Couldn't Shake It Off

Before Lauren's father passed away he was in the hospital for 5 or so days. Lauren went to the hospital every day, sometimes twice a day for hours on end, to visit with her dying father and to support her mom. Every day, as she would leave, Maxfield would ask Lauren where she was going.

"I am going to visit Pop-Pop in the hospital." She would tell him.

Max being the typical three year old would ask "Why?" to everything. We would answer, "Pop Pop is sick and the hospital is where sick people go."

Everyday that Lauren was away Max would ask for his mother and I would explain that Pop Pop was sick and in the hospital.

When Lauren's father passed away we explained to Max that "Pop Pop went to live with God."

Three weeks later, before my father died, he was in the hospital for 5 or so days. Every night that I would leave to go visit him Maxfield would object. "I don't want you to leave."

"I know Max." I would say. "But Pa is real sick and I need to go see him in the hospital."

Everyday I was at the hospital Max would ask Lauren where I was and Lauren would explain "That Pa was in the hospital."

After my father died Max asked a lot of questions. We explained that "Pa went to live with God."
Being a typical three year old he asked "Why?" to everything. We explained that people who get sick and do not get better eventually go to live with God.

That was almost a year ago.

Tonight while Max was playing with some of the neighborhood kids, he fell pretty hard and did a good job of scraping his knee. I told him to "shake it off" as I do every time he gets hurt. The mother of the other kids looked at his wound. Max was being very dramatic about how bad the boo-boo hurt and the mom, playing along with Max's seriousness and being very kind and sweet, asked him if he wanted to go to the hospital.

Max became very quiet and asked me to carry him home. I told him I couldn't because I had Wyatt to manage. He jumped into my arms and started sobbing and begged me to carry him home. I did.

Max cried into my ear, "I don't want to go live with God, Dad. I don't want to go to the hospital and I don't want to live with God.

It broke my heart and I couldn't shake it off.

Seek and Find

Wyatt has a habit of losing his jucie cup. He just leaves it wherever. When he then gets thirsty he asks either Lauren or myself to help him find it. Like all items designed for children, his juice cup is brightly colored plastic and it blends in with everthing else Wyatt owns. So we often play seek and find.

It rained all weekend. We played inside all weekend. We played seek and find all weekend.

In the below photo see if you can find:
1.-Juice cup
2.- Spiderman guy (There may be more that one)
3.-Baby Jaguar
4.-A Little Peoples Sheep.
5.- An Elephant
6.- A soccer ball
7.- A Croc like shoe
8.-My patience
9.-Lauren's Sanity
10.-Wyatt's feet.

Jimmies or Sprinkles

Maxfield and I argued over the jimmies on his oatmeal. You may be asking yourself what are jimmies? And on oatmeal?

A while back, in an effort to get the kids to eat their oatmeal, Lauren started putting various things in the oatmeal. Besides some healthy stuff like ground flax seed she would also put in raisins or bananas or applesauce. One day she decided to top their oatmeal with some rainbow jimmies. She and the kids call them sprinkles. I call them jimmies.

Yesterday I made the kids their breakfast and I topped their oatmeal with rainbow non-pareils. There is a significant difference between the two. Jimmies are long and tubular and non-pareils are just dots. Of course Max noticed the difference.

"Dad, mommy puts sprinkles on the oatmeal."

"That's what I did."

"These are NOT sprinkles. I don't like this kind."

"Maxfield they are the same thing."

"No they are not."

"Yes they are."

"No they are not."

"Yes they are. They are both made of sugar. They are just different shapes."

"They are not the same."

Knowing that I could have a logical conversation with a four year old, I grabbed the container of the jimmies and threw some on top of his oatmeal.

"There." I said. "Is that better?"

His rolled his eyes and placed his spoon next to this bowl clearly as a sign he was not going to eat the oatmeal.

"What?" I asked."That's what you wanted. Now eat the oatmeal."

"But I wanted chocolate sprinkles." Max whined.

"We don't have chocolate, only rainbow sprinkles."

"These are not rainbow sprinkles." Max said as he picked through them.

"Yes they are."

"No they are not." Max said confidently. He picked up a brown colored sprinkle. "This is brown." He then picked up a white sprinkle. "This is white. Here is another brown one. Rainbows do not have the colors brown and white in them. These are not rainbow sprinkles."

A minute ago I questioned his logic, now I had to question mine.

What do you call them? Sprinkles or Jimmies?

Now I Just Need a Trough

I spent the weekend Begatting. When we moved into our house a year ago we had a white birch tree removed form the front yard. The tree was about two feet from our front walkway and was infested with ants. After the stump was ground out we had a rather large bare area directly in front of our house. This empty space begat some shrub removal in the same area.

I think I have dug up and removed about 15 bushes and shrubs from our front yard in the past year. The shrub removal has begat a new garden project.


I used a Mantis rototiller to dig a rather large area for our walk way garden.
Of course the kids helped with sifting the dirt. Notice their brown shirts that help hide the dirt for our many trips to Lowes. The only thing of interest we found sifting was a about a dozen worms and rusty quarter.
The new garden begat a "cosmetic fence" to the front of our house. Lauren took pictures to document the progress. It was right at this point that she said, "Wow. The first two posts went in so easy. That wasn't bad at all.", which then cursed me to have the last post take twice as long to set.
We are half way done our landscaping project and now I feel comfortable that if we have any visitors to our house that ride a horse, they will have a place to tie up reins.

Dorito Diet

"Bill?" Lauren calls out to me from the kitchen while I am sitting at the computer in the other room. "Where did this bag of Doritos come from?"

"I just bought them tonight." I yelled back. "I wanted to try their new flavor combo."

"How are they?" she asks.

"Pretty good."

"I thought you told me last week you were gong to try and lose ten pounds." She says, reminding me of my goal to lose ten pounds.

"I am." I said. "Thats why I only at HALF the bag."

Poop and Boogies Bump

I received an invitation in the mail to go see Brad Meltzer at a book signing in the Philadelphia area(read posts about Brad Here Here and Here). I planned on attending the signing anyway but the fact that I received and invite just meant that they wanted me there. I am sure no one else actually received an invite. Sure it was not addressed specifically to me but they knew who they were sending it to. Right?

I have been to a few book signings but never for Brad Meltzer. The guy is one of my favorite authors and it was a perfect opportunity to meet him and talk to him and you know...stalk him.

I arrived a little early and staked out my seat in the middle of the goup of folding chairs the book store had set up in front of a podium. I did not want to be too close to the front because then I would seem too eager, too dorkish. I did not want to be too far back because I did not want to seem like I was not interested. My seat was perfect.

I met a lovely couple, John and Joanne, who were there to get a book signed for their son Dennis. They were not fans of Brad but were willing to muddle through the event for their son. I chatted with them for a bit before Brad arrived.

Brad spoke for about 30 minutes about his book, his writing, his television projects and comics. He was very funny. Joanne and John seemed like they were entertained. I did not see too many people there taking pictures so I was not sure if I would look like the biggest dork in the world if I started snapping photos. When Brad sat down to sign some books I decided to sneak some pictures in.

That is him there signing away.


The above picture was so I could have a picture of Brad and me together in case they were not going to allow it. I stood in line for about 10 minutes trying to come up with something witty to say but I knew that once I started talking I would sound like Chris Farley interviewing Paul Mc Cartney. Again Iwanted to avoid the whole dorkishiness.

When I got to the table I said hello as Brad asked me if I wanted to have the book personalized.

"I'm Bill, from Poop and Boogies." I said.

Brad jumped up from the table. "I am so glad to meet you." He said. "Thanks so much for coming tonight. Give me a hug."

He hugged me and said. "I really love your blog."

Then we chatted for a few minutes and I do not remember what he said after that,because I could not get past the fact that he told me that he loved my blog.

I aksed him if I could take a stalker picture with him and he said of course. He thanked me for the review and again for attending the signing.

This is how he signed my book.

I was relieved. I was not a dork at all. I did not embarrass myself.

The Book of Lies is now #2 on the New York Times best Seller list. Do you know where it was on the list before my review? It wasn't. I like to think that my review boosted his book to the number 2 position. Poop and Boogies bumped his sales up.

I hung out for a while after and listened to other people talk about his books and I listened to his responses. He was genuinely gracious and appreciative of every person there. He was also very, very funny. I was enjoying listening to him crack jokes. Then, I realized that I was the only one sitting there besides Brad's friends and family. I suddenly felt quite awkward and weird. I was the only person there that was not part of his group. Should I just get up and leave? No, that would be strange, like why was I just hanging out and then get up and bolt out of there? Should I say something else to him? No that would seem waaay too stalker-ish. I was stuck. His friends were kind of giving each other looks, but referring to me, like "yo what's up with this dude?"

I sensed the complete awkwardness of the entire moment. I stood up and shook Brad Meltzer's hand and I left.

All the efforts I took to avoid me being a total dork...gone.

Rule Clarification

Just say you had a rule in your house (relationship) that stated If one person cooks dinner, the other person does the dishes, and that rule works well, but then one day a person cooks such a big meal that it is used for the next nights meal, and even though the other person heated it up shouldn't they be responsible for doing the dishes since the other person cooked dinner originally?

Name Brand

I have posted before that I think that store brand products are just as good as the name brand. There are a few exceptions. Doritos and Oreo Double Stuff are examples of the exceptions.

I have added a new exception to my rule. Lipton Onion Soup mix. I don't use it to make soup. I don't know anyone who uses it to make soup. Most people use it to make dip (or Scoop).

Recently I bought the store brand onion soup mix to make my dip. For some reason the little bits of onion that they use in the store brand do not soften in the sour cream like the Lipton brand. The little tiny crescent shaped pieces of onion stay crunchy.

While I was eating my chips and dip I could not help but feel I was eating a bowl full of sour cream and toenail clippings.

Now can you imagine if I was eating Frito's, which to me always smell like dirty socks, with my dip?

Cemetery

While driving to a party we passed the cemetery where my dad is buried. I mentioned to Lauren that it has been a while since I went to visit his grave.

I went a few times not long after he died. The rectangular plot was still just dirt and pebbles and stark and raw. The grave was fresh, like my sadness, and it reminded me of how I felt because of his passing. But it was still nice to have a place to go and "visit" him. In the spring my brother, the LawnWhisperer, went to cemetery with his rakes and fertilizer and grass seed and even though there is a grounds crew to take care of the plots, he made sure that my dad would have the best looking "lawn" out of everyone there.

I said to Lauren, "I really should go and visit him. It's been a while since I "talked" to him."

Lauren and I discussed the concept of having a place to go to visit our departed loved ones. She told me that I really didn't need to go to the cememtary to talk to him. I could talk anywhere. I agreed with her but I like having a place to go to feel a connection.

Lauren said the she feels more comfortable going to one of her dad's favorite places in order to feel connected. That if she wants to talk to her dad, she could go to the lake where her dad liked to fish. She finds that more comforting. It would be a more happy place. She suggested that maybe I could do that, instead of feeling the need to go to the cemetery.

My dad had many favorite places. I thought about it for a minute and I told Lauren, "I think you are right. I am going to go to Philly Park (horse racing) or maybe the casinos the next time I want to talk to dad."

Visiting dad may become expensive.

Cicada Party

These things are all over our backyard. The only thing we can do is make them part of the fun.

Honey

If you were sent to Sam's Club to pick up 5 lbs of honey, what aisle at Sam's do you think the honey would located?

The aisle marked cereal?

The aisle marked peanut butter and jelly?

The aisle marked spices and sugar?

The aisle marked condiments?

Or the aisle marked tea?


If you were sent to Sam's Club, to get honey, and you were already there for, like forever, and you ask the 90 year old lady wearing a hairnet and plastic gloves, who works at Sam's handing out samples of mint jelly, for assistance in locating the honey and the conversation goes like this:

Me: Excuse me. I am looking for honey.

Her: You are looking for a honey?

Me: No. Just. Honey.

Her: Well if it was A honey. You found one right here.

Do you pretend to flirt with her just so she will direct you to the correct aisle that much quicker?

There is a word for it but I am not sure what it is

Maxfield and I had an argument tonight. He refused to eat his dinner and I refused to give him anything else for the rest of the night. He begged me for milk. He begged me for a snack. I kept telling him his dinner was on the table and that if he was hungry he could eat that.

We argued some more. Bad moods surfaced. Max wanted to watch his show and I wanted to watch the Phillies.

Right before bed time he picked up his toy cell phone and dialed a number.

"Hello is Ethan there?" He asked loud enough for me to hear. "Hi Ethan. This is Maxfield. What are you doing?"

He paused as if he was listening to an answer from his friend Ethan.

"Oh really?" Max said into the phone even louder making sure I hear him. "You are drinking milk and watching T.V. Okay. I was just checking."

Ordinary

I have written here before about my history with comic books and superheroes. Superman is considered to be the first superhero.


In highschool I dressed in Superman shirts.

My brothers, at my wedding, dressed as Superman and superheroes.

Here is a cool video sent to me by my buddy Brad about the house where Superman was created. Save the Superman House.

But what I think is even cooler is this site. Ordinary People Change the World Go and surf that site and be Ordinary.

Today's post brought to you by the letter Z

I received an email a couple of weeks ago informing me that Sesame Street launched a new website.

Sesamestreet.org


The email pointed out all the new features that the site has; Games, Videos, Character Bios (did you know Oscar the grouch is a Gemini?)Etc.


My favorite section is the video archive of all celebrity guests. Seeing a young Billy Joel, before his third chin, or a pre-dead Johnny Cash singing to Oscar is great. And this ONE is for Susie over at What Was I Thinking.

And this ONE is for Lauren at Gigglepotamus. I am just sorry that it does not include the new man her life, Timm Gunn, even though I think he resembles a muppet.

Book of Lies the Review

Oh the pressure.

The last time I had to write something even remotely close to a book review was when I was in 11th grade, in Mrs. Bray's English Class, and I had to do a 500 word essay on Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. It started something like this: "The Sun Also Rises, a book by Ernest Hemingway, is very,very,very, very, very, interesting. I really, really, really,really, liked his use symbolism."

Brad Meltzer, through his publisher and marketing people, made sure I received an advanced copy of his latest novel The Book of Lies. The book is not out in stores until Spetember 2nd. I received my copy on August 9th. I had visions that if I read the book that weekend and sent in my review that,maybe, on the back cover of the store copy dust jacket it would say something like: William from Poop and Boogies. com says "An action packed thriller. A true page turner." But a couple of things prevented a quick read. One, I am a very slow reader. And two, I just started reading a book about the Battle of Gettysburg which, is no big deal because I often read more that one book at a time. Oh, and three, I also have two kids to raise, a wife to spend time with, work to do, Project Runway to watch and Guilder to Frame for it. I'm swamped.

I also wanted the excitement of getting a preview copy to wear off so I could give it a fair review. It took me a few days to even attempt to start it. Then something else happened. General Longstreet did not agree with General Lee's plan for Pickett's charge. I had to finish those chapters in "The Killer Angels" first.

The premise of The Book of Lies is that the weapon that Cain used to murder Abel is never mentioned in the Bible and is lost to history. In 1932 Jerry Siegel's father is killed, a murder that is never solved, as a result Jerry goes on to create Superman, one of the worlds most recognized icons. What could these two crimes have in common?

I know it sounds a little strange and somewhat nerdy. I finally found some pieces of time to actually read the book. I kept a little notebook on me so I could make some notes for my review. Guess what? I did not write down one note. I was immediatley caught up in pacing of the book. The Book of Lies has short chapters, so from a pratical level, for someone who is busy like me, it is very easy to read on breaks, during lunch, or in between innings of the Phillies' games

The main character is Cal Harper, a former federal agent, who now works for a homeless shelter, patrolling the streets helping the needy. One night he finds his father, who he has not seen in 18 years, one the side of the road with a bullet wound in his side. Cal's father quickly garners Cal's help in the chase for world's first murder weapon. Not strange or nerdy at all. It reads like The DaVinci Code but instead of the Holy Grail, the characters seek Cain's murder weapon. And instead of clues being left in DaVinci's paintings, the characters are seeking leads from the works of another creative genius, Jerry Siegel. The Book of Lies is very good.

There is a reason why Brad Meltzer is one of my favorite authors and with this book he proved it again. Meltzer does not tell the story. He lets his characters tell the story. Cal, and Lloyd and Serena and Ellis tell this story.

Go to Brad's website and read more about The Book of Lies, you can even read the first chapter. Then go and get the book and read it and then comeback and tell me what you thought.

Oh and Brad, if you happen to read this review, leave a comment just so I can prove my friend Nilbo wrong.

The Book of Lies

Last year I wrote about my slight fascination with the New York Times Best selling author Brad Meltzer. If you go back and read that post, in the comments, you will see that Nilbo somewhat mocks me and doubts that I kinda had an email exchange with a best selling author. I emailed Brad and asked him to read the post in the hopes that he would comment on Poop and Boogies just so I could prove to Nilbo I did not make up my story. Brad never posted a comment.

A couple of weeks later my friend Aly, who reads my blog, told me that her husband's sister is married to Brad Meltzer's roomate from college. I was six degrees separated from one of my favorite authors. That was all the incentive I needed to stalk Brad Meltzer. I sent him another email directing him to my original post and explaining that he and I were practically best friends via his college roomate's wife's brother's wife's highschool friend. He never commented but he did reply saying that he read the post. I was grateful for email but it was not enough to prove to Nilbo I was buddies with a 6 time N.Y Times bestseller.

Some time has passed since then. I am not sure of the exact details (I know that I emailed Brad or commented on his blog a few times) but somewhere along the way I was asked by Brad Meltzer to review his latest book "The Book of Lies." That's right, stalking him has its privledges.

This is me in my best stalker look holding the advanced reading copy.
Here is a picture of the advanced reading copy. See the red circle? That says "Advanced reading copy. Not for resale." Look I even zoomed in on the red circle in the picture below.
And yes, I snickered when I zoomed in that it looks like the book is called Bra Melt.

Needless to say I was very excited to have the oppotunity to review his newest book.

Then I got nervous. What would I write about it? I never have done a review before. What does one say? What if I did not like it? What if Nilbo still doesn't believe me that I kinda know Brad Meltzer.

Oh the pressure.

To Be continued.....

Fries

I try to teach my kids the right things. I really do. Sometimes I feel, no matter what I do, that they just don't get it.

Lately Maxfield has been requesting that I put ketchup directly ON his fries. He used to want his ketchup in a nice pile next to his fries so he could dip his fries and get the proper ketchup-to-fry ratio. Just like his father.

The past few weeks he wants me to squeeze the ketchup, all willy nilly like, back and forth, directly on his french fries. Some fries have lots of ketchup and some barely have any. I don't know where he learned this behavior. Not from his mother. She likes the little pile of ketchup next to her fries also. Maybe he is just being defiant.

When you eat french fries with ketchup, do you pour the ketchup NEXT to the fries or directly ON to the fries?

Money Sharing

If a man is married, and let's say he wins some money playing the lottery or something, is he obligated, morally, ethically, legally to share or split the winnings with his wife?

I am sure most of you that read this site just thought to yourself, "Well, hell yeah he should split it." except for a select few who may be thinking the "I broke even." rule could take effect here.

And if you answered the above question with a yes, does the wife have the same obligation to the husband if she won some money at Bunco night?

Scar

I had this "thing" removed from my neck.

It was a cyst but the definition for cyst is: An abnormal membranous sac containing a gaseous, liquid, or semisolid substance. I find that definition pretty gross so I refer to it as a "thing".

The dermatologist did not lance the "thing" she had to cut it out of my neck. This left an inch and half gash across the center of the front of my neck, right in front of my adams apple. She had to give me four stitches to keep the wound closed. She said the scar would "fall nicely into the crease of my neck" and should not be visible. I say it is placed nicely at the bottom of my slowly forming second chin.

I had to keep the sutures for a week. During that time, I attended a wedding and knew that people may ask questions about the small zipper staring at them from my throat. I told Lauren I was going to tell each person that asked a different story about what happened.

This is what Icame up with.

"I was held at knife point during a robbery and this is where the knife was held."
"I was choking and Lauren performed and emergency tracheotomy."
"I was running with scissors."
"When I was a kid, my brother shot me in the neck with a BB gun and I finally had the BB removed."

Lauren came up with "You woke up with a bug bite on your neck and it grew and when the doctor took it out it was filled with spider eggs."

At the wedding I only got to use two of my stories. The stitches were not as visible in the dim lit reception hall as I thought they would be.

I had the stitches removed and now I have a small scar which is more visible than the doctor claimed it would be. I need more stories to tell in the event that some one asks.

I have an inch and half scar across the front of my neck, tell me a good story that I can use in case someone asks.

Somewhere over the...