Happy Father's Day

I hope you had a great Father’s day weekend. Even if you aren’t a Father, I still hope your weekend was pleasant. Mine was. On Saturday night, I got to grill out. I love grilling out. I think grilling hamburgers while in air conditioning would probably be my dream job. Except that would kind of be like working at Burger King and that doesn’t seem very ambitious. So never mind. 

Then on Sunday, Ada woke me up by handing me a questionnaire she had filled out about me.  I am going to copy it below, because as I may or may not have mentioned (I can’t remember) I am a very forgetful person and will probably lose that sheet of paper someday, but you can never lose the internet.*

*I take that back, based on personal experience AT&T seems to lose the internet about twice a week.

My dad is 30 years old.

His hair is black and his eyes are green.

My dad likes to wear church outfits.

He loves to eat hamburgers.

He is smart because he knows how to do a flip.

My dad works hard at work.

Daddy always tells me I love you.

It makes me happy when daddy plays baseball and catch with me and tries to “get me”.

If daddy could go on a trip, he would go to CVS and take me with him.

I love it when daddy takes me to the park and the movies and when he cuddles with me.

If I could give him a present I would draw.

For fun, daddy plays.

He likes to drink Diet Coke.

He weighs 100lbs.

I’ve known daddy for a very, very long time.

Daddy’s favorite TV show is football.

For the most part, she nailed it. I do think it is a little sad that the pinnacle of my intelligence is based on my ability to roll over, but I guess that is what you get from someone who aspires to work at Burger King.

Speaking of Burger King, I was reminded of this post I wrote near Father’s day a few years ago, before John even existed. My feelings have only multiplied with my children:

I remember one of the first times I felt like I was a true college student. The previous night my roommate and I had a bunch of friends over, ordered pizza, and spent the night playing xbox and calling each other names. It was fun. It always was. The next morning I woke up, shuffled sleepy-eyed into the kitchen to try and find something for breakfast. Those days, my breakfasts were usually microwave popcorn or canned ravioli. But not that morning, that morning I hit the jackpot. As I was rummaging through our impressive collection of condiments looking for anything I could put the condiments on, when something caught my eye on the counter beside the fridge: an opened pizza box with about a quarter of a meat lovers still in it. I grabbed the box and took it back to bed with me. That was college.

Fast forward about ten years later to this morning’s breakfast. Last night we loaded the family into the car, went to Burger King, and spent the night giving baths and tucking in. It was fun. It always is. This morning I woke up to Ada yelling, “Daddy, where are you, Daddy?” so I shuffled sleepy-eyed into her bedroom and took her down stairs to find something for breakfast. This morning I hit the jackpot. I ended up eating strawberry yogurt and granola out of a mini Little Princess bowl as I was walking around the living room with Ada sitting on my foot holding onto my leg. This is fatherhood.

I wouldn't go back if I could.

Ok, I am going to go try on some church outfits.

Do you like hamburgers?

Ada, aspiring artist

Yesterday I was in the kitchen cooking spaghetti. Real spaghetti, mind you. Not what I used to make in college that I appropriately named “college spaghetti". College spaghetti was just noodles and sauce. No meat. Meat was like three more dollars. You could make college spaghetti for less than $2. If you added meat, that brought the total cost of the meal to over $5 and at that point, you might as well go to McDonald’s. 

So, yesterday I was in the kitchen cooking spaghetti when Ada walks up to me and says, “Daddy, when I grow up I am going to be an artist.” I was happy to hear this because now she’s finally aspiring towards a real vocation, rather than “Disney princess”.

I said, “You know your Aunt Sarah is an artist?” “Really?” “Yeah, we even have one of her paintings hanging in our bedroom.” She took off running towards our bedroom. A few minutes later she came back with a very serious look on her face. “So, what do you think?”

“She’s good…but I’ll probably be better. There weren't any shapes, like circles or triangles, you know? And I would have had more butterflies.” (Note: there are no butterflies in Sarah's painting.)

Sorry, Sarah…Ada's a tough critic. Just ask Laura Beth when she cooks ANYTHING OTHER than macaroni and cheese for dinner. 

If you want to help Sarah get over this, I’m sure traumatizing setback in her career, you can go here and buy stuff from her.

Since we are talking about art, I thought I would try to capitalize and turn this picture I did with Ada several months ago into a profit. I will accept monetary donations in any amount for the print below. Also acceptable are gift cards to movie theaters and/or Chik-fil-a. True, you could just print it off yourself but that would be like stealing Jesus which I am pretty sure is EXTRA sinful and probably impossible since the gift of Jesus is always free.

In retrospect, I would have slid the text more to the right so you could actually see Jesus. But editing text boxes in MS Paint is tough. This exactly the type of stuff you wouldn't have to worry about if you buy something from Sarah.

Also, I would have changed it to Footprints on the Rainbow since rainbows are technically colored water so that would make the whole thing very biblical, but I didn't think about that until just now and like I said, editing text boxes in MS Paint is hard.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

So….our car melted.

Remember back in the old days when our cars were the Altimater and Trina the Tribute? Well, we don’t have either of those anymore. And surprisingly, the Tribute had a more exciting exit plan than the Alitmater.

It started back in February when we received a letter from Mazda. I’ll summarize it for you:

Dear beloved Mazda owner,

FYI- your car might blow up. Don't worry though, we will fix it. Just not right now.  We don’t have the parts yet. We will send you another letter when we are ready. Until then, don’t park near your house because you wouldn’t want that to catch on fire too. We will never have the parts for that. Thanks!

Your friends,

Mazda

Well, our car didn’t make it until the second letter came:

 

For LB the saddest tragedy of all was that she had just stopped at Sonic to get a Route 44 Diet Coke that she was never able to drink. There it lays, helplessly on the pavement, its innards mingled with engine fluid, liquefied carburetor, and the water used to extinguish the flames. In one respect, it was a wonderful way for a diet coke to go out...to be taken away by the water used to quench the inferno that parched our car the same way it has on so many occasions quenched the thirst that has parched our throats. Very meta. It truly did go down in a blaze of glory. 

Our car catching on fire was postshadowing. (PS. I made that word up because I don’t know what the antonym of foreshadowing is.) At least one day a week for the previous 3 weeks, I got stuck in traffic on the way home from work due to a car catching on fire. By the third week, I was thinking “how does that even happen, how does your car catch on fire? If you’re not in the mob, I mean?” Because being stuck in traffic due to a burning car is decidedly less exciting than it sounds. Turns out it is A LOT less exciting when it is your car.  

In very related news, we now have a minivan. I was tempted to call it a swagger wagon, but I don’t think it is cool to say swagger anymore. I’ve heard Lee Corso say it too many times. And we all know driving a minivan is the epitome of cool. Just yesterday I pulled up to a red light where some teenage hooligans were listening to their rap music too loudly, so I leaned down and cranked up the Veggie Tales. You ain’t crampin’ my style, homeboy.

In conclusion, if you drive a Mazda Tribute, always remember to park near someone’s house you don’t like.  And read this, it will probably come in handy soon. 

What is the most dramatic way you have lost a car?  When I say lost, I mean totaled. Not forgetting which floor of the parking deck you were on.