Christmas 2009 - The Year of the White-Boards

Merry Christmas - belated, everybody!

Some of you spent Christmas with us.  Some of you received text messages or phone calls.  Some of you thought I forgot all about you.  But I didn't.  I promise.

When I was a kid, Christmas was always a very simple event (at least to my recollection):

• Christmas Eve: Open one present, always somehow managed to be pajamas.  Go to bed.
• Christmas Eve: Try to stay awake and listen for Santa Claus
• Christmas Eve: Have parents tell you over and over if you don't stop talking to your brother, you won't fall asleep and Santa won't come
• Christmas Eve: Fall asleep.

• Christmas Morning: Wake up and wonder if Santa had come, yet.
• Christmas Morning: Continue waiting and wondering.
• Christmas Morning: Stop wondering about Santa and start wondering if parents are ever going to wake up.
• Christmas Morning: Start wondering if parents are dead.
• Christmas Morning: Hear sounds of life coming from somewhere in the house, hope it is mom and dad.
• Christmas Morning: It is mom and dad!
• Christmas Morning: Collect stockings.
• Christmas Morning: Open presents (one at a time, each person gets a turn).
• Christmas Morning: Dad cooks breakfast.

• Christmas Day: Play with new toys, read new books, enjoy life.
• Christmas Day: Continue playing, maybe fight with brothers about whose toy belongs to whom.

• Christmas Night: Go to bed and start planning for next Christmas.

You see, when I was a kid, my grandparents all lived out of state. There was no way we were going to be able to make multiple-hour drives in each direction on Christmas, to see them.

As an adult, now, all of my remaining grandparents are still out of state.  Cordelia's grandparents, however, are not.  And Tammy's are here, too.  So Christmas becomes a bit more... shall we say involved?

I found out Christmas Eve that I was going to have to cook a turkey (yay!), and the turkey was still frozen at my mom's place (ugh!).  But it was a Butterball, so I didn't need to worry about having to prep it in order to keep it juicy (yay!).  So I went to my mom's got the turkey, came home, and began the rush-thaw of a 16 lb turkey.

Based on everything I could find on the internet, it was going to take 8 hours to thaw it in cold water.  So I put the bird in my largest picnic cooler, covered it in cold water, and set my alarm for 5:30 (it was about 10:00, so the turkey would be ready to cook by 6).   We didn't need to be to the in-laws until 10, and the gobbler was going to take about 4 hours to cook.  So we'd be a little late for breakfast, but not too much.

Got to bed by 1:00. 5:30 rolled around and my alarm didn't go off.  Fortunately (sort of), I woke up at about 5:50 and checked the time.  Jumped out of bed and finished prepping my bird and dropped him in the oven. Or her.  Thought about going back to bed.  Gave up on that idea. Watched some shows on Hulu.com that  I'd missed.

Eventually, it was time to get up.

Christmas Morning:  Cordelia is greeted by this sight (though less blurry...):

As you can see there are a lot of presents under the tree.  Most of which were actually for parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, etc.  However, I thought it looked better having them all piled up under the tree so we looked like we'd been completely spoiled :)

The trike is Cordelia's, as is the Crayola desk in back.  I haven't taken a great picture of it, just yet, but you'll see it in some of the following pics.  One of her favorite gifts, this year, came from her Uncle Chad (Tammy's brother) and Aunt Patty.  You'll see it in all of the following pictures.

Both the Crayola table, and the magnetic easel have a white-board side, and a chalk-board side.  Cordelia also received 3-4 pre-school books with white-board qualities (ie, you use a dry-erase marker to write on the pages of the book, and can wipe them clean).  She also received a Disney Princesses white-board message board.  Methinks a number of people out there know my little girl pretty well.  She absolutely loves to color and to draw.  Sometimes I think she loves to draw more than color, even.

She does portraits, too, though I haven't caught any on camera yet.  She tends to erase as soon as she finishes.

Anyway, after opening presents at home, we went to my parents-in-law for breakfast (two casseroles: hashbrown and french toast, both very good - especially the hashbrown).  And opened more presents.

Then we came home, and started finishing up the preparations for the afternoon/evening.  The turkey was as close to perfect as I could have hoped, the gravy came along very smoothly, the stuffing was cooking up easily (though I hadn't thought ahead and gotten anything to go with it, so it was mostly just flavored, moist croûtons).  My mom and her new family (my new step-father and two step-sisters) arrived around 3, 3:30, and we played games until my dad arrived.  Then we ate lots of turkey and its table-friends, visited, opened more presents, and all-in-all had a really nice evening. 

Unfortunately, my youngest brother (the only one who lives within a reasonable distance), was unable to bring his kids over.  He ended up with a stomach virus and had to stay home.  He was sick enough his wife had to stay home from work.  So my dad, who rents their basement, took their presents with him, as well as some leftovers.

And that was the Christmas of the White-Boards.  We had a jolly time, and we certainly hope you all did, too!

Booger Art 101

While fun to create and sometimes interesting to behold, the art of decorating the wall with ones nasal mucus is decidedly gross.

Yesterday, as I was reading Cordelia a story before her her nap, she started picking at the wall.  At first I thought there was a scuff or other blemish on the wall and I turned to tell her not to pick at it.  But what I saw wasn't a nick or scratch.  It was an encrusted booger.  I was certain.

I asked her outright, "Is that a booger?"

She informed me that, "Yes. It's boogy."

Needless-to-say (yet I'll say it anyway) I put a stop to the picking even more definitively than I would have if it had just been wall-picking.  I informed her in as stern-but-loving a voice as I could muster, that she was not to put her boogers on the wall anymore.  It is gross and she needs to use a tissue if she has boogers in her nose.

She said "Okay, sheesh."

When I started cleaning it off the wall, I discovered several more pieces of art; fortunately, it seems the discovery was made before it could get too out of hand.  I'm going to have to keep a close eye on the wall, and start having her clean it up if it continues.

I did make an observation, however.  Gross as it may be, I have to point out that boogers set up like concrete.  I wonder just how much influence boogers had on the invention of krazy-glue.

You may note that I did not post any pictures of Cordelia's Booger Art.  It's not an attempt at preserving any kind of copyright to her art.  It's mostly because it was really gross.  And it's doubtful I'll be taking any pictures of future projects, either.  Unless there's a coolness factor that outweighs the gross factor.

<*fingers crossed*>

Last Christmas by Wham!

I hate this song. I hate it enough to blog about it.  It is, quite possibly, the worst song ever written on many levels.

Ok, so I'm not a composer, myself, so I cannot judge the quality of the composition, or the music, etc. blah, blah.  What I am, however, is a listener.  A consumer, if you will.  Therefore, I believe I am qualified to judge the quality of the song based on my opinions, my tastes, and - frankly - the crappiness of the song.

Let me give you the first verse/chorus:

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart

But the very next day, You gave it away

This year, to save me from tears

I'll give it to someone special

First line: Ok, ok... so far, so good.  Nothing terribly original, but nothing overly dumb, either.

Second line: "... the very next day you gave it away..."

What?

I gave you my heart and then you gave it away?  How exactly does that work?  My understanding of metaphor would suggest that to give away ones heart would mean to fall in love and commit oneself to another.  So, if I fall in love and commit myself to somebody - give them my heart - just how, exactly, do they "give it away"?  Even if that were possible, wouldn't it suggest that the recipient of said heart just transferred the "gift" to another, so now somebody else had the giver's love and commitment?   In which case, what does that person care?  They are still in love and committed, just to somebody else.

Ok, clearly transference of another person's love is not actually possible.  So the song just insulted me by saying something stupid and expecting me to think "wow... that's clever!"

Line three:  Nothing inherently wrong with this line, though it is verging on trite.

Line four: "...I'll give it to someone special..."

Huh... so last year you gave it to someone you didn't think was special? Why would you have done that?  Why would you still be all hurt and upset and grudge-bearing about it a whole year later if the person you gave your heart to wasn't special?

Later in the song it goes: "...I thought you were someone special..."  So clearly, you did think they were special last year.  Based on the quality of the lyrics so far, and the fact that you're clearly still pining for the person you're singing this to, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that your judgment hasn't really cleared up all that much, and whoever you give your heart to this year will be just as "special" as last year's recipient.

On top of that, didn't you already say that this person "gave it away"?  So in order for you to give it to "someone special," you're going to have to track down the person who has it now, and take it back from them.

Worst of all, and this is arguably a good thing about the song, it has a catchy tune.  It gets stuck in your head and you can't get it out.  In some ways this is exactly what a song should do, if it's a good song.  Unfortunately, far too often, songs that get stuck in your head are horrible, so it becomes a form of torture.

What I really don't get is why this song has been covered by at least a half-dozen artists since Wham! released it in 1984.  The song is terrible.

It's not even a Christmas song!  It's a song about lost love and heart-break.  It uses "Christmas" as a setting, not an event, or anything.  Christmas songs are about the Savior, the season, the weather, or even about Christmas parties. 

Also, I couldn't get it out of my head last night.  Fell asleep with the song still repeating on that chorus.  Woke up in the middle of the night from a... not a nightmare, per se, but a bad dream in which everything in the dream was dependent on these lyrics being lobbed back and forth across the sky from giant trebuchets playing an immense game of jai alai.

After waking up, I tried replacing the song by singing different Christmas songs to myself.  Turns out all the good ones were in hiding and I ended up getting other annoying songs stuck instead (Jingle Bell Rock and I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, for example).

Around 8:00 am Last Christmas returned and has been with me ever since.  Even with other music playing.  It's awful.  Anyway, I figured if I can't rid my brain of the pain, I might as well share it.

A Loss for Words

With Regard to Ir-

English is a difficult language, American English in particular. It is particularly difficult for people learning English as a second or third language; it is even more difficult for them when those of us who speak it as a first language ignore or simply don’t bother learning the rules ourselves.

This blog is going to be a rant. A personal, angry tirade against the misuse of words simply because of the lackadaisical way we Americans treat the English language. Enough is enough. Let us be proud of our language enough to at least learn when it is appropriate to adulterate it, and when it is not.

Sometimes, when people chuckle, they also snort. This leads us to a natural combination of the words chuckle and snort: Chortle. I believe it was Charles Dickens who gave us this word (interestingly, a similar combination of his names gives us Chickens, though I doubt that is where this word came from).

When people become flustered, they also often become frustrated, hence we have the obnoxious, yet reasonable word flustrated.

The above two paragraphs are indications of situations where it is acceptable to adulterate the language. I will now provide an instance of when it is not.

Regardless:

Adj. Having or showing no regard.

Adv. Without concern as to advice etc.

Idiom. In spite of, without regard for.

Irrespective:

Adj. without regard to something else.

As you can see from the similarities of the definitions of these two words, it should be reasonable to combine them to create a new, more powerful, all-inclusive word: irregardless.

But it is not reasonable to do so.

The prefix ir- denotes opposition. It is similar to the prefixes un-, ex-, dis-, and de-. Consider the word responsible: Attach the prefix ir-, and suddenly the word irresponsible stares us in the face. If I tell you that I was too lazy to make oatmeal and instead fed my 2 year old a hot fudge sundae Pop-Tart for breakfast, all joking aside, would you think I was being responsible or irresponsible?

You begin to see the power of the prefix ir-. I call it an oppositizer.

By the rules, irregardless cannot be a combination of regardless and irrespective, as it is the opposite of these words. Note that irrespective iteself starts with ir- and is therefore an opposite of its root word respective. Thus irregardless is synonymous with respective, and therefore, opposite of irrespective, and therefore mathematically proved as an opposite to regardless.

What an awful paragraph that was. I hope you all made it through safely.

Sadly for me, the word irregardless has been misused so often and by so many people that it has actually been added to some dictionaries as a synonym to regardless. This despite the fact (regardless of the fact) that they are essentially polar opposites of one another.

Intelligent people with whom I’ve had this or similar conversations have often used the generally legitimate argument that “language is always evolving” and that as long as the person speaking is understood by his intended listeners, then it doesn’t matter if the words used are the correct words or not. Successful communication has taken place.

While technically true, it shows a deep disrespect for the mechanics and the very intelligence which allow human language to exist at all. If we fall back on the lazy argument that “well, you understood me from the context,” we might as well go back to grunts and growls to get our point across.

It reminds me of a lamely humorous thing my cousins and I used to say when we were in Middle School: The word dude can mean anything you want, depending on how you say it. It is all about inflection, and facial affectations.

In many ways, that’s all language is: inflection and affectation. But it has evolved to be so much more than that, so much more reliable, precise, and indicative. While inflection and affectation remain important, indeed core, functions of language, we have specific words with specific meanings in order to more effectively transmit the information we need to convey. We have words which represent inflection and affectation in order to express these functions of language via the written word.

Who among us hasn’t secretly cringed a little at a friend, an acquaintance, a sibling, or a parent when we heard them say something like, “We was there an hour early.” Or “I seen them coming a mile away.” In the first case, “was” is a conjugation of the verb “to be,” and therefore correct… and yet still very much incorrect. Likewise “seen” is a past tense of “to see,” and yet it wasn’t the correct past tense.

If you’ve read this far, you probably already agree with me, so there’s nothing more to say about it. Keep up the good work. To all the rest of you (the minority who don’t agree but did read this far), I’d encourage you to make a well-thought-out argument in favor of misusing words in order to communicate more effectively, but I honestly doubt I’d read it. Maybe for a laugh, but I’d probably just end up with a raging headache.

After I wrote this blog, I did a quick Google search for "irregardless dictionary" since I once found a dictionary of stupid English (paraphrasing). I thought I'd link it here. Instead I came across a Grammar Girl article (Grammar Girl is a really good resource for when you're trying to remember the rules for things like lay vs. lie etc.) about regardless vs. irregardless. So I'm linking it instead. She just set my mind at ease about why irregardless is in some dictionaries. Phew! I can sleep again.

"You Let Cordy Play in the Lion's Cage..."

“… and she got hurt. I’m very upset with you.”

I can’t blame her. What was I thinking, letting my almost-three-year-old play in a lion cage? I must be a terrible father.

And yet, I have to probe a little deeper. Since this happened in a dream, I have to ask why she dreamed about me being a terrible father. Does she think I’m a terrible father? Or was this just a simple case of random synapses firing in her stressed brainpan?

“I was in jail so I wasn’t with you when it happened. I don’t know exactly how she got hurt.”

Well, think I, at least she’s dreaming that she’s a less-than-perfect parent, too.

***

This brings me to what I was originally going to post about the other day, and ended up sidetracked:

When I come home at night - or if I’m home and Tammy comes home with Cordelia - and the first thing I hear as the door opens is “Daddy? Daaaaddy…” it wraps my heart in a warm towel. Fresh-from-the-drier warm.

She laughs at my stupidest jokes. My silliest faces. My goofiest attempts at being entertaining. Stuff that would make another adult roll their eyes, or just walk away in irritation make my little girl laugh and giggle. Sometimes it is the greatest feeling in the world, knowing that even though I’m no comedian, my daughter thinks I am. Sometimes, however, I get neurotic about it and wonder if I’m giving her a bad example, instructing her on how to be funny, but doing it in a way that will get her shunned from the society of other children, her peers as she grows up.

And then I shrug it off. I can only be who I am, and if that ruins her, so be it. At least she’ll know that her daddy loved her and spent enough time with her to destroy her socially. It sure beats the alternative. Besides, if the only laughs I’m ever going to get come from my daughter, age 2, then I had better take advantage of it while I can.

When she’s in trouble, even if I’m the one who is mad at her (especially if I’m the one) she puts on her sad face and opens her arms and asks for a hug. Of course, I never deny her any hugs – I need them, too. The hugs are important, I think, even when she’s in trouble, so she knows she’s still loved and she has simply done something that was inappropriate or unacceptable (example: She likes to get a mouthful of water/juice/milk/etc. and spit it on the floor in fun and interesting patterns. I certainly don’t want to stifle her creativity, but the laminate floor isn’t water-proof, easy or cheap to replace, and frankly, the behavior is kind of gross).

But I’m her daddy, and she picks me over Tammy 80% of the time. It makes me feel good, and sad at the same time. Tammy is a good mom and deserves more than 20%. I suppose in time she’ll get more. Girls seem to gravitate towards moms as they get older and realize that dads are just dumb boys like all the rest.