A New Term

Today on the phone with my friend Aaron Gwyn, I created a new term: Cheesecake Communist.

What, pray tell, is a Cheesecake Communist? It's one of those people who talk about Communism (add in socialism, Marxism, and so on) but they don't live it, really.

Am I a Cheesecake Communist? Well, I think I might be. I certainly can not claim not to be one. No, I can not.

The Road to Hell...

This morning as we were all getting ready for church we had a mid-level medical emergency. Alisa was in the shower, Zoë was taking her bath, I was getting breakfast ready, and Ike was pretty upset that he wasn't getting a chance to take his bath along with Zoë. So, he was circling around the tub, trying to get in. Alisa was warning him to stay back.

Out of nowhere, I heard a blood curdling scream, and I darted into the bathroom to find Ike standing by the toilet with a very concerned look on his face and Zoë screaming hysterically, a small line of blood squeezing from the outside corner of her right eye. It looked like something supernatural had attacked her.

We dried her off and took a closer look at the eyelid. There was a cut running parallel to her eyebrow, and it was deep, but it didn't look like it went through the eyelid. There was no damage to the eye that I could see.

All Zoë could say was, “Ikey cut me with his fingernails.” I asked him if it was true. He said it was. I told him he was a good boy for owning up.

We got her dried off, and cleaned the eyelid with a Q-tip and some rubbing alcohol, which made Zoë howl like someone undergoing a surgical procedure in the days of whiskey and four uncles holding your extremities. After that triage, it seemed evident that we were headed to the emergency room.

Note to self: don't get hurt on Sunday. Urgent Care isn't open.

Zoë didn't want to go, and we calmed her by saying that we though ther eye would be okay, but we wanted to hear it from a doctor,and we wanted to know how to take care of it. She agreed to that much, at least. So, we piled into the car and headed out to the hospital. I got Zoë checked in. They took her back with her mother. The Ikester and I hung around outside and watched all the other people come in with the misfortune to get sick on the sabbath. Most of them, it seemed, had some kind of urgent thoracic problem. Man, you gotta count your blessings.

While I was pacing around, I noticed that just behind the emergency room sign was a moment of extreme crassness. The second sign you notice when entering the emergency room is the sign for the cashier. If there's anything to make a person feel cynical on Sunday it's an arrangement like that. Super bad karma, I should think.

I whipped out my camera phone and snapped a shot. The writing that says “cashier” isn't all that legible, but it's there. This re-kindled my anger— Michael Moore level anger—about the complete lack of Christianity in the health care business.

My only consolation is that these health care executives—not most of the people on the ground, nurses, for example, but the people who are getting rich off health care (and I do include doctors)— my only consolation is that they are going to have to sit down with Jesus and a conversation that I can only hope goes like this:

JESUS: Hello

HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR: Am I dead?

JESUS: Only to the people on the other side.

HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR: Where's everybody else?

JESUS: They're waiting. Can I see your proof of insurance?

HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR: (pats himself) Um, I don't have my wallet. There's not pockets in these robes.

JESUS: (shakes his head) That's too bad.

HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR: What does that mean? What's too bad?

JESUS: We'll have to send you along. I'm sure he has beds down there. We'll have someone drive you. They'll take you, don't worry. They take everybody.

THEN A LONG PAUSE and the HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR bursts into tears.

JESUS: Come on, I'm kidding.

HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR keeps weeping.

JESUS: It was just a joke. Seriously.

HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR wipes nose with forearm and looks up.

JESUS: You know, when I was healing people. I did it for free.

Anything Goes

Cole Porter was right. "In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked at as something shocking, now heaven knows...Anything Goes." More than that marketing seems to know everything and nothing at the same time. They haven't a shred of decency at all. That we know, that we know.

So, today I was in the Wal-Mart, getting chewable Tylenol and two things of photocopy paper, and I walk past a candy display, seemingly innoccuous. Upon closer inspection, I noticed a product that was at once so, absolutely hip to popular culture, and so utterly without shame that I felt what I can only call the Postmodern Sublime.

He Ain't Heavy...

Today Zoë was wrapped up in a blanket and lying on the couch. She likes to get cozy like that and wait for people to say, "Where's Zoë?" Anyway, this time, Ike found her and climbed up on top of her and sat his eighteen-month-old bottom on her and drank his bottle.

Zoë was outraged and started calling for help. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, "Ikey's sitting on me."

I said, "But he has a little bottom."

She said, "But he's very, very heavy."

To which I replied: "He ain't heavy, he's your brother."

I was the only one smiling, but I was really, really pleased with myself.

Weimar Troubles

Lately I've been reading David Byrne's blog, which has been a fascinating and at times intimate experience. In a recent post, Byrne makes a connection between our culture and the Weimar Republic that is so basic and profound, I wonder why only the Republicans have been seeing it.

Erwin Lowinsky's Weisse Maus was a cabaret night that encouraged hopelessly amateur performers to get on stage -- dreamy housewives, deluded bank clerks. They were encouraged to make fools of themselves. Sounds familiar.

The Black Cat Cabaret featured theme nights -- nude girls in imaginary sacrificial Mayan ceremonies, mock bullfights, and naked novices being humiliated by lesbian nuns -- with rituals involving silver crucifixes.

Then came Hitler.

Despite the change in control of the House, this is pretty scary to think about.

That's What I'm Talking About

It's finally getting to be autumn, and that means that there are some pretty amazing things waiting to be eaten in my house. In the summer, no one really wants the oven on, so we don't have much in the way of pie.

But the cold snap that's been getting us here in Southern Utah has motivated my wife to get pie-crazy, which is fine with me.

This pie was absolutely amazing, but our history with pie has not always been so good. When Alisa and I first got married and first started having pie in the house, we found them less than appealing. The crust was either too dry or grainy or mushy. The filling was almost always runny, though the taste was often wonderful. This led Alisa to spend a lot of time with her mother and with other members of her family trying to find all the input she could get on the making of pie -- inside and out.

Sticking it to the Man

I'm getting so sick and tired of going to websites where I have to be told that I'm going to need a stupid Bill Gates Microsoft poo-browser to get anything done. Finally the amazing people at Powell's Books have given the Microsoft sheep a little taste of their own medicine, and it's just brilliant.

Take a look that the lovely screen shot I took from their blog this morning. It made me smile and smile and smile and smile.

What is This So-Called "Syllabus" You're Talking About?

A few years ago, my wife found a bunch of silk screens on an eBay auction, and we bought them because I really like to silk screen (had a bad job once, where I learned the basics of the trade), and we thought we could do some cool stuff. The printmaking professor at my university has given me access to the lab, so I can prep the screens and expose them and do all that stuff.

I'm waiting until there is enough time for me to work on some things I've been really hankering to get into, projects that have been on my mind literally for a dozen years, or more.

Despite the fact that I have the stuff and access to even more stuff, I haven't been able to get myself in gear to work on any of those projects, except for now I think I'm close. I think I have the motivation I'm going to need to break out the screens, print a transparency, buy some Hanes Beefy-"T"s, and get busy.

My students have been driving me crazy with questions I have painstakingly answered on the syllabus in detail, sometimes excruciating detail. They'll come right up to my face and ask about a due date, or the percentage of the total grade they've just botched with their last essay. I'll tell them that it's on the syllabus, but they'll still ask. They will stare me in the face, as if to say, "I don't have a copy of that with me, and plus, I'm not going to read it anyway. Why don't you just tell me?"

So I'm going to make a half dozen of the following t-shirts, so I'll always have a clean one. It's going to become part of my teaching uniform.

Who knows. I might be able to sell a few on the internet and whittle down some of my student loans.

A Quick List

Here's a list of some things that have been happening around my house over the last few months...

1. Zoë nicknamed one of her orange crayons "Seventy-six Thousand." She was just moving through the house calling for it.
2. Ike has become fond of (and quite good at) spitting his food in a fine spray. One blast can coat an adult's entire head and face.
3. Zoë was sitting on the potty the other day, saying "Gross, gross, gross, gross" for close to five minutes.
4. I've been jonesing for American cheese for the past few weeks. Why? Wasn't I brought up better than that?
5. I've been getting very good at making accurate predictions using mathematics, and I have always been ham fisted when it comes to math. Always. So this is a curiosity.
6. A few weeks ago, I was teasing Zoë, told her that if she kept eating her yogurt with a fork she'd turn into a blueberry. She looked at me right in the eyes, her lips coated in creaminess, and she said, "Dad, you know that's not a fact."
7. I've been getting up at 5 in the morning, so I'll have some quiet in the house. The other morning Ike got up at four. He's going to be a gambling addict.
8. On September 26th at 9:00 p.m. Zoë asked the following question: "How are people made?"
9. I have come close to perfecting a barbecue version of pizza.
10. Zoë reiterated the "how are people made" question on October 6th at 11:00 a.m. My guess is that the answer given in September was insufficient.
11. Earlier in November we harvested apples from the trees in our backyard, but I should amend that statement: we harvested the best apples I have ever tasted from the trees in our backyard.
12. Zoë has decided to name her children Ted and Lilly.