Cleaning Up During my adult life (meaning post-college), a span of forty-four years, I have not lived alone for very long. I am what they call a serial monogamist. I don’t understand people who enjoy playing the field. I can only handle one relationship at a time, but I have a strong need to be in a primary relationship. I am on my third and last marriage. I can be so certain about that…
The Danger Zone Today I spent several hours with my lovely granddaughters, literally taking a handoff from my youngest son, their uncle. After a round of volleyball with a soft indoor ball (I enjoyed teaching the four-year-old how to use both hands to volley) we settled into GrubHub dinner and a showing of The Sound of Music. I was surprised when my daughter told me they had only seen Mary Poppins the day before and…
Boogie Night It’s been a long time, maybe twenty years, since I saw Paul Thomas Anderson’s classic saga of a young man (a particularly well-endowed young man) and his journey through the pornography world of the San Fernando Valley in the late 1970’s. When he wrote, produced and directed this sex cult movie in 1997, Anderson had already spent ten years thinking about his Dirk Diggler character played by Mark Wahlberg. He was obviously committed…
Your Mother’s on the Roof Lennie Watts is staying with us for a week in San Diego. He and Kim are heading up to Los Angeles tonight for two days supposedly for work, but I know its mostly so Lennie can go to Disneyland for two days. There will be a meeting with a fellow Singnasium board member in L.A., but Lennie’s not kidding me. He’s a Disneyholic who can’t get enough of the teacups.…
The Life Aquatic The Life Aquatic Ever since Moonrise Kingdom, I have had my concerns about Wes Anderson, less as a film director and more as a person. In that film I was simply offended by him having a young pre-adolescent girl running around flashing her white underwear. Strangely enough, if he had put her in colored or flowered underwear I would have had less of a problem. To me it was like having a…
The Truth About Duluth Ever since I gave up on wearing tidy whiteys, which must now be over thirty years ago, I have been in search of the perfect underwear. That may sound like a mundane quest or one that should never have been in play, but the technology of clothing and materials has come a long way. We were all raised to think that only cotton could keep you comfortable, and that keeping it…
The Jabrone Preamble As it turns out, there are Gibronis, Jibronis and Jabrones and they collectively attest to the power of urban lexicon. The differences between the words is pretty insignificant, even though some seem to want to parse that some are meant to declare rather than denigrate; designate, but not condemn. I find that all pretty funny and more indicative of our Uber-concerns about political correctness, or more accurately our fervent wish to not…
A Dog’s Life The main reason we drove 2,900 miles cross-country last week was to get our dog, Cecil to our new home in San Diego. Cecil is a Bichon Frise (pure breed as it turns out) who came to us as a rescue in August 2009. He was estimated to be two-years-old when we got him. That means he is about twelve years old now. He has a replacement leg ligament, from which he…
The Tattoo of Life We are all a product of what life has dealt us over the years. Some people wear it on their face with their wrinkles showing the hardships they have endured. Other people show the wear and tear on their souls where it is not as obvious at first, but comes through equally clearly after time spent with them. I think we all know people that have become embittered with age. They…
Whose Father Do You Think Would Be Madder? Back in the days before political correctness was the necessity it is today, I heard my redneck Chairman (RIP) comment about a married couple who worked for us that came from different ethnic backgrounds. It is one of the funnier yet most biting comments I have ever heard that effectively denigrated two ethnicities all at once. I am hesitant these days to repeat the comment except in…