Previously I believe I mentioned that my family was kinda kooky.  I am now about to show you 1) irrefutable evidence in support of that claim, and 2) the biggest laugh you'll have today.

Since on this vacation there was rain every single day, the family decided to make use of 'pool time' during some of the brief breaks of sunshine.  One thing led to another and the next thing you know my brother is convincing me that doing "pool routines" would be super fun.  I'll be honest with you guys, I totally blew him off.  And then he goes ahead and does this:


(editors note: it was pre-arranged that there was a mandatory 3 handstands required and one, in my brother's words, "may or may not be of the one-handed variety")
I believe that a true sign of maturity is the ability to admit when you're wrong.  He had called my bluff.  He went ahead and pulled that glorious son of a bitch of a routine out of his pocket and I had to admit that that was pretty fucking fun(ny).  Now, one of the things I love the most about my brother is his ability to totally commit to the things he puts his mind to.  He'll just be like, "huh, i feel like i definitely should read Moby Dick and War and Peace."  A week later he will call, gasping for air, arm raised in victory, having conquered both mountain-tops.  I take more of an . . . indirect approach.  Or the "try try again" method.  I say all of this to prepare you for my "routine."  It is made all the more glorious by my brother's Olympic Coverage-style announcing.  And yes, he does end the video by yelling "ACTION."  I will say in his defense that the first thing he said, post-video was, "Why did I say 'action' at the end.  I'm such an idiot." He's not, but that's why it's funny.  Enjoy:

You can really see the dance major in me as i immediately respond to my brother's instruction's to "evolve out of the pool."  Pick your jaws up off the floor people!  You act like you've never seen a perfectly executed double handstand? 

That, my friends, was a really good day.

Yesterday it rained for 27 hours straight.  No breaks.  Heavy downpour.  Flooding style.  I'm not sure what other families would do in this situation, but my family decided that it was perfect pool weather.  Sure, there was lighting "in the area."  But isn't there always.  We were unafraid.  We splashed around and looked for treasures on the bottom of the pool.  One of my favorite parts was coming shooting out of the water unexpectedly near my startled mom while making seal noises.  I'm quirky, deal with it.

Because there was so much rain, the pool was flooding.  My father and I got out the hose to drain some of the overflow out.  But that is a slow and boring process and before long my brother, father, and myself were having a cannonball/corkscrew contest by the edge of the pool, gushing water over the sides.  Pretty soon "get the water out of the pool" became the new pool game, and let me tell you, it's a fun game.  My brother and I are bouncing like human bulldozers, heavy buckets of water down to the ground below.  Much more fun than draining with the hose. 

Tonight we went out to dinner to a new restaurant that only my brother had been to before and had liked.  The food at this place was incredible, the staff was somewhere between atrocious. hilarious, and eclectic.  Our server was a no nonsense woman who also was no knowing the menu.  She comes up to our table and says, "We don't have (see searches on my mother's menu) the grouper, the shrimp, and queso."  "You don't have cheese?" I ask, stunned being that it is kind of a mexican fusion kinda cuisine.  "No, no, we don't have the queso appetizer."  Check.  I'll say this, when the first words our of your servers mouth are a list of what they don't have--and that list is too long to remember off the top of her head--it is not a good sign.

Appetizers and drinks.  I order the tuna tartar w/ avocado, which i saw on the specials sign as i walked in, and was immediately excited for.  "The what?" she says.  "The tuna tartar."  I repeat.  "Where'd you see that," she says, looking towards my menu. "I saw it on the specials sign as I walked in," I replied.

I shit you not.  She then spend the next 15 seconds trying to look over me adn down the steps towards where the special sign is, to try and verify what I'm saying is truthful.  I'm stunned.  "I don't see it" she has to balls to attempt.  I keep my composure, "I assure you I didn't just make  tuna tartar w/ avocado up out of thin air," I say.  She looks 65% convinced.  I continue, "I can go down and show you where it says it on the sign if you'd like."  I say this genially, without malice.  Even still, her bluff is called.  Mom mom interjects (thankfully), "could you just ask in the back if they have it tonight."  She agrees.  She walks back to the kitchen directly behind my chair and I clearly hear this screamed conversation.

"We got the tuna tar-tar tonight?"
"No, but the ceviche is better."

She comes back and repeats the cooks line.  There is no ceviche on the menu.  I am tired by this insanity.  I order the ceviche.

15 minutes later the apps come.  They are delicious, the server comes by and asks if we are all set, my dad asks if we could get the drinks (including water--there were no glasses currently on the table) that we had ordered simultaneously with the apps.  yikes.

Main course.  All the meals were delicious yet again.  Except the green peppers that came as a side for my meal which seemed to be prepared by soaking them in soy sause and then reducing them until they were the size of chili peppers and over half salt.  My mom had ordered the crab stuffed grouper, but because, as the server said right off the top, they didn't have grouper, she got crab-stuffed mahi instead.  The mahi was wonderful (i didn't taste it but i take my mom's word for it).  It was not, however, crap stuffed.  My mom cut into it just to be sure (perhaps they magically had infused it into the fish?  She was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt).  Here comes the kicker.

The server comes over
Mom: "Hi, I just need to say that I think this was supposed to come with crap, and I don't think they did it."
Server: "Terribly sorry, it was supposed to have crab"
Mom: "It's really wonderful though"
Server: "Just think how much better it would have been with crab stuffing."

Mouths agape. I'm not sure you can come back from that.  Back to the wall she went with brazen honesty.  Point her.  Sadly, she's still down.

Lastly, it must be mentioned publicly that my father found an unbelievable octopus while snorkeling today.  As I mentioned earlier, finding these special critters is a badge of honor in the family, and dad found a beauty today.

Last night there was a power outage around 1am.  As my brother put it, "we brushed our teeth by the light of our computers."  Times certainly have changed.
But as I looked out my bedroom window, I saw that for the first time since my family got down here, the sky was perfectly clear.  Down here on the island, a perfectly clear sky means that as I looked out over the water, the sky opened up before me like a planetarium's ceiling.  The first thing I saw was Scorpio, my sign.  It's tail curled across the horizon.  I scanned and found the other easily identifiable constellations.

As I looked longer at the darkness of the night sky, my eyes adjusted and slowly the Milky Way revealed itself.  The stars were so abundant, and their collective glow so radiant, that the galaxy's hazy light blotted the sky above me like the distant lights of a nearby island.

And to top it off, there was lightning.  I'm not sure if this is heat lightning, or lightning from passing storms, but the past few nights its been breathtaking.  Coupled with the stars, it was downright awe-inspiring.  And that's how i felt, awed.

I also saw a spotted eagle ray yesterday.  more awe.

So this week begins my last family of origin pre-legal spouses vacation.  I'm pretty excited actually, since our lives are so hectic these days that i can't remember the last time i had a week with my brother.  The family got in around 4 and already we have some amazing snapshot quotes.

Brother:  "Well Matt, one thing's for certain, this week will be unbelievable for your blog." 

Agreed.

Mother:  "Who is this JK person that commented on your blog?" 

That means "just kidding" mom.  kids these days and there internet lingo.

Dad, upon watching me complete 2 up-and-backs of the pool underwater (quite an accomplishment): "You're just like that Michael Phelps.  He's a 'bonger' too." 

We call it "eating a sandwich" dad.



On a separate note, a have a real fascination with this nations hypocrisy regarding skin color.  I mean, we've persecuted dark skinned peoples as long as i can remember, and yet i see people who are obsessed with being tan.  And while being in vacation-ville certainly accentuates this juxtaposition, the gym down the street from us in Amherst has tanning booths as part of their deluxe package.  Um . . . remember when you used to go to the gym for health reasons.  I just think that it's ludicrous that black people get persecuted and those guys on the jersey shore are straight ORANGE and they end up presenting at the MTV movie awards.  There really is no justice.  Does this mean that rich white people secretly wish they were minorities? (Tangent: I recently heard a commentator on ESPN say, in regards to Lebron's pre-decision half-time show and how to bets market himself, that: "Every sports star wants to be a celebrity, and every celebrity wants to be a sports star."  I've been thinking about it a lot.  I think it's true, mostly for men though.  End tangent)

So do white people wish they could be minorities?  Probably not, with all pesky racism and whatnot.  Whether they do or not, they are gonna find out.  and I can't tell you how happy that makes me.

(it's pretty damn happy--there--i told you anyway)

There is a very real and very intense battle going on in my family.   And no ones talking about it.  I'm here to break the silence. 

I am currently at my family's house on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  It is paradise and I am an enormously lucky person and all of this is for a different blog post.  The fact of the matter is that everyone in my family finds it enormously relaxing to just sit out and stare into the horizon.  The sun reflecting off the waves has a sort of 3D photograph effect where you think you might be about to see the hidden picture in its ripples.  And all of this is well and good.  But were not just staring out into the nothingness.  We are looking.  We are looking for a whale.  If we tell you any different, we are surely lying.

There is an intense family competition that revolves around spotting the first whale from our house.  It hasn't happened yet.  Just so your suspicion that we might be a bit kooky is affirmed, we have a similar competition revolving around finding octopi while snorkeling.   One of my father's least favorite things about my gf is that she is unbelievably good at spotting them.  I swear to god she doesn't even find them; they just swim up to her like she was the goddamn little mermaid (ok, maybe this is my least favorite thing about her too.)  It's strange, the only things my entire (the entire is key here) family is competitive at are Hannukah candle races and spotting sea life.  Kooky.

So we sit and we stare and we strain to make out the faintest traces of a whale exhaling its moisture like a geyser out of the ocean.  Oh, we've seen traces.  Oasis traces.  I get so bad that this morning when i woke up the gf said, "there are a lot of whales out there today."  I look out to see a myriad of white cap waves.  I laugh.  She knows that inside i suspect any ripple of white out there on the sea might be a whale.  And that the combination of my need to see a whale and my ADHD makes these days of white capped roughness devastating on my eyes and attention span.  "Yes dear, whales whales everywhere." 

**Locker Room Update**

Before i left i put two more knots in the strings.  I counted 7 knots total which means he has to have taken at least 2 knots out so far.  As a psychologist i really wonder what his thought process is right now.  Where does he think the knots are coming from.  And, most amusing to me, since i am away for 2 weeks, suddenly the problem will seem to go away . . . until it's back once again.  Viva la revolut . . . nah, not worth it.

I'm happy to say that i blogged my way back into someone's heart with my pamper's post!!! 

A special thanks to erkamu (fan #79) for answering my pathetic plea for followers and putting a ring on it/me/the blog. 

not only that, but her profile picture is OF jeans!  That's, like, cross-marketing or something. 

I lost a follower today.  I think it was all the poop talk.
thankfully, I saw this commercial today, so my poop clean up needs are well in hand.
 
 

Let's list the things that are totally fucked about this commercial.

1.  Grown-up woman seductively lowers glasses to check out a male toddler.  Sexualization of kids anyone?  it's not just for Japanese comics anymore.

2.  The baby is wearing a diaper that looks like a banana hammock.

3.  The diaper either is made out of, or made to look like, jeans.  Seems especially smart on these 100 degree days.

4.  With the hipster looking on, the baby crawls into his(?) shmancy car--extending the subjective beauty standard onto babies.

5.  These are limited edition diapers.

6.  This is the stupidest friggin idea i have ever heard.  Stupid enough, in fact, that when it came on my television, i looked toward my gf in disbelief and she replied, "no, it's for real.  it's not a joke."  I kept hoping it was an SNL commercial gag skit that i had missed during the 10-15 or so years i stopped watching cause it wasn't funny.

But let's give the advertisers the credit that they deserve, the voice-over is funny.  he says:

"My diaper is full . . .  full of chic"
"when it's a number 2, i look like number 1."
"i poo in blue."

and my favorite, the tagline:  The coolest you'll look pooping your pants.

Come on guys, we can all agree that that is at worst, kinda funny. 

I'm totally going to lose another follower today.  Sigh.

If you don't understand the title of this post, a Hot Carl is very similar to Chili Dog and just south of a Tahitian Mask.  All of these have nothing to do with temperature, food, or culture, and everything to do with fetishist sex moves involving feces.  Oh, p.s., this is gonna be one of those posts where i talk about feces.  Sorry for the late notice.

Anyhooo, all of this is to say i've been getting shit on.  And while i like to keep most of my "real world" problems off the blog, i do have a remarkable story from yesterday about . . . well . . . life imitating life.

My college friends recently had their second daughter Cassandra (on my gf's bday!) a month ago, and, while i was fortunate enough to meet Cassy's sister Phoebe on the day of her birth, Cassy's selfish parents decided to deliver Cassy in Minnesota, where they were living at the time.  Selfish.  And being that "college friend" is just a euphemism for "family," I've been chomping at the bit to meet my new niece.  So now fast forward to a month later, and my peeps have moved back east, and I got to hold one-month old Cassandra.

*Tangent.  I have a soft spot for second-borns.  I am the second born of a first-born mother and father and brother.    The way I see it, second-born's are rarer than first-born's and therefore innately more valuable.  Like diamonds and other precious and semi-precious stones.  End Tangent*

Now I love Phoebe (whose 3 now), but man does she have a ton of energy.  And she always has.  And energy in a wee born = a ton of noise.  Cassy on the other hand . . . Cassy seems mellower.  Which is why, for the first 3 hours of our acquaintance, Cassy was completely asleep.  If i didn't see her tiny heart beating, I would have thought she was made of plastic.  As I was getting ready to depart for the drive home, I got to hold Cassandra May for the first time while she was awake and conscious.  I held her with my hand cupping her torso, her back/backside against my chest.  Tiny, gorgeous, and precious.

And then i felt what I can only describe as a tiny squirt of mustard, straight out of the plastic dispenser nozzle, hitting my chest softly like an elvish paintball.  And then, someone squeezed that mustard bottle, and a lump, which felt more like a meatball, struck in the same spot as the elvish bullet.  In our first official meeting, Cassandra May shat on me, and she shat on me good. 

My first thought was that I was glad that when the dump hit, combined with what was a disproportionately large stench, that I didn't just drop the kid.  I'm not sure if that means I have a paternal instinct or that I have all my chromosomes.  Either way, I'm glad I didn't drop the kid.  That would have been . . . . embarassing!!!  (but it would have taught them a lesson about having their kid in the Midwest).  My second thought was that I was proud that Cassy shat like a real woman.  It really stunk ya'll.  Even Cassy's mom was left wondering what she had eaten.  Lastly, I thought how happy I was that I had passed some of my gene's on to my new niece.  Us big shitters, i mean second-born's, gotta stick together.