The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for September 2006

Jack Tries To Start a Trend

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As many of you know I am a summer camp junkie. I loved it. Camp was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Some of you understand and others think that I am a loser. Doesn’t make much of a difference to me what you think, I am too busy worrying about holding a birthday party.

During the Summer of my twenty-second year walking this planet I ventured off to a new camp that was located in a different country. To clarify, it wasn’t a new camp, but it was new to me.

I was part of a small group of three that left the land that we knew for the splendor known as Ontario. It was in Canada that we decided we would spend time. It was in Canada where we were completely unknown that we decided have a summer of fun, frolic and some debauchery. And it was in Canada that we decided we would try and start a new trend.

The idea was that we would go to camp and try to convince all of the people there that if they wanted to be on the cutting edge they would use an expression we created. In our minds it was simple. They’d want to be cool, they’d want to be hip and they would look to us to help them.

Yes, I know that it was arrogant to think that a few guys from LA would convince a bunch of Canadian yokels into thinking that we were cool, but it made sense to us. How could they not believe us. They didn’t have real money, the bills looked like they belonged in a Monopoly game and they had coins with goofy names like Looneys. And don’t get me started on those funny accents and expressions. I was familiar with Bob and Doug Mackenzie. What else did we need to know about Canada.

If you are not familiar, here is a short clip:

Back to the story. We quickly decided that the easiest thing to do was to come up with a word or expression and try to convince the folks at camp that they should use it.

Combrodonate.

That was the word.

Combrodonate. It sounds ridiculous, but looking back we didn’t think so. We thought that it had that special something that would endear it to people and most of all we thought that we could sell it.

Well, we convinced a bunch of people and for a short time it appeared that it might work. But just when it seemed most promising it started to fizzle out. I can’t say that I know exactly why because the truth is that for a short time it hung on and we gained some mindshare and momentum.

Looking back I suspect that there were a couple of reasons why it didn’t catch. It didn’t have enough pizzazz to support what is really kind of a dumb word and the boys and I were too busy chasing the women to focus on it.

I’ll let you combrodonate upon that and for now I’ll wish you a pleasant evening. See you in the AM.

The Birthday Party Dilemma

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If you are a parent of young children you just might find that this post is applicable to you. But even if you are not a parent or your kids are older I encourage you to join me on my walk through the mental morass I call my mind.

But please be careful. Beware the clutter and please I beg of you do not stray off of the path or feed the animals.

The birthday party dilemma sounds simple. How many children can we invite to my son’s party. Here is the rub, the party must include family, friends and of course the kids from school.

There are two kindergarten classes. That works out to a total of 45 children. If you add the family (read cousins) you can figure that there is another 10 or 12 children. And then if you factor in the close family friends you can easily increase it by another 20. Yes, I said 20.

For those of you who are keeping score this works out to be almost 80 children. It doesn’t cover their parents and at age six you can guarantee that there will be at least one adult with each child and in some cases two.

Oh, did I mention that my son has friends who no longer go to the same school but they are people we still see socially. WTF. How did I end up with a number that is more suited to Bar-Mitzvah reception.

Some of you are chuckling. You are thinking that old Jack has lost his marbles and that all that needs to be done is a simple chop job on the invitation list. Here is the challenge.

Here are two potential compromises.

  1. Have a small party in which my son and a few friends do something bigger like a trip to an amusement park. Of course if you go this route you are still out a solid chunk of change.
  2. Have a party that is exclusive to boys. This reduces the number of children who will be invited but it still leaves an incredible number of people to invite, albeit smaller. It also requires a theme that is boy oriented.

I am not a sheep. I have no problem being independent, but I don’t want to do it at the expense of my son. He has already been invited to a half dozen birthday parties and it appears that the basic deal is that each family is going to invite all of the students in both classes.

See, part of the fun of kindergarten is that we try to protect the feelings of the children and that means that we push to invite all of the kids to every party. In a short time this will change, but we are not quite there yet.

I don’t want to impact his social position by being the parent that didn’t invite the kids that invited him to their parties. At the same time it is important to me that he understands that we don’t care about keeping up with the Goldbergs, Smiths, Jones or Berkowitzs.

Another potential option is to have a joint party with a couple of other children. It makes for a massive party, but the financial burden is split and from a selfish perspective it does reduce the number of weekends in which I get to attend said parties.

One of my concerns with this ridiculous nonsense is that he really doesn’t need 50 gifts. He has plenty of toys, more than he can play with at one time. His mother and I are very seriously considering making it a gift free party.

And here is my confession/dream. If we ask that everyone who attends pay a $25 cover charge I could make this one hell of a party. Maybe what I should do is invite everyone and then ply the adults with copious amounts of alcohol.

In all sincerity, I am troubled by all of this. I am going to be careful with this. I am simply not going to go bankrupt on a birthday party. It won’t happen. I also won’t put a six year-old in a position in which he is trying to defend principles. I will teach him about said principles and I will use this occasion to do so, but again he is six. He doesn’t need to sit on the playground and try to explain why he only invited half the class.

There is a lot of room for learning here and that includes his old man. Look, the upside of this is that if this remains the worst problem that I have to deal with it means that my life is pretty damn good.

I am off to ruminate on other thoughts.

In Reference To The Pope’s Recent Comments

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I ran this next blurb last March, but it is appropriate for now as well. Here it comes, in its entirety:

“In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of “suttee” – the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. Gen. Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:

“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks, and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”

This makes sense to me. It ties in well with stories about converts who face death sentences, riots based on cartoons or murders of people because of their ethnicity/religion. The time is coming when we are going to have to make a decision whether to push or be pushed.

A Plumbing Problem

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The joy of owning your own home is sometimes tempered by the cost of maintaining your domocile. Sometimes they are minor irritants and sometimes they are larger and of greater concern.

And certainly your response to the challenges that you face is in direct response to the cost and inconvenience you face relative to your own checkbook.

At the moment the Shack is dealing with a plumbing problem that was discovered late last night. Plumbing problems are never fun, but those that are discovered closer to the midnight hour are even more troublesome.

Listen carefully and you just might hear my roar of frustration. This just sucks.

Saturday Night’s Alright For Blogging

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If you don’t know the musical reference in the title than you should find out. Don’t ask me why because I don’t have an answer.

I always feel a bit unsettled, just before the Jewish New Year that is. I don’t exactly know why. I have my suspicions. I have my ideas, but I don’t really know if any of them are all that accurate.

Maybe it is because I am antsy. Maybe it is because by nature I sometimes find it hard to sit still. Of course, I also am the complete oppposite of that. I can lie on a beach or hammock and just do nothing for hours at a time. I love to sit creekside and listen the water murmur and the whisper of the wind on the trees. I love to hear the roar of the waves.

Today my daughter climbed into my lap and ordered me to read a book to her, so I did. Actually we read it about eight times. She turned and twisted so that she could look into my eyes and then she took her tiny hands and stroked my face. I melted. She kissed my forehead and said “I love you!”

Ok, that is not entirely true. She screamed it. Screaming and shrieking are new things for her, but she loves them. Don’t know what it is about shrieking and little girls, but every little girl I have ever known has done so.

My son has a million questions about the world, especially before bedtime. My daughter doesn’t ask too many questions, instead she claims to be starving. They both make me smile.

I remember being a child and wanting to stay awake. They have that same fear that I had that if they go to sleep they’ll miss something.

Now I don’t fear missing anything but sleep. Kind of funny how that works.

I am not a fan of the Catholic Church, can’t say that I like the pope but I don’t like what I see happening now. That is, I don’t like the temper tantrum that many Muslims are throwing. People get offended all the time. Grow up and act like adults.

You are entitled to ask for an apology. You are entitled to be upset and offended. You are not entitled to use violence to try and obtain said apology.

I am glad that it is football season. I love watching and love playing the game. I miss some of the older players. I miss watching Emmit Smith, Barry Sanders, Marcus Allen, Bo Jackson and Walter Payton play. Those guys were just a lot of fun.

Sometimes I miss being 20. Ok, I don’t miss the experiences I had that year, but I miss the physical condition I was in. I miss having a metabolism that allowed me to eat anything. I miss having a body that you couldn’t bruise. I miss being able to function on three hours of sleep for months at a time.

OTOH, I like not living in a dumpy apartment. I like having a full refrigerator. I love my family and I enjoy having more than two dollars in my checking account.

I am sorry that the Jameel/DovBear lovefest fell through, but I am curious to get the full report as to what happened at the big Psychotoddler/Blogger meet.

I almost flew out just to say that I was there, but then again maybe I was. Maybe I am writing this from my room at the Hyatt Grand Central. Maybe I spent time playing Three Card Monty with a little man at 42nd and Lex or maybe I just hung out at home and discovered that I have a plumbing problem.