Thursday, November 19, 2009

Mr. Moustache

I've sported a goatee for about eight years straight. Early stages included the moustache part that most men grow when they decide to grow a goatee. I liked the facial hair aspect, but the moustache was way too itchy, so I shaved the moustache off and kept the goatee. It's been that way for about eight years straight now.

Last year a co-worker of mine tipped me off to an event called "Movember". The idea behind Movember is that during the month of November, men grow a moustache to raise awareness for men's health issues. I thought it would be fun and for a good cause, so I let the moustache begin.

A few days later I saw a dad at Judah's school sporting a Fu Manchu. I asked if he was doing the Movember thing, and he said "Naw, it was for my Halloween costume, but I thought about doing the Movember thing." Even though he wears a suit and tie for work every day, I told him the 'stache looked awesome and he should keep it going. Later that week he still had the Fu Manchu. Movember, I realized, was more fun when when somebody you know was doing it too.

The dark side of Movember creeped up when I was reminded of the itchy aspect of having a moustache. I decided to shave of the vertical connectors between the moustache and the goatee in hopes that the itchyness would go away. It didn't. But it was suddenly looking a lot more like a full moustache, and I felt like Johnny Depp playing Captain Jack Sparrow channeling Keith Richards, minus the acting talent Johnny Depp has. And the good looks.

One night while reading a bedtime story to Judah about a shark with a false moustache, he looked over and started studying my face and said "are you growing a moustache?" I told him that it was only for a little while. He thought you could take off the moustache like the shark from his book. He pulled on it a little bit, then we went back to reading about the shark with the false moustache.

Lily came back from a weeklong business trip, and she asked if I was growing a moustache. Here I was thinking that I had already grown the moustache, but apparently not quite there yet according to the wifey. Or the kid. So I told her the deal about Movember and how it's for a good cause, yada yada yada. She said "I don't like it. Can you shave it off?" But Movember wasn't over yet. November wasn't over yet. But, but...

But here was my out. My perfect excuse to end the itchyness. Can't really have the wife's face gettin all scratched up every time I try to smooch on her, can I? If the missuz says it's gotta go, then it's gotta go. And now it's gone, and so is the itch. I shaved it while Lily and Judah were out to soccer practice, so they'd be surprised when they came back. That night while reading bedtime stories, Judah asked why I shaved my moustache. I told him that it was too itchy. Funny thing is, after Lily asked me to shave it, she hasn't said anything about it. I wonder if she noticed. Still waiting...

Thursday, November 12, 2009

No Time This Time

I've noticed a surge in the amount of inadvertent e-mails lately. So many that instead of just trashing them, I'm taking the time to write back to these folks and telling them "unintended recipient" or something along those lines, so the mailbox won't fill up so fast.

But yesterday the e-mailbox really got inundated with some seriously inadvertent e-mails. Within a span of 20 minutes, somebody named Leroy signed up for Cybererotica, RealNude GFs (whatever nudie thing GF means), Total DVD pass (family-oriented DVDs I'm guessing, based on the company these registration e-mails kept), and Raunchy GF (there's that GF thing again). The funny thing was that these registration e-mails were arriving at around 9 am. Bad case of Morning Wood? Maybe?

On the other end of the spectrum, somebody named Laura was supposed to receive this e-mail:

Hey Laura,
I haven't been on my other email, xocuppiecake21, in so long that I can't remember the password to log in! haha
So I just created this account, can you send the slides to this one? And I will be sending you my slides soon, I am just finishing up!
For the vocab. slides if you don't think some of the words are neccessary you can just delete them, but let me know cuz I'll take them out of the crossword puzzle.
And should I just print out like 30 copies of the puzzle or something cuz I think we were supposed to have her copy them in advance, but I just remembered that now
Thanks!!


xocuppiecake 21 is really jazzed about crossword puzzles I guess. Perhaps I'll hook Leroy and Laura up and see what kinds of crosswords they can come up with.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Date With Ikea

With Judah's school closed and my freelance work flow screeching to an sudden halt, I decided to make use of our downtime by shopping for some furniture. And maybe chow down on some Swedish meatballs.

Geographically we live equal distances from two Ikeas, one in Burbank and one in Carson, so I let the traffic map be our guide. Yep, 405 North is a parking lot. Carson it is. A short while later we found ourselves in the Ikea cafeteria scarfing down a breakfast of scrambled eggs, potato wedges and the most thinly sliced bacon ever. Or maybe it was just me doing the scarfing. Judah was busy playing at some kid germ-catcher kiosk. Then it was off to the showroom.

I tried to restrain myself from buying a bunch of useless particle-board crap, but I quickly realized that was the whole reason I was inside an Ikea in the first place. We picked up a sturdy bed for Judah to replace that ridiculously expensive bed with ridiculously shabby construction that we had returned a while back.

And Lily wanted a small-ish cabinet thingy that could house some of the boxes of jewelry and trinkets that were amassing in our bedroom. I grabbed a bunch of other stuff along the way like a few lamps and a new nightstand for myself.

I always seem to forget about one major component of any trip to Ikea - the interactive part when you get home. The part where you, the consumer, get to assemble your furniture. The part where you spend a lot longer than you imagine it would take. Add to the mix a 3-year-old boy trying to hammer any piece he can get his hands on, plus a 1-year-old girl trying to eat those Ikea wooden plug connectors, and it takes that much longer to fend them off while trying to assemble your furniture. The kiddies won the battle, and I left the construction for another day. Or two. Or three.

Naturally, Lily's semi-constructed cabinet was scattered in pieces around our bedroom until I could gather some time without munchkins around to put the rest of it together. A few nights later I entered the room in the dark only to stub my toe on the cabinet skeleton. That was when I found the motivation needed to complete the job.

It was going rather quickly once I enlisted the help of my drill to drive in the screws. I even let Judah hammer in some of the connecting pieces. The only thing left to do was the bottom of one of the drawers. In my haste, I picked up the thin piece of wood/particle-board junk and wound up scraping my forehead with the corner. Ouch. Now I had a reminder (a huge band-aid across my forehead) to think twice about rushing off to Ikea. Except there's that EFFEKTIV storage combination I wanted to buy. And the Swedish meatballs I never got last time.