Making their way... the only way they know how...

I fear that my blog has turned into The Life and Postings of Sidemoss and His Dog. I will do my best to rectify this, but I am not sure that it can be helped. Originally, my life and reflections were based on the movies I watched, but I hardly watch anything anymore. I always wanted life to be like this, where I read and write and enjoy life making observations day to day. I have wanted to minimize the TV experience as much as possible, since true adventure usually occurs outside the realm of TV.

The idea is to become more creative and less critical. More productive and less producer-minded. Wow! I have been watching TV a long time. I think this writers' strike was the best thing that could have happened to my world...

Here we are
Face to Face
A couple of Silver Spoons...

Is TV creative? Or is it embarrassing? Is it there for escape? Or is it there to steal our time?

I am ready for diapers...

I am ready for diapers...

I think I am anyway. The other night was extremely cold, so I let Forrest sleep in the garage. I set up the Heat Dish in there and tied his leash to the railing. We bought him a $10 pillow from Cal Ranch, so it seemed like everything should work out well.

I had a tough time sleeping, mainly because of the Heat Dish being on all night. It was pretty safe, but still with Forrest, it made things unpredictable. The next morning I got up and let him out as soon as I woke up. I really did not notice anything out of the ordinary. His pillow looked a little wet, like he got real slobbery on it. I turned off the Heat Dish and went back to bed.

A few hours later, I decided to go shovel the driveway. When I passed Forrest's sleeping spot I noticed that he had in fact chewed off the corner of the pillow. On closer inspection, I discovered that in the night Forrest had crapped. The slobber all over the pillow was not slobber, but poop. It was on the underside and fused with the cold cement garage floor. It was a moment of anger and frustration with how a dog can be so lame...

Now, Forrest is a pretty big dog, so when he goes to the proverbial restroom, it is usually a double or triple flusher. After a week, when I scoop the poop in the backyard, we need to rent a backhoe to lift the poop bag out and place it in a trash can. So this garage dookie was all over the place.

When I assessed the situation later on, I realized that I really did not give Forrest a whole lot of options. In my effort to save him from the cold, I put him on a very short leash with a water dish in walking distance, a pillow, stairs and not much else. I was not even thinking about the bathroom situation. Thinking back, the time I went out to see him before I went to bed, he really wanted out. I think that was the signal that he had to go and not that he wanted to escape. How could I know this since he is an outside dog? But now, it does make sense. So, the situation is not without logic. Maybe I am the lame one.

So I scooped up as much as I could with a towel and threw that away. Then, the pillow. I threw that away. Paper Towels. Threw away. But the fused poop to the cold cement? What about that? I had to go in and get a bucket of warm water with a rag. This I did a couple times. It is now the cleanest spot on the whole garage floor.

How does this make me ready for diapers? My thinking on this is that I have a big fear of the whole dirty diaper concept. It smells. It's gross. It gets all over the place. I have had a tough enough time handling my own #2 visits... So here I am face to face with dog crap which is the equivalent of probably a week's worth of newborn infant poop. And I overcame it! Even though I wanted to run and hide in a closet full of baby wipes. I can only compare this to the scene in Batman Begins where he embraces the thing he fears the most by being in a cave surrounded by bats.

I am not sure what I am getting at exactly. Am I saying that I am going to be a super hero whose power emanates from the stealthy qualities exhibited by poop? I don't think that is what I am saying, but I think there is definitely a principle here in fighting fire with fire...

Or maybe I am just going to be the best diaper changer ever. People will call me from miles around to change them. Actually, I do not want to be so much of an overachiever...

DreamViewer

In the movie Until the End of the World, the characters reach a point where they get these handheld devices which allow them to see their own dreams. They become so addicted to the device that they do not do anything, but just spend their whole day watching their dreams. It is kind of a mistake for the movie, because there is a pretty compelling plot up to that point and the movie nosedives when the dream viewing comes along. However, I like the idea that it conveyed, that the people could not (or would not) do anything but continue in their own self-absorption with this little mechanical device. And their relationships just fall apart, because they can only exist for their dreams.

I just received one of these little devices for Christmas and I caught a glimpse of myself staring into the void of the view screen, while my wife spoke to me in the background. With these types of wonderment, we need never be bored again. Now, we can access information at the drop of a hat. Videos, Music, Phone Calls, Internet. When I go to the bathroom, I can continue shopping or researching or sending text messages to friends. No longer do I have personal time to reflect on life or new inventions. I have my dreams before me and I can just continue accessing all that it will allow.

I am not sure what the resolution was for them in the movie. I think they ran out of batteries or something. I do need to come up with ways to keep myself from being lost in the void of my own dreams. I am going to seek out boredom because I need to take away the control I feel like I have to have. I will leave the device in my room and go shovel snow. I will watch the DIY channel and come up with dreams on my own.

The DreamViewer is a great tool. I cannot imagine something today being so cool and useful. It is a means. It is a means. A means. Not an end.

Round 2... Fight!

The results are in.
The votes have been counted.
And, the unit has spoken.
The W name lives on.

My wife is carrying a son.

Resolution #683

Do you ever look back on a time and wish you had been more like George Costanza?

Yesterday, we were dining at Carrabba's for lunch. My friend, M, orders a smoothie. It came with a straw. The waiter left for a few minutes and then came back for our orders. When he returned, M asked him for a spoon. The waiter's response was this: "We only provide spoons when you order soup." Then, he left and never brought us a spoon the whole time we were there. We ended up paying for our meal and giving him a decent tip. We also made excuses for the guy saying things like: "Well, he's new." Or "It's the company's policy."

At the time I actually mentioned that it would be nice to have someone with us who has a confrontational personality. Now, that I look back on it, I should have said this: "Are you really not going to bring him a spoon? What? Were we supposed to bring our own spoons? I didn't see a sign outside that said: Unless you are ordering soup, no spoon will be provided. How is a smoothie not soup? It is like a fruit soup!"

This was definitely a get the manager over there and cause a scene type situation. Maybe it is a manners thing and the fear was that he would slurp the smoothie. But wouldn't there be a greater fear in someone slurping soup? I would think that the policy would be to not bring out the spoon unless requested. I seriously doubt that they only have 3 spoons back in the kitchen and they are rationing them out to just soup buyers...

We all sat there being whiny, sarcastic programmers making fun of the situation, but doing nothing about it. So, from now on, I resolve to make situations uncomfortable in the name of ridiculous policy...

You make the call!

In less than a week, I find out the gender of my first child. My wife wants a girl and I suppose I want a boy. I keep denying this wish, but I guess it is there, deep down. I think it is somewhat natural to want to have a child of your own gender so you can have some trace of identifiability. But perhaps there is a myth in thinking that there will actually be this link of understanding between the two of us. I have great nieces which help sway me to the female vote.

But, isn't there something to be said about teaming up against Mom in the cause of spilling food on our shirts? Won't it be better for us both to have innocent looks on our face when accused of the poor condition of the front of the toilet? We could shift the blame on each other and have an understanding that the vagueness of who is actually guilty matters little in comparison to the comraderie of having the same ailment. And won't it be great to have someone with the same "competitive spirit" to take games, puzzles and tv watching into the wee hours of the morning?

Yeah, I guess I do want a boy. It's what I know. And I think my wife wants a girl for the same reason. But I know that whatever, whoever our baby is, there will be a newness to it all that makes the experience joyful.

However, I suspect that being a boy is not the same as raising one, so I can say it is what I know, but I am a fool for making any such assumption.

So let me restate: I want a boy, because I am a boy and I think that sometimes I will be able to look into his eyes and know that he has crapped his pants, because I have been there. I feel safe with that.

Case Study Junkie

I just finished The Road Less Travelled by M Scott Peck. I think it is my first psychotherapy book. I took Psychology in college and I had a mythology class too, but this is the first time I have read something by someone who almost seemed to be professional. I want to say that he was completely professional, but I would need to read another psychotherapy book. Or at least 2 others by different authors before I could come back and say that this sounds genuine.

I do like this book, but I have a concern that it is "pop psych". That was a term a psychology friend of mine used the other day. So much of the book appeals to the general Christian public that I was concerned he was pandering a bit. And, maybe the reason the book is so popular is because of this notion. Much of it seemed familiar. I would definitely recommend it to people to read.

Peck goes into some cool ideas, like the fact that life is difficult and that people often shy away from difficult things. He explains love and what is and is not love. He goes into talking about how all people have religion, though they may not attend or think they are religious.

I think I am a "case study junkie". Whenever Peck would introduce someone as a patient, suddenly I would get really interested. I guess that is one thing I love in life, being able to assign someone a particular problem and then going through the process of having it be discovered, worked on, resolved, or not. I am almost like the kid who calls people names and suddenly a girl bows her head in shame because I accidentally got it right for once. There I am making the girl feel bad for having a problem so easily recognizable...

I think case studies are kind of like chick flicks. In this book, there was an attractive girl who grew up in a strict, Catholic background, who married early and suddenly had these panic attacks after she realized her gay husband did not want to have sex with her anymore. I realize that I am oversimplifying an oversimplification, but it works. It fits together in this neat bundle and there is this total chick flick reward. And we cannot argue, because we have not sat there through session after session of mundane problems.

When I was younger I used to do character analysis of the people around me. As I have gotten older, I realized that people are much more complicated than just what an analysis could cover. Usually my analysis only covered a half page. But it was all I knew about the person, so I could not really go into more detail. I had a lot of fun with that. It appears that these case studies are an extension of that. However, the ones mentioned in the book are more like the CSI version of people. The case study where the villain always admits it in the end. They are just too powerless against the forensics.

I think that is my major issue with the book and possibly any psychology book I read in the future. The kind of stuff that appeals to me directly are the unpredictable things, the real things. Like, a man has a habit of going to church each Tuesday and the doctor discovers that he is off 2 days in his thinking, but cannot adjust. The deviation is that he does not check his mail on Sunday. So even though there is this compulsion on so many levels and the case falls into this two day off problem, there is still a glitch in him which knows that the day is Sunday. Something like this would be used in a CSI episode to show that he is a fraud. The psychotherapy author would not include it in the book, because it does not fit with what he is trying to say. But here I am saying it is still there and we cannot explain it, but it is kind of cool, because it has no real place.

And perhaps people would expect me, if I was the author, to have an explanation for the mail thing, but I wouldn't, or wouldn't want to. The deviation is demonstrated. The people notice it and we are left to conclude nothing, except that it is there.

The Student

The other day I was walking Forrest. We were passing this house from across the street and he started to whimper. I looked over there to see if there was a dog or a cat or something, but I did not see anything except for a couple of lawn animals. I thought for a second and it occurred to me that he was afraid of this polar bear looking thing.



I think many of us have this wish inside us that when our students are confronted with something they are frightened of or very unsure about that the sudden enlightenment of what the thing actually is will cause an Aha moment to occur. It would be at this point that the student would slap the hand to the forehead and say something like: "What was I thinking?"

So, I pulled Forrest over there hoping that when he met up with the polar bear, he would in fact realize his mistake and feel the dominance so necessary in our young canines today. We got closer and Forrest went right up to the beast and sniffed at it. I was feeling confident that my young Padowan learner was indeed feeling the light within when all of a sudden, Forrest jumps back right into my legs almost taking me out. He is a big dog and that is a ton of force coming all at once. It was as if the polar bear had actually lunged at him and Forrest was so scared that he just had to get away.

The fear was still there even though this was not a real animal by any means. I suppose it represents something very frightening to Forrest though. Looking at it, it is a lot smaller than a real polar bear and a little smaller than Forrest. But, it does almost seem to be in an attack mode. I guess when we see certain images in movies we are frightened. Or, when walking through a haunted house we will be afraid of things we know are not real. I know that having my lifesize pinatas in the house would scare me when I saw them out of the corner of my eye.

I am trying to make excuses for him, because this seems so ridiculous. He is way bigger than most of the dogs we come across. So why does he not have that swagger? Maybe I ought to buy one of those polar bears and leave it in the backyard with him. Then, he can show it who is boss. That would probably be a very weird day.

The Tree Party

We visited the Festival of Trees this year. I was not sure what to expect. I thought it would be outside and there would be ents guiding people about. I also thought the decorations would be solely on the trees and would not be creating a room theme all over the floor.

The idea is that people decorate a Christmas tree for a loved one who has died tragically of a disease or something else. I think they like to stick to the tragic theme even though it appeared that some people pictured there lived to ripe old ages. They decorate the tree with certain themes, presumably a theme related to the person who died. Like, if a man was into hunting giraffes, they would have some giraffe legs sticking out with a head on top. Or, if a child liked Disney (what child does not like Disney?), then the tree would have all sorts of Disney ornaments all over it. Then they sell or auction the trees to the rich. The proceeds go to Primary Children's Hospital, which is up in Salt Lake.

So, as I was in there, I had to say that every tree was amazing. Really, when it comes down to it, there are no ugly trees. Maybe a couple had colours which were not my favourite, but for the most part there was lots of creative energy in the place. Row upon row of trees. And then they had small trees and gingerbread houses and kids performing in costumes. It was quite an ordeal.

But, after looking at all these trees, I suppose I got into a mode of wanting to see something that was in fact, unique. There were a couple, but not many. For the most part, the trees all fit in. They were each overdone with as many repetitious decorations as they could muster. I was looking for the tree that spoke to me. I wanted there to be something that caused me to go Wow!

Now, can I just go in and criticize without doing anything myself? Of course not. It is not until we pick up our own swords and chop something in half that we can really call ourselves butcher, right? So, it is at this moment that I decide... Well, actually I decide that I could do something truly unique, but that would require some real effort and time and engineering skills.