The Dude Gives Thanks

With Thanksgiving upon us, I’ve been thinking  about some of the things I’m most thankful for. All of us, no matter how fantastic or awful our lives may be have much to be thankful for.  Even though the backstory of this holiday with the turkeys and Indians and all that jazz is a bit politically incorrect these days, it’s still a great time to be with friends and family. And, more importantly, plan trips to Best Buy at 3am for a $199 HD TV that will probably be both outdated and broken by New Years Eve.

My little family and a new friend.

Here are just a few things I am very thankful for:

·         My son, The Little Dude.  He is the reason I get up in the morning & I don’t just mean because he climbs on me while I sleep.  He has an infectious laugh, fantastic curls and his mother’s patient personality.  And people say he looks like me, which doesn’t hurt his case.

·         My wife, The Dudette.   Her willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty, including while changing all types of doody, really set her apart as a person, wife &  mother.   And her banana bread could bring the Pope to tears.  

·         The rest of my family. All terrific, no matter the situation. Life hasn’t always been a piece of cake for us, and from the look of us you can tell we’ve obviously eaten our share of cakes.  Through good and bad, we have survived. Much like Gloria Gaynor, but actually quite different.

·         Five Guys Hamburgers.  Having lived for 12 years in a city where In’N’Out is hailed as the second coming, it’s nice to have a place that actually makes good food hit the west coast.  And extra thanks to Five Guys for not opening too close to where I live, or else I might weigh 500 pounds.

·         Parks and Recreation. The funniest show on TV always brings a smile to my face, no matter the mood or how late at night I watch it.  Bonus thanks to Nick Offerman’s mustache and Jim O’Heir’s sweaters for pretty accurately reminding me of life growing up in the Midwest even though the show films 2500 miles away from there, coincidentally just a few miles from where I now live. 

·         Los Angeles Traffic.  Though I completely despise you, you make a great excuse for being late that is always accepted unconditionally by other locals. Even if you are stuck on the 405 for 3 hours at 2am on a Wednesday people don’t flinch when you tell them, for they have their own war stories to share of the 101 gone wrong.

·         Southern California Weather.   You can wear a t-shirt and shorts outside in most places in the US during July.  (Except San Francisco.) It’s great living in a place where you can do the same in January.

·         iPhone 4S. Though I was reluctant to get it, kudos to my wife for both pushing me into it and buying it for my birthday and Hannukah gifts.  For the next 3 years.  

·         Diet Mountain Dew. Without you, I would probably fall asleep at 9:30 every night and this blog wouldn’t exist.  Also, my bloodstream would contain a lot less aspartame.  

·         The Penn State Scandal.  While what happened is obviously horrible, it has made the misdeeds by those at my alma mater seem much more palatable in context. 

And last, but not least, I’m thankful for all of you who take time to procrastinate at work and read this blog. Sometimes I wonder if anyone actually reads what I write and then you surprise me with great comments and emails.  I’m very thankful for those of you who have told your friends about me. It’s your support that keeps me going.  Cash helps, too.  Sincerely wishing you  a very Happy Thanksgiving!

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--JJ aka The Dude of the House

Another Birthday

Today is my birthday. In lieu of gifts, please just send cash*. Birthdays have always been a weird day to me.  Growing up in the Midwest and having a birthday mid-November, as a kid I always associated my birthday with the first snow of the season. Maybe that’s why I hate snow. As for birthdays, my opinion is mixed.   

I always wanted to have a summer birthday so that I could be outside or have a pool party or, best case scenario: a pool party outside unlike the indoor pool party I had one year. Like most Midwesterners we went to a community pool where on any given day you could see little kids force grownups to wait around for hours while a miserable teenager cleaned out the Baby Ruth filled water.  OK, maybe that wouldn’t have been so fun after all.  

Instead of a bathing suit I usually got to bundle up in a sweater, moonboots, scarf, hat, and snow jacket to go to my birthday parties.  By the way, some people might call it a ski jacket but along with my dislike of snow comes an inherent aversion to going really fast down a slippery incline while it’s 14 degrees out. Surprisingly, the potential for broken bones and/or maiming doesn’t entice me much either.

I usually got to celebrate my birthday at an exciting location like the Ground Round. The incredibly exciting attraction at that place was that you could eat peanuts and throw the shells on the floor while watching 50-year-old Three Stooges movies. Even as a kid I didn’t think they were funny.

Another local fiesta hot spot was Showbiz Pizza. If you aren’t familiar, Showbiz was where Chuck E. Cheese rejects got shipped for bad behavior. They had those same creepy animatronic creatures who sang while their heads swiveled no more than 45 degrees.  You also got the same crappy pizza as served by Senor E. Cheese. Then again, I don’t think kids under the age of 10 actually realize that any pizza is bad, even if it is literally just a piece of cardboard covered in ketchup and confetti.  At least they had Skee-ball. 

As an adult, birthday celebrations evolve. For several years after college I’d have a birthday dinner with five to twenty-five of my closest friends. You know these types of celebrations.  It usually consists of a bunch of people in an overly loud space with food that takes forever and the honoree somehow ends up stuck at the end of the table. There are overpriced cocktails and at the end of the meal there is major squabbling over the bill depending on which style of “Restaurant Math” is applied.

If you aren’t familiar, there are two primary formulas for calculating a bill when at a restaurant with a  large group.  The one certainty is that both ways irritate the majority of the group the majority of the time. 

The first is “Uneven Division”: this is when you divide the total bill by the number of people at the table.  As a result of this style the people who drink heavily usually come out way ahead of those who arrive late or only eat a salad or entrée.  The second style is “Remedial Adding”: when everyone chips in a certain amount of cash based on what they ate. Somehow this never works out and the pot usually ends up at least 30% short. Even though the bill is self explanatory, someone who ate only a salad ends up paying $50 to compensate for the drunk cheapskates in the group. 

BC was born 9 days before my birthday two years ago so that year my birthday was spent helping him get over the trauma from his Bris the day before. But otherwise for the last several years, I’ve mainly had quiet celebrations with my wife. Since she is a mathematics professional we have very little squabbling over the bill like the annoying situations I described above. On this night, I let her pay.

*= Or if you really want to be my friend, you can “Like” my Facebook or Twitter pages as a gift.  

Thanks for reading The Dude of the House! Tell your friends... 

--JJ aka The Dude of the House