Turning Mozzarella Sticks into Merry Poopins

When I was new to LA after matriculating in Ohio, going out was a way of life. I was young and naïve and the Sunset Strip was just a few blocks away. Going out on the town was the best, and the worst. And being a young single guy, the winter holiday season was always filled with festive nights out filled with no shortage of flowing beverages and hors d’oeuvres. I remember one particular New Years Eve spent with a group of pals at a spicy cantina called Senorita’s. Back then my patience for crowds was thick and my stomach was eager to sample my newly discovered passion for Mexican cuisine. Those nights, and their subsequent mornings after, weren’t as painless as in college, but were still manageable for a youngish dude. Perhaps that’s because that era, around the turn of the millennium, was when I began seeking comfort with a tasty little pink darling who was always ready and waiting for my call, morning, noon or night.

Now, years later, I’m older and wiser. There’s no chance I’d go to a Hollywood joint like Senorita’s (RIP) on New Years Eve. Clubs, lines and unnecessary crowds are as foreign to me now as babysitters, Nick Jr. and the Valley were to me then. Hell, there’s minimal chance I’d go anywhere on NYE without a great reason, like being invited to drop the ball at midnight from Mars.

As of a few years ago, likely coinciding with becoming parents, Mrs. Dude and I adopted a low-key approach to the New Years holiday. We usually have a family activity during the day (i.e. something that will wear the kids out and make them want to go to bed early) followed by Mrs. Dude’s famous Appetizer Dinner as our oxymoronic main course.

Every December 31st now, as our oven readies an array of bubbling oozy mozzarella sticks, fried mushrooms that erupt like a volcano when you bite into them, crunchy chewy taquitos AND my wife’s famous homemade pigs in blankets, I can feel my stomach percolating in eager anticipation of the fiesta it’s about to ingest-a. And with each passing year, I tell myself that I can still down this stuff like I did 20 years ago in my off-campus apartment on any given Tuesday night a mere 6 hours before a big exam. The truth is I realize that I need a head exam to think I can make it through this big tasty night without a wingman by my side. So I look back to that little pink lady who’s always been there for me through both good times and stuffed crust pizza: Pepto-Bismol.

Unlike the comparative ease of my college and mid-20’s adventures, I now face New Years with a new crew and my Little Dudes don’t show the same mercy my professors usually did. I have to be up and ready to move on January 1^st long before noon, sadly, on some family adventure or another. That means I don’t have time for my digestive tract to go on strike from our previous night’s holiday excess, relatively low key as it may have been. So I keep a bottle of the classic pink tummy-fixer elixir chilling’ in the fridge, ensuring that I’m always ready to counterattack my intestinal distress, call it Mozzarella’s Revenge, caused by my exposure to a few of my favorite things*, head on. Plus, if I’m not home, I can carry chewables in my pocket, making it even easier to stop the need to go when I’m on the go.

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*Speaking of my favorite things, unlike virtually every third other person in LA, I don’t fancy myself a songwriter, but the memories conjured while writing this post and some seasonal movie watching inspired me to pen some alternate lyrics to a classic tune from one of my wife's favorite movies about singing Austrian families. Thanks to Pepto-Bismol whose #PinkRelief helps me avoid being a self-induced member of the Von Crapp family, and for more Merry Poopins.

Here's a little poem I wrote, to the tune of one of my favorite songs: 

Fresh fried veg-tables with dips straight from Ranches

Taste great but cause me belly ava-lanches

Bubbling hot pizza dripping with oil

Makes my chest feel like it’s going to boil

Buttered hot pretzels are a wonderful lot

But usually tie my gut in a big salty knot

Holidays lead to delicious binges

Rescued by Pepto with its bright pink tinges…

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I was compensated for this post, but all opinions contained within are entirely mine, for better or worse, like the fact that mozzarella sticks might be the greatest food ever invented. 

Why I Hate Halloween Costumes

I love candy. Always have, always will and I have the extensive relationship with the entire staff of my dentist’s office to prove it. I even owned a candy company for several years, which afforded Mrs. Dude and me the opportunity to attend the International Candy Convention several times, which nearly sent me into a diabetic coma and I don’t even have diabetes. Needless to say, there’s a lot I’d do for candy, but there’s one thing I absolutely won’t: dress up for Halloween.

When I was a kid in the 1980s, I used to get packaged Halloween costumes that came in one of those boxes with the cellophane window to check out the mask you’d inevitably almost suffocate in during the quest for another Baby Ruth. Having worn glasses since I was 3 added another level of discomfort to that soft plastic face cover held in place on the wearer’s head by a tourniquet-tight elastic band stapled to both sides. Beyond that, I was raised in the Midwest so my mother-mandated heavy winter coat further compromised my attempt to look like a superhero and made me into more of a supergeek. Thankfully most of the other local kids were equally unlucky and geeky at the same time.  

Needless to say those costumes discomfort and general awkwardness was a nuisance and as soon as I was capable, I figured out a way to reach my objective (pillowcase overflowing with mini Snickers bars) without not only avoiding one of those lame boxed costumes, but really any costume at all. I’d simply throw on a baseball hat and become a member of the Cleveland Indians. Another year October 31^st wasn’t quite as cold, so I wore my regular clothes and went as a “student”. Creative, right? Thankfully there were no minimum requirements for costume qualifications, but had there been so, I would have skated by, like the “ice skater” I dressed as another year with my parka, gloves and wool hat costume.

I'm pretty sure I had this GI Joe costume, complete with the trashbag quality bodysuit.

Ever since, and especially since becoming an adult, I’ve been baffled by adults who not only dress up for Halloween, but go all out to do so. When I first moved to Los Angeles, I lived in an area called West Hollywood, which holds a massive Halloween extravaganza every year. After attending during my first couple years in town, and seeing an inordinate amount of costumes which can’t be described in a family blog among the impossible-to-cross swarm of people, I had no need to ever do so again.

So now that my boys are 3 & almost-6 and super into Halloween, they asked me to dress up with them this year. They both chose to be Darth Vader this year after having spotted the costumes a couple months back during a trip to Costco, shortly after their first viewing of Star Wars. Though costumes have come a long way since the old cellophane-box days, there’s still no chance I’d wear an official costume. Instead, I think I’ll complement their costumes by dressing as intergalactic smuggler Han Solo. After all, he wore relatively normal clothes, and more importantly he was a smuggler, which will be useful when I pilfer the mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups from their Halloween bounty without them knowing. And when the calendar flips to the 1^st of November later that night, we can all rest our heads comfortably knowing that we did what we had to do to reach our objective, a handful of sweet treats and, for me, another year without a silly costume.

My Junior Vaders prepping for their big night out. I'll wash my jeans to do the same.

Why and How and Thank You Very Much

Over the last four years, I’ve shared stories with you of birth and death, sickness and health, not to mention bodily functions, birthday parties and bubbles. I’ve shared elated and somber, and all else in between, just as is the normal flow of life’s constant waterfall.

Why I’ve done this requires a twofold answer:

1)   To have a record of ups and downs that my boys will hopefully want to read some day to restore memories they were probably too young to hang onto.

2)   To scratch the left-brain itch that brought me from Ohio to Los Angeles 15+ years ago to become the TV writer I never became.

But how I’ve done it is a different story, and one I’ve never really talked about. It’s not that it’s a secret, but rather I must admit that it’s only recently that I’ve realized that I’ve taken this privilege for granted: every word I’ve published in the last four year has been possible due to one person, and she’s known around here as Mrs. Dude.

Today my wife Shana turned 40 years old. We were just kids when we met, if you consider 27 the tail end of adolescence. Now a dozen years, a couple kids, 5 homes and an incalculable amount of joy she’s brought me later, I want to present her with a small fraction in return.

When I’ve had deadlines she’s never blinked an eye while I’ve sequestered myself with my digital quill and ink until the task is complete. Oh, and those incredible conferences which have literally changed my life? My wife is the one who encourages me to go, despite my entirely-self-imposed guilt, even knowing how much extra work it means for her on days when I’m not home to get the boys fed and delivered to school on time in the morning, make dinner or get them bathed and bedded for several days in a row. Needless to say she carried and bore the two Junior Dudes, too, which are tasks obviously way out of my wheelhouse. 

And for all this, I say thank you, Shana.

Through nearly eight years of wedded bliss and stress, plus another four of dating/engaged trepidation, I’ve been beyond fortunate to have the world’s most calm and patient partner by my side. When I get frazzled about being late to a 3-year-old’s birthday party, she’s the one who restores logic to the equation and reminds me that no one will ever remember or care that we arrived 10/20/30 minutes late. Clearly this is an unintended side effect of marrying a math teacher.

I tend to be my own harshest critic and those moments when she returns me to earth often make me feel not only like I’ve just discovered an endless canteen while lost in the desert, but also that I didn’t know water even existed.

Though I know she’ll likely not see these words, given how hard she works at her full-time job, tutoring other kids on the side AND co-grooming two of the sweetest, yet most devilish, boys on earth, I felt compelled to share this for her, and for our boys, and for you to know how we all got where we are today.

It was legendary rock concert promoter Bill Graham who once said “They’re not the best at what they do. They’re the only ones that do what they do”, about pioneering jam band the Grateful Dead. Excelling at any chosen task is a challenge. Blazing a trail and doing things unlike they’ve ever been done before requires patience, vision and endless supplies of energy. I was beyond fortunate to hitch my wagon to someone who has off-the-charts levels of all three and who helps instill those traits in our family on a daily basis. For this, I am grateful and I trust that my boys will realize someday how lucky they are to have such an incredible mother and role model.

I’m even luckier to call her my wife.

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The Surprise Ending to Our First Pregnancy

Expectant parents in the movies always experience some sort of unexpected twist shortly before the delivery. It’s usually a silly red herring which gets wrapped up beautifully just in time for the woman’s water to break on a sidewalk somewhere before she speeds to the hospital just in time for a perfect delivery.  My first child’s pre-delivery experience was the opposite.

The Little Fetus measured ahead of scale throughout his gestation, so coupled with the fact that he was breach and I weighed 11 lbs. at birth, Mrs. Dude’s OB/GYN suggested sometime during the third trimester that we schedule a C-Section to occur during the 39^th week. That seemed like a good option because it also gave my parents who lived across the country fair warning on when the baby would arrive. We booked a delivery date and they booked airline tickets. What could go wrong?

My parents flew from Ohio to L.A., 2 days before the delivery date and seemed tired upon arrival, which was not too unusual. They wanted to rest that afternoon and Mrs. Dude and I still had a lot to do so we planned to meet for dinner. They called shortly before we were to pick them up and asked us to come up to their hotel room before we went out, which was unusual. We couldn’t help but speculate why.

In the movies, this is the scene where the couple joins their parents who sit them down in a serious manner (AKA the red herring) to have a roundabout discussion where they ultimately reveal that they bought the family a house next door to theirs and offer to babysit every night for the next 18 years. Unfortunately that’s not what happened to us.

I don’t remember much of what was said, but two words are still tattooed on my brain five years later: breast cancer. There would be no houses or babysitting or any of the joyous things we’d hoped for that night or in the future. At one of the most vulnerable moments of my life, 36 hours before our first child was born, as my brain rattled with thoughts of insecurity as to whether I would, or could, be a good parent, I was shaken like an old Christmas tree during an earthquake. Only my branches couldn’t shed everything they held. I had to hold strong with every fiber of my being for my wife, my child and my mother.

12 hours before we became parents

I don’t remember that dinner or most of the next day, our last child-free day forever. Mrs. Dude and I woke up before the sun on D-Day after not sleeping more than a few hours, which in retrospect was good foreshadowing. We drove silently toward the ocean as the sky transitioned from dark to light until we arrived at the hospital to meet our firstborn. 

The delivery went smoothly and I soon held our perfect son in my arms. Shortly thereafter my mother and father did the same. Joy drenched the sterile white recovery room while I anxiously tried to comprehend the circle of life my family was about to experience. 

Fourteen months later to the day, I held my son in my arms and we watched as my mother was lowered forever below the frozen Midwestern tundra in a wooden box.

My mother meeting the Little Dude