You Gonna Read All of That Now?!

I took my boy to the comic book store. We had to drive through downtown to get there. I didn't know Jacksonville had a hair-burning factory. Smelled horrible. OR, the smell COULD be the Baptist Factory. We've got the third largest Baptist factory in the south! It takes up 11 square blocks, churning out Baptists left and right. Heck! THAT would solve our trade deficit. Yo, China! Send us cheap, plastic, lead-painted toys, and we'll send you a big shipment of Baptists! Oh, wait. We've been sending them missionaries already. China keeps sending them back. We'll have to look into our Baptist quality control department.

ANYWAY-- we drove through downtown to get to the comic book store. I was behind a car with a flapping car flag. It was in Gator colors: Orange and Blue. The flag read, "Jesus." (I think Jesus did some post-grad work at University of Florida. He discovered how to turn water into Gatorade.)

ANYWAY-- We finally made it to the comic book store. I warned the boy about turning the pages of the comic books very carefully, so we wouldn't stress out the comic guy behind the register.

We walked in, and headed for a Spider-man comic. The boy picked one up, and turned the pages with only two fingers, like I taught him. I stood over him like an in-law with nothing to do. "Very good, boy. Doin' good. You like that one?"

Some lady asked Comic Guy if they bought any back issues of a certain title. He told her to try Chamblin Bookmine in the haughtiest tone he could muster while watching us.

The boy picked another Spider-man comic, and rested it on the shelf so he could focus on his page-turning method. Comic Guy pretended to put some comics away next to us. "Um," he said, "Could you tell him NOT to leave the comics on the shelf like that while he turns the pages? They can get caught on the shelf above."

I had my boy hand me the comic. "Oh, sorry," I told my son, "Comics are meant for people without hands."

While my boy was reading Sonic, I said loud enough, "Say, don't breathe on it. The comic will lose 20% of its value."

I gave it a rest when Comic Guy got a phone call. "No. The owner isn't in. What is this about? I don't care if it's personal. He's never in."

My boy handed me an X-Men book with Storm on the cover-- my fave! "Did you lick this one? Or, did you expect me to lick it first?"

Well, we DID pay for some comics with our sullen, crumpled bills. Comics for a KID, of all things!

When we got home, we told my wife about the trip. She picked up the phone and called the comic book store.

My wife asked the phone, "Is the owner there?"

...

"No, I'd like to speak to the owner. When will he be in?"

...

"I would NOT like to leave him a message. Will he be in tonight?"

...

"It's about poor customer service," she told the phone. Today."

Well. The owner is never in, I guess.

But, I promised the boy I would blog this:

The comic guy at the comic book store wasn't very nice. He isn't very nice in The Simpsons comic book, either. But, we didn't get to step all over that title. Yet.

Before Tink: The Best Super Hero in the World

I needed forget Jacksonville is sometimes just like Hazzard County, GA complete with Boss Hogg and Roscoe P. Coltrane.

I'm glad we still have comic book stores for that. My boy, M, saw my two boxes of old comics, and decided he wanted a couple boxes of comics, too. I thought he should start with one-- to add to his Sonic comic. His mom gave him $5 dollars, and off we went.

It'd been awhile since I've been in a comics store. M would pick up a book, and start to GENTLY flip through it, like I showed him. I hadn't seen the T+, and the A on the covers before! It's probably been on there a couple years. It could be a way to keep the comics industry from being totally stamped out by other people trying to protect my son's soul. BUT, I used it to find a story arc that M could sit through without becoming bored, or ask a gazillion questions I can't answer. ("Daddy, where do super heroes go when they die? If there is a zombie swamp monster under my bed, do you have a super power to get it back into the swamp? Or, at least into the neighbor's backyard? Why not?")

ANYWAY, M's new favorite character is Wolverine. Weapon X is T+ (Teens and over). But, he did find X-Men First Class, rated A for Anyone. He likes all the X-men. He knows their names and powers, thanks to an old video game he found, and a couple cartoons he saw. He managed to sit through 1/2 the first movie, too. I'm sure all his friends swap X-Men stories and make up new ones. I wonder if Socrates and Plato did the same thing regarding the gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus?

My favorite super hero of all time is Storm. (See pic by Aaron Lopresti which I found here.) She's the BEST X-Man. The greatest super hero EVER. She even beat Scott Summers-- WITHOUT her weather-controlling super powers. I had collected a lot of Storm stuff. I still have an empty can of Dr. Pepper with her picture on it. I wonder if my boy will become just as nuts for the X-Men.

M proudly paid the $5 for the comic, and "Dad! I got some cents back!" He took my money, and paid for my comic, too. He's getting so big. I picked up the current issue of Echo, by Terry Moore, who wrote/drew Strangers in Paradise. I opened up Echo, and the love of his art gripped me again. It was like looking at an old friend again. Now I need to get all the other issues of Echo. Dang. Back into the comic obsession...

It did made me smile to take my boy on a comic book trip, though. Dad and boy time.

Say, they just started drawing Pride and Prejudice, for all those Jane Austin fans out there.

Pieces from my week

Nothing feels quite like finishing a snazzy pair of socks! And, nothing feels quite like realizing I Kirchner stitched the second sock shut two rows too early. Sigh. Nothing feels like unraveling a toe, and joining in new yarn to get the toe right.

***

My boy introduced me to a new little girl in his class (he's 5.5). He said they were in love, and it was real. Well, I guess I won't have to explain eHarmony to him.

***

I tried Twitter. I found myself almost caring if Kelly Ripa made her flight back to the U.S. Apparently, she needs sleep just as much as I do.

***

The room freshener makes my office smell like a Smurf bordello.

***

My boy would not keep his hands out of the ice bin at the movie theater concession stand. So, I used some of Cesar Millan's Dog Whispering tricks on him. They really work! Now my boy knows I'm the alpha dog. He's thinks his mom should get me a better leash.

TINK TINK TINK TINK

First time in Disney history, Tink was doing a meet and greet!

It wasn't advertised. You wouldn't have been able to see it on the Disney World daily schedule when you got to the park. No signs pointing the way. Just a simple "Disney Characters" sign outside. My wife had gotten an email mentioning very little about it.

We ended up being about the 7th family in line, waited quite a bit, BUT IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT.

Disney shrunk all of us down and we went into Pixie Hollow. Here I am FINALLY standing next to my very favorite Disney character of all time!

Tink made me feel as young as this little guy next to his favorite fairy, Rosetta:

Later in the day, after word got out, we heard it was about a 4-hour wait to see Tink and her friends.

Say, did you happen to see all the "Lost Things," as the fairies call them, around my neck. Everyone of them is a Tink pin. I was the envy of more than one teen-aged girl. Oh, and I was NOT the only dad out there who liked Tink the best! I met another standing in line for ice cream.

And, yes, we watched the new Tinker Bell movie tonight! I'm still trying to work out the movie's theme. If you've seen it, maybe you can help me. Is it 1) Stick with what you're good at, don't bother trying anything new, or 2) Pulling an all-nighter will make-up for months of work down the tubes. Maybe I should watch it again.

Kid talk 2

"Daddy, why is that woman wearing a Band-aid on her face?"

"I have no idea."

"Maybe she just wants to look more cooler."

***

A six-year-old girl playing Pictionary with her Minnesotan family (friends of us, down here in Florida) had to draw the word "knitting." She drew me.

A Nose for Art

My wife had to work from home today, so I needed to take my boy out and give her some peace.

My friend K.C. and her daughter took us downtown to the Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). And, I had a freaking blast!

There were these ultra realistic resin cast sculptures of humans by Marc Sijan. Very cool. The guy knows how to paint skin tone. Though, I don't recall any but caucasian sculptures in this installation. Seriously, some pretty awesome work. The detail in the ballerina's toes with calluses. The slightly sun burnt skin of the overweight bald man in swim trunks (Standing Man). I loved the one called Hands on Shoulder (though the figure had one hand on her foot. Must be a zen thing. Or, a misprinted tag.) It was almost a classical or yoga pose, and I was trying to figure which muscle groups were flexed, and which were relaxed, and if the sculpture really reflected that. It was a pensive pose, yet so relaxed and inviting. I mean you have to really look closely to find any thing off about the sculptures.
KC took the kids, and let me wander through. I had finished studying the full figure of the big guy in swim trunks, when a family passed me toward him. I stood at the balerina and listened to the family mock his appearance, and the dad pulled out a slim, red camera. He took two steps back, and snapped the big guy's photo. At the count of two, a security guard swooped out from no where, and marched straight to the dad saying, "I thought I told you to stop taking pictures!" Whoa! He had to delete the pix, or get his camera confiscated.

I went up to the fifth floor to meet KC and the kids. They were making sculptures out of aluminum wire and Model Magic. Her kid made hearts, mine made two alien heads, and a loop-de-loop. I made a few different noses. I like noses.

Then we had lunch at the library next door, went to the library where I didn't find the book that I was looking for, but found two others. My boy got a kids book on Neil Armstrong.

Fabulous time. I want to get some Crayola Model Magic and spend next weekend making noses.

Next Saturday is Art in the Parks! Downtown. I hope I've got nothing else planned.

Could, would, what, when, where--go ask your mother.

Here it comes. My son will start the Ask all the questions Daddy can't answer without a Wikipedia. And ask about 3 dozen of them at a time.

"Daddy. What do sand dollars eat?"

"Um, I dunno. Loose change?"

Why doesn't he ask me something I know, like Emily Gilmore's code to her panic room.

Did you know a jiffy is 1/100th of a second? Keep that little nugget tucked away in case you meet my boy.

Sharp upward jab to the diaphram

"Thank you for saving my life, Daddy."

Well, it kinda goes without saying, but it's nice to hear it every once in awhile.

I had been looking forward to playing Guitar Hero (Aerosmith version) all day, and I had just got the game turned on, and my nearly-five-year-old was in his little chair, watching the beginning logos flash on.

Just as I start the practice, he sticks out his tongue and asks, "Daddy, is this Life Saver small enough?"

I bent down to look. I couldn't see the thing. Apparently it was green.

So, I started the practice again, and just as I was about to start the first note, the boy stands up, walks toward me, then past me toward his mother.

Sigh. He wasn't breathing. I took off my special Aerosmith guitar, and set it on the couch, and wrapped my arms around him from behind. I hit him with the Heimlich maneuver twice. I was a little low, but I could hear him at least wheezing. I know the story behind the hole in Life Savers candy.

He made it to his mom, and sat and coughed at her until he vomited all over her a couple times.

To make a long story not so long, I got four stars on Love in an Elevator on medium! Way cool.

So, today, I was talking to two mom's at the daycare. They are super moms, and their kids are darn adorable, too. One was telling the other about my boy's choking incident. It turns out, they both said they doubt they'd be able to remember the Heimlich maneuver.

I watched a lot of TV when I was a kid. Every TV series had an episode where someone was choking. I mean, if it wasn't Kris saving Bosley on Charlie's Angels, then it was some kid saving grandpa on CHiPs. Gopher saving Charo on the Love Boat, right before the episode where Charo saves David Boyle on Fantasy Island (fresh from being saved by Kris on Charlie's Angels). I think Shaggy dislodged a Scooby Snack from Scooby-do, smacking the Sloshing Swamp Ghost in the head, knocking it out cold. Hooray for meddling kids who know the Heimlich maneuver.

I think there was some sort of public service campaign. Lots of shows showed it. Then, TV tried it out with CPR. Wasn't there a Designing Women CPR episode after Dixie Carter has a heart attack seeing how they secretly painted her office all black.

Anyway, what's the big public service schtick now? I don't get to watch as many shows now adays. I should ask some kids. I think today is, Recycle.

So, kids, if I'm choking, go throw that water bottle in the recycling bin.

kid talk

As my four-year-old boy lifts my hat and pats my bald pate, he says, "So, Dad, when are you going to get more hair?"