A House is a House is a Split Level...

My elder brother and I have recently had several disagreements. This one is one that I can actually post (I could actually post the others but they would include more people than I care to eventually apologise to).

Wife.Imp and the fam and I live in a split-level house. It is a very nice house with lots of shade, big yard and a quiet street. Yet the very nature of this type of construction makes it difficult to entertain (no I am not talking about wild, swinging, key (sic: wife) swapping parties).

We found out long ago that if we have a tadoo at our house that people will either go up or down upon entering (no other choice really) and then stay in that general area the rest of the evening. Meanwhile we have to run up and down all night.

Not a lot of fun really.

So what was the argument with my brother? He is in denial about the construction style of his house. It also is a split-level home. You enter the front door and make a decision that will stick with you for the remainder of the visit. Go up or go down?

To him, this is not a split but it is instead a 'Raised Ranch'.

Well Hell! Pardon my dumb, redneck ass! A 'Raised Ranch?'

Of course I did not say this. Instead I came out with the old standard: A rose by any other name...

He did not seem to like that analogy. However, I did not back down. Not one bit.

That is my story and I am sticking to it!

We are Stuggling as a Family

No...the marriage is rock solid! The Magic is still in the bedroom, the dining room, hallways, family room, stairs, laundry room...


...but not the Kitchen!

We just cannot get 'In The Mood' for food--so to speak. There is no desire to cook. There is no urge to plan the fam menues. It's not that we are out of food. We are out of creativity for cooking food. In the past week we have had the 'Upside Down' day three times (re: breakfast for dinner).

• Hot dogs and eggs and rice (yes, spam and eggs can work here too)
• Oatmeal
• Pancakes

Meanwhile we have meat frozen and waiting for that creative inspiration to hit. However, short of the 'Takehome Chef' materializing, we are stuck with the food funk. Even the leftovers are being shunned (until they grow enough 'fur' that they can walk themselves down to the corner on trash day).

So today we had the 'What do you want for dinner' conversation:

wife.imp: I don't know what to cook..!
me: I don't know. We have food in the freezer
w.imp: I don't know...I don't have any ideas
me: I know. Not that nothing appeals...
w.imp: (silence)
me: (silence)
w.imp: (silence - but it is somehow heavier..?)
me: I suppose I could go throw something on the stove
w.imp: (pause) Ok!
me: (knowing that I would have to go start throwing raw, frozen meat in a pan, toyed with not doing today's blog)
w.imp: I don't know. I feel guilty now.
me: (really??? Can I capitalize on this?---Silence)
w.imp: (waving a package of frozen meat through the kitchen door) I really don't have any idea...
me: Weeeell, we could go out..?
w.imp: (SMILING) OK!
me: (now I just have to pick someplace she'll like...)

Let's update the Three Wise Monkeys

It is time to make a stand. The 'Speak No Evil' Monkey has seen its time come and go. In our playground we have seen the rise of another wise Monkey.

It started in the the morning in our mouths, grew in the laundry and in our clothes and got stronger in the kitchen, but finally acheived full potency with boy.imp's diapers.

You know those times when bad odors compete for attention in the house.

Morning breath: Ok, we adults know we have it. And we deal. But just about the time the Good Lord put odors in the diapers he also decided that bad smells out of the other end would also be a neat trick!

First thing in the morning, our imps could knock a buzzard off of a shit wagon at 20 paces!

Laundry/body odor: Imps, daylight, the great outdoors. 'Nuff said.

Kitchen: There are the times when you go to cook dinner and are just browning the garlic ('aint nothing better in the kitchen than the smell of browned garlic -- unless it is freshly baked bread) and the imps start screaming because one of them looked cross-eyed at the other's toy...then by the time you get things settled, the garlic has burned and your spouse walks in the front door...

'Yuuuck! what is that smell. I could smell it in the driveway. It smells like someone is burning sewage...'

Cheers mate!

The spouse, wife.imp, who can smell burning food from 2.6 miles away, seems unable to smell a 'loaded diaper'. I have tried several tactics to test her disability. Burning food? She is on it!

Bad Breath? On it!
Body Odor? On it!
Bad smells in the laundry? On it!

BM in boy.imp's diaper? He can do anything short of taking it off and shaking the contents out at her feet and she cannot smell a thing! and I have TRIED to out last her...

I can be gasping my way down our stairs and see b.imp sitting on w.imp's lap, at her feet playing or just running in circles and she looks as if nothing were amiss. Plants are wilting at her elbows, tears are forming in my eyes and girl.imp is trying to shove her nose into her armpits and ....Nothing!

Except that boy.imp now has a diaper rash...

I have seen the light! I am now converted and am now a fulltime supporter of shaking up the accepted tradition of the Wise Monkeys! I fully support and am instigating the campaign to speed the rise of the newest Wise Monkey. The 'Smell No Evil' Monkey.

Yes, dear readers, here at the playground we have risen up and deposed Iwazaru. We are now ruled by the wise insights of:

'See No Evil', 'Hear No Evil', and

'Smell No Evil'.

Monkey photo originially posted at: http://www.tanmonkey.com/funny-monkey-pictures.php

Snip! Snip! Snip!

As a young imp that sound scared me to death. It meant dad was ready to cut my hair (and not too infrequently the back of my neck or my ears).

As time went by the snipping sound of the scissors faded into history. They now now cut hair with clippers. 'Come in! Come in, little sheep. Drop your ducats here and lose your hair in 5 minutes or less!'

Now the snipping sound of the scissors is starting to slip back into my reality. No, I am not speaking of the shears used by the old crone of The Fates.

I am speaking of the ultimate threat to man's pride. Wife.imp had a bad day (month) at the office (along with a mishap or two over the Christmas holiday) and has broached a topic I had thought long dead.

Yes, she wants to unman me. Have the '"little" guy' nipped and tucked! I am not so upset about being reduced to a life of shooting blanks. I am near the age where more newborns are supposed to happen to someone else. However, I am not anxious to be placed in the position where a slight deviation could result in irreparable nerve damage.

This bothers me because I am not a fan of having to use self-service to 'get my groove on' (at least not on an permanent basis).

So now the question to be answered: "...to vasectomy or not to vasectomy..."

More Holiday Stress (or why does daddy like to throw gasoline on the fire?)

Yes, I am back with more info concerning our Christmas "vacation" trip. When we last broached this topic, I was up the Proverbial Creek, no paddles and, as Jenny and Diana informed me, with no canoe either.

So there we were in Northern Illinois, 10 hours from home, and wife.imp was recovering from her recent shopping trip with a sedate lunch out. We were heading out to pick up her best friend (and his wife) from college (Ateneo de Manila University) who was also visiting relatives for Christmas.

So upon arriving at the restaurant (in the middle of lunch rush because we got lost on the way to the friend's house) wife.imp only had enough time to recount the 'Present' snafu 3 maybe 4 times.

Skipping forward in time because the imps were loud, whiny and did I mention loud?, I was rushing out to get the van fired up so we could escape the 'Evil-Eyed' stares of those diners the imps had not chased away.

Just as I reached the exit, girl.imp catches up with me and tells me that boy.imp needs his diaper changed and that wife.imp was having me change the diaper because she was enjoying time with her friends and because "...You owe her big time."

Exact quote. This is the type of quote that should send chills down your spine. The type of quote that should have mandatory sub-titles in flashing neon: DANGER, RUN--DON'T WALK, FLEE DAMMIT, DON'T LOOK BACK! PRETEND gir.imp DID NOT CATCH UP WITH YOU!

But no, I looked back at the table and there is wife.imp holding boy.imp up in the air waving him back and forth, smiling. Everyone at the table was smiling. And it was now too late to pretend I had not made eye contact!

Boy.Imp's pants were soaked. Absolutely, literally, dripping wet. Oddly enough the table top was dry. When I say soaked, I mean dripping from the bottoms of his shoes, his socks everything. It was as if he were dipped into a tub of water and handed to me. Ice cold water too. He was soaked and his pants were cold.

He sat through lunch, peeing what could only have been, what?, 2 liters, and not once did he complain. Not until his pants had time to cool down.

So into the bathroom for a quick change (but because daddy has had experience with more than one imp, he keeps a spare change of ...pants only in the diaper bag). So there I am, in a strange town, with a bag full of diapers and soiled clothes, in the middle of December, with my 3-year-old and no extra socks, no extra shoes and my own personal audience waiting for me outside the door.

Yes, wife.imp got a 2-fer that day. Dad forgot to pack a complete change of emergency clothes for boy.imp and was caught short--yet again.

However, there was a Wal-Mart not 10 minutes away. And now I am one of those folks. I would dress my son up in the dead of winter and take him shopping barefoot to the local Wal-Mart. I also would have him stand barefoot, in only his diapers while we tried on clothes in the middle of the Boys department.

Come on over folks, bring your cameras! Daddy is about to parade boy.imp up and down the aisles for your amusement. Admission is FREE!


Can you believe it is 12-years together and still going strong!!!

It is Cleaning Day Friday

So tonight at 10:40 p.m. wife.imp and I are sitting in front of the Educational Death Ray (otherwise known as our t.v.) waiting for the internet connection to work when we hear water running in the kitchen.

So, being the worn out adults we actually are, I holler at the phantom noises:
'girl.imp'? - no answer
'boy.imp'? - not answer

I check out wife.imp (who ignores me, obviously thinking 'if I don't make eye contact he will have to go up and check out what the imps are doing to my kitchen...if I don't make eye contact...)

She did not make eye contact. I went upstairs to see what the imps were doing in her kitchen.

boy.imp was standing on the kitchen stool, washing the dirty dish and empty yogurt cup! The only thing he was missing was--the sink.

Yes, b.imp was soaked. Water up to his shoulders. Water running off of the countertop. Water pooling across the floor.

He COULD NOT have been any happier at that moment. Dishes at 'midnight' just tickled his fancy!

So after putting him back in bed, listening to him wail, we brought him downstairs where he decided that the pile of neatly folded laundry needed his 'special' touch!

It was then wife.imp decided that b.imp needed to go back to bed! Stay up late crying? No problem! Flood her kitchen late at night? No Problem! Mess with her folded laundry? WE WILL HAVE ISSUES!!

I however kept my eyes down and thought '...if I don't make eye contact...'

Ahh the Benefits of a Well-thought and Well-Reasoned, Thoroughly-Practical Grounding

I had this big boring blog about being an introvert and books and references to Paris Hilton, Sandra Bullock and nude scenes...

But the imps have intruded into my thoughts, much like my reading time (a post for later).

Benefit 1: It seems that g.imp has finished her Beverly Quimby book and nearly completed one of the Harry Potters. Now one might think a 6-year-old is breezing through these books looking for pictures. However, g.imp takes what she reads seriously.

She has already commented on the differences she found betwixt the text and the film. She questions how names are pronounced and why this character is bad/good.

Now that she has embarked on this journey, I cannot wait to introduce her to Tolkein's LOTR series and 'the Hobbit', ER Eddison's 'Worm Ouroboros', Ray Bradbury's books, Alex Haley's 'Roots', Zane Grey, Tony Hillerman, the original Dragonlance Series, Larry Niven's 'Ringworld', Frank Herbert's 'Dune' series...

Benefit 2: G.imp has improved her negotiating skills.

Just the other day she commented on how impressed she is with my decision making skills. Yes, g.imp feels that my '1 week' without t.v. was ...well...perhaps a tad hasty. So she requested that in future I consider limiting, not her t.v. time, but her t.v. viewing options.

g.imp: Dad? Next time instead of saying 'no t.v. for a week' why can't you say no cartoons or, I know! Why can't we watch 'The Discovery Channel'? That's educational! You can let us watch and we'll learn something!

I am fully aware of what happens when the inmates start running the asylum. However, it is really really hard to argue against her logic. We also have NGEO, History, and the Food Network.

I almost agreed with her on the spot! Then I realized that she did say 'the next time'. That really does imply what I think it does, right?


p.s. In the realm of Arts and Entertainment, I went to bed at midnight after watching the 1st 1/2 hour of the Def Leppard movie. The wife imp just 'reamed' me for:
a- turning it on at midnight and leaving her alone to watch it
b- the fact that she could not just turn it off. She was 'invested' in it even though it was predictable and bland
c- sleeping while she tossed and turned because she stayed up too late watching a movie she never in a million years would have watched on her own.