Mayonnaise

As I'm cutting up some leftover barbecue chicken this morning, to make a righteous chicken salad sandwich to have for lunch, I got to thinking about mayonnaise.

In my younger, plumper days, back when I paid little heed to the nutritional content of my meals, I was a user of regular (or non-diet) everything. Coke Classic, the fattiest and tastiest cold cuts (salami), and regular mayonnaise. When I decided to try and slim down from my all time high of 202 lbs., back in 2002, I made a number of changes to my diet. One was to take up the use of diet alternatives to any product for which there was such a choice.

Diet sodas? Fine. Took a little adjustment but nothing taxing.

Lean turkey and roast beef sandwiches? Sure.

Mayo? Just another little change. Went from regular, to low fat, to Kraft Fat Free Mayo. The consistency is different but it still tastes like mayonnaise to me.

What's funny is that how some people are so emotionally attached to their regular mayonnaise. When someone asks me about it, and I mention that I use fat free mayo, I get one of two reactions.

1) Cool (they don't care, and why should they?)

2) Oh, I could never give up regular mayonnaise.

The second answer is amusing to me. Specifically, because anyone whom I've ever heard say that is obese. Only really overweight people maintain such a heartfelt love for their egg and oil based condiment.

I'll take the 152 lb. self and fat free altnernative, thanks.

Curse the Telemarketers

You know what really burns me? Dialing machines.

No, not hysterical ones, like the "auto-dialer" from that episode of the Simpsons. I'm talking about the machines that so many large organizations use to call lists of people.

I have a basic problem with this scenario: I answer the phone, and say "Hello" in a jocular fashion. As I am prone to do.

The response on the other side of the line? Nothing. You know why? Because a machine called me, and the person operating the machine has to then realize that a person is on the line, and at that time engage the caller in civil conversation.

That 3-4 second delay? I refuse to accept that. If you don't have the time to dial my number yourself, and be ready to speak to me when I answer, then I will not wait for you.



This also prevents me from having to say no to so many charitable organizations that are trying to squeeze $100 out of me.

This problem originates with my beautiful and kindhearted wife. She is physically unable to say no to a person calling our house soliciting funds. She just can't do it. And once you've said yes, even once, you enter a 2-3 year cycle of charity callers.

"So, can we put you down for a $50 donation to the local police auxiliary?"

"Uh, no, that's OK. I don't need a donation from you, thanks. Have a day."



Call me mean spirited, or callous. I can handle it.

Smart Kid, Part I

Someone told me once that I should be writing down all of the funny/clever/entertaining/poignant things my kids say. I'd like to think that I will remember the best of them, but, then again, I'm sure that many of them have already slipped by the wayside.

Tonight I was watching my two children play out in the backyard. It struck me, as it often does, how much bigger and older they are getting. I asked Nate how he had managed to get so old.

"Birthdays."

Smart kid!

The Worst Airline Passenger Ever

I travel pretty regularly for work -- about one trip a month. It's a fair amount of air travel, and time spent away from my family isn't ideal, but it makes for interesting work. I've been traveling all over the country since I started working as an Air Force contractor in 2003.

Most of the people that I sit next to on airplanes are unmemorable. Which is specifically what I look for on these trips. Generally speaking I am either reading a book or playing iPhone games. I don't want to have a lovely chat or get to know anyone on the plane. I'm just trying to get to work or get home.

But once in a while, I get stuck next to a beast. A Leviathan.

Traveling home Tuesday night on a late flight, the last leg. A connecting flight from Detroit to Syracuse. As I was flying after work I had decided to knock a few drinks back at the airport bar. That's what they have them open for, after all.

So, a very large, very old man, chewing a granola bar, plops his rotund self down next to me (I'm in the window seat and he the aisle). His arm and leg immediately spread out laterally into my little space. Now, I'm not a big fella, so this isn't entirely unexpected. But this guy was an amazing combination of annoying tics, weird fingernail funk and unpleasantness. He had a tendency to make little grunting sounds (not unlike the guy in "Sling Blade") every 2-3 seconds.

For the entire flight.

I put music on to drown this guy's little guttural charm out, which helped some.

He then felt a need to give the stewardesses grief for a late take off, when it was clearly due to a pair of passengers who had ran to catch this flight from some other connecting one.

I could not wait to get off the plane.

Sometimes I commend myself for showing the restraint to not tell this guy that he was like sitting next to a landfill poured into a golf shirt, or just elbowing him in his weird old face. Should it really be this hard for me to behave myself?

Run Rabbit Run

I've been training since last November to run a 5k race. I made a New Years' Resolution to run 10 of them in 2010, but that's not going to happen. Too many Saturday morning tee ball games and karate lessons that conflict with the local races. But I do intend on running 4-5 races this year. My first one is in three weeks, Saturday June 5th.

The first time I ran, in November, I ran 2.15 miles in 30 minutes on a treadmill. Average speed 4.3 MPH. I've gotten much speedier since then.

Today I set another personal best, running a 5k today in 25:44 at the local park by my house.

I busted it out of the gate as I was feeling good and it was such a warm sunny day, I was feeling very loose. Hit the 1 mile mark at 7:40, and 2.5 miles at 19:55, both well above my normal pace.

But I had gone too hard too soon and the heat caught up to me. I started to feel a little tight in my back and honestly, I was just gassed. Sweat pouring into my eyes also (I am going to buy a headband tomorrow). I actually stopped running and walked for about 75 seconds at that 2.5 mile mark, and then ran at a closer to my usual pace for the last part of the run. And even with the walking, I bested my previous personal best time by 13 seconds.

Dang

I spoke too soon. The sleep interruptions have returned, at least they have the last two nights.

There is a fairly good chance that after Isabel turns 3 she will have her tonsils and adenoids removed. We've already seen a pediatric ENT specialist on the matter. I'm not a fan of surgery, for my children, but I am a fan of not being a zombie for the next few years.

Irony of Ironies

It would figure that the same week I start a blog called "Sleepiest Dad Ever," my daughter would finally start sleeping properly.

We moved into our current house nearly two years ago, in June of 2008. At that time Isabel was sleeping soundly all night, in a bassinet in our bedroom, and just shy of one year old. One of the appeals of moving to our current house was that Isabel would get her own bedroom. Not long after we moved she began her waking up, nightly, crying for her mother and/or father.

That was 23 months ago.

While she has gone for a night here, two nights there, she has not slept through the night for 7 straight days since we've relocated.

This week she is on a five day sleeping streak. She seems to have finally turned a corner... she's more content to stay in her room without crying and everyone is getting a better night's rest as a result.

Yea for me! And Isabel -- her mood has greatly improved this week. But mostly, yea for me.

Justin Beaver

On the days when my wife is working the opening shift at the day care center she gets the kids up early, before 7 AM. Usually rousing them from a sound sleep. She dresses them and plops them down on the couch while she finishes getting everything ready to go.

Today my son, barely awake, is sitting in a big chair and watching the morning news while I put his shoes on. The news story was announcing the latest addition to the summer concert schedule at the New York State Fair (Aerosmith) and reading the list of other performers.

They must have mentioned Justin Bieber, though I was not listening. Nathan was. He exclaimed, loudly, "Justin Beaver?"

An Email from MamaTessie

My paternal grandmother, MamaTessie, passed away in December of 2007. She was a smart and strong minded person and I like to believe that I inherited some of my better traits directly from her.

One of the real regrets I have in life is that I did not get to introduce her to her youngest great-granddaughter, my Isabel. She was born in the summer of 2007 and too young for us to make the drive down to New York where MamaTessie lived. My grandmother then moved to Maryland just weeks before she passed away, and that further complicated the visits. We had planned on driving down for Passover at my aunt's house, also in Maryland, the following spring, and seeing her then. But by then she was gone.

So she never got to meet Isabel, who was named after her late husband Isadore (my PapaIzzy).

Shortly before she passed away my grandmother, 87 years of age, sent me an email. From her very own brand new gmail account, mamatessie@gmail.com. It was not a long text but it was sweet. She had seen recent pictures of Nathan and Isabel and video of my two year old son singing the ABCs. It pleased her to know how well he had learned his alphabet. She asked for the web site addresses where I posted the kids' pictures so that she could go to those pages at her new assisted living facility. I enthusiastically emailed her back and gave her the latest news as well as those addresses.

I did not save the email she had sent me. For whatever reason. Oh, how I wished I had.

I've spent the better part of the last two years trying to recall what was in that note. Then it occurred to me that her Gmail account was likely still intact, and that if I could guess her password then I could go in and see the email she had sent me.

My first guess, PapaIzzy, was not it. My second guess, an amalgam of my father's name and his brother's name that their cleaning lady used to refer to both of them by as children in the 1950s, was correct. I was able to go in and read the email again and forward myself another copy of it.

This one I will be saving.

Getting Hit on the Head with a Rock

Sometimes you try to tell a two year old something and they listen. Other times, not so much.

So the kids and I are playing in the backyard and my daughter rounds the corner holding a rock. It fills the palm of her hand, probably weighs about a half pound.

My parental reaction kicks in, Pavlovian-style. "You shouldn't play with that, honey. You might hurt yourself. Why don't you go put the rock back where you found it?"

My child, the angel that she is, takes this advice to heart. Considers it for a nanosecond. Then she throws the rock as high as she can directly above her head. It hovers eight inches over her head like a cartoon character on the precipice of a cliff. Then it drops, surreptitiously, directly onto the top of her skull. Commence crying for mommy, an ice pack, and general relief.

Sometimes these things happen and I listen for the laugh track, that must be playing for some sitcom audience somewhere watching this comedy.

A Decent Night's Rest, For Once

Last night my beautiful two year old daughter Isabel played her trickiest card yet.

She slept through the night.

She did make a little bit of noise at about 4:30 AM but settled herself down without intervention from her parents.

Now, while this may be a normal occurrence for those of you living a normal life, with normal kids in normal sleeping routines (if there are such people), in our house this is akin to winning $1000 in a scratch off lottery ticket. It's an unbelievable stroke of luck.

And I'm milking it for all it's worth. I woke up today feeling like I had already drank 4 cups of coffee.

If she can make a routine out of this, well, now, that'd be something.