Kobayashi Maru

And so it’s Earth Day.  A day where we celebrate…uhh…Earth.  I guess. If you area at all like me - yeah I know, scary thought and not something that you would publicly admit to anyway, but still, if you are, then you would suddenly feel this overwhelming urge - nay, NEED - to Google “earth day” and find out what this whole thing is about anyways…so, let’s do it.

Kneel down, close you eyes and say, “great oracle Google.  Please tell us…”  What!?  Oh sure, you don’t pray to Google.  You just use Google like a harlot.  Getting your needs met whenever YOU feel like it, but never giving back.  Have you ever even said Thank You  once?!  Well.  Have you?  I thought not.  Ok, Google whore user person.  Lets just go get what we want from Google and then move on to the next tab in our browser like we don’t care shall we?  FINE!

So Google tells us that

Earth Day, celebrated in the US on April 22, is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment. It was founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in in 1970 and is celebrated in many countries every year. This date is Spring in the Northern Hemisphere and Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere.

The United Nations celebrates an Earth Day each year on the March equinox.

That sounds all warm-fuzz doesn’t it?  Like we should take some time each year and nurture nature?  Let’s hug trees and dance naked in the forests at midnight in the light of the full moon…

But I digress…there is more that Google is willing to give us, if we would just be patient and a little kinder.

Like this:

In September 1969 at a conference in Seattle, Washington, U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin announced that in spring 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on the environment. This occurred during a time of great concern about overpopulation and when there was a strong movement towards “Zero Population Growth.”

Nelson viewed the stabilization of the nation’s population as an important aspect of environmentalism and later said:

“The bigger the population gets, the more serious the problems become … We have to address the population issue. The United Kingdom, with the U.S. supporting it, took the position in Cairo in 1994 that every country was responsible for stabilizing its own population. It can be done. But in this country, it’s phony to say ‘I’m for the environment but not for limiting immigration.’”

OH OK!!!  So Earth Day was originally a big push to have people stop breeding.  I get it.  Love the Earth more and each other a little less…nudge, nudge, wink , wink, know what I’m sayin??

SO Earth Day is where we celebrate a pledge to stop procreating.  It’s like a birth-control celebration!!!  Only, don’t use condoms, cause those things don’t recycle.  (If you somehow think differently on that - Please, for the love of God and all that’s holy, don’t explain your position in the comments.  Seriously.)

I’m starting to understand now!!

Wait…what?  Google has more for us?  See how much better it is when you treat Google right Mr. Man?

Five months before the first April 22 Earth Day, on Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried a lengthy article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the rising hysteria of “global cooling”^.

“Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation’s campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam…a national day of observance of environmental problems…is being planned for next spring…when a nationwide environmental ‘teach-in’…coordinated from the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson is planned….”

OHHHHH….So Earth Day is to warn up about the dangers of Global Cooling!!!  I get it.  So we all go outside in parkas and mittens and then go out in the forests in the dark of night and rub our naked bodies together to create a natural heat that can turn the tide against this global cooling epidemic that will kill us all with the new ice age!

Wait a minute…what the hell am I going on about?  Global COOLING??  I am confused…I need me some more Google.

Denis Hayes, the national coordinator, and his old staff organized massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.

Alllriiiighty then…so on Earth Day we protest.  We are angry about deteriorating environments, and oil spills, and factories and power plants and raw sewage (I prefer my sewage medium well personally) and toxic dumps (as opposed to innocuous dumps I suppose), pesticides, and freeways (I hate those big things that are paved and allow me to go visit people and see things that I would otherwise never see or die on the journey to), the loss of wilderness (cause I need more wild in my life) and extinction.  These things all really chap  my hide.  Individually, I would probably just stew in my own proverbial juices, but when looked at collectively, it is a rallying cry to people all over to stand up and say, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dib2-HBsF08[/youtube]

I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GONNA…what?  I’m sorry, what?  What do you mean there’s more?  Oh ok, what now?

Earth Day on April 22 in 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide

Recycling??  Seriously?  I thought we were mad as hell?  So what, we’re so mad that we’re gonna create blue plastic bags…and we’re gonna put cans and bottles and plastic stuff into different blue bags and neatly set them on our curbside every week!  Yeah…that’ll show them…Geez.  That’s not even worth getting undressed in the forest for.  Earth Day sucks…

Errr…WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? What does that Google biatch want now?!?!  I’m starting to understand your emotional detachment to Google.  That is one seriously high-maintenance relationship.  Even act like you care for one minute and it just won’t shut up…

Ok.  What now?

As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy.

NOW JUST A FREAKING MINUTE HERE!!!  We started this whole thing because of global cooling!  Oh, alright, so we actually started it because of over population, but we moved onto global cooling pretty quickly there at the start.  So what’s the deal?  We did such a good job keeping the planet from getting cold that now folks are pissed that it’s too warm?  Are you kidding me??  It’s like my wife wants to be in charge of the Earth’s thermostat too!  “It’s too cold…now it’s too hot.”  Is the Earth pregnant?  Is this really global warming, or just a hot flash?  Honestly, the Earth could just be in menopause.  I’m not sayin’…I’m just sayin’.

Ok, so now (for the moment anyway) we are running off to the forest to dance naked in the moonlight…cause it’s too darn hot to do it durng the day?  Cause a sunburn on your hoohoo would not be pleasant? I’m confused.

Can’t we just go hug a tree and be done with it?

I for one have been celebrating Earth Day all week long.  It’s true.  I swear.  No really.  Ok, I’ll prove it.

On Monday, for some unknown reason, I started getting up at 6am - which is the butt crack of dawn.  Honestly, if you get out there early enough you can see the horizon hitching its pants up in the back and going from galactic plumber to morningscape.  Anyway, I started running.  It’s not like it is the first time in my life.  I was on the track team in high school.  Yes, this year will be my 20th reunion…so what!?  Point is, I have run before.  Sure, not in a while.   But running is like riding a bike right?  Only harder and you can’t coast downhill…and you can’t buy a spiffy new runner that has 12 speeds like a bike does so you can pick the right gear to make peddling easy like on a bike…and there’s no cushy seat (with a gel seat cover) to rest your fat bum on…you know what?  Running is NOTHING like riding a bike.  I don’t know why I said that.  Bike riders are lazy compared to runners.

Anyway, I started running again.  Not particularly fast.  Not particularly far.  And definitely not particularly pretty.  But I do it early so people don’t have to see me.  They shouldn’t be looking out there anyway unless the want to see the butt crack of dawn and that’s voyeurism anyway and worse, who wants to see buttcrack?  People don’t even do Google image searches for buttcrack…

ok, go ahead.  you know you want to now.  Do a google image search for buttcrack.  We’ll wait.  Oh for Pete’s sake…make sure safe search is on you sicko…ok.  Back now?  Happy you did that?  I didn’t think so.  Did you see the one really fat guy that had a…errrrr, I mean, none of us want to hear about your perverted little foray into pictorial buttcrackdom.

Butt I digress…heh…get it?  BUTT I digress….with two T’s…it’s a double entendre…

Anyway, I am running again.  Not right at this moment, but conceptually I mean.  I run.  I have been running for 4 days straight now.  And I get up WAY early and put on sweats and nice comfy new runners.  (ok, they aren’t NEW new.  I bought them like 4 years ago actually.  But I had never worn them until Monday when I started running again. So…new.)  I grab my ipod with 500 sngs on it, you know, in case I ever get to the point where I need more than the 4 I listen to now…during warm-ups and stretching and running and cool down.  WHAT?  I’m efficient!!!  I plan to do more.  I’m working up to it.  Next week…FIVE songs!

Again, I digress.  So I was proving to you that I have been celebrating Earth Day all week long.  So Monday I was hugging a tree on our street cause I needed something to hold onto when I started retching and puking from not having run in freaking years and suddenly thinking it was a good idea and just up and starting again without consulting my body who was OBVIOUSLY a little upset and not fully on board with the idea.  Then Tuesday, I hugged a tree - no not the same one, I made it a little further - to steady myself when the world started spinning as I hyperventilated…from not having run in freaking years and suddenly thinking it was a good idea and just up and starting again without consulting my body who was OBVIOUSLY a little upset and not fully on board with the idea.  Then today I hugged yet another tree as I desperately tried to stretch out the cramp in my calf because while the rest of my body seemed to be coming around to the idea of running, my legs have taken it as a personal affront and are united in their desire to cause me as much pain as physically possible without there being an infant at the end of the ordeal.

SO there!  I have indeed been hugging trees all freaking week.  Earth Day is like apathy…I have been doing Earth Week.  AND I went to an Earth Day celebration at the Muppet’s school today.  That was a treat let me tell you.  They all sang a song, that I can only assume they have been practicing, because as much as the Muppet likes to think that life is a musical, the probability of 40 something pre-schoolers and kindergartners suddenly breaking into song spontaneously is pretty slim.  I leave you to do the math if you are that interested in probability…plus they all knew the words:

Don’t throw your junk in my backyard, my backyard, my backyard

Don’t throw your junk in my backyard, we must recycle.

Yep…when sung, it sounds about how it reads.  No rhyme, no rhythm, nothing that one usually mentally connects with the word “song”.  But those details did not stop them from singing it.  Over.  And over.  And over.  And over.

You’d think being an institute of learning they would know that Earth Day and recycling is SO 1990!  Obviously they don’t Google there.  Bet they didn’t hug three different trees this week.  Posers…

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So, evidently I am on a roll here with thematic stories. I don’t like it any more than you do - trust me. But this is my life…what am I gonna do. All my loyal reader(s) know that my wife is a professional passion coach. It’s true. And yes, I am a lucky man. But that is not the point. Ok, Ok…considering the fact that my wife is a passion coach, who cares what the point is. You noobies can dwell on that for a bit longer, but I am moving on ahead.

So Ferf is a passion coach and one of the things she does is answer people’s questions. Not the “where’d I leave my socks” type questions, but the “there is no way in hell I am going to ask this out loud” type. Hence, she gets many questions via email. ‘Cause was can all type p-e-n-i-s, s-e-x and v-a-g-i-n-a even if we don’t like to say them out loud.

Sometimes these questions are truly heart wrenching. Sometimes they are truly disturbing. And sometimes, like today, they are down right hilarious. Now, please understand, I am kept completely in the dark as to my wife’s client list - though often times I get these knowing nods of “dude, thanks” from guys and I figure their wife was a client. But outside of that (which makes church awkward) I am out o’ the loop regarding who she sees or who asks what question. And that, my dear friend, is what allows me to share today’s story with you. We are all in the dark and can assume that I might have even made this up…but I didn’t!!!!

So this letter comes from a guy. A dad. Might have even been a single dad. Don’t know. But the fact that it is a dude writing, tells me that this guy is seriously seeking help. Guys are not the first ones to run for “help” in any area that pertains to the sexual organs. If it’s our organ we figure we have got it under control. If it’s someone else’s organ and there is an issue surrounding it, then we are ABSOLUTELY SURE that there is a game on TV that needs watching. If it’s someone else’s organs and the issue is that they are spilling out of a bikini top - then yeah, sure we’re there to help. Outside of that. Not so much.

But this guy - he’s looking for some assistance (though not with his sexual organ I might add for the sake of clarity, and because if I don’t clarify half of you will stop reading…and badger will just be disappointed). No, this gentleman is concerned for another. Which of course is very noble. Only one thing could be more noble according to the Princess Bride:

Miracle Max: You got any money?
Inigo Montoya: Sixty-five.
Miracle Max: I’ve never worked for so little. Except once, and that was a very noble cause.
Inigo Montoya: This is noble, sir. His wife is… crippled. His children are on the brink of starvation.
Miracle Max: Are *you* a rotten liar.
Inigo Montoya: I need him to help avenge my father, murdered these twenty years.
Miracle Max: Your first story was better.

Anyway…the gentleman in question had to gather up all his gumption and sit down at the keyboard and over come the normal PEBCAK issues that stop most of us from doing something on the internet and then write out his story & the resulting question and then send it out into cyberspace.

All in all, not the most fear-free of activities. So kudos to this guy. He deserves a moment of honest appreciation…you know, before we kinda mock him. So here’s to you question sending dad guy!

Ok… on to the story. (Though Ferf did not give me a lot of lead in details, so work with me as I am having to make a lot of this up use inductive reasoning to solidify some of the normal surrounding detail. SO, dude, emails my wife because he has a question that needs addressing so he can get some sleep at night and not feel so awkward when he is out and about with friends and family. The sheer horror of his certainty that he is the only person alive who has been confronted with this potentially humiliating, if not fully scarring issue has provided him with little sleep and even that has been filled with night terrors not seen since before horror movies were serialized into plot-less caricatures by a soulless Hollywood hell bent on turning a genre that was intended to scare children into unquestioning obedience into a uncreative money-grab. But I digress…

This man has come to the guru seeking knowledge. His dilemma is as unconquerable as Mt. Everest to him. He has no one to turn to and needs an answer. How can he look at himself in the mirror and feel that he is anything but a failure as a father if he cannot deal with this? Sure it starts small, but if left unchecked, how can he be certain that he is not a scant couple of decades away from being keelhauled onto Oprah or worse - Jerry Springer because of his inaction as a father…

So he asks the question. “What should I do?” He gives some basic info: “I have a 5 year old daughter. And she, she… *sigh* I have found her in her room on occasions… “should I make an issue out of this, or just let it go…” “My 5 year old daughter likes to hump her teddy bear because she says it feels good!”

I can’t help myself.  As I fall down into fits of hysterical (if not maniacal) laughter, I  suddenly I have this image of a made for TV mini-series, produced by HBO -

The Playground Pimp

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If I were writing the response (which I am not for obvious reasons), I’d tell him to get Teddy a necklace and put it on the little stuffy slut:

True Love Waits Teddy…True Love Waits

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Seriously.

[youtube]jpEnFwiqdx8[/youtube]

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If any of you would even remotely self-identify as a loyal or consistent or even semi-occasional reader here, then you are somewhat acquainted with my Uncle Bobby.  He is one of my mother’s older brothers with whom I lived one summer after my folks split up and before my momma made the move up to Bivins, TX where we would live my junior year in high school.  Anyway, you can refresh your memories of him by reading that previous post.  Many of you know that he has been battling with cancer and organ rejection and other such medical issues for a while now.

This morning I got the call that I knew was going to come.  Marvin called to let me know that he passed away this morning in his sleep.  He had been in the hospital for a stretch recently, and in fact, they had not expected him to come home from there.  But true to form, Uncle Bobby is not going to let anyone tell him what to do, so he recovered enough to go home.  (Although it was assumed that it was really just to be made comfortable.)  His brothers and sisters had a chance to go visit and see him “one last time.”  His son and daughters, his grand kids and great grand kids all had that chance.  Quite the gift.

Having someone die is never easy.  I know.  I have had lots of loved ones pass away in my life.  We often will try to ease the loss by looking at it from their point of view i.e. Uncle Bobby was quite sick and in both physical and emotional pain and this really is best for him.  Or we see them in Heaven in a much happier place, and I know that Uncle Bobby is there now.  But all of that notwithstanding, losing someone you love sucks.  It hurts.  It is hard.  The moment of them dying is like a beginning of hard moments that we live through from that point forward.  Christmases they are not here for, anniversary dates, momentous occasions that we can’t share directly with them.  Each of them is a sharp prick to the heart that is unseen but deeply felt.  It seems that my calendar is becoming filled with these memory moments.  Make no mistake, every memory of a loved one gone is bittersweet.  I love that I have those memories, but it is with some sadness that I enjoy everyone of them.  It is with a tinge of longing that I think about every moment that I spent with those I love(d) and a part of me wishes that I could go back in time.  I am not really sure what I would do there if I could though.  I have been lucky (or intentional enough) so that I have not lost someone AND felt like I haven’t told them I love them or let them know how important they are to me.  So going back in time is more complicated for me.  It would literally be simply for my benefit, but then I would have to leave everything here to do it, and it begs the question about how long would I stay there, would I make the same choices, and would I screw up the space-time continuum, and multiple other quantum physics issues that I am not as well versed in as I might like to be.  Suffice it to say that I just wish I had the people I have lost here with me again.

It would appear that unless a miracle of bail-out proportional sizes appears in the next few hours, I am not going to be able to get back down to TX for the funeral.  So, I am left to grieve here.  Without the extended family that is so comforting in such times.

And yet, I have to wonder.  Times like this force one to think.  Deeply.  About many things.  But today I choose, from among those many things, to think about Uncle Bobby.  I chose to remember every smile of encouragement he gave me.  I chose to dwell on his words of affirmation that he poured into my life, and the many sentences he spoke to me that all started with “aww hell boy” and ended with a life lesson that helped make me the man I am today.  I chose to be thankful for the time I was given to spend with him.  I chose to focus on the memories of him singing Marie Laveau because that is something that has brought a smile to my face since I was a kid.  I want to spend some time thinking about the man he was and the man he wanted me to be.

Sometimes there are people in your life (some might be family, or some might be friends, or some might be both) who through circumstance and timing speak into your life at a time when you are most susceptible to listening.  Call them a mentor or adviser, coach, counsellor, guide, instructor, teacher, trainer, tutor - call them whatever you want.  They are people that no matter where in time or space you are.  No matter what you are doing or thinking about doing.  No matter how foolish you are certain that you are.  They are the ones that you know, that you know that you know, believe in you.  They are the ones you think about in your heart before you do whatever it is that you are going to do.  They are the ones that in your mind you hear tell you that you can and will succeed and give you the courage to try.  They are the ones who ignore the facts when you fail and tell you to get up and do it again.  They tell you that they have “had worse cuts than that on their eyeball” when you think about giving up.  They are the ones who put bourbon in your coke before your mom comes into the room and winks at you and says, “when i was your age, I had a gun in my hands.  No reason why you can’t have a drink in yours.”  They are the ones who want you to know that they think you are a man before you do.  They are like my Uncle Bobby.

Our culture really doesn’t have rites of passage anymore for men.  We graduate and wonder if that rolled up piece of paper makes us a man.  We get hair on our chest and wonder if that makes us a man.  (well, if I had hair on my chest, i would have wondered.  Back off on the smirk their mister - grass don’t grow on a playground!)  We get married (eventually) and wonder if that makes us a man.  We have kids and figure, if I am not a man at this point, I am not sure I’ll ever be one.  Seems like other people know you are a man before you do.  My Uncle Bobby was the first one to see it in me.  He was the first one to talk to me like it, and challenge me like it, to treat me like it.  I am not sure I can really explain HOW he did that.  He didn’t do anything drastically different than anyone else at the time.  It was just different with him.  I could, and did, talk to him and sit out and watch the sun go down with him, drink the occasional beer with him, and just see it in his eyes.  And that is the single most powerful communication that a boy can have.  It is when someone you love and trust gives you that look that you somehow just know.  You know that you know that you know.  A stake is driven in the ground and some kind of spiritual ley line emanates from it and ties you to that place and that person.  Uncle Bobby was that for me.  That one place that I knew I was tied to.  The place that I would always measure my travels from.  The place that everything could be compared to no matter where I went or what I did.

For the rest of my life, no matter what I do (and I plan to do some pretty bodacious things) I will always wonder what Uncle Bobby would do, but I will never wonder what he’d think.  And I know that it would start with, “aww hell boy” and end with that look.  Thanks for everything Uncle Bobby.

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So I got sent this link today and I have found it to be one of the best videos I have ever seen.  I wish every church in North America could see it.  I am providing this for you to watch and then we can discuss it.  Tell me what you think!
[youtube]D7_dZTrjw9I[/youtube]

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Ever feel this way?  I wonder sometimes about our culture.  Where are we going and will we be happy once we get there?  In fact, are we actually even enjoying the journey?  We have a whack load (yes, that’s a technical term of measurement - I think it’s based on the metric system) of gadgets and things that save time and make our lives easier.  And yet, we have less time than we used to.  We have less energy than we used to.  We have more people who are depressed and sad and overwhelmed.  “Burnout” has now become a normal reference with regards to jobs and even ministry.

In the meantime, nothing seems to be good enough.  Now, I am a huge fan of looking forward.  I love to have BHAGs (Big Harry Ass Audacious Goals).  I never want to become satisfied with today.  But, that being said, I think we need to learn to appreciate what we have.  I don’t want to get to the point where I am taking things for granted.  I get that we all do it to some extent.  Have a cell phone for long enough and we forget the freakishly awesome technology that runs that thing.  We get pissed with the cable is out - forgetting that as kids we moved the rabbit ears and held our tongues right to get a signal.  The Muppet gets her picture taken and immediately wants to “see it” on the LCD screen on the back of the digital camera.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME??  My mom still has 35mm film in her house that hasn’t been developed yet from t-ball games Marvin and I played in the late 70’s!!!  When we get used to immediate gratification on such a grand scale, we end up easily so disappointed.

I think this is what this guy was talking about:
[youtube]vbIGbZ6gq_Y[/youtube]

Now, confession time.  What do you take for granted?  What ticks you off WAY too much and too quickly when you think about it objectively outside the emotional moment?

I will go first.  It’s only fair.

For me, I get totally bent out of shape when someone doesn’t have an answering machine.  When a phone rings and rings and rings…I get so choked.  It’s like “spend the $20 and get a freaking answering machine!!!!”  And second to that, I get miffed when someone doesn’t respond to an email in a “timely manner”.  Yes, timely is a realtive term that is directly proportional to the importance of whatever it is I am asking.

How about you??  Confessions on the Maru anyone?

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So, I was at the taping of Marriage Uncensored with Dave and Christie this last week.  I have not been at a TV taping since my 5th anniversary when Ferf and I made it to a David Letterman show in New York.  Now that was a great taping.  David Letterman was a hero of mine when I was young…what can I say, I was in my college years in the early 90’s.  Top 10 lists were a staple of my formative years.  I was legally able to drink and Letterman was new to the late night air-waves.  It was a beautiful communion.

But I digress.  I was in the sound studio last week as Dave and Christie interviewed Dr. Garry Smalley and Ted Cunningham, authors of the book The Language of Sex.

Now, at this point I could digress into my lovely wife’s opinion of the book - “spectacularly mediocre”, I think was her phrase, but that, like David Letterman, while amusing and intriguing, is not the point of this post.  The point of the post is the TV show (at least ostensibly).

SO I was there.  The studio is amazing.  It seats about 80 max.  The stage is freaking awesome.  Honestly, you would think that it is a Hollywood sound stage.  Anyways, enough gooshing about the studio, I am starting to sound like a 14 year old girl - which I can assure you, I am not.  But the show is impressive.  They even have audience handlers - people who make the experience fun and interactive for folks in the audience.  I think their names were Wayne and Jayne. (yep, real names, though I could have used them in the spirit of this blog and you would have thought that I had made that up.  Seriously, you would have.)
(as a side note, and in the interest of full disclosure, Ferf was with me at the taping)
So right as the taping starts, Smalley and Cunningham start responding as Dave and Christie begin peppering them with questions about the book.  And since the topic was “sex”, the audience was already somewhat on edge.  You know how it is, when people know that someone is going to be discussing sex, we get all twitterpated with excitement while simultaneously becoming awkwardly sophmoric.  That was the ethos of the entire audience - with the possible exception of my wife who is a professional passion coach.  (she is used to people talking about sex in her presence all the time, shoot I know I do it every chance I get.  In fact I often go so far as to not only talk about sex in front of her, but to actually have it!)

So the questions start coming and the answers began coming and soon the off-hand comments and innunendo bean flying.  In fact, I thought to myself, maybe they ought to rename this show “Double Entendre with Dave and Christie”.  Now, I do want to mention that I am in no way trying to demean the show or the folks on it.  In fact, that night was easily one of the most enjoyable of my life.  I have laughed that hard almost never.  There was an off handed comment made about sex on stairs, and that became one of the constant jokes between sets.  That and one about edible chocolate.  I know, I know.  All chocolate is edible, but somewhere in the midst of the taping someone was talking about romance and so obviously chocolate came up.  And I think the idea of edibles was about to rear its head and the two got convoluted and thus edible chocolates were born.  Right there in the studio, and I was there to see it.  And now you know about them.  So next time you are thinking about having sex on your stairs (sucks for you if you own a rancher) make sure you bring your wife some edible chocolates.  (you know, that was WAY funnier in the moment in the studio.  Seriously.  There is was hysterical.  Here it’s barely blog worthy.  I don’t know what happened.)  Also, Dave made the comment - or made it was a confession - that he likes to call lingerie “units”.  (please don’t ask me to explain that.  I simply can’t.  But I did tell Ferf that next time she wears some, I am going to sing the marine corps running cadence.  I can’t help it - I love the show.  Anyway, suffice it to say that we have enough inside sex humor to last us a while.

SO - my question for you, loyal reader(s) - look at me going all interactive and web 2.0ish - is, are you willing to tell your favorite amusing inside joke/ double entendre?  And if it includes sex on stairs or units, you will lose all points on creativity.

I know that you have some.  Come on. Share them.  Don’t be shy, Lord knows this is only a blog - not a TV show.

Anyone?  Bueller?  Bueller?

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SO it has been a bit since I posted, and while some of that time was spent engaged in a comprehensive viewing of the contents of my stomach and bowels (the results of which I will not share with you here, or anywhere for that matter you freaking sicko - who wants pictures or even graphic descriptions of vomit and poo!?!), there have been other reasons for my absence. Though before I get into those reasons, I would like to thank those who sent me heart warming condolences on the death of my uncle. I appreciate the thoughts as well as you as people. In some cases, I appreciate the thoughts more than I appreciate you as people. And still in others I appreciate you as people more than your thoughts. In which ever scenario you fall, I thank you equally.

Now, to the point of this post, which really is to justify the recent lack of posts. I am not sure that this then qualifies as an actual post, but I will call it such anyway. In fact, “I will love him, and hug him, and squeeze him, and I will call him George.”

So, back to the excuse post.  Tomorrow I shall be taking the all day exam for my professional certification.  Assuming I pass (which to be honest, I am assuming, becuase if I were to assume that I would fail there would really be no reason to have spent the effort and resources, not to mention the last 5 years of my life doing all that I have been doing so that I could even qualify to have the right to take this dumb thing.  Honestly, at times I can be self abusive with the best of them, but that would go right past foolish and into some heretofore unknown realm of absurdity from which one would be less likely to return.  In other words, to sum up, I hope to God I will pass this darn thing), I shall be not only certifiable, but certified. Which many have said I should have been years ago, but they were not refering to my profession. (I forgive them all…okay some of them)

Anyways, I will be closeted away for an entire day to be tested and prodded and mentally poked.  And then, I can come out of the closet…wait!  I am not liking my analogy anymore.  Let me start again.   I will be secreted away to an undisclosed (to you) location and then subjected to testing the likes of which you cannot imagine.  Seriously…go a head and try.  Nope.  Nope.  Nothing like that.  EEWWW, you are sick!  This is a family blog!  Sheesh…aren’t you a pastor!?  Why would you even imagine that kind of thing?  You need help!  OK OK enough!  That should be a suitable sample size to prove my point. 

The testing is beyond the veil in it’s sinister trickiness and intionally misleading of poor test takers such as myself.  I must however believe that I am up to the task.  I am equal to the piece of paper that it is written on!  (Ok, so it’s actually computer based - but really, who can say they are equal to a freaking computer!?  Cut me some slack here)  I shall be victorious in my quest to best the test. So after tomorrow, you can no longer think of me as merely Tex.  You will have to think of me as Tex, CFRE.  Which is much more impressive you have to admit.  Not that there is anything wrong with Tex.  I like Tex (and I hope you like me too it too).  But Tex, CFRE is way more impressive you have to admit.  CFRE is almost mystical in its sound.  One would think that being able to say CFRE after one’s name would imbue them with certain talents and abilities that they were unable to access previously.  And once I have that, I will have to decide if I will use my new found powers for good, or for awesome!  On that point, I am, as yet, undecided.  But I will accept input from my loyal reader(s).

I have been studying the likes of which I have not done since my collegiate days.  Yes…I studied in college.  (I thought it would impress the chicks.)  Nothing like flexing your GPA to make the ladies swoon.  Yep…strolling across campus with a backpack full of Cliff’s Notes and an impressively sized syllabus is one way to get noticed by the fairer sex.  The library is like a hunting ground…I digress.  The point is, that I stand by my original comparison.  In fact, I migh tbe studying harder now, cause none of your friends really cared if you passed or not in college.  Come on, it’s college man.  It’s for socializing and experimenting.   Jut kidding on that last part.  No experimenting!  Unless you are willing to have those kinds of photos end up on flickr and some awkward video being uploaded to youtube when you want to run for office.  It’s almost as bad as having your unmarried kid turn up pregnant right as you run for VP on the conservative family values ticket.  OK, so that’s so overboard as to be unrealistic - like that would EVER happen!

My point is that I have been a studying machine.  I have been unsocial and snarly and occasionally unresponsive.  But I shall soon come out from under this cloud of academic seclusion and will once again take control of my little Maru and captain you all into storms and sunny days with humor aforethough and seemingly harmless sarcasim mixed in with some gusto.

Until then, feel free to pray hard and long (like my college syllabus) for me to rememeber everything I have forgotten and to be able to recall everything that I might have not even looked at, and finally that the proctor will be someone of compromisable morals as well as cheap.  And may those prayers be honored, even if you are not honorable in praying them.

I thank you all in advance for your support.

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OK OK, not the catchiest of titles I know. I was going to go for something a little more creative and correlated to the original, like Men are from Mars and Women have no Penis, but thought that might be a little much in a title. Best to save that kind of thing for the first couple of sentences. The “grabber” at the top to really get people reading.

I am not really one who is all overboard on the differences between men and women. Mostly they are intuitively obvious even to the most causal observer. Even my daughter has figured it out. She came up to me the other day and said, “Daddy you pee out of your body differently. I like how you do it better.” And while I responded that boys and girls are different and each uniquely made by God etc, etc, etc. I was thinking inside, “note to self…make sure bathroom doors are closed before balancing internal fluid levels from now on.” Quickly followed by, “yep. I like how I do it better too.” complete with a sly smirk just for myself.

But I digress. So, meanwhile back at the ranch, I was talking about the inherent and obvious differences between genders. (while completely excluding anything remotely relating to “transgendered” as that is fully outside the scope of this post, this blog and my personal understanding…”not that there’s anything wrong with that.”) So mostly my life around the casa with Ferf and the Muppet, while being out numbered on the estrogen to testosterone levels, is fairly normal. I “understand” them as females and they “understand” me as a male…or so I thought.

Whilst packing for this move that I have spoken somewhat eloquently about in my humble opinion, Ferf was putting everything we owned (and maybe some stuff we don’t - apologies to the landlord if anything is missing) in boxes. When it came time to do our room, she began downloading everything in our closet into a box. I bet at this point you think I am making some kind of computer allusion here, but nay nay. I mean in the original sense of the word wherein one puts a box under the shelf in a closet and proceeds to push the contents of said shelf into said box making full use of gravity as a motivational engine of propulsion. This type of packing is often found when two of three criteria are met:

1. One is moving for like the 4th time in 4 years
2. One is fairly exhausted and overworked from the packing
3. One is packing their spouses stuff and not their own

In this case we were a perfect 3 for 3. Batting the proverbial 1.000 were we. Or was she as the case may be (this last segment brought to you by Barney and Mother Goose which was recently given to us by a dear friend working as an agent of Satan.

Anyway, Ferf packed this box and into it went, as every guy would fully understand, my small but exceptionally important collection of baseball caps. Now we are not talking about 1000s of caps. Not even 100s of caps. (though there was a time…pre-marital status *sigh*) No my friends and fellow passengers, we are talking about MAYBE 20 ball caps of exceptional quality and value. So, when we get to the new Casa de Frans - Lower Mainland edition, she begins to unpack this box back into the closet.

Now look, I know that at best my wife tolerates my small but priceless collection of the world’s greatest ball caps of all time. I get that. But thus far she has done so with aplomb. Her graciousness on this subject is to be admired. (why one would need to be gracious about such a collection of artifacts does elude me, but I give her credit for such graciousness anyway.) I simply took for granted that she understood the relative nature of ball caps. There are many different purposes for ball caps. I, for ease of reference, have distilled them down into 5, without assigning preference nor rank order of importance to them as that is a very personal thing that every man needs to look deep inside himself for. Also, this might come in as a handy reference for explanatory purposes with your spouse. Just tell them you found it on a reference site on the internet and everyone knows that everything you read on the internet is true, otherwise they would make you take it off. That was the original term of reference for the office of homeland security back in the 1940’s when it was established by dictate of the office of the Emperor of the original North American Conglomerate.

Anyway, enough of that technical jargon. Here’s the list in all of its glory:

The Official Inherent Purposes of Ball Caps List as of 2008

• Work Ball Caps

These are ball caps that one sees everywhere especially if you are from farming communities. They are, as the name states, work hats. You work in them. You sweat in them. Toil sweat. Chore sweat. Curse in Genesis type sweat. They are not meant to be pretty in any sense. Comfort, sun out of eyes and a sweatband. These are the basic purposes. But certain ball caps just fit right and are always the cap of choice for a work situation. Many folks prefer old school mesh caps for this such as:

but I am more of a fan of the full material type:

• Sport Ball Cap

These hats are ubiquitous during baseball season. These are what you wear when you are going to sweat, but fun sweat. Outside in the sun, just givin’ it your all for the purpose of winning. The major separating factor between a work and sport ball cap is that a sport ball cap must include all the things that a work ball cap does BUT it also must make you look good sweating. No one has ever been a better model of what I am talking about than Ken Griffey Jr.

I don’t care who you are…deep down when you step onto a playing field, and you put your sport ball cap on - in side you need to feel like you look like that. This is what a sport ball cap is for. That is why you keep a few of them…only for game days, and just because you think that the moment you put it on, you are The Kid.

’nuff said about that.

• Formal Ball Cap

Yes, I said formal and ball cap in the same sentence. It can and has been done.

Some ball caps are simply too nice to be worn out when one is going to sweat for sport or toil. These are ball caps that were not meant to have a sweat ring from years of salt build up. US Presidents wear these type of Ball Caps.

And every guy has some. We may not wear them often (or ever) but should the right situation arise that calls for formal dress and a formal ball cap - one simply must be ready with it. Ladies, think must have accessory.

• Collector’s Edition Ball Caps

These type hats are not meant to be worn as much as simply cherished. They are gifts. Worthy of honor. Somebody worked really really hard to win something noteworthy so this cap could be made and I (or someone like me) could buy or be given it, and in doing so feel like we were a part of that hard work and noteworthy win. Do not take that away from us by trying to toss the cap out with some poorly worded insulting thought like, “but you never wear it!” It was never meant to be worn. It simply was meant to be…and more importantly, to be mine.

• Significant Event Marker Ball Caps

This is a class of ball cap that is often mistaken for the collector’s edition, but there is a subtle difference. These mark an event that has some intrinsic emotional value to us. A graduation ball cap. A 9-11 we will never forget ball cap. A just married ball cap. There are others, but again, each of us would know what is significant to us personally.

So that is the basic run down on ball caps. Why, you might ask, would I spend such time and effort on this? Well, for that we go back to the beginning where I told you that I THOUGHT that Ferf understood me as a guy. She was unpacking the closet and the box I spoke of. As she pulled out my precious and completely irreplaceable collection of lids, she sighed and said, ” I have a proposition for you.” Now usually this is code for: “I am going to suggest that we do something that will completely piss you off, but I am going to couch it in very impressive language in an attempt to convince you that this is a very good idea, and in case that doesn’t work, there very well could be sexual favors involved if you acquiesce.”

Therefore, as you might imagine, I was hesitantly listening with tentative excitement, but ready for a debate. She says, “I am ready to go to Home Dept and get some hooks so we can display your ball caps on the wall of the closet.” I sat there in stunned silence, waiting for the other shoe to drop..the conditions that would apply…the legal small print…the part that I had to give up in order to get this somewhat unbelievable concession from her. And then it came. NOT AT ALL WHAT I WAS EXPECTING. She tilted her head to the side a bit and looked at me with some form of resignation and said, “I know this is important to you, but I just don’t get it. So I give up. As a woman, I simply do not understand relationship that is inherent between your baseball caps and your penis…and I don’t think I ever will.”

It was then that I realized that men and women really are different. Sure I could have her read this blog post and maybe she would learn a little something more, but at the end of the day, she’s right. I never put it in such anatomical terms before, but there is something to be said for her insight. I’m a guy and I’ve got the ball caps to prove it.

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Yes, it is true. The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. I realize that it has been well over a month since I last boarded the Maru for a voyage. My sincerest apologies. I could tell you that my life has been dreary and dull and un-blog-worthy. But neither of us believe that, do we? So I could tell you that I have been so very busy as to not have time to breath much less blog. But, alas, this also is not really believable. Besides, with the writers strike it wasn’t even like there was anything good on TV, nothing at all. (I remember the first American Gladiators being SO COOL. What happened!?

Anyway, I really don’t have an excuse. Life kept going and I did not keep up. I am bad. I must go iron my hands.

Okay, I am back. thought this is taking much longer to type now - I guess that is the nature of penance though. So let’s see. In the last month or so…I had a birthday. Go me. I am now officially a year older. One step closer to retirement…like I am one stroke closer to swimming around the world. Both are nice goals to have.

One interesting thing happened since we last set sail together. My mother read my blog. Seriously, I could not make that up. She read it. Pretty much the whole thing in one sitting I think. For whatever reason, my step dad gave her my blog. Yes. I said gave her my blog. Not “opened up a browser and allowed her scroll through posts at her leisure.” Not, “emailed her a hyperlink to the Maru so she could find it in the great blue sea of cyberspace.” Not even, “wrote down the IP address for her to type into her browser when she was sitting in front of the computer with nothing else to do.” He gave her my blog…as in printed off most, if not all, of the posts to date.

Yes people, let us have a moment of silence for that huge swath of trees that have been sacrificed on the altar of printer paper. On the other hand, if you are a logger, feel free to send my folks a personalized thank you note and one of those cool t-shirts

So the point is that she read my blog. Actually the more amazing point is that she did it in like one sitting. I am no sure if she was being punished or what. That could be a form of punishment. Like when I was in high school and evidently all of us were bad and were forced to read anything by any of the Bronte sisters. Looking back, I don’t know exactly what we did to deserve that, but I spent most of the rest of my youth terrified to do anything wrong lest Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, Emily’s Wuthering Heights or Anne’s Agnes Grey be forced upon me again. In fact I am certain that there is a library in hell that is well stocked with similar ilk. But I digress. My mother punched a ticket on the Maru and set sail for a long journey. I have often been told that when blogging, one should never expect their mother to read it, but should write it as if they might. Obviously, I paid much heed to the first part of that, but might have let the second portion of that wisdom fly off my proverbial windshield like a flier for a new adult book shop in town. So, as now in retrospect I might should have been expecting for a while, one day my cell phone rang and when I looked at the caller ID it said “MiMi’s House”. I was at once thrilled and elated as this is not that common an occurrence. (easy now mom… I don’t mean to imply that you don’t call or that you have abandoned your youngest child here in the frozen north. Just that with long distance charges being what they are, it doesn’t happen every day.) I answered the phone with an upbeat and excited, “HI MOM!” Like a football player who scores a touch down and then looks into the camera with a big smile and mouths the words “hi mom” except I am not a football player, I have not scored a touchdown in like 15 years, there was no camera and mine was audible - otherwise it was exactly the same. Well, and unlike most of those football players I am not just saying it because I don’t know who my dad was, but am positive who my momma is. Other than that, it was just like that.

The other end of the line was not like anything you have seen on a Sunday afternoon on NBC. Believe you me. The response I expected was a “Hi baby!” But what I got was, “I raised you better than that.”

Now understand, I was raised to believe a certain number of things that were non-negotiable and unwaivering as a child:

1. God exists
2. Mom brought me into this world and has a legal right to take me out of it without written warning and at her sole discretion
3. Mom has eyes in the back of her head
4. Mom has a network of spies that would make J. Edgar Hoover sexually aroused
5. Mom knows… (really that was it. she just knows - whatever it is)
6. Spare the rod, spoil the fun child
7. One cannot misbehave in front of Mom, but one must be even better in front of others so as not to embarrass Mom or family
8. Mom will do whatever it takes to ensure that I am the best person I can be, even if that means killing me with her bare hands
9. Mom loves me (just to note - these are not in any particular order and I do not mean to imply that being loved by Mom was lesser in importance than two separate references to her ending my life - I am just stream of consciousness here)
10. Mom loves me more than Marvin. (Hey, these are my memories. His might be slightly different - or not.)

So knowing these things as reference points, I was suddenly stricken with a cold sweat trying to remember everything I did wrong in the last 37 years that hadn’t come up in casual conversation with her yet. Quickly three things went through my mind: WHAT could she have possibly found out…HOW did she find out…WHAT were the chances of me losing cell service in the next 3 seconds?? I did not, by the way, lose cell service - THANKS A LOT ROGERS!! (If I had a Telus plan, this all could have turned out different…) Anyway, once that all went through my head I remembered a couple of important facts: 1) I am an adult man with a wife and child. 2) I live like 3000 miles away from this woman now 3) I am an grown man! (I had to remind myself in this instance - so sue me) So keeping those things in the forefront of my mind, I replied with confidence a forethought, “yes ma’am you did and I am so sorry…what did i do”

Then my mother tells me that she has read my blog. Again, I whip open the steel trap that is my mind and flip though the mental files of what is on the Maru’s most recent posts… magic kisses, Muppet pinching her finger, Muppet apologizing…Christmas with the in-laws - all fairly innocuous stuff really. So I am really confused now, which is never a good thing. It’s like being in the boxing ring blindfolded on a pay-per-view event from Madison Square Garden and wondering if there is someway so sneak under the ropes and back into the locker room cause you don’t even understand the rules, but you just know that you are about to get the beating of your life. So, meekly I try a different approach - patronizing. “Gosh mom…you read my writing. I am thrilled that you took the time to read my stuff.” (I knew enough not to ask her what she thought about it - that would have been rhetorical, not to mention it would have swung wide the gates to a conversation that I was pretty sure I was trying to avoid.) But she tossed that tactic aside like a midget wrestler and says, “Yes. I read it…” AND JUST LEAVES THAT HANGING THERE. It was one of those horrific moments. I know that the best thing to do is keep my mouth shut and not be afraid of silence, but I can’t just stay quiet CAUSE IT’S MY MOM DUDE. So, with much trepidation, I ask…”And?”

It is amazing how a conjunction can so easily be turned into the world’s most dangerous question. Just by putting a little lilt into the end of it. But there. I had done it. That was like a moral victory in an underground bunker right before a daisy cutter gets dropped on you.

You can’t even congratulate yourself on your moral victory because all the words are being drowned out by the incessant whistling from the cluster bomb screaming through the air locked onto your position. Anyway, moral victory aside, the bomb finally drops “I DID NOT TEACH YOU TO TALK THAT WAY. YOUR FATHER DID NOT TALK THAT WAY. I DID NOT TALK THAT WAY. I RAISED YOU BETTER!!!!”

All at once, I was like, “whew…it’s the curse words that occasionally salt my postings that have her upset. Sweet mother of God, I thought she had found out about”…WAIT A MINUTE, I am not doing that - she reads this thing now!!! (I kid mother, I kid)

Actually I thought she might have been offended by the t-shirt reference and my brother

But, to be fair (to me) I thought, “gawrsh, I don’t cuss all through my postings.” Then I thought, “yeah, but you don’t read them all in a row…at one time…in one sitting…in printed form…for the first time ever…” And then I thought…”ok, I can see where she’s coming from on this. Sure Dad did actually do his fair share of cussing, but not til later in his life and by they weren’t together, so she might not have heard him as often as I did. And I have never heard my sainted mother utter so much as the beginnings of a swear word. And my brother is a youth pastor so he probably never sins, cause full-time church staff have morality clauses in their employment contracts and at the end of the day they work for God, so you can’t really get one past your boss there. SO yeah, in that context, I am the bad seed who moved away from family, shunned my mother country and became a writer (on the internet where there is all that porn anyway, so it makes me look even worse that I chose this as a medium, what does that say about me too) and started cursing like I was raised poorly. People read this and immediately think that my mother did a bad job of bringing me up. I have spent years now making my mother look bad to millions…hundreds of thousands…dozens…a handful of friends (and some star trek junkies who google this by accident and are so mad they have to grab their puffer when they find out that I have horked the venerable Kobayashi Maru for something that has absolutely nothing to do with the Star Trek universe or Saint Roddenberry).

And for this I am truly sorry. Momma, you raised me right. I have only dad’s half of my DNA to blame…and that woman, she gave me the apple and made me move to Canada. She seduced me with her feminine allures and sexual wiles and her bottled pheromones and fur lined handcuffs…oops, I am digressing. I am so sorry Momma. I want everyone to know that Mama Tried

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