Three simple rules to guarantee a successful wedding

There are many ways to ensure success (or disaster) at your wedding. After almost two decades of working as a wedding DJ and minister, with hundreds of weddings under my belt, I have seen them all.

Perhaps I’ll write a book about it someday. Oh the stories that I could tell…

Last night’s wedding was an enormous success and a great deal of fun, and so I thought I’d share three rules that the bride and groom followed to ensure that their day went off without a hitch. _______________________________________

1.  Give yourself enough time to enjoy your wedding. For yesterday’s couple, this meant a 2:00 PM ceremony and a 5:00 PM reception, giving them plenty of time for a relaxed, stress-free photo session in between ceremony and reception. It also allowed them the unusual pleasure of joining their guests for the cocktail hour, which every bride and groom secretly craves but rarely gets.

Yes, this means that your guests will have to find a way to fill two unscheduled hours in the afternoon.

And yes, it will probably put some parent’s knickers in a bunch, as they tend to be more concerned about the opinions of friends and family when it comes to the wedding than that of their children (What will Aunt Myrtle think?).

Too bad.

Most people can fill the unscheduled time without much trouble, and it’s a small price to pay to ensure that one of the most important days of your life is relaxing and fun.

Last night’s couple also booked a six hour reception, which I think is always a good idea. Though the five hour reception is considerably more common, it can often feel rushed, especially if there has been an unexpected delay somewhere in the day (which is not uncommon). It’s always easier to end a wedding 30 minutes early if the bride and groom are getting tired rather than scrambling to extend a wedding an extra hour when you are supposed to be focused on celebrating.

You’ve spent a year or more and untold amounts of money on the wedding.  Give yourself an extra hour to enjoy it. _______________________________________

2.  Spend time together. I know this seems obvious, but I have seen many, many couples spend the majority of their weddings apart from one another. The most common scenario places the bride on the dance floor, dancing the night away, while the groom is hanging out on the patio or leaning against the bar, chatting with friends, but the variations and blame for these situations are unending. I advise couples to spend as much time together as possible during their reception, and at some point, step away from the celebration and spend a few moments alone, watching friends and family celebrate from afar. Elysha and I did this at our wedding, and it remains one of our favorite moments from the day.

Last night’s couple understood this rule well.  They spent almost every moment of their wedding side by side, holding hands, kissing and laughing together. _______________________________________

3.  Smile. Some couples smile their way through their wedding and others worry their way through. I like to tell couples to do all the worrying before the wedding day, and then trust the professionals who you have hired to execute your plan.

If you spend your wedding day following-up on your vendors and worrying about what happens next, your will have spent your wedding day working and not celebrating.

Hire people you trust, and then trust them to do their jobs so you can smile your day away.

Last night’s couple never stopped smiling.

A homemade electric chair is probably overkill. Literally.

Killing your wife is a terrible, heinous, immoral act, even if she has been nagging you for years. But it takes an especially evil man  What was this guy thinking?

Killing your wife is a terrible, heinous, immoral act, even if she has been nagging you for years. But it takes an especially evil man to build an electric chair in order to kill his wife.What was this guy thinking?

Did he think the electric chair wouldn’t be noticed by the police?

Was he going to tell authorities that she had accidentally jammed a fork in an outlet?

Thankfully, his wife didn’t fall for his electric chair bit and managed to escape.

It probably looked too much like an electric chair.

And then, as if to further enhance the bizarre nature of the story, Mr. Castle attempted suicide by cutting his wrists open with a knife when he had a perfectly good electric chair available.

Poor planning and not so great under pressure.  Not exactly the qualities you look for in an effective killer.

Resolution update: July 2011

It was a big month for me, and while these resolution posts are probably the least-read posts on my blog, they are some of my favorites, especially after a good month. 

Two difficult resolutions were accomplished this month, and progress on many others continues at a steady clip. 

1.  Lose 23 pounds, bringing me down to my high school track and field weight.

Down 19 pounds as of this morning.  This goal is within my grasp. 

2.  Do at least 50 100 200 push-ups and 50 100 sit-ups a day.

I missed four days in July.  An all-day and most-of-the-night trip to NYC kept me from push-ups and sit-ups on one day, as did two weddings and a sore elbow on three others.

In my defense, I am routinely doing well over 200 push-ups a day, now, so those four missed days were more than made up for in the push-up department. 

However, I’m still only doing 100 sit-ups a day.  They are decidedly less fun. 

3.  Practice the flute for at least an hour a week.

No practice.  I’m ashamed of myself. 

4.  Find a wine that I can drink every night or so.

Tried one new wine in July.  Did not like.   

5.  Complete my fifth novel.

Not much happened with the new book in July, as my agent was reviewing it and I was editing MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND and working on a couple other writing projects.  But the manuscript is back in hand and the revisions for MEMOIRS are done.  As my agent would say, onward!

6.  Complete and submit one children’s book to my agent.

Still done.  And this month I revised the story in accordance with the children’s book agent’s recommendations.  I meet with my children’s writing group next week, and after I get some final feedback, I’ll send it back to the agent with my fingers crossed.

To be honest, I did not like the suggestions that the agent gave me at first, and it was only through meeting with my writing group that ideas on how to accommodate her suggestions arose.  As a result, it’s a much better book.

See?  What the hell do I know? 

7.  Complete the book proposal for the non-fiction collaborative project that I began last year.

I have a meeting this month with a photographer to begin work on this project.      

8.  Complete an outline for my memoir

Done.  I have moved into the writing portion of this process.  It has become a book dealing with productivity, but it also includes a great deal about my own life as well.  I’m excited about it.   

9.  Convince my sister to write on http://107federalstreet.blogspot.com at least once a week and do the same myself.

She agreed to write.  She promised to write. And then she didn’t write. 

10.  Drink at least four glasses of water every day.

Done, though it turns out that the science behind this is questionable. 

Nonexistent actually. 

11.  Complete at least one of the three classes required for me to teach English on the high school level.

I submitted my application to the State Department of Education yesterday.  Now I await their response.  Hoping that the bureaucratic wheels don’t grind too slowly.  They will inform me of what classes I need to take in order to teach high school. 

12.  Try liver.

Nope.

13.  Publish an Op-Ed in a national newspaper.

Nope.  But I entered a short story into a contest sponsored by a literary magazine upon the suggestion of my editor.  She was also kind enough to edit it for me.  So my fingers are crossed on that front as nothing happens on this actual resolution front.  

14.  Participate in The Moth as a storyteller, at a live show or on their radio broadcast.

Done!  I went, I told my story, and I won!  I will be participating in The Moth’s GrandSlam competition in September!  Date and time TBD. 

15. See our rock opera (The Clowns) performed on stage as a full production or in a dramatic reading format.

Our dramatic reading at the local playhouse is scheduled for November 5 and 6.

16.  Organize my basement.

Progress continues at an excellent pace.

17.  Land at least one paying client for my fledgling life coach or professional best man business.

Done!  I have my first paying client!  A regular reader of this blog decided to work with me in order to achieve his goals, and we meet for the first time in August.  I am very excited about this and think that it will be a productive and meaningful partnership.   

18. Rid Elysha and myself of all education debt before the end of the year.

Still waiting on the funding.

19. Replace the twelve ancient windows on the first and second floor of the house with more energy efficient ones.

Still waiting on the funding.

20. Make one mortgage payment from poker profits.

No poker in July. I remain stuck on a little less than 25% of a mortgage payment so far.

21. Post my progress in terms of these resolutions on this blog on the first day of every month.

Done.  One day early, baby!

Um… climate change is not real because the Moon has volcanoes, too. Right?

Did that Fox news anchor just attempt to link the presence of volcanoes to global warming? They really are just talking hair. Aren’t they?

Watch Bill Nye’s reaction upon hearing it.

Priceless.

Who knew that erectile dysfunction could be so captivating and suspenseful?

I was on the elliptical, flipping between channels on the adjacent television. On an ideal day, there is a movie, a Yankees game, a SportsCenter and a rerun of The Daily Show all airing at the same time to keep me entertained. Even two of these is great.

I stopped flipping at AMC, a channel that often airs classic movies.

I love to watch old Westerns with the closed captioning turned on. The way in which the writers of these captions describe the sounds and music from these films fascinates me.

Instead of a movie, a commercial was airing. I decided to wait for it to end.  Thirty seconds became a minute. One minute became two. Then I began to wonder if what I was watching was an actual television show. Around minute three I realized that I had been duped by an infomercial, but I was trapped.

I had been watching for three full minutes and still had no idea what product the two gentlemen sitting behind a news desk were talking about.

This was the worst infomercial ever, I thought. Three minutes and I don’t know what you’re pitching.

But then again, I was still watching after three minutes.

Around the tenth minute, I realized that the product had something to do with erectile dysfunction, but the pitchmen had yet to show the product, describe the product, or even place the product in a general category.

Was it a pill?

A medical procedure?

It was covered by Medicare (a fact that was repeated again and again), so could it be some form of outpatient surgery?

Around the twentieth minute, I gained a vague understanding of what the product was, but it wasn’t until I was at home, in front of my computer, that I was able to learn the true, horrifying nature of the product.

Even their website is exceedingly vague until you start digging a little.

And I don’t blame them for being vague. I would be to, if I were selling this product.

But it captured my attention for twenty minutes via solid production values, passionate pitchmen and the building of suspense. I had to give a nod to these infomercial producers. Even after I had a vague idea of what the product was, I kept watching, desperately wanting a glimpse of this product, and I eventually visited their website.

What more could the maker of this product ask? Especially considering I have no need for the product.

That is some seriously effective advertising.

The name of the product is Pos-T-Vac.

Click at your own risk.

The most looked-up words of 2011: How many do you know?

The New York Times recently published a list of the most looked-up words of 2011. Below is a list of the top 20. I only knew the meanings of 14 out of the 20 words. Just 70%. That's a C- level of understanding.

Don’t tell my students.

The words that are bolded are the ones that I knew.

1. Panegyric

2. Immiscible

3. Manichaean

4. Inveighs

5. Crepuscular

6. Legerdemain

7. Churlish

8. Risible

9. Anathema

10. Recognizance

11. Omertà

12. Superannuated

13. Perfidy

14. Hauteur

15. Samizdat

16. Avuncular

17. Inchoate

18. Duplicitous

19. Perfunctory

20. Dyspeptic

Most improbable moment in Hollywood history comes from the classic film The Goonies

There have been many improbable moments in movie history, but I would argue that there is nothing more improbable than the final scene from The Goonies, in which Chunk invites Sloth to live with him.

Let’s put all custody issues aside, though they would be considerable.

Is the movie-goer really expected to believe that Chunk’s parents are going to assume responsibility for this inarticulate, mentally challenged, rage-prone man simply because their son loves him?

Presuming that this lower-middle class family has the space in their home for this seven-foot monster, the dental expenses alone would be astronomical.

Add to this the speech therapy, plastic surgery, job training and years of counseling that will be required in order to overcome the fact that he was physically and mentally abused by his siblings, rejected by his mother, forced to live in chains in the basement for most of his adult life, and is ultimately responsible for his family's incarceration.

sloth

Is this even within the means of Chunk’s parents?

Remember that this is a family who was about to lose their home to a wealthy land developer. Sure, they have the profit from the sale of some pirate jewels, but are we expected to believe that will be enough money after paying off the mortgages of half a dozen families to fund Sloth’s life of constant, continuous  care?

Or that Mikey, the owner of the jewels, would even be willing to provide such funding?

And what happens to Sloth when Chunk goes off to college?

His parents are stuck living with and caring for an enormous, mentally deficient man thanks to a spur-of-the-moment offer made by their son while in the throes of post-traumatic stress?

I don’t think so.

As a writer, the decision was simple:

Sloth should have died while saving the Goonies from certain death back in the cave or he should have been seen in the final frame of the movie, wearing an eye-patch and a pirate hat, steering One-Eyed Willy’s pirate ship on its final voyage.

Sloth might be the hero of the film, but let’s face it:

No one wants to live with him.

Even his mother kept him chained in the basement.

And while we’re on the subject of The Goonies, how the hell did director Richard Donner (and writers Stephen Spielberg and Chris Columbus) get away with naming his pirate One-Eyed Willy in a kid’s movie?

And please don’t tell me that any phallic allusions associated with that name did not exist in 1985, because they did. I was thirteen at the time and I remember cracking up every time someone said One-Eyed Willy’s name, and I still giggle sometimes when hearing it today.

What could Donner have been thinking?

Interviewing for Google: What would your answer to "the hard question" be?

From Jason Kottke: In the early days of Google, Sergey Brin ended his job interviews in an unusual manner.

“Finally, he leaned forward and fired his best shot, what he came to call ‘the hard question.’

”I’m going to give you five minutes,” he told me. “When I come back, I want you to explain to me something complicated that I don’t already know.” He then rolled out of the room toward the snack area. I looked at Cindy. “He’s very curious about everything,” she told me. “You can talk about a hobby, something technical, whatever you want. Just make sure it’s something you really understand well.”

— http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304911104576444363668512764

So I challenged myself to come up with a few of the complicated subjects to which I have expertise that I might have used in an interview with Brin.

They are:

1. Successfully attend and graduate from a woman’s college as a man
2. Schedule 60-100 employees of varying skill levels, while accounting for specific financial and scheduling needs and language barriers, for work at a 24-hour fast food restaurant, while also being held accountable for labor cost as a percentage of actual sales based upon uncertain and consistently inaccurate sales projections
3. Planning for and executing 27 effective parent-teacher conferences during a 3-5 day period
4. Playing consistently profitable poker
5. Crafting and telling a winning story at a Moth StorySLAM

What would your answer be?

Come to the Show!

It’s official! There will be a staged reading for The Clowns, the rock opera written by Andy Mayo and myself, at the Playhouse on Park in West Hartford, CT.

The Playhouse has hired a director, a music director, and a stage manager. Auditions will take place in the next couple months, and if I would just wrap up the script, we’d be ready to go!

Shows will be on Saturday, November 5 at 8:00 PM and Sunday, November 6 at 2:00 PM. There will be no advanced ticketing. A suggested donation of $10 will be collected at the door.

It should also be noted that this is a rock opera written for an adult audience. The story centers on a group of twenty-something rock musicians, and so the language and situations presented are reflective of these conditions.

I only mention this because Andy and I are elementary school teachers, and I didn’t want anyone to assume that this was a G-rated show.

Come to the Show is the name of the first song in the show, and I hope you will all heed its call and show up for an exciting night for me and Andy!

A business arrangement involving stickers

I have been told by many authors and would-be authors that they are very jealous of my agent, Taryn Fagerness, and the near-perfect relationship that we have. I don’t blame them. I can’t tell you how fortunate I feel to have her in my life. She is my business partner, but more importantly, she is my biggest fan, my most honest critic, my most adept collaborator, and my friend.

And here’s just another reason why I adore her so much.

After reading my post detailing Clara’s propensity to apply stickers to her belly, she sent this:

An evening of challenging questions and fabulous gifts in Lebanon, CT

On Monday night I had the pleasure of speaking as a part of the third annual Connecticut Author’s Trail at the Jonathan Trumbull Library in Lebanon, CT. An audience of about 50 intrepid Author Trail followers were kind enough to fill the room to listen to me chat about writing and books and life in general. It was an engaging group of people, filled with lots of interesting questions, and they sent me home with a tub of cookies that I managed to avoid eating by passing out at drive-thru restaurants and Dunkin Donuts over the last two days.

I made a bunch of fast food employees happy while avoiding most of the unwanted calories.

A few notes from the night included:
________________________

The audience was kind enough to allow me to defer from reading from any of my books, which I always appreciate. I really hate that part of almost any reading.
________________________

My friends, Tony and Erin, were kind enough to show up for the talk.  It is thanks to Tony that I have Patriots season tickets, and he actually delivered them to me that night, making it the best gift I have ever received for a  speaking engagement. I told the audience that Tony ranks fourth in my life in terms of most important people. The order is my wife, my daughter, my agent and then him. And while that may be slightly tongue-in-cheek, it isn’t far from the truth.

And yes, technically I paid for the tickets, so they weren’t exactly a gift. But I paid for them way back in March, so they felt free to me when Tony handed them over. Probably why the Patriots make me pay so early. ________________________

I entered the library wearing a baseball hat and shorts and carrying a backpack, and as a result, no fewer than four people commented on how young I looked. “You’re a little young to be an author,” one woman said skeptically, and two others suggested I get a new publicity photo taken, and fast. It just goes to show:

Dress like a little boy and you’ll probably scrape away a dozen years or so, at least until you remove your hat. ________________________

I was asked one of the toughest questions of my authorial career when a librarian who I had met at a previous retreat explained that she is often asked, “Who is this Matthew Dicks?”

Faced with having to explain that I am an author, a teacher, and a DJ (among other things), she said that she's had a difficult time describing me. So she passed the question onto me. “Who is Matthew Dicks?” she asked, leaving me to fumble with the question before offering little by way of answer.

But at every author appearance, I always recommend half a dozen other books, and on Monday I recommended SIX WORD MEMOIRS, and so she suggested I provide my own six word memoir in hopes that it might help.

I’ve written almost four dozen six-word memoirs and simply cannot choose with one is the most fitting, but I’ve promised to post my top 10 or so by the end of the week. So I’m whittling the list down to something manageable. ________________________

A piece about the evening was written up in the Lebanon Reminder by staff writer Melanie Savage, and I liked it quite a bit. She captured the highlights of the event well. The piece also included this photo as well, which I liked because it captures the season tickets sitting on the table beside me.

I love the Patriots.

My daughter recognized me as an author for the first time. I'll never forget it.

My daughter noticed my books for the first time today. They are stacked on the cluttered bookshelf near where I write, and as I was giving her a hug, she looked over my shoulder and asked, “What’s that?”

I told her that they were the books that I had written. She knows that I write books because she often tells my wife that “Daddy write books on computer,” but I don’t think she knew that I had actually published anything until today.

How could she? She’s only two-years old. She doesn’t know what publishing means.

But for the first time, I think she finally understood that the books that I write on the computer are related to the books that she reads everyday.

She stared at the pile for a moment before reaching out and touching the spine of Unexpectedly, Milo. Then she traced the word "Milo" with her index finger and said, "M-I-L-O."

Just the fact that she could identify all four letters without any prompting was amazing.

But to watch my daughter trace the letters on the spine of a book that I had written, and then to listen to her call out the letters while realizing for the first time that her father had actually written the book, was one of those singular moments in life that I will never forget.

I still support ferocity

A week ago I wrote a post about parenting. Specifically, I outlined what I thought it took to be the best parent. 

The response I received to that post (and there was a lot) was evenly split.  It consisted of:

1. Praise over the ideas expressed in the post (one woman told me that she will be placing a copy of the post in all future baby shower cards)
2. Doubt and downright disagreement over the supposition that there is one best way to parent

Surprisingly, no one objected to my recommended style of parenting.  Opposition only resided in the notion that there was one best way to parent.   

Specifically, people said that while my description of ideal parenting might be effective, parents who have taken opposing positions have also raised children who grew into loving, caring, productive adults.  Therefore, no single method of parenting is necessarily correct, and different parenting styles might be required for different children.   

I’ve been thinking about this argument ever since. 

It is true that a less earnest, less deliberate parenting style like the one I described has proven to be effective for many, many children.  As a teacher of thirteen years who has gotten to know hundreds of kids and their families, I can attest to this.   

In fact, my parents barely parented me.  My mother and evil step-father could not have been less ferocious about the way they raised me, and I am quite pleased with the way I turned out. 

But here’s the thing:

I still think that I am right.

I think that there are many good and perfectly acceptable ways of parenting that will yield outstanding results, and I also feel that despite universally-acknowledged bad parenting, kids can turn out just fine as well.  But I still believe that there is probably one best way of parenting, and my philosophy comes closest to it.

This doesn’t mean that other ways, including ill-advised means of parenting, can’t be effective.  It simply means that the chances of them being effective are reduced.   

For example, we all know or have heard of someone who lived well into his nineties while smoking two packs of cigarettes a day

Does this mean that smoking is a good thing for some people, or does it mean that bad decisions can still produce positive results?

And could the smoker who died at 95 have lived to 110 had he not smoked?

Measuring lost potential is an impossible task.

Although I am pleased with the way I turned out and am at least moderately successful in terms of meeting my life goals, what could I have been had there been books in books in my childhood home and help with my homework and parents who did not allow me to stay out at all hours on a school night?

What if my parents had attended my Little League games and track meets and fed me more than bologna on bread for lunch everyday and required me to practice my instrument and read every night?

What if I had been sent to college immediately after high school instead of having to claw and scrape my way to get there years later?

Where might I be today?

And yet my mother might say that her style of parenting worked out just fine for me, and who could argue?  Her son is a successful teacher and novelist and he owns a small business.  He is married to a great woman and is raising a bright, precocious, well behaved daughter.

But this doesn’t mean that her parenting decisions were right.  While I have managed to survive and thrive, my sister has had a considerably tougher life and my brother disappeared five years ago and has not been seen or heard of since.

I managed to beat the odds, but they were certainly stacked against me.      

No, I suspect that there is a best way of parenting, and I suspect that my philosophy of ferocity is close to it.

And I know this makes some people angry, especially if they have adopted an opposing philosophy, because parenting is a very personal matter, and to question one’s decisions in regards to their children treads on dangerous ground.

But relax. Just because I think I am right doesn’t mean that I am right.

I mean, I am right, or close to it.  But you can think otherwise.  

And it also doesn’t mean that I always adhere to this philosophy.  There are nights when my ferocity wanes as I battle with my daughter over brushing her teeth and rainy days when I cave into her demands to watch Sesame Street when I know that we cannot play outside.

Having a philosophy and adhering to it all of the time are two entirely different things.

I am not always as ferocious as I should be. 

But I still believe that I should be.

A girl who takes care of her cat will surely take care of her elderly parents. Right?

Before leaving for school today, my daughter made sure that her new kitty cat was well taken care of.

This bodes well for me in old age.  Right? 

McDonald’s makes Happy Meals healthier, regardless of The Daily Beast’s uncertainty over the matter

The Daily Beast tweets: McDonald’s Adds Fruit to Happy Meals: In attempt to make food healthier. http://thebea.st/nV5a2p #cheatsheet

In attempt to make food healthier?

Since when is fruit (and vegetables, which have also been added to the Happy Meals) not a healthier choice?

Is there any chance that adding fruit and vegetables (and reducing the number of French fries, which McDonald’s is also doing) will not make their Happy Meals healthier?

Is it even possible for McDonald’s to fail in this healthier attempt?

Shouldn’t the headline read something like:

McDonald’s Adds Fruit to Happy Meals and makes food healthier.

Or…

McDonald’s Adds Fruit to Happy Meals and yes, Happy Meals are now healthier. No doubt about it. Oh, and they added vegetables, too. And reduced the number of fries. And also the overall calories as a result. Yup. A healthier choice. No attempt here. Just downright certainty.

Rhinos and lions and left-handers, oh my!

Two years ago I wrote a post about group descriptors. Phrases like a pride of lions and a murder of crows, as well as three that I invented myself.

Based upon what I wrote in that post, I didn’t like any of the descriptors that I had invented at the time. But two years later, I find myself liking them a lot.

Perhaps I am an acquired taste, even to myself.

My three descriptors were:

• A gamble of poker players
• A concern of mothers
• A fumble of left-handers

I mention this today because I just learned about one of the greatest group descriptors of all:

A crash of rhinoceroses

Pretty fabulous.  Huh?

Winnie the Pooh aborted. Too damn frightening.

My wife and I attempted to take our daughter to her first movie yesterday. In truth, Clara has been to many movies as an infant but has no recollection as she was asleep for all of them.

She attended two movies designed for mothers of little babies. Scheduled for the afternoon, the volume is turned down on these films, the lights are kept up, and a baby changing station is positioned in the front of the theater. Babies are able to sleep or nurse while moms (and this dad) are able to take in a movie.

The only problem is that the choice of films is sometimes questionable. My wife saw My Sister’s Keeper (which is supposedly heart-wrenching), and we saw The Time Traveler’s Wife together (which also ends badly).

Not the best choices for a bunch of hormonal, post-partum mothers.

Clara also went to several drive-in movies with us, sleeping in the back seat while we caught a double feature.

Why the parents of infants don’t do this more often is beyond me.

Unfortunately, we had to abort our movie-going attempt yesterday when my daughter became semi-hysterical, screaming, “I want to go somewhere else! I want to go somewhere else!”

It was all a little overwhelming for her. The volume of the trailers was exceedingly loud and the theater was very dark.

Even on Mommy’s lap, it was a no-go.

But I learned a few interesting tidbits from our failed attempt:

1. Because my daughter has only watched programming on our local PBS station, she has never been exposed to a commercial before, and so the commercials shown prior to the movie were the first she had ever seen.  And they were loud, fast paced, and fairly frightening as a result.

2. Because my daughter has only watched programming on our local PBS station (and two animated films on the couch), she has not been exposed to the slapstick comedy and the danger and violence inherent in even the most benign of children’s movies. The preview for Puss in Boots scared the hell out of her, even while it was making my wife and me laugh out loud.

Red-eyed boars.

Guns firing off.

Puss crashing through a wooden box and being struck in the head by a boot.

Swordplay.

It’s all innocent enough, I think, for a kid exposed to this kind of entertainment before, but for Clara, it was overwhelming and terrifying.

3.  Even the animated short, The Ballad of Nessie, which opens the film, was too much for her. It told the story of Nessie, the Loch Ness monster, and how she is forced to leave her pond when golf course developers take over the land. No matter where Nessie goes, she cannot find a new home.  Eventually, she cries the tears that so many have told her to suppress, and in doing so, she creates a loch of her very own.

It was one of those stories that is 95% tragedy and 5% happiness, and that percentage was evident in my daughter’s reaction to the piece. As we left the theater, all Clara could talk about was how sad Nessie had been, and how she had cried and cried and cried. It took all of our efforts to convince her that Nessie was fine, now, and happily swimming in her own pond.

Unfortunately, Clara has an outstanding long term memory, so I suspect that it will be a long time before we can attempt another trip to the movies.

She will remember this harrowing experience for a very long time.

Perhaps we should’ve waited until she was older.

Maybe we could have entered the theater after the previews had finished.

It’s possible that a steady diet of PBS is not conducive to the viewing of mainstream Hollywood moviemaking.

Oh well. At least I won’t have to sit through a bunch of bad children’s movies for a while.

I also was left wondering about the two separate groups of adults (a foursome and a twosome)  who were also in the theater to watch this one hour Winnie the Pooh film without any children in tow.

These people exist? And if so, who the hell are they?

Colorforms teach important life lessons about the limitations of caregivers and the importance of suppressing your feelings.

My daughter played with Colorforms for the first time today.

She loves the toy. Today she organized a baby’s birthday party, and as she assembled the people and balloons and cakes on the board, she narrated a rather complicated story for us.

It was fabulous.

There was only one problem.

This piece:

Clara did not like the way the dog was licking the cat, and so she tried to pull the pieces apart, assuming that they had inadvertently joined in the box.

She yanked. She pulled. She pinched. She grunted.

Eventually she handed the piece to me. “Daddy fix it!” she said, and when I failed, she turned to my wife. “Mommy, fix it!”

I briefly considered grabbing some scissors and cutting the piece down the middle, but then I realized that it was time for my daughter to learn an important life lesson:

Mommy and Daddy can’t fix everything.

It’s a sad but necessary truth of life.

Of course, when she wasn’t looking, I hid the piece.

I may not be able to fix it, but there’s nothing wrong with learning to compartmentalize your problems and stuffing your feelings away for another day.

Chatting with your ex-wife at a football game or marrying your ex-wife’s first husband. Which is worse?

I often make fun of my friend, Shep, for spending more time speaking and texting his ex-wife while we are attending Patriots games than I spend talking or texting my wife for the whole time that I am away. He will claim that the communication is always daughter related, but it’s not true. Yes, they are coordinating and consulting on childcare issues, but many times they are just talking about the game or other less pertinent issues.

It’s nice that they have remained friends, but it’s still great fodder for teasing.

Last week he invited me to his daughter’s birthday party at the home of his ex-in-laws, and it’s not uncommon for him to spend time with this ex-wife’s family even when his ex-wife is not around.

Again, it’s nice, but it’s also great fodder.

Then I got thinking:

I once officiated the wedding of my ex-wife’s ex-husband, her first husband, and his new bride, and then I served as the DJ at their reception.

And though I have no contact with my ex-wife, I am Facebook friends with my former sister-in-law and her children, and they have attended more than one of my book signings.

So I guess I shouldn’t throw stones from my glass house.

But I will.  Shep’s fodder is more timely.

But it is indeed a brave new world.

Excellent first impression

Um… did you want me to come to your store?

If so, when?