So Delicious!!

I'm becoming a gin drinker!

This isn't something that just started to happen, it's something I planned and have been working very hard at since the beginning of summer.

Last June, I was invited to a martini party. I wasn't really a fan of martinis up until then but I decided that I would jump on board. As with every other aspect of my life I started to do a bit of research on the martini.

One thing I found out right away was that there are 2 main types of martini that are prevalent these days. One made with gin and one made with vodka.

The vodka martini is the most popular because it is the easiest to drink. So right away I was kind of  turned off of the vodka. I'm not usually one to do something because it's popular. I then discovered that there is a community of classic gin martini drinkers who look down their noses at the vodka martini because it is not, by definition, a martini.

Eureka! I was sold on the gin! A chance to be an elitist martini snob and prevent myself from becoming too trendy at the same time! Yes sir, I was going to be renowned as the guy who drinks gin. People would say, "See that guy over there? Yeah, he only drinks gin!"

As i continued my research I found that Winston Churchill was a martini drinker. His recipe was as follows:

1. Stir 3-4 ounces of gin in a glass with ice
2. Strain into a chilled, stemmed martini glass
3. Garnish with olive
4. Look at a bottle of vermouth

This was the recipe I decided I was going to use for my martinis!

The night of the martini party arrived and with it my very first martini. I strayed from the recipe above and actually added vermouth to my first drink. It looked perfect! So crisp. So clear. So refreshing to look at. I tipped the frosty glass to my mouth and took a sip of my new favorite beverage. It was god awful! My eyes popped out and my mouth started to twist and writhe. It tasted like bug spray! The words that came out of my mouth were, "Oh! It's so delicious!" but nobody was fooled.

I worked hard that night! As the evening progressed I added less vermouth until I was drinking straight gin. The taste never did improve nor did the look on my face after each hideous swig.

A lesser man would have given up after that, but not I! Straight Gin! That was going to be my drink!


I'm on my third bottle in four months. The taste hasn't improved in the least however the look on my face after I take a drink has. Enough so that I was prepared to drink gin in public. We went to a local pub and I ordered up a gin martini. I was pretty excited about it so I was crushed when the waitress came back and told me they didn't have the ingredients for a martini. "???" What? They don't have gin? So I'm still waiting on that public martini deal.

My martinis have become less elaborate over time. The olive is long gone! The fancy martini glass has not been used since that very first night. I've sunk as low as to drink them out of a big blue Tupperware cup when we were camping. Now I prefer a regular old highball glass with a few ounces of gin and a big chunk of ice.

So now I'm a hardcore 50's style drinker. I like to sit back on a cool autumn evening beside a roaring fire and slowly sip on a glass of gin on the rocks...and shudder ever so slightly after each sip!

I'm Magellan, I'm So Gellin'!

I've been using hair gel for a couple of years and I have yet to figure out the different levels of "hold" they've come up with to distinguish their products.

The brand I normally buy comes in 5 different varieties: X-Hard Hold, Extra Hold, Mega Hold, Strong Hold and Hard Hold.  Not one of these varieties tells me anything about the quality of the product. To me they all seem suspiciously similar.

Strong vs Hard?? Is one type hard yet weak and the other strong but soft? I've used both and they seem very comparable. I'm pretty sure that Hard and Strong are exactly the same gel, only one is orange and the other is blue.

Then there is this "Mega" business. Can someone tell me what this means? I understand how the words strong and hard might relate to hair gel but what is mega? Is it Mega Strong or Mega Hard? Maybe it's Mega Both! I'd like to think that they mean Mega Awesome or Mega Sexy but what if they really meant Mega Ugly or Mega Stupid? They can't just use a word like that to describe gel! They might as well call it "Mystery Hold"! All I can discern about this product is that it surpasses all other gels in some unknown way. My guess is that it is the same stuff that is found in Strong and Hard, except it's pink (make that Mega Pink)!

Next we have Extra Hold. This is very similar to the conundrum we faced with that whole "Mega Hold" enigma. It has some special property that is a little bit extra from the other gels. We don't know what it is and we probably wouldn't or couldn't understand it even if they filled us in. We should probably just be quiet and buy the product and just believe that we are getting a little "Extra". Extra strong? Extra hard? Extra green? We don't know, we just buy. If it has extra anything we feel like we just got a hell of a deal! Just one thought though...what if we were getting Extra Mega?

I think I just blew my own mind!

Finally there is X-Hard Hold! You know it's good when it has an X in it! This gel must be eXtreme! I can't even tell you what color the gel inside the bottle is because the container is black! You don't even get to see this stuff, it's that eXtreme!! This must be the gel of skydivers and lion tamers and all other such eXtreme activity partakers. If it's good enough for a lion tamer it must be OK for me! Of course I'm making a big assumption about what the X stands for. What if it really stands for "Exacerbated"? The last thing I would want to do is aggravate my, already difficult to manage, hair. Until I find out exactly what that X means I'm staying away from that one!

I'm sure they have spent a lot of money to come up with all of these different varieties of gel to suit every persons needs however it is wasted on the likes of me. I buy based on color. Some days I feel like orange and others I feel like blue, hell I've even felt like pink from time to time.

Some day I'll get one bottle of each and mix them up into a Franken-gel. I'll call it "Mega Strong Extra Hard Hold - X"! My hair will be like a mighty helmet and people will see me walking down the street and say, "There goes Astroboy!"

I Got A Box Of Crackers

Well, Christmas has come and gone for another year.

My most memorable moment this year happened on Christmas morning while the kids were opening their presents.

Angel or Devil was opening a gift from my parents. I knew already that it was a Webkinz, which was great, however the packaging caused an event that will stand out in my mind forever. The doll was wrapped inside a saltine cracker box.

As Angel or Devil unwrapped the box she said quietly, "Nana got me crackers." The poor girl actually thought she'd been give a box of crackers. It was heart breaking just to imagine myself at her age and in her place. I could literally feel what she was feeling.

What happened next almost makes a person want to cry.

She tried her very best to be positive about her gift no matter how lame it was. She said in her best fake happy voice, "It's to put on chicken noodle soup."

Normally I would have thought that this whole situation was pretty funny! But this was just too pathetic and sad! You could taste the disappointment that she was struggling so hard to conceal.

"Nana didn't get you crackers for Christmas!" I said, "Open that box up!"

She just sat there holding the box on her lap.

"Open the box, there is something inside!"

"For the love of God open that box!!", I couldn't stand watching her trying to cope with the thought of getting crackers as a Christmas gift. I just wanted her to be relieved of that disappointment.

Finally she put me out of my misery and opened the box and was much happier to see a Black Panther Webkinz rather than 4 rows of crackers. The disappointment was immediately erased and forgotten and she moved on to the next gift as if nothing had happened.

I was lucky enough to have capture the whole thing on video, so I can always go back and see how strong little Angel or Devil was in the face of what must have been a crushing disappointment.

It was a brief moment on our Christmas day but it had a big impact on me.

Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!!!!!

One of my favorite Christmas movies of all time is A Christmas Story. I've watched it countless times and I've made the girls watch it countless times as well.

I guess that is what makes what Devil or Angel did last Tuesday so unexplainable.

Tuesday was a cold one here on the prairies. The temperature was around -10 C (-2 F). On this day after school Devil or Angel decided to stick her tongue on a metal pole. I'm still not sure about the events that led up to this decision. From what I hear from her sisters she just did it all on her own. Personally, I think there might have been a little coaxing going on. But I could see her doing it all by herself. What can I say, the kid is a daredevil.

Of coarse her tongue was immediately frozen to the pole which triggered extreme panic and screaming. I was told that a man came and pulled her off of the pole. At first I was under the impression that he just yanked her head back but was later told by Little Miss Can't Be Wrong that he poured a cup of water over her tongue while he pulled. This was a relief. It doesn't make it great but it does make it much less of a traumatic ordeal.

Regardless of whether it was a dry or wet removal, afterwards she bled like a stuck pig. As she was making her way back into the school she made sure to barf on the floor for good measure. I'm sure the janitor really appreciated that!

When I got home she was walking around and seemed to be doing OK...considering what she'd been through. She couldn't talk much because she had a big wad of tissue sticking out of her mouth.

She spent most of that evening sleeping on the couch. All that shock really does tire a person out!

The next morning she got up and I tried to get her to drink some milk. She took two sips and threw up on the floor. I cleaned that up (while I was trying to eat my own cereal) and then decided to give a cup of water a try. The same thing happened. So she got to stay home from school.

She was able to drink some liquids later on in the day but only via a straw pushed to the back of her mouth. She had some water, juice, thinned out pudding and a bit of soup. She wouldn't swallow her own spit though. She just let it accumulate and then let it fall out into a bowl. She basically didn't do anything that required any movement of her tongue.

Today she was good enough to go to school but still not eating solids. At least she was swallowing her own spit!

One day she will look back at this incident and laugh but it sure won't be anytime soon.

I knew that one of the kids would do this one day. I'm just glad that they were all present to witness a live demonstration of what happens when you put your tongue on metal objects in the winter and that they all get to see the aftermath.

I guess some things you just have to see to believe. At least she is now famous at the school as "The Kid Who Froze Her Tongue To That Pole". I can almost see the kids standing around the pole pointing at the fuzzy bits of tongue still frozen in place.

Y Is Everyone Naked?

I've recently obtained YMCA memberships for myself and the kids and Friday we decided to go and check out the swimming pool for the first time.

We were pretty excited because it was a whole new experience for us all. We went in and scanned our cards and headed downstairs to the pool area. The girls headed into the ladies change rooms and I went down the hallway to the mens change room. As I walked through the door the first thing I saw was a set of cock and balls staring right at me. I was caught totally off guard. This was not something I was prepared for, in the least!

Somehow I'd forgotten that people got naked in the change rooms. I was in such a state of shock that I was afraid that I might have been staring and so I kept my eyes darting all over the place, mostly at the ceiling and upper reaches of the walls! The only thing more discomforting than all the male genitalia swinging around in that change room was the thought that I was soon going to have to join the guys in their nakedness.

I guess it's been a while since I've been to any public gym or anywhere else where I would be in close proximity to naked men. In fact it had probably been since high school.

I managed to get through the ordeal without too much trouble but it's definitely going to require some getting used to.

When we were all in the van going home I was telling the kids about how weird it was seeing all those naked guys.

Little Miss Can't Be Wrong's response was, 'That's Gay!'

To which I replied, "Seeing a guy's wiener doesn't make you gay! But if I said, 'Wow, that guys got a nice wiener!', THAT would have been gay."