At least now he knows he can live through it and, flush with a new respect for his recuperative powers, happily nibble grilled cheeses and fart out the last throes.

It's just me and the boys this weekend, and today we had plans to head out to Nana and Granddad's for some quality dirt-digging. But last night, after dinner, I came home to find that it was Robert's turn to hork up a lung. And when morning broke with temps in the teens, it became apparent that we'd spend the day as stomach-buggered shut-ins. They're both wandering around a bit wan and glassy-eyed, like little zombies. Except they're not zombies, because zombies eat brains, and these boys can't touch a thing.

At least I haven't spent much time doing dishes.

Hip-deep in snow, where the columbines grow

I first got up on skis at 16, when some friends and I took a day trip to Hunter Mountain. Most of them had started skiing before they could read, and as I lumbered to my first lift ride they very kindly offered their seasoned advice: When you're on skis for the first time, the best thing to do is ride up to the top of the mountain, pick a slope at random, launch yourself headlong with a barbaric yawp, and work out the kinks on the way down. Needless to say, I took a lot of that mountain home with me in my rented ski pants.

It is somehow comforting that, 25 years later, the world hasn't changed all that much.

The venue was Beaver Creek, where a bunch of us gathered (in a five-story condo that could easily hold 20 people, 40 close friends, or about 100 orgiasts) to celebrate my friend Dave's 40th birthday. I'm absolutely ecstatic to report that the sonofabitch hasn't aged at all since I knew him in college, half his life ago. (I would say I look more like his dad, except his dad is a hale-and-hearty 70-something who spent much of the day literally skiing rings around me.)

After I got geared up, I spent the first hour or so regaining my ski legs, coasting along on the greens, and I felt pretty good. After a clean run down a blue, I was bemused by the simplicity of this sport. Was it time to hit one of those black diamonds? Should I try Ripsaw? Micronizer? Pelvis-B-Gone?

I was cruising along pretty well with the pack until the leaders zagged over past a sign that said “Harrier.” Now we’re talking, I thought … until the earth fell away sharply, and my aspirations (and ass) fell to earth. The comedy was high-flying and relentless as I flailed and careened and slid to the next plateau. This was a necessary preparation, I was told, because the only way to get to our lunch venue was to ski down a similar slope (and be sure not to miss that incredibly abrupt right turn – if you can read the sign, you’ve missed it). Faced with a compelling ski-or-starve imperative, I set forth. And after about half an hour of twisting my body into balloon animals, that hot cider tasted awfully goddamn good.

I now understand why people head out to Colorado for a little fun and end up staying forever. The state has so much to offer: impossible beauty, delicious elk stew, and drug stores that very smartly keep the pain relievers right up front by the registers, for easiest access. (Investors' note: any Wyeth shareholders might want to prepare for a little spike in the stock price, as I intend to be sucking down Advils for the next several weeks.) We had a blast, and there's talk of returning over Presidents' Weekend -- which is just about when my quads should stop burning.

And now that I'm back in Manhattan, I have two things to report:

• While I was gone, TwoBert learned from his brother how to jam your palm against the bathtub spigot and spray water on every possible surface, horizontal or otherwise. During tonight's bath, I could have stayed drier if I'd gotten in with them.
• On Tuesday night, I'll be here attending this. If you're within reach of the Upper East Side, please come by and say hello. I'll be the one popping Liqui-Gels and gimping around like Fred Sanford.

My cheatin' heart

After about a week, I’ve decided to take down the Body Count graphic because the mouse activity is at an ebb. Plus, it wasn’t even accurate; it should really have read “1.5.” We killed one of the little critters in a trap baited with peanut butter and raw bacon (which smelled amazing, btw – you hear that, Ben and/or Jerry?), but another set off a trap and was only grazed. As it struggled to its feet I stood over it with typical, new-sheriff-in-town menace. “Tell your friends down the hole what you just saw,” I bellowed evenly as it limped behind the desk. I’ve envisioned it staggering back to its hideout, dazed and breathless, like Latrine in “Top Secret!” We haven’t seen a mouse since.

It also helps that Methuselah finally came by to fix our floor, and I must say he outdid himself. I expected a pretty crappy job, but in this case his crapsmanship is truly breathtaking. Our floor is made of deep-brown oak, and the replacement boards are an unfinished blond pine. I can’t tell if they’re attached to the joists, but I know there’s entirely too much give when you put pressure on them. At least no one will notice as soon as we cover it with yet another random pile of kiddetritus.

None of that matters now, however, because today I’m headed out to Colorado for a weekend of skiing. To the extreme, I’m told. I’ve never skied out west before, and I hear the experience will ruin the East Coast resorts forever. Apparently, they have mountains out there, and the snow tends to linger and stay white for longer than half an hour.

I figured it makes sense to see at least some snow this winter, and New York might have intuited this and tried to make amends this morning. “Hey, wait,” New York pleaded. “I can give you snow! Just watch!” With that, it screwed up its gritty face and constipatedly squeezed out a few flakes that melted before they hit the ground. It was a nice try. Really. But when your situation can’t meet your needs, you have to look elsewhere.

I feel a little guilty cheating on NYC like this, but by the time I take my first spill into 42 inches of powder, I think it'll pass.

Operators are standing by

I missed International De-Lurking Week, and I blame myself. I also forgive myself, however, because 1) its founder was on a prolonged hiatus, 2) I spent a lot of time last week ensconced in conversations like this:

Robert: I want to start a Wearing Your Shirt Backward Fundraiser.
Me: Did you say "fundraiser"?
Robert: Yep.
Me: Why do you want to raise the money?
Robert: Because we need to buy a car.
Me: OK. But how exactly is this fundraiser going to work?

This is where you come in. If you can shed any light on how a Wearing Your Shirt Backward Fundraiser would funnel some dollah-bills into our car fund, please delurk and spread the wisdom.

The morning after, and the night before

I agree: A bold pronouncement of the body count incurred from Operation Snap-Dragon (see right) does seem a little macabre, as well as inappropriate, for Dr. King's birthday. Unfortunately, my mid-level hangover, the kind that is more annoying than debilitating, has left me grumpy. Usually, these things are best treated with a jug of Gatorade. But when I got to the bodega I spent about 20 minutes sorting through the 2,000 or so iterations -- fierce! xtreme! mongo! -- in a vain search for straight-up, old-school Lemon-Lime. I ended up buying a Gatorade Rain, which you can make at home with half a jug of regular Gatorade and half a jug of tap water. The dull ache in my head scoffed at the paucity of extra electrolytes and kept on tapping the inside of my skull with its little rubber mallet.

Secondly, I had to nurse this hangover as I greeted Ancient Pinhead Handyman, who stopped by at 7:45am to check out the floor he has to replace. The man is antonymous to artisanship, and the job in no way involves spackle. This should be good for a laugh.

My spirits were higher last night when Lesion, the band that left you weeping under the bed when it broke up last fall, re-formed for my friend Amy's book release party. The event was somewhat unorthodox, since most people received their copies when the lead singer flung them into the crowd. The drink of the night was a "red state special," which comprises a shot of Jack and a PBR back. I didn't know this was a red state thing. Seems perfectly nonpartisan to me. I was mostly drawn by the affordability of the deal, two drinks for the price of one. If there's anything that can bring the sides of this deeply polarized nation together, it's the allure of a cheap buzz.

(By the way, is anyone else as baffled as I am by PBR's monumental comeback? My dad used to let me take sips of that stuff in the 70s, and even then I thought it tasted like distilled cat litter. Three decades later, the hipsters are swigging it by the bucket.)

It was a great night, and I should just quit bellyaching over the fact that I can't bounce back as well as I used to. If Jack Bauer can beat up about a dozen terrorists two hours after being released from a Chinese prison, I suppose I can handle a few more games of WrestleBall.

Thrice with the mice

Over the weekend I attended a real estate seminar and learned just how financially retarded I've been all these years. (O stabilized rent! Such a wicked temptress thou art!) I remember when you could get a townhouse in Park Effing Slope for $200 grand, and we all scoffed at how ridiculous a price that was. Rent was easier; you write one check a month to the landlord (in my case, a tubby guy with pockmarked jowls and excessive dandruff), and live a care-free, maintenance-free life.

Problem is, when something really needs repairing, you have to argue with Crater Face until you're blue in the mouth before you can get the proper work done. For example: When the exterminator gave our apartment the once-over, he found three places that need extensive carpentry work in order to keep the mice out.

That's carpentry. As in wood.

But when I got home today, I found that the landlord's inept handyman (who is probably as old as the building, and almost as smart) had stopped by unannounced just to smear around a few half-hearted globs of spackle. Spackle is truly this man's best friend. He says he has a full kit of tools in his van, but I bet they're all trowels. And when he passes on to the next life (which could be any minute now), his body will undoubtedly be interred in a large, plastic bucket.

While Tubby and I have been haggling over when a someone younger than Moses will replace my floorboards, I've bought enough steel wool to knit a battleship and spent hours cramming it into any crevice wider than a paper clip. These little buggers are all cartilage, after all, so they can compress themselves down into little skittering pancakes if they smell food on the other side. And since the glue traps have been laughably ineffective, it's time for the next step.

That's right. Operation Snap-Dragon begins tonight.

I know unleashing swift, spring-loaded hell on these vermin rubs some people the wrong way. (Is it an escalation, or a surge?) And I respect that, because it's not my favorite choice, either. But something needs to be done soon, and we're unfortunately not in the best place to get a cat right now. Besides, if I wandered into a bear's cave, I doubt it would show me any mercy -- especially if I left thousands of little poops under its TV cabinet.

Rodental damn

Evidently, I've been kidnapped and taken to an exact replica of New York City located somewhere in the southern hemisphere. Yesterday El Niño gave us a record high of 72 (seventy-two) degrees, leaving many New Yorkers disoriented and wondering why they weren't somewhere in the Hamptons. It was also interesting to note that, despite the sweet balminess, just about everybody was wearing a jacket, mostly out of habit. Because one is supposed to wear outer clothing in winter. If it's 72 degrees in April, you see T-shirts and halter tops galore. But now you see people dressing for cold because is should be cold, using typical New Yorker hubris to will the temperatures into seasonality.

You want to know something else? It's cool to witness a record firsthand. Nightly weather reports are proud to tell us that "the record low for today was -88 degrees Kelvin, during the infamous Liquid Nitrogen Storm of 1823," and it seems so remote. But if this record stands for a while, I'll know I was there, in the middle of it, chasing balls around Stuyvesant Square and sweating like a mofo.

You see, Robert's two current passions are Legos and soccer, the former because his aunt scored him a huge starter set for Christmas, the latter because of the Fox Soccer Channel. He's decided he wants to be a goalie, because they wear different-colored shirts and often shave their heads. From watching all the premier-league matches on FSC, he also knows that the goalie's main job is to kick the ball away from the other team, so after I send him a shot on goal he likes to punt the ball as far from Daddy as possible. Yet another reason to consider canceling my gym membership.

Running around like this is also a good strategy for making sure I sleep through all the after-hours mouse parties in my apartment. Apparently, word has gotten out that Club LOD is the place to be; there's a big hole in the floor by the old radiator, lots of clutter to hide in, and the occasional morsel of food thrown from TwoBert's high chair that escapes the broom. The war continues, and since the rodents are winning the battles it falls upon the humans to engage the enemy more effectively. Therefore, I might have to expand our defense budget a bit.

With luck, I'll be able to keep the spending under a half trillion.

Gang aft aglay

I know people who don't think much of blogging, who can't even say the word blog without scrinching up their faces like they just ate a pee-soaked lemon. But being LOD has given me two priceless gifts: a deeper appreciation for writing, and lots of new friends who share it. Like Liz, equal parts business plannery and comedy geekery. And Tony, blessed with a singular penchant for media piracy. And Pierre, whose life is so annoyingly charmed that his babysitter was available on New Year's Eve. The four of us had a blorgy last night, in full view of about 100 bar patrons. And it was good.

I walked home past Union Square, where the bedouin boutiques that infest the south side of the park every December have been torn down, returning the area to the normal, wide-open space where people can sunbathe, or bloviate, or be run down by skater punks. As it should be.

And then I returned to my ancient apartment building, which is currently undergoing the equivalent of a little prostate surgery. The sewer connections need replacing, and this initially struck me as bad news because I can't imagine how old those pipes must be. About two years ago, the road began collapsing over the ancient main sewer line, which was (and still is, I guess) made of brick. Like a Roman friggin' aqueduct. And now, the plumbers have started banging away at the feeder tubes -- and unleashing the mice.

It's a funny little game the rodents play with us. They wait until after the boys are asleep to start foraging, and they're especially careful to fix us with baleful glances as they skitter past the glue traps. (This is the best you can do, monkey boy?) The exterminator arrives tomorrow, with his infrared doohickeys. Stay tuned as the saga continues.

The January effect

You know when you're in college, and some festive night out ends up with a drunken water fight in a fountain, and you plod wetly all the way home and peel off your drenched socks, and they land in the corner with squishy thud?

That is pretty much how 2007 set upon us in central New Jersey; after several bottles of wine on New Year's Eve, we awoke to a soft, steady rain that flooded the yard and trapped us inside for hours. Luckily, we were at my sister's house, which has three floors, a furnished basement, and a kitchen as big as a car dealership. So Robert and I availed ourselves of the decadent space and played many rounds of Run and Scare, Flip That Boy, WrestleBall, What's That Next to Your Head?, and Ultimate-Triple-Decker Hide and Seek, in which the hider had 20 seconds to secrete himself anywhere in the entire house. This makes for a unique challenge, because when Robert is counting,  and I'm wearing socks, and most of the main floor has hardwood floors, and I'm carrying a beer, 20 seconds isn't all that long.

Each of us followed a rather predictable hiding pattern. Robert liked to be under things, preferably those that allowed him to scrunch into a fetal ball. My M.O. was to hide where I could either 1) get a quick nap or 2) watch football. We played for about an hour before Robert discovered that his aunt's Christmas lights have a remote-control on/off switch, and he thought it would be a hoot to turn the lights off and tell everyone they were broken.

Much is made about resolutions at this time of year, and I support them whole-heartedly. If you tell me you're going to learn Italian, or get a better job, or stop eating a log of cookie dough every night, I will not pooh-pooh you. No pooh-pooher am I, because the decision to improve our lives tells us we have hope. We still believe life can be better. And that's what will drive me this year, to live as well and as authentically as possible.

You're going to see a lot more of me than you're used to in '07. Except when I'm hiding behind the couch.

[EDITED TO ADD: Yes, I've published this a third time. For those who are wondering, I have not made a resolution to stop giving a shit about grammar or syntax.]