My throat is a little horsey...

A man walks up to a horse and says,

" Why the long face?"

A few years ago my wife and I went to Mackinac Island, (pronounced Makinaw Eye-lund), for a wedding of some good friends. It was a great long weekend in the middle of the summer. Our friends were to be wed at the Grand Hotel , a resort on the island with a famous long porch where they sell very pricey lemonade served by black people wearing white gloves. A Christopher Reeves/Jane Seymour movie , Somewhere In Time, was filmed there and every year, fans of the movie attend a convention on the island. My wife has just reminded me that Kathy Griffin refers to Jane Seymour as, "the most romantic woman in the world." As far as I know, S.I.T. is an Oscar nominated time-travel romance involving self-hypnosis. I have digressed.

The island is no easy place to get to, it involves flying to Detroit, then a small flight (or long drive) to Pelliston, a shuttle to Mackinac City where the final ferry leg escorts you across the channel to Mackinac Island: home of fudge, horses, and expensive lodging. It really is pleasant, there are no motor vehicles allowed on the island so the modes of transportation are limited to horse, horse and buggy, bicycles and walking. We sampled each mode and enjoyed the fantastic security of knowing you can cross the street without worrying about angry drivers, even if you do have to worry about horse droppings. Once accustomed to the smell of horse manure, Mackinac is a very relaxing place to spend a weekend. There is also no need to lock your rental bike because the ferry operators will not allow you to leave with a bike that has been marked by the rental companies. It is, at its best, an old-timey family paradise.

There were some unpleasant hiccoughs over the weekend. First, I was unaware of our room's unair-conditioned nature which prompted the first installment of my nighttime "no cuddling/touching rule." (The second installment came at the Hotel Continental in Barcelona, now and forever referred to as the Hotel Crapinental. The web site of the Crapinental says the rooms have A/C, that is a post-2003 development).

No A/C is an inexcusable blunder, but not embarrassing. The next error was embarrassing. I made a terrible (if you ask my wife) assumption regarding proper attire for the wedding. I must now mention that the groom had a famous last name. I assumed that his lineage would require nothing less than a black tie or at the least black tie optional affair. I then looked at the invitation and was reminded that it was a Sunday afternoon affair with most men in sport coats and women in light summer dresses. My wife wore a sequined gown alongside my cummerbund. The heat became an unexpected problem as the beautiful ancient chapel where the long catholic service was held was also unair-conditioned. I saw one friend mouth to his spouse, "Why is he wearing a tux?" I now know that those most established families feel no need to dress up and show people how wealthy they are, the understatement of it all is more revealing. The millionaire next door looks only slightly different from the millionaire at the end of the 1000 yard winding driveway.

In the end, the jacket and cummerbund came off so only my wife felt overdressed. She had a great time anyway. We both did.

One other comment about Mackinac: our flight from Pelliston to Detroit left too early for us to take the ferry off the island. We had to arrange for a small plane to meet us at the airport (an outhouse in the middle of a field) which then took us to Pelliston. It was the sort of plane where you have to climb on the wing to get in and we really enjoyed that little flight. Inexplicably, my wife is now, several years later, very frightened to be in small aircraft, or large aircraft. The horse and buggy, after several water and carrot breaks, delivered us to the airport/locked outhouse where the small plane landed a few minutes later. The cheery pilot loaded us and one other couple into the plane and we were on our way home to Miami. Miami, where you would never leave your bike on the street but where everyone is spared the scent of horse manure.

Why I don't like you, Representative Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado

Nobody is jealous of you. You think other people don't like you because you're cute or well-respected and they are just jealous. You are dead wrong, Mr. Chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus. You are not handsome. In fact, in some pictures your right eye is noticeably higher than your left. Also, you think we should shoot people committing drug crimes. You are a right wing lunatic dressed in the ill fitting sport coat of a former educator.

Now you have done it. I was willing to forgive the fact that you are a xenophobic radical, but now you have crossed the line. You called Miami a third-world country. Hell hath no fury like angry Cubans who are upset for the wrong reasons. Must I remind you of a little boy, now 12 year old man, named Elian. Cubans will rally to defeat you. They will all move to Colorado's 6th District, that big rectangle southwest of Denver, and for the first time in their lives, they will vote Democrat. All because they think you insulted them. Way to go Tom,dumbass.

If you meant to imply that the middle class is disappearing in Miami and we are left with only the richest and poorest, well, I could sympathize with that. But that's not what you meant. You're a Republican, you don't care about a vanishing middle class. You were just being a prick, insinuating that somehow, because Miami is an international city, the business hub of Central and South America, where Spanish and Creole mix with English, where immigrant populations form vibrant communities the same way they have done throughout our history; somehow because of all that, Miami is a Third World city. You didn't even know there was such a moniker as "Fourth World. "

The fact that you implied that Miami is like a place without basic utilities like running water, a lawless place without economic development, is doubly troublesome. It's not just the people of Miami you insulted, you also revealed yourself to be an idiot, oblivious to horrible conditions around the world where blinding poverty is so pervasive, outdated idiots like yourself won't even include those unfortunate populations as part of our "First" world, you relegate them to the "Third." Maybe that's why you're so excited about the fence to keep them out.

You might also want to remember that there are people other than Christians living here in South Florida when you publish your childish, "I told you so." In summary, you are a prick. Another blog by one of your own constituents puts you in perspective for us all. You can always move when the Cubans start showing up in Littleton.

Worst Show Ever

"My Boys" is a new show on TBS and it is very, very bad. It follows the daily life of a young woman who is the Chicago Cubs beat writer for a major Chicago newspaper. All her friends are men and it ruins her love life. The problems with the show are too numerous to list here so I'll only mention two. First, it is not believable that this twenty something attractive woman has this job reserved for alcoholic men without families because they spend 100 days a year traveling and another 100 days a year at the ballpark. Assuming I can suspend disbelief long enough to believe this person has the job she has, there is a second great flaw which makes the show, currently, one of the three worst on television.

The flaw and most annoying aspect are constant voice overs comparing the lead character's situation to a common baseball truism. For example, the guy she likes who gets along well with her but doesn't get along with her friends is a "cancer in the clubhouse." Need I say more. If this show lasts one more episode I will be in absolute shock. It won't be the first time.

Good Morning Miami was on the air for 2 seasons (although it was canceled midway through the second). In all, 31 episodes were aired and each time my wife and were stricken with disbelief. The trend continues as The War At Home punishes anyone who tunes into Fox after The Family Guy. What happened to Michael Rapaport? He went from edgy movie star, to sporadically funny Friends co-star, to Boston Public, to whiny homophobic idiotic caricature of an American father. I hope he's getting a big payday because his career may be over. How do these shows get on the air and stay on the air when shows I enjoy never last, e.g., Arrested Development.

I am patiently waiting for the next season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and this week's episode of The Office.

The Difference in Publix

There are a few noticeable differences between the Publix in South Beach and the one we frequent near our new home in Central Florida. Some things are the same. The products, for the most part, are the same. The rotisserie chickens taste the same and the deli is stocked with the same cured meats. The uniforms are also the same, though the people in them are obviously different; speaking English being the most obvious difference in the employees. I cannot find halvah at our new central Florida Publix.

The one thing our new Publix has that the old one did not is a turnstile of books devoted to Christianity where you pull your number at the delicatessen. That red device where you pull the green tab with your number on it is perched atop a cornucopia of Christian books for every Christian problem: Forgiving your husband after he's cheated, Preaching to those who aren't interested, Introducing Christ into every aspect of your baby's life, and How to prove God exists. There are also the obligatory Christian children's books, e.g., Jesus and Me.

I honestly don't have a problem with selling the books, that's not my issue. If there is a market for it, then by all means, stock the shelves. I just find the placement funny. The books are at the deli line like they are some sort of impulse purchase. While you wait for the deli worker to slice your half pound of Boar's Head sun-dried tomato and rosemary ham, (one of my faves), maybe you'll grab a copy of, "Get Real: Making Core Christian Beliefs Relevant to Teenagers." Putting these books on the deli line (albeit a markedly slower deli line than the South Beach Publix) makes them the equivalent of the Weekly World News, Snickers, and Altoids you might grab on your way through the checkout line. As I said before, I don't have a problem with that, if they sell, they sell, but shouldn't someone else have a problem. What is the impetus behind it anyway. I know Publix is a Christian company, but are they evangelizing on the deli line. If they are, why not put the books in South Beach also, isn't it hypocritical to only save people outside Miami. Maybe they decided those high heeled women and tight shirted men in South Beach aren't worth saving. I know I'm overreacting, I dislike all the reminders that we live in a Christian country.

Every year at this time I'm shocked at the right wing talk radio and Fox "News" efforts to convince us that there is a war on Christmas. The idea that our overwhelming majority, Christians, are somehow being persecuted is laughable but I know there is someone in Kansas who believes it as strongly as they believe evolution is liberal propaganda and part of the gay agenda to turn everyone into a drug crazed lunatic. I find all this "War on Christmas" crap particularly offensive considering how many troops are in harm's way right now. Someone should tell Bush to redeploy our troops to the war on Christmas. Don't we already have a base on the North Pole.

In My House...Baby Mexican Hat Dance

In my house, the ten month old rules the roost. Where I used to enjoy the piece of mind of knowing I'm better at Wheel of Fortune than every Wheel of Fortune contestant ever (going all the way back to the days of the $150.00 ceramic dalmatian), the living room is now the baby's domain, and the baby likes to listen to Justin Roberts in the evening while he eats his dinner. My big TV, so big that Pat Sajak's face-lift scars show up, becomes wasted, as I am banished to another room or forced into indentured service to the baby. Washing his bottles, running his bath, sterilizing his pacifiers and powerless to complain (which you can tell is my nature) because the baby doesn't care and my wife has been doing it twice as much, three times as often, and seems absolutely fine with the fact that in the space of a millisecond we ceded power to someone that constantly tries to stick his hands in his own poo during a diaper change.

We are both waiting for the day when we can look back and say, "Wasn't that cute", or "That was so funny." About a month ago our neighborhood lost power. As we laid down in the darkened living room, the coolest room without A/C, the baby seemed content in his exersaucer (if you have no idea what an exersaucer is) trying to put each of its small toys in his toothless mouth. We both stepped into the kitchen for a few minutes, we had grilled the soon to be spoiled chicken breasts and when we caught view of the exersaucer something was different. The baby was laughing, not the usual innocent laugh but a sadistic, "I am dancing in my own shit," chuckle, that turned the mood from a resigned melancholy because of the power outage to a hyperalert analytical fever trying to figure out how to clean both the baby and the exersaucer without covering the entire house in diarrhea as the baby flailed his crap covered feet. As we stood there, synapses firing, the baby smiled his widest toothless smile and skated and sloshed through the mess, threatening to send it careening over the side of the saucer and into the tiny cracks between the planks of our wood floor.

Our strategy was simple and effective, the baby was only covered in poo from the waste down, we lifted him halfway so he was standing on the harness. We wiped him down and I ran with him extended at arm's length into the shower where we both were rinsed of all fecal material. We then turned our attention to the sullied baby containment device. We detached the harness, brilliantly constructed of machine washable poly-blend, and rinsed it in our laundry room/garage utility sink, before placing it all alone in a superhot cycle through the washing machine. Any house with a baby should have such a sink. A sink appropriate to functions that you would not want to accomplish in the same sink where you prepare food or brush teeth. The exersaucer was then lifted, carefully, to that same glorious sink where it was part by part scrubbed and washed with Clorox and an old toothbrush. My wife and I jokingly threw jabs at each other about who had changed the last diaper but no diaper is made to handle the half gallon of diarrhea that every 8 month old produces at least once.

We now have two exersaucers. The baby is outgrowing them and they'll probably become hand-me-downs soon. I honestly cannot remember which one was covered in shit. Somebody's going to have a previously soiled exersaucer.

Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel, I made you...

Chanukah was really no great shakes in my house. The Christmas parallel for gift giving in most Jewish homes was more akin to April 1st at my house. An eight day long prank of destroyed expectations. This will no doubt sound whiny and childish and I do recognize that I lived the good life compared to many, but one Chanukah in particular has left a scar as deep as my father's belly button, (he was very fat, 62 in. waist, R.I.P.).

My father had reappeared in my life at the time, 1983, and I was nine years old. The Atari 2600 had been on the market for a while and I wanted one. It was promised to me for Chanukah. My excitement could not be contained, it would be the first year I did not receive eight plastic toy cars or eight aluminum toy cars or some combination of plastic and aluminum toy cars. My mother was a teacher and some years I got a regift of a present some student had given my mother. I was the only little boy in Miami wearing Charlie perfume.

As Chanukah approached I perfected my skills. My neighbor in the apartment complex, Matthew, already had the Atari and we played "Combat" until our small hands were blistered. My recollection is that I kicked his ass repeatedly. I was shocked to see my dad pick me up at the JCC one afternoon. I went there after school everyday until my mother finished work and was not accustomed to my Dad pulling up in our rust colored Chevy Citation. I was actually nervous to get into the car with him because my parents had been separated on and off for as long as I could remember. I got in and he told me that my Chanukah present was at home. I was bursting. The word Atari must have been spoken a dozen times on the way home, but there would be no Pac-Man that night. I came home to the Odyssey.

The Odyssey was no fun. Really no fun. It was less video game, more typewriter. The games were versions of Hangman, Donkey Kong, and Pac-Man called Cryptogram, PickAxe Pete, and KC Munchkin, respectively. Picture the fun, you leave the room while I type a word into the Odyssey, you return and I watch as body parts form on the noose as you guess, x then w then, oh you got it, "ODYSSEY SUCKS ASS." The S's gave it away.

I should have been petulant but I wasn't. My obese absent father had likely done his best. Without the Odyssey I never would have experienced the hours of entertainment my mother provided as we drove from toy store to toy store seeking out a purveyor that had heard of the Odyssey and actually sold it's small plastic cartridges.

It could have been colecovision, or intellivision but I had the Odyssey and it was sufficient until the keyboard stopped working.

Southwest, ButterBurger

I fly Southwest at least twice a week because I commute to work. I love Southwest. I did not intend for this first post to be an advertisement, but I love Southwest. Without Southwest, my wife and I could not afford for me to commute and have the nice job I have. I love their easy website and cheap fares and the fact that if I do need to call them, a person answers the phone. I do not like how people sitting in the aisle use their bag to hold their place in the "A" line. I do not like singing flight attendants. I do like printing my own "A" boarding pass. I enjoy free drink coupons.

I didn't think I was capable of affection for a brand (other than food/restaurant brands) but I don't know what I'd do without Southwest.

Food/Restaurant Brands I love:

Sabra Classic Style Hummus
MammaMary's Pizza Crusts
Joya Chocolate Covered Halvah
Planters Nut-ritious Nut Mix
Dannon Light n' Fit Carb & Sugar Control Strawberry Yogurt
Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpets

Philly's Best's Philly Cheese Steak (Chicago, on Belmont near the red line)
Pita Hut's Shawarma Pita (Miami Beach, on 41st Street)
Tim Horton's Maple Glazed Donuts (Locations across Canada)
Culver's ButterBurger (Locations across the Midwest, I personally can only vouch for Wisconsin and Minnesota Culver's)