This week, while cruising the ebays, I stumbled upon inspiration.  Jaw dropping, nipple-hardening inspiration that got me thinking about things that should be combined…for the greater good of mankind.  I will present said inspiration after the jump with a disclaimer for the squeamish, prudish, jewish, or Amish…(yeah, I know you sneak out and crank up the computer every now and then…I’ve seen Witness).  If you fall into any of these groups, then just pass this post on by.  If you are a mature adult (as if), then feel free to click on the jump to see my latest muse.  My Mona Lisa…My Lisa Lisa (and Cult Jam).

Here it is ladies and gentlemen, perhaps the best combination since Linda Carter and her Wonder Woman outfit, Rachel Ray and food, peanut butter and chocolate, Hall and Oates…I give you the bacon bikini!

Now anybody that knows me, knows that I love me some bacon and I loves me some bacon on anything.  But even my sick, twisted, small, one-track mind never thought of this.  I imagine that will will definitely be the hot trend on the beaches this year and I’m sure it will hold up well on the beach and in the ocean…which should add some additional salty-goodness!  And when the swimming’s all done, then the missus already has her perfume on for the nightlife baby!  Who doesn’t want to take your gal out and lean in for a sweet soft peck on the check and have your senses met with the sweet smell of bacon?

After my pulse dropped back down to normal I tried to think of  a few other wonderful combinations that I’ve discovered in my travels…

chocolate chip cookies and rainbow chip icing

Scrambled eggs and hot sauce

Newspaper, coffee, and time

Crosby, Stills, Nash

…and Young

My wife and me! (Love you Boo!)

Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone

And so on…So feel free to leave some of your favorite combos in the comments.

My crazy off-the-wall pick for BCS glory this year?  Well I want UGA to take it all (well only if NCSU doesn’t surge), but UGA’s schedule is a beast, so I’m picking Florida.  What the hey…

Well, how ’bout dem apples baby!  I got something right.  As we say down souff…the sun shines on a dog’s butt every now and then!  YEEE-HAWWW!

My next prediction for the future: Flying cars.

Yes H.I.M.A.Y. is an affliction that disguises itself as a wonderful new experience, a chance to broaden your horizons and to enjoy a new life perspective.  It quickly grabs hold of your heart and gives a quick high of joy and wonder.  But, beware dear reader.  If you allow H.I.M.A.Y. into your life, you wil learn the pain of its precipitous drop from ecstasy to squalor.  Languishing for the good ol’ days and the good ol’ ways.

You see, I’m three years into my H.I.M.A.Y. and ,sure, it has created such a lovely creature as my wonderful daughter

But with this great gift, comes a lot of anxiety and fear.  Will my daughter grow up with the skill and ability to melt your heartstrings with a warm, buttery southern twang to her diction?  Will she be able to so aptly articulate her feelings with a quaint Southern euphemism that will leave you grining like a mule eating briers?  Will she be slicker’n snot on a doorknob and smart as a whip?  Or will she pronounce the word “pants” as “pints”?  Will she actually be able to enunciate differently, the words “pin” and ”pen” or “well” and “whale”.  Oh, how I hope not!  Will my daughter know and enjoy the hilarity of “Sanford and Son?”  Will she be able to keep 4/4 time with a foot tap?  these things keep me awake at night.  I hope and pray, that she will not grow up to….*GASP* mow her yard on Sunday!  Heck, I hope she knows that it’s a yard and not a lawn!  It’s ”supper” not “dinner”, you “cut out” the lights and you “carry” folks out to eat.

And what about her old man?  How I long for the warm sweet embrace of fried cornbread chunks in a glass of milk, a warm jelly biscuit, and some daggone fried chicken!  I’m not even sure I could recognize fried chicken anymore unless it has a Colonel’s face on it.  I have to go to my Momma’s house for Sunday lunch just to get some pintos and black eyed peas! 

Do you feel my pain?  Let me, much like Jacob Marley, be an example of the results of walking the fine line that we tread when we flirt with those of the upper Mason-Dixon type.  It is so easy to fall prey to the results of our own accents and the effect they have on those who were doomed by providence to grow up in a frozen wasteland where the “g’s” are pronounced at the end of a gerund and the local high school has a lacrosse team.  Where doors aren’t held open and nary a “sir” or “ma’am” is heard.  Where the frozen ground yields nothing but industrial waste and the rivers are flammable.  They too, are desperate for the joys of the South, but once the claws have found flesh, they are hesitant to let go of the old ways.  The ways of the arctic North, where flannel is worn and the rednecks have snowplows on their trucks. 

Please…Help me, I married a yankee.

1. Tell us eight things about yourself on your blog.
2. When you are done writing these eight things about yourself on your blog, you tag eight people and list their names to do the same thing.
3. Leave them a comment informing them they have been tagged, and to read your blog so they will know they have been tagged and are now “it.”

Well, I have been…brace yourselves… in dire need of blog ideas lately.  So this is actually timely, Marxist though it may seem.  I will gladly attempt the first point, but the last two have already been taken as we have a tight little blog family here and anybody that I could think of has already been tagged.  So here goes…eight things about me (as if anybody really wants to know).

1) I got an email on my work account…from my own email address…that said that I need a larger penis and there are certain pills to help with this.  I am in bad shape because I’m obviously subconsiously sending myself emails about my anatomical inadequacies…OR…I’ve become a spam machine on the interwebs.  Hopefully, its not the latter.

2) Let’s see…8 things….I find the number 8 comforting because my first niece was born on January 24th therefore I do things in groups of four for comfort and eight is double 4, and doubly comforting and yes, I have a touch of the OCD.

3) My daughter is almost 10 months old and she RAWKS!  It makes me feel all tingly inside when she sees me walk in the door and smiles and crawls to me.  She says “Da Da” now too and it drives her mother crazy…tee-hee!  I love it!

4) I love tacos.  I don’t get enough tacos at home.  Somebody donate tacos to the “Give Todd Tacos Foundation”.  Tacos are great, but don’t be messing ‘em up with any vegetables (except for the crunchy corn shell).  Tacos are made of all of the four basic food groups (meat, dairy, veggies, and sauce).   Remember the good ol’ days when there were food food groups and not some dinky food pyramid?  That goes to show you the excessive amount of Egyptian influence on America.  Somebody HAS to stop this!

5) If my Bears can’t do it this year…Then I am all in for the Bills!  I want the Bills to rock the Super Bowl.  Imagine a year where the Cubs and the Bills have a shot at it all.  I’m giddy.

6) I’m a Cubs fan.  Back in my day, North Carolina had no major professional sports…and…WGN on basic cable.  Throw in Shawon Dunston, Ryne Sandberg,  Harry Caray, and impressionable youth and BANG!  an NC Cubs fan.  I refuse to say anything about the playoffs.  We’ll just see how it goes.  Oh, and by the laws of fandom, Shannon is my mortal enemy…apparently.

7) I have two more to do??? Um…I have a terrible short-term memory.  I had to look, just now, to see what underwear I have on (snowflakes).  I’m just glad I have some on!  If I read something, I can remember it waaaay too long, but ask me what I had for supper last night…couldn’t tell you without thinking for a bit (ah, yes it was ham…pigs are wonderful, magical animals).

I’m a bit upset about the $700 Billion bailout.  The FED chairman and SEC chief call for immediate relief to solve a problem created by their lack of oversight of shady trading practices.  Meanwhile the executives of these companies, and the aforementioned chairmen will not be held liable, either politically or criminally for their mistakes, that my children will have to pay for.  Lehman Brothers was heavily invested in real estate…in REAL ESTATE.  Who invests in something at the height of an obvious bubble and on top of that does not diversify?  That guy will get a bonus and a golden parachute.  Is this the death bell of investment banking?  Has anyone considered the possibility that internet trading and brokerage firms have rendered investment banking obsolete?  Can we use that $700 Billion to pay off the faulty mortgages?  Give trickle-up economics a try?  How about sending taxpayers stock certificates in the companies whose debt we are about to subsidize.  What really gets me is that some will call for less government regulations of the stock market because of the bailout, when the lack of regulation helped cause this (and the Great Depression) in the first place.  Regulation of trade practices does not equal regulation and hindrance of a free market.  I get a little too worked up over politics/economics.

So there it is.  A little about me.  As always, lemme know what you think in the comments, and feel free to ask my opinion on anything!

During the lovely and talented Mrs. Toddzilla’s pregnancy, she was taken by strange and strong urges…ureges for things that those of us with normal hormones would not understand.  Desires so dark and lascivious, that had they become known, would surely be condemned as salacious and indecent.  One of those strange desires was a yearning for corn on the cob.  So strong was this desire that my lovely wife dreamed of it…was seduced by it.  This antagonist, Monsieur Corn, has since sought to use his wiles against her weakened defenses…but to no avail.  Monsieur Corn has spent months in rejected silence…seeking solace for his unrequited efforts to seduce the love of his life.  He has found a new joy…the love of his native land…France and its efforts upon the world stage of the Olympics!  Let us peek in and see how our dastardly, yet lovable paramour is doing…

Monsieur Corn- Ah-shan-tay!  I love zee Oleempics!  Zee comraderie, zee show, zee fi-airworks and zee competeetion!  I love zee Oleempics so much that I am for to showing up in zee stands in my, how u say, Speedos, no?  Oui!  They are so comfortable, yet I am for to being depressed as I have no pocket for my car keys.  Oh well, C’est la vie!  These last several months have been zee deefeecult for moi as I have seen zee love of moi life have zee child of a boorish American slob!  Now she is taken with zee beautiful lil tot…and has no time for a loveeng Frenchman like moiself.  But enough of moi past…I am here to support zee greatest nation on zee Earth…France!  Vive l’France! 

I am for to watcheeng moi fellow Frenchmen as they are about to “smash” zee peeg Americans and their sweemeeng team!  Aw-haw-haw!  To call them a seemeeng team is for to make a, how you say, joke, no?  Look at them…stretching and flexing about…zee Americans take thees too seriously, they have no chance!  Now my countrymen…they know how to be enjoyeeng zee world stage.  <looks over at the French team in Speedos smoking cigarettes and sipping wine poolside>

See there!  That is how you enjoy zee Oleempics!  Spread zee French cultaire!  Show zee world what they meess by, well, by not being zee French like moi! <stands and cheers> Vive L’France!  Oh moi! Moi kernels seem to have come loose from moi Speedo, no?   How embarasseeng! <looks around and sees the crowd staring>  I see you ladeez know a good, um how you say, “set” when you see them, no?  Aw-haw-haw!!  Shall I be to putteeng them back in or do you wish them to stay out so they can, how you say, breath, no? No…Oh, I shall be to putteeng theem back een then.  There, no play today kernels….

Ah! zee race, she begins!  Vive L’France!  Lafeyette! Lafayette! Sweem!  Sweem for your country!  Haw Haw!  Look at zee peeg Americans with their cute lil outfeets that look so uncomfortable.  Wow!  How do zee “leetle Americans” breathe in that tight outfeet?  Hee hee…Know what I mean?  I made zee funny!  Look zee peegs are a full body length behind zee geatest country in zee Earth!  Vive L’France!  Vive L’ Jerry Lewis!  You peeg Americans are for to about to be tasteeng zee foul crepes of defeat, no?  Zee French will be to smashing you just like we predeected!  Oui!  Sweem!  Smash zee Americans!

<watches the U.S. catch up and pass…winning the freestyle relay>

What!?!?! I am for to being appalled!  Thees ees reegged!  Thees competeetion ees reegged!  Zee Americans are to haveeng zee PED’s no?  Peess in zee cup!  Make them for to peess in zee cup!  Now!  Cheatairs!  Cheatairs!  They have defiled zee Oleempic games much like they have defiled zee world with their boorish ways!  Thees….Thees ees l’traveste! <stands and stops long enough to put his kernels back in…then storms out>

I do have a few Roundup-type ideas banging around my empty head.  Let me spew them forth.

Technology- I’m on the Facebooks now!  I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m on there.  There’s a lot of stuff going on in Facebook land.  Bumperstickers, flare, pokes, and quiz invites.  So if you sent me an invite and I don’t respond, it’s because of ignorance….ignorance on your part for sending me that stuff in the first place.  I was on one night and suddenly this chat window popped up and it was someone from the youth group.  Then I get this wall message and like 5 or 6 friends are sending me requests…I was so hot on the facebooks that my wife was hatin’ because she wasn’t getting that kinda play.  Nawdimesayin’? This lasted for about 24 hours…then the friend requests dried up.  Now my wife is getting friend requests out the ying-yang…and get this…some of them are from old boyfriends/crushes!  I ain’t sweatin’ it cuz I know my loving is the stuff that dreams are made of.  So I’m not worried about my girl.  But isn’t there something, I dunno, iffy about that?

Baseball- How about them Cubbies?  Sweeping a streaking Brewers club to gain a 5-game lead and on the same day…the Red Sox traded ManRam.  Will this be the end of the Red Sox Nation?  It would be fine with me.  Granted, I must give credit where it is due.  Baseball has received a surge in popularity of late and I honestly feel that is due to the Sox winning it all in 2004.  But I’m ready for a new dynasty.  But back to the positive fanship…the Cubs have a solid starting pitching lineup with Harden producing good ERA numbers and hoepfully getting a little more run support.  The relief pitching has been a bit sketchy but Marmol seems to be settling down and hopefully Wood can return to form off the DL.  The infield…the infield has been a beast!  On the field and at the plate with Ramirez putting together clutch hits and Lee delivering power to go with Theriot and DeRosa producing as well.  Combine all that with the revived power of Soriano and a clutch Fukodome…I like!  Let’s see what they can do.  The weak spots are the iffy relief and lack of a true leadoff man.  We’ll see.

Fooh-Baw- Did somebody say something about fooh-baw?  Sweet!  I’m so ready for it.  Ready to sit my lovely daughter on my lap and teach her the harsh brutal truth of the cold reality that is…pulling for NCSU.  It’s good to teach her humility early right?  My crazy off-the-wall pick for BCS glory this year?  Well I want UGA to take it all (well only if NCSU doesn’t surge), but UGA’s schedule is a beast, so I’m picking Florida.  What the hey…

So, yeah, I’m still alive but apparently a lot less funny…thanks for checking in…I’ll come up with something halfway entertaining soon….I hope

My wife, she’s a planner.  She looks faaaaar into the future and plans for seemingly every possible event.  Me?  Well I think about things that are coming up, but seldom do I act in a timely manner.  Cheryl, well she acts…and she acts like 6 months in advance!  What future event has my lovely personal Nostradamus foreseen as a possible “issue”?  Well, apparently, someday we will need to discuss….with my now 6-month old daughter….the subject of anatomy.  In other words what do we call the things that make mommy and daddy (as well as all men and women) different (common sense?  rational behavior?  lust for all things Rachael Ray?)…no, penises (penii?) and vaginas (vaginii?).  That’s right, my daughter is 6-months old and we NEED to tackle the issue of what we are going to call her vagina and ipso-facto what she will call it.  Cheryl is staunchly in the camp of calling it a vagina and likewise explaining boys away as having a penis.  Me, on the other hand, well I despise the proper use of “penis” and “vagina”.  It sounds way too bland, blah, and uncolorful.  In other words, unfun.  Or in made up words, unfun.

Allow me to illustrate my point, you see I have always dealt with those particular parts in a somewhat humorous manner.  In other words, I don’t call my junk, a penis…oh no, it’s so much more than that!  A penis is something that you find illustrated in a Grey’s Anatomy book on the lower half of a non-descript dude drawn palms up and staring into space.  See, I’m not that dude.  I’m a fun guy.  I’m a lover.  My loins exude sensuality and close proximity to those aforementioned loins may well cause feelings of euphoria and giddiness.  Now would I ruin that feeling, that exuberance by referring to the strong magnetic source of that joy as a “penis”?  Naw!  You gotta name it something that is befitting of the purpose it serves: Warhammer! (or something like that).  But less specific.  I feel that a penis or vagina should be called something more personable.  Something that doesn’t evoke cold bland anatomy books and speeches by monotone professors.  Let’s look at it this way: suppose you are sitting with a group of friends and that Taco Bell your friend scarfed for lunch just isn’t settling quietly and bang! out comes the gas, in a loud manner and belligerent to the eardrums of those around him.  Do you point and say “wow Joe you flatulated!”  Naw!  You say “dang Joe you farted!”  or dare I say “pooted” *snicker*  (words with a “oo” are funny…well except for “good”…the “oo” sound in “good” is kinda bland, but “poot”, “toot”, “moot”…that’s kinda giggly).  So, if in the course of events a guy takes a shot to the groin, he doesn’t fall to the ground and exclaim “Ow!  I got pinged in my penis!”.  No, he would utter something to the effect of “Dang! my crank got busted up!”

So, am I, a loving, and fun father supposed to, in the course of changing my daughter, say something along the lines of “Let’s wipe your anus and keep that vagina clean”???  That just seems so…so…bland!  It would make a diaper change a lecture and not a time for fun father-daughter discourse.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a flat-earth type.  My child needs to know what a vagina is and what a penis is.  But we ain’t got to call them that everyday!  Do we?  If so, then I suppose we should adopt a ultra-nerdy voice and just call everything by it’s proper name.  Instead of calling Cheryl, I will just call her ”wife” and of course we would expect Little Layla to call her ”mother”.  I wouldn’t be called “daddy” by her sweet angelic voice, no I would be “father”…in flat monotone.  I can hear it now…”Excuse me, father…my feces-retaining device is full, would you be so kind as to cleanse my anus and vagina then replace my feces-retaining device so that I may frolic once more?”  To which I would blandly reply: “Of course Child.  Allow me to procure my sanitation devices so that I may be of assistance in your time of defecation”.  Oh what a wonderful and colorful household that would be!  Yeah, I know she won’t have that vocabulary while she’s still in diapers but geez!  bear with me.

So, the question before you dear readers…the thing that you must weigh in all your wisdom, should we constantly refer to things as Penis and Vagina or can we have just a lil fun with the occasional “hoo-ha”, “poonanny”, “jimmy”, and “dinky”?  Is that so wrong?  Should I sentence my child to a life of rigid, starchy “vagina-dom” or laid-back fun a la ”vah-jay-jay”?  Also, feel free to give us some suggestions for other educational, yet fun ways to refer to the things God has trusted us with.

Speaking of which, I can assure you of one thing,  the first person with a penis that comes by to express interest in my daughter will be met with a speech that outlines in no uncertain terms my full and complete intent on separating him from my daughter at the threat of separating him from the aforementioned penis.

Let me know how you feel…

The article starts off with some insight from a  selfish 36 year old Delaware teacher:

“I am very turned on when he’s doing housework,”

Of course you are!  I am turned on when my wife is doing housework…Duh!  I’m turned on because that means I won’t have to do it.

“If there’s a sink full of dirty dishes, he knows I’m going to take care of that before I want to get intimate. If he wasn’t helping with the housework, I would not find that very attractive.”

Aside from the fact that her staunch refusal to contract the words “would” and “not” into a much less robotic sounding “wouldn’t”, doesn’t this just reek of selfishness.  I mean, she has a man and he has needs, but she brazenly puts her OCD-ish wants above his genetically-coded needs.  besides, you have a sink full of dirty dishes…why not get a lil “dirty” anyway…then you could have, like dirty-squared?  Women aren’t that good at logical thinking to be able to do nasty-math like that (forget fuzzy math…make mine nasty-math!).

Now for the fancy researcher talk…

Simmons’ attitude is pretty typical of married women, researchers say. They like it when their spouses share the household chores, but also find that — paradoxically — a husband may also create more work for them, or not contribute as much as women would like.

Husband’s create more work for them???  Okay, but aren’t we forgetting to note that wives create more work for us too?  Now that I’m married, I have to like tuck my shirttail in and stuff.  It seems to me that these “researchers” are forgetting a little thing called “leaving the toilet seat down”.  Yeah, think that over.

First, the good news: Men are doing more than they used to, according to findings released in April by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. For example, in 1976, men did about six hours of housework per week; in 2005, that had increased to about 13 hours. Women, meanwhile, decreased their weekly housework from 26 hours in 1976 to 17 hours in 2005. Researchers based their conclusions on economic, health and social data collected on 8,000 American families since 1968.

So, let me get this straight…women are doing less and they still insist on us shouldering more of the load so that they can find us attractive?  I’ve doubled my housework load and yours is halved….and I STILL need to do more?  Sounds a bit like I’m underappreciated here, and I don’t find that attractive (see how I used “don’t” instead of “do not”?  Makes me seem more human-like don’t it?).

“When a man does housework, it feels to the woman like an expression of caring and concern, which then physically reduces her stress,”

So, when I put Teddy Pendergrass on the iPod and lean in, holding you in my strong arms as I gently whisper how banging your booty looks…that means nothing to you?  That doesn’t show my care and concern for you and the healthy appearance of said booty?  You mean to tell me that Teddy’s soothing voice and my strong embrace doesn’t reduce your stress?  Man, these chicks must be robots!  You remember that scene in “Ghost” where the dude rubs his grimey hands all over her while she’s making pottery?  You gals LOVE that scene because he just takes over and senses be damned!  Forget the flying mud, I’m giving this pottery-hater some good loving…it seems to get you all hot and bothered, yet now you’re telling me to soak the pots before we get down???  I’m a little confused here.

Now, the bad news: The same research found that men create, on average, seven more hours of housework a week for women. That extra work may not be as obvious as doing the dishes or mowing the lawn. So-called “emotional labor” — tasks like writing holiday cards, scheduling doctor appointments and planning family gatherings — is too often left to wives, says University of Michigan sociologist Pamela Smock.

Smock that!  Emotional labor???  You’re the  one that wanted to get married.  You’re the one that wanted that baby.  To everyone reading this that personally knows me…do your holidays hinge upon receiving a card that is ostensibly signed by me?  Would you refuse to talk to me if you didn’t receive said card?  Is that worth sexual anguish for me?  Do you really wanna hurt me?  Do you really wanna make my wife cry?

“As long as the invisible labor is borne by women, things aren’t going to be equal, even if surveys show they are,”

So the actual numbers (math) show that both sexes are pretty even when it comes to doing housework, so we need to create some other category to maintain our argument…Invisible labor!  that’s it!—-Invisible labor???  What the Smock!  “Not tonight honey, I’ve been doing invisible labor all day and my invisible muscles are so invisibly sore…you would not believe it…even if you could see it”.  Yeah…you see the reason, I’m not doing the dishes, is because I’m currently engaged in copious amounts of invisible labor…wish you could see it!

And, it must be noted, men still do only 30 percent of the housework

But 100% of the hot, sweaty Smocking!  High five motherSmockers!

Paul Pillitteri is one of those husbands who gets it

Gets what?  Picked on by the lazy Smockers he plays poker with?

“I work out of our house so it’s easier to be present and I’m somewhat more flexible,”

Ohhhh!  I get it, he works at home, therefore the rest of us putzes should be held to his standard of p-whippedness.  “Whippification” if you will.  Wait, there’s more:

says Pillitteri, 52, an information architect, whose spouse works part-time as a school district supervisor.

She works part-time and STILL wants him to do more housework?  Sounds like he married a lazy Smocker.  What the Smock is an “information architect” anyway?  Does he design invisible information buildings?  I wonder what his rates for invisible labor are?

Men like Pillitteri may be the exception to the rule, says Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, Ph.D.,

Because the rest of us commute to work and perform visible labor.

“What’s interesting to me is that as men’s housework goes up, women’s marital satisfaction also goes up but men’s marital satisfaction goes down,” says Whitehead,

That invisible doctorate is paying off.  So let me get this straight (as I do nasty-math in my head), the more work we do…the more satisfied you women (maybe even to the point of letting us get lucky), and the less satisfied, we are.  I think I’ve found a pretty good balance with things just the way they are…I couldn’t take on any more invisible work…even for the big payday of getting some.

Pillitteri’s relationship is one that Jennifer Armiger, 33, would like to work out with her own partner — but hasn’t been able to …

I wonder why….

because of his 15-hour workdays as an owner-operator of a trucking business.

Oh!  He’s one of those poor souls that has been ensnared by the world of “visible” work!  I’m sure she must balance out her copious amounts of visible work as well….right?….

The Woodbury, New Jersey, resident is a doctoral candidate in history and primary caregiver to their 4-year-old son, Troy

Oh I see plenty of visible work there…(and what the Smock is the need to put “primary caregiver” as a caveat?…Lemme see her husband is referred to as “partner” and she gets four adjectives to her “title”).

Armiger recently got so annoyed about making dinner and being left with the cleanup, in fact, that she switched to using paper plates.

Now the planet is paying for her selfishness!

“He’ll walk right past a sink full of dishes,” says Armiger, who has served as vice president of leadership for her state chapter of the National Organization for Women for the past two years.

Wait, are those…more adjectives?  Let’s see, president of leadership (redundant much?) National Organization for Women!!!!  What’s that a feminine invisible labor union?  Of course not!  That’s the central committee for the feminist agenda.  The Pinks to the communists’ Reds, if you will.  So, we are using the upper higher (I’m keeping with their theme of redundancy motif) echelon leadership of the Kremlin of feminism to…get this…push a feminist viewpoint as well-researched fact!?!  Smockin’-A!  If I interviewed and used Jeffrey Dahmer’s situation as an example, I’m sure he would probably come to the conclusion that cannibalism is…um…okay.

Here are the recommendations from the schultzstaffel unbiased propaganda communication wing group of the national U.S. Organization Group of Female Women:

 Don’t be a gatekeeper: Partners who aren’t micromanaged tend to contribute more.

I’m down with that…in other words leave me the Smock alone, so I can watch the game.

Don’t send mixed messages: A woman may telegraph ambivalence by asking her partner to help, but then tell him he’s doing the task all wrong. Or she may not ask him to help at all, then become angry that she has to do everything herself.

She may also telegraph ambivalence when she vows to love and cherish, yet withhold good loving until I complete her “visible” work.  Forgive me…that was a bit harsh…We men are a simple lot, though we may excel at nasty-math, we lack sorely in picking up the signs that you are giving us when you’re doing all your invisible work.  Give us a clue.

Be assertive: Insist on an equitable division of labor if he won’t take initiative. Say something like, “You agreed if I cooked, that you’d clean. You haven’t done that yet, so can you do it now or tell me when you will?” Or, “I feel I have too much on my shoulders. What can you agree to do?”

Nag much?  Sure, I’ll agree to an equitable division of labor…I work 15-hour days while you read history books, then when I get home to enjoy a part of the remaining 9 hours of the day 12 of which my “primary child” will be sleeping, you do some “visible” work, so I can undertake my day’s share of “invisible” work.  Now fix me a sandwich.

Communicate productively: “You’re never going to get your husband to do more if you walk around broadcasting blame and shame,” Coleman says. Approach your partner with affection, keep the conversation brief and to the point, and use language that doesn’t veer toward criticism.

You would accomplish more, however, if you walked around in a Wonder Woman outfit!  Anybody wanna get dirty-cubed?

Can you guess who picked out her outfit?  Be prepared for a rambling post that lacks sorely on the “funny”…after the jump…

I’ve been caught a bit by surprise with Father’s day.  It was a bit like my birthdays have come to be in that it snuck up on me without much mental fanfare.  You know, the kind of anticipatory fireworks that go through your head when the Super Bowl is coming up or how you used to feel before your birthday back when the years were counted with single digits.  I knew Father’s day was coming, but I didn’t really think too much about it.  But that has changed as I have started to consider what it means to truly be able to be celebrated on Father’s day and that is a bit awkward for me because I’m not used to being celebrated.  It’s not that I don’t get love from othera or that I’m not appreciated…It’s just that I’m not used to a holiday being about me.  That has changed, but what else has changed?

Well for one, I have a person…so tiny…that depends on me.  Sure, she depends on her mother in most ways and those ways will only increase as Layla grows, but Layla depends on me as well.  She depends on me in different ways.  I cannot breastfeed Layla (much to her benefit), but Cheryl cannot be an example of what Layla should look for in her future husband (does any of that make sense?).  I suppose, it boils down to this:  Layla depends on her mother for some things and on me for others.  Mother/daughter dependencies seem, to me, to be more evident while Father/Daughter dependencies are more nebulous and I think they are delayed…showing up later in Layla’s life.  I pray for wisdom in discerning how Layla needs me.  In what ways is she looking to me for guidance?  For example, I could press her to be a baseball fan…maybe even a Cubs fan, but that’s probably not what she needs from me, so I pray for wisdom to know what she needs and how best to fulfill those needs, preparing her for life on her own and as her own person.

How have I changed now that there’s a section in Hallmark for me?  Well, for starters, I am much more accountable now.  Hopefully with that accountability comes responsibility.  Sure, I’m accountable to Cheryl, but if I fail that, she can adjust and move on.  One of these days she will realize that I am an unabashed “piler”.  I pile things up rather than deal with them.  When Cheryl realizes that, she will adjust and move on.  Layla?  Well, if I fail her in the areas that she needs me to be responsible, well, she will not learn that lesson and that may affect her life unless she learns it somewhere else.  You see, it is my responsibility, as her father, to teach her that all guys are scuzzball knuckleheads.  I need to do that early by showing her what a real man is and what to look for in her husband.  That means, I need to step up my game, because I want her to learn that lesson early.

Can I do that?  Can I be the man that Layla needs me to be?  Heck yes!  I have my father, my brother, and my grandfathers that have taught me many lessons about what it is to be a good, caring father.  I also have my Heavenly Father that teaches me (if I will listen).  I am prepared.  Now, I can only hope to execute. 

One thing, my father taught me, not with a speech or a spanking, but with his actions (the absolute best teaching tools) was to take interest in your child’s interests.  I remember him blowing off his Saturday plans of fixing things around the farm, to take me 2 1/2 hours away to Charlotte to look at a couple of folding tables covered with baseball cards.  Later in life, he took me to Salisbury to order my first “real” guitar…heck, he even got me a banjo!  Whatever goofy notion got into my head, he helped me to try to achieve it and, no, that isn’t illustrated with him buying me instruments, so much as it was shown by him taking my dreams seriously…sometimes moreso than even I did.  I hope I can do that.

So, what did I do on Father’s day?  Well I didn’t pay enough attention to the sermon Sunday morning because I got distracted.  I caught a few things mind you and I apologize to you Lord, but I was distracted.  You see, my daughter started to get a little antsy sitting in her carseat, so I picked her up.  I shuffled her around a little and eventually stood her on my legs with her back to me.  I held her there, my hands under her arms, fingers spread across her ribcage and my thumbs against her backat the bottom of her shoulder blades.  It was then that I noticed that my hands encompassed her.  I felt her little ribcage swell and release with the life that I helped give her and I thought back to one of my early childhood memories of laying of my grandfather’s lap, my chest to his, sleepily feeling his chest rise and fall for the umpteenth time in his 60-plus year lifetime.  I lay there and tried to time my breathing to his so we could move as one.  You see, he taught me to enjoy baseball and the last thing I did with him was watch the Blue Jays beat the Yankees on the television in his hospital room.  That’s why the picture above is a favorite of mine.  I hope that Layla enjoys the game like I do.  I look forward to teaching her to score a game, to watch the nuances of the game, to enjoy a restful day at the ballpark.  This picture, though, also reminds me that there is a very good chance that my daughter will not like baseball or playing guitar or anything else that I like…and that is okay.  In fact that’s wonderful, because she is her own person.  This picture reminds me that no matter what outfits I get her or how I set her up and metaphorically “pose” her, she is her own person and I hope that I help to prepare her to make her own decisions in her life.  With that in mind, I will be more than happy to skip the “Will Call” window at the Durham Bulls stadium to sit in an auditorium and watch my little girl dance or sing or whatever she chooses to do.  I want her to dream more than I did.  I want to do what I can to help her dreams decome reality and I want to prepare her for the dreams that do fall short.

What else has my first Father’s day taught me?  Well, now I know a little bit more about what it means to love like God loves me.  I love my Layla tremendously and that is but a tiny droplet in a bucket compared to how much God loves me.  I pray that my droplet…in that huge bucket…gets larger over time.

Happy Father’s day.  I hope that I’m a little more prepared for next year.

I am a simple man.  I find a few things in life that I enjoy and I cling to them like mad.  There hasn’t been a funny TV show since Sanford and Son.  It’s the end-all, be-all of sitcoms.  I can contact anyone with my trusty rotary phone, so why in blue blazes would I need some new-fangled pushbuttons!  I’m still waiting on Nokia to release a retro dial cellphone, then and only then will I even think about mobile phonery as a means of communication.  Antibiotics!?!  Bah!  Gimme a good ol’ fashioned George Washington-esque blood letting.  Yes, this is my normal attitude and one that included an undying love for Rachael Ray, her luscious curves, orange-handled knives, and her magic cupboard that only contains the ingredients for her current recipe and they are placed in recipial chronological order so that the first ingredients she needs are in the front.  Heck, I even wrote a love poem to her (one where I misspelled her name because I was so blinded by love).  But alas, that ship has sailed.  Things have changed and unlike my affinity for beta VCR’s, I must move past my yearning for all things Rachael Ray.

Granted, it was her stylist that made the fateful decision to place that hateful paisley scarf on her for the ad, but Rachael should have exercised the following logic to know that:

offwhite + black paisley = offwhite+black so when you substitute it into the following equation:

(offwhite+paisley) + (photo/ad) + neck + luscious curves – (drooling Toddzilla) + coffee = traditional Arab male headgear = “murderous Palestinian jihad”

Understand?  Perhaps I can provide some photographic evidence to back the claims up:

Exhibit Luscious A

Which equals:

Exhibit jihad B

Got it?  Good.

So who are the losers here?  Well, the children are…they’re always the losers because nobody ever thinks of them, of course throw in the Bills, Pirates, Royals, and NCSU…but after all them, the losers here are all the blue-blooded, blue-collared, God-fearing, salt of the Earth, doughnut- and coffee-buying American public!  That’s who.  Oh, that and my unrequited love for Rachael.  I remember the good ol’ days when the only way to fund terrorism was to ship pallets of cash to Iraq to be conveniently lost.  Yeah….that didn’t bother me and my doughnuts, but now…whenever I buy a Dunkin Donut or coffee…I kill civilians.  Remember that the next time you wanna go to a pinko doughnut stand…Kinda makes you sick doesn’t it.

Rachael…oh how the lovely have fallen.  I….I…I…I just don’t know you anymore. <sniff>.  How could your bubbly personality and tight tops lead you to terrorism?  30-minute anarchy?  What’s next?  Giada wearing a Mussolini helmet while making linguine?  Paula Dean with a “stars and bars” oven mitt?  Will this ever end?  At least I still have Wonder Woman, now that’s an Amazonian American hero!  Sorry Rachael, but my blue-blood will not allow me to buy Dunkin Donuts.

Wait…have you seen her booty when she goes to the magical cupboard?  Aww girl I could never leave you!  Call me!