pschwa's blog

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Malcolm is a spirited little boy, and, if left to his own devices, he would spend his entire day eating chocolate, hitting people with bats, and calling me a "stupid noodle head."  To combat his tendencies, we have a variety of rules.  If he violates the rules, he gets in trouble, ranging from going to his room to not getting to watch his favorite TV show, Little Bear.  He is a habitual rule violator, and suffers the consequences every time he does. 

I think I know where he gets it from, because today, at my stay at home dad's group, I broke a lot of rules.  The first rule we broke was the rule, announced by a large number of large signs around, that no alcohol was allowed at the park.  We get this now and again at parks that do not want large groups of men sitting around drinking beer all day.  Somehow, we have it in our heads that the people that made these rules would see things differently if the large groups of men sitting around drinking beer all day had kids with them.  So, we ignore the rule, and are prepared to argue that many sections of Oakland's Municipal Code do not apply to stay-at-home dads.  Besides, the alternative to us sitting around drinking beer is for us to sit around and talk about our feelings, and goodness knows that is NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. 

The second rule I broke was eating polish sausages that were past their expiration date.  I question any expiration date for hot dogs, as, in my humble opinion, lips and assholes will never go bad.  Also, the package said that they were "best by" September 5, and we cautiously accepted the fact that we were eating sausages that were not at their best.  When I say "we," I mean me and one other guy, as the rest of the group was sensible enough to stick to food that was not considered rotten by the rest of the world.  (The other guy, Darren, and I decided to call each other tonight to check up on each other to make sure that we had not been done in by the spoiled weenies.)

The last rule I broke was self-imposed.  I ate some chips.  I am getting kind of chubby, so I have laid a rule down (for myself) to not eat any chips.  In the past few months, every picture that I am in looks like I am carrying Malcolm's unborn sibling, so I am trying to stick to fruit at dad's group.  This is quite difficult, for, if you haven't noticed, potato chips look quite tasty.  Today, after a couple handfuls of cantaloupe and watermelon, I began cramming potato chips down my piehole like they were going out of style.  I stopped the chip parade only when the spoiled polish sausages came off the grill.  (I don't think that I am any better off for it, but at least I didn't put the chips in the bun with the weenie.)  I am anticipating that pictures for the next few weeks will look like we are having twins. 

The question is, what punishment do I deserve?  I decided to give myself the punishment that Malcolm always gets.  I am not going to watch Little Bear today.  I don't really mind, though; Monday Night Football is on tonight.  Now, the question is what to do with all those leftover polish sausages…

If want to waste more of your time, check out my blog at bigdaddypaulblog.blogspot.com/

So we we were at the park yesterday, as we always are on Mondays, having a good time and enjoying the afternoon.  We were in Castro Valley (a suburb) and the park was full of regular looking moms, dads, and nannies.  (Of course, there was one really hot dad there but he carries himself so well that you would never know it.)

We were preparing to leave, when a nanny with enormous breasts walked by us.  Of course, I alerted the dad’s still there to her presence by saying the following, "Man I had an enormous breakfast this morning.  And when I say enormous, I mean enormous (Nodding her way.)"  The other fellas took my cue and one by one we were able to gaze with wonder at the nanny’s exceptional "parenting skills."  And then an extremely hot mom walked right by, followed closely by another.  We looked around and the place had become overrun by hot moms and nannies. What great luck!  Sadly, nap time was quickly approaching, and we were charged with either staying at the park or honoring nap time. 

Ultimately, we respected the schedule, and walked the kids to the car, saddened to leave the party just when it was getting good.  We walked past the swings where one of the hot moms was standing, and our conversation stopped as we both had to suck in our gut so far that neither of us could breathe, much less talk.  When we got to the cars, I turned back for one final glimpse of the park, and wouldn’t you know it, the moms were checking us out!  Well, according to me they were checking us out, in reality they were probably just shaking their heads and making sure the perverts were actually leaving the park.

There were a couple of new guys there, so I thought I would give a few pointers to help new stay at home dads ogle hot women without getting busted:

1. Wear sunglasses (the mirrored lenses).  No one can see what you are looking at and if you point yourself in the right direction, you are, for all intents and purposes, looking at a tree.

2. Never point, it's rude. Nod discreetly, use the hours of the clock to indicate direction, use children as reference points. Women know when they are getting pointed at, and generally don’t like it.  Now if you say, "I find that 12:00 is the best time of day to enjoy a chicken leg, you will generally be fine."

3. Never, ever use the terms rack, hooters, or fun bags.  Also, never, ever say, "check out."  It's just too obvious.  A couple of dad's almost got kicked out of a park in Berkeley for pointing at a sunbather and saying, "check out the rack on that one."  "That one" was, of course aware of what was going on, and trouble ensued. 

4. Do not approach women.  It is icky and weird and no one likes getting hit on at a park (even me!).  Now if your kid goes over there you are free to follow.  As the kids get older, you can train them to go over and say, "Mommy's in heaven"  There is no better wing man on a planet than a kid.

I don’t know where you were today, but me, I was at a vegan cooking class. In a Presbyterian church. Now those of you who know me understand that me heading to a church for some vegan cooking lessons is tantamount to Dracula strapping a garlicky crucifix to his neck and heading to the beach for the day. Amy’s mom, Jean bought me some cooking classes for Christmas and the first one that I wanted to go to was today: Hearty Italian Cooking. (I opted to skip the first two classes: I passed on the vegan baking class on recommendations from vegetarian friends who warned me that vegans hate to eat dessert and the "demystifying tofu" class just sounded silly).

So there I was, ready to learn about how to cook Italian food without meat or animal byproducts, when the instructor had us go around the room to introduce ourselves and state why we were there. I said my name and told everyone there that I was a stay at home dad and did all the cooking. That was fine enough, the hard part came when it I had to talk about why I was there. I went the honest route, which turned out to be a huge mistake. I said that my mother-in-law had bought me some gift certificates for Christmas and that I thought she was crazy for suggesting that I learn to cook without meat. After I said this, I heard a gasp, and all of the air got sucked out of the room. I looked around and the granola-ey people who were smiling earlier, now recoiled and looked at me like I had just called them a bunch of idiots, which, I guess, I just had. It didn’t help that I was wearing a Beer Nuts hat which read, Beer Nuts: Good Times, Great Nuts. I guess it beat the, “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner” hat I had on last night. I was floundering, and things didn’t get any better when I called myself a “self-described Meatasaur” and that there was no way I was going vegan after one class, but maybe, just maybe, I would cook a meal every once in a while without meat in it. Crickets. The instructor made a quick joke about how good of a teacher she was and then moved on. I felt bad, like I had gone to band camp and told them all how dorky I thought band geeks were. Actually, I was little impressed with myself that I was able to introduce myself a church on a Saturday morning without saying, “my name is Paul and I am an alcoholic.”

We began cooking and made polenta with roast red pepper sauce, pizza, risotto with spring vegetables, and chocolate un-cheese cake. For the most part the food was pretty good. I would say it was one step short of gourmet, but the real draw of the day was the instructor. The instructor, colleen, had tons of energy, lots of wit, and a button that said, “be kind to animals, don’t eat them.” She made us all giggle a lot, and made the 3 hours together very enjoyable. For anyone of you who read this, you can find Colleen's organization, Compassionate Cooks here. Some of the granolaheads, though, had elevated the woman to rock star status, and would laugh at an inappropriately volume at all of her jokes. They would also mutter under their breath about how smart she was, too. (“That is sooooo true, if you don’t stir in the cornmeal slowly, then your polenta will clump together. Wow, she really knows her stuff.”) I accepted all this though, as I figured the protein starved vegans hadn’t really ever run into one of their own with this much energy before.

I sat in the back, asking a few questions (“How do you pick a good tomato?” “Is pizza sauce the same as pasta sauce?” “Are bacon and eggs vegan?”) and considered how the cooking class would change my eating/cooking. I realize the health benefits of skipping meat some of the time. I also realize that a lot of animals suffer needlessly as part of the food establishment. I cannot, for two reasons, justify swearing off meat, just yet. We took Malcolm to Earth, the new Disney nature movie, last night, and it was apparent that eating other animals is part of the natural order. (Seriously, why does Disney love violence so much? For a kids movie, why not show more little baby ducklings hopping out of trees and less wolves eating caribou, sharks eating seals, lions eating elephants, polar bears attacking walruses, and cheetahs eating deer. Then again, I should be glad that Disney didn’t arm the polar bears with shotguns to shoot the holy hell out of all the walruses.) The second reason that I eat meat is that my cat eats sushi. Yes, that's right, we gave our cat leftover sushi, so that means I get to eat steak tonight.

I am not ready to give up cheese or meat, but I decided that I would at least try a few things. I tasted some fake butter and vowed to try it on my popcorn and/or cookies. I also will try to use a thickening agent in some dessert recipes instead of eggs. I am going to write Colleen and let her know that I have made these two concessions. I am not sure whether she will be impressed or not, but, hey if a guy wearing a beer nuts hat tells you that you’ve made a difference, it ought to make your day.