Parenting

Last fall, I was driving my parents through Vermont on a foliage-hunting trip, and during a conversation initiated by the sheer overpowering beauty of the place, I randomly mentioned that someday I would like to hang up my keyboard and mouse, buy a house in Vermont and run a bed and breakfast.

The moment I said that, my mom began to look at every subsequent house that we passed on the road in a new light, as the future dwelling and business establishment of her beloved son. She would quickly analyze its advantages and shortcomings with regard to structural integrity, aesthetic appeal, picturesque location, proximity to essential services and the condition of its indoor plumbing fixtures. This was all achieved through a cursory half second inspection of the passing blur. Then, following a fifteen second conference with my dad, she would tender her final recommendation on a possible purchase. She carried on in this vein until finally I had to tell her, mom, I don't know if this will ever happen, I have no money, no green card, I can barely afford my current mortgage and I don't know diddly squat about the hospitality sector. She replied, okay then, we'll do this again later when you're ready. My mom's funny.

I am not sure if I will ever be such a devoted parent to my kids. I can picture my son or daughter telling me that he or she would like to buy a house in Vermont and me replying, "Excellent, I'll come visit you when you're done. Make sure there's beer in the fridge." Are there any good parenting courses one can take online?

Fortune

So apparently, my folks consulted an astrologer, who concluded that my planets would (finally) begin to align starting in June. I'm not sure whether to believe the astrologer or the fortune cookie that informed me, "You have a curious smile and a mysterious nature".

Stripes

When I was young, my mom forbade me from wearing anything with vertical stripes because she believed it made me look longer and skinnier than I was and I was already quite long and skinny. Consequently, I had a shitload of horizontal stripes and not a single vertical stripe during my mid to late childhood.

I think now would be a good time for me to test if my mom's Vertical Stripes Theory does indeed hold water.

Nothing in particular

I haven't biked at all this summer. What the hell happened to summer anyways? It's been freaking cold for the past few days. Leaves are already falling off and shit. Is it global cooling? Or is the dark dank despair of the Republican convention weighing on mother nature's mind? Or perhaps it is Rudy Giuliani's shiny white toothy smirk that's been reflecting sunlight into space and onto Mars where they need it more? What is wrong with Giuliani anyways? He sounded quite demented the other day on stage. And why all that giggling? Rudolph, would you have giggled thusly when the towers came down on 9/11? There, I said 9/11. That, of course, is in response to your bitter complaint that the Democrats didn't mention 9/11 even once during their convention. Happy now? Oh fuck, there are those blinding white teeth again. By the way, why would you show the New York skyline at a Republican presidential convention? The skyline of a city, 80% of which requested you to kindly go fuck yourself in the 2004 presidential election?

But anyways, fuck politics, I haven't biked all summer. My folks are here, visiting me. For the first time in the past 8 years or so. Their attitude towards life has changed quite a bit. They used to be big on traveling and seeing things. Now all they want is to go to malls and department stores. But I guess they've already seen most of the world and there's nothing that can excite them anymore. Now my dad's idea of a nice day out is to hang out in Home Depot gawking at toolboxes. My mom's day is made when we visit the Indian grocery. I would like to take them somewhere through the use of brute force, but it's a challenge for me to think of something they haven't already seen. I'm hoping for some geological oddity to suddenly appear in this part of the world, like, say, a volcano in the Poconos or maybe somebody could find a hitherto undiscovered tropical rain forest in south Philly. I am entirely out of ideas.

So we go to the Indian store. They have decent frozen chapatis.

My garden has blossomed under my dad's regime. He is a garden guy. One result is that my lawn looks awesome because he waters it everyday, come rain or shine. The other day it was about to rain and I yelled out to my dad outside, watering the lawn. "Dad stop watering, it's gonna rain". Dad yelled back, "It's okay, I have an umbrella". I did wait a couple of months hoping this would actually happen before making it up. Sadly, it never did because it would have been a great anecdote to narrate to random people on the internet.

I also have a tomato forest growing on my deck. Back in spring, I purchased a packet of tomato seeds and planted them all, believing that with my vast experience in killing healthy plants, I would be lucky to have but a single one alive by the end of summer. But with my dad in charge, all of them managed to grow and stay alive and now it's like a daycare center out there, only with juvenile tomato plants. They are a rowdy bunch. They fight with one other for the sunlight, block out each other's rays, fall onto the jalapeno who gets needlessly dragged into the fight. Man, they are a handful. I can't wait till they mature, sprout a few tomatoes and move out into their own soil.

I bought a bird feeder for my deck. It is my way of giving something back to society. The Republicans, with their free market-based poverty, don't care about feeding indigent and homeless birds and the Democrats are too busy feeding "people". I have been told that the birdhouse has been embraced and well patronized by blue jays, cardinals, chickadees, goldfinches and in my father's words, "black bird that was definitely not a crow"s. I haven't seen a single bird. Apparently my birdhouse only sees action during the early morning hours.

I guess that's it for now. Thank you, come again.