The institutional mouthpiece of Kjel.org

This past weekend the CEO learned a piece of wonderfully good news: two of Kjel.org’s favorite people are now engaged. Guess which two? Here’s a hint:

Kjel.org is back from Christmas in Bellevue and Seattle with the families. I won’t give you a full play-by-play, but here are some of the things from the last few days.

1. The lads went to see Santa at Macy’s a few days back. Santa was great, but playing in SantaLand and in the train car was far and away the best part of Stinkboy’s week. A great tantrum came upon us when it was time to leave, but it was blunted slightly by an old chestnut, one also entirely apropos for the situation: “Remember, Santa only brings toys to good little boys.”

2. Sunday the 23rd, heading up I-5 (or The 5, as our California based readers might call it) the Jr. VP initiated a massive diaper filling event. ‘Twas ugly. The wind was howling and the rain was coming down in buckets. We couldn’t wait to get to a rest area to change it, but doing it in a parking lot was going to get everyone involved soaked. Then, salvation: a closed and deserted gas station was spotted from the freeway. We took the next exit and drove right to it. It looked like it’d been recently damaged in the floods from a few weeks back, and was not doing so well now. We pulled in next to the pumps and under the cover and then got out and proceeded to clean up the boy. It was at this point that things started getting weird. Both the CFO and I got what was, as Shaggy might say to Scoob, “a very bad feeling about this” almost from the moment we got out of the car; the CFO later described it as feeling like she was a character in a Steven King book. The CFO was working on the boy in the front passenger seat, and I found myself standing behind her, in a state of readiness, wishing I had packed a shotgun along with the gifts and the luggage. Very weird and very stupid, and we recognized both at the time, but still we were happy to get the boy buckled in and get the hell out of there. Maybe a rabid St. Bernard or an evil clown had been stalking us and we barely escaped, who knows?

3. The drive sucked, avoided-encounter-with-Evil-at-an-abandoned-gas-station notwithstanding. Windy and rainy the whole time, and with a ticked off baby in the back seat and a seeming 75% increase in the numbers of idiots and maniacs on the road. Plus the trucks. Don’t get me started on all the goddamn trucks. Below is an excerpt of a piece of legislation I’ve asked my parents’ Washington State Rep to sponsor:

“It shall be permissible for a motorist upon any interstate highway located within the state of Washington to use a firearm, missile launcher, or other explosive device for the purpose of persuading the drivers of Class A and Class C recreational vehicles and of semi tractor/trailers that they should under no circumstances whatsoever travel in the left lane. It shall be permissible to brandish said devices in a threatening manner should one of the aforementioned vehicles be present the center lane of a three lane roadway.”

I’ll let you know how that one goes.

Upon arrival in Bellevue I was worn out from the drive. CEO’s mom upon arrival: “Hi guys! Hi [CEO]! How are you?” CEO’s reply: Whiskey, stat!!

4. Christmas Eve morning the whole crew is milling around the parent’s pad, watching TV and playing and drinking coffee and such. The CEO’s mom asks me to go out to the second fridge in the garage and bring in a jar of jam. Sure thing, mom!. I go out there and open the fridge. A small bottle of Wilcox Farms (one of my favorite chocolate milk producers) was in the door. Chocolate milk. Awesome. I cracked it open and took four big gulps. Something wasn’t right. Wait a second. . . This is the 2006 vintage!. The May 10th 2006 vintage was excellent when it was released, but didn’t cellar well. Lucky for me there was a garbage can next to the fridge for me to hurl into. I’ve learned my lesson: check the chocolate milk vintage before tasting, not after. My family was amused, but I was not. Who the hell keeps a 20-month-old bottle of chocolate milk in their fridge? I think it was a trap set specifically for me. Touché.

5. The CEO got a Santa suit for Christmas. Years of hilarity are going to come from that gift, I can feel it. Think of all the children I can scar. . . Won’t somebody please think of the children?

6. Many of the crew at my parent’s house took a walk around the neighborhood Christmas Eve Day. Crazy cousin Chuckles came with, and brought along a football. He and I played a running game of catch as we were taking our walk. I nearly killed him on one play: I sent Chuckles deep and then I let it fly. The ball sailed on me a little bit (CEO is not a QB. More of a DT, really) and was headed toward a low fence in front of someone’s house. The fence was perfectly sized and perfectly placed to impale a boy of Chuckle’s size should that boy lay out in a dive for something like, say, an errantly thrown football. I saw the whole thing unfold in my mind as Chuck raced for the ball, tracking it the whole time and not watching where he was going. Oh great, I’ve killed Chuckles. My sister is going to be royally pissed, and now I bet Christmas in Bellevue will be awkward for years. Well done, CEO. Bravo. I shouldn’t have been worried: of course Chuckles was able to both get to the ball and avoid impaling himself. Let’s hope that that’s the last time the CEO’s ineptitude almost kills a young man, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

7. We spent the majority of Christmas Day with the CFO’s family in Seattle, watching the snow come down. In the evening some family friends came over and we had a feast of prime rib: it was “yummy delicious” as the Jr. VP might say. The true dining highlight of the evening though was the hors d’ oeuvres. One of the friends in attendance was an older Filipina woman who likes to cook. Everyone should be so lucky as to know a traditional Filipina chef. Before coming over she’d whipped up a large platter of home-made lumpia rolls. OMG! (as the kids say) were they good. It is her usual Christmas day appetizer; there was a near mutiny one year when she forgot to bring them. I think she now realizes that the lumpia is a requirement if she is to attend the CFO’s parents’ Christmas dinner.

8. Yesterday I drove home by myself, since I had to work today and and the CFO doesn’t. She’s getting a ride down here tomorrow. I hope her drive is better than mine was: stop and go traffic for 50 miles on I-5 when you are out in the middle of nowhere is not fun. At least this time I had blasting rock music to keep me company instead of a crying baby, and a bag of provisions thoughtfully put together for me by the CFO’s dad: the remains of a deli tray from the night before. The pound of deli meat and cheese I ate in the car helped my mood considerably. That doesn’t mean though that I didn’t have any whiskey at the end of this drive too.

Is there something wrong with you if you find yourself thinking about how to most amusingly cause harm to a five year old kid? Last night as we were leaving some punk at the Jr. VP’s ’school’ made a comment about him being a baby and still wearing diapers. I don’t think the lad heard, or if he did, he just ignored it. He’s more adult than Daddy; Daddy wanted to pick up the mouthy kid by his ankles and then drop him. Onto my swinging foot. I could get 5 or 6 seconds of hang time I think.

I could do it, too. It’s been scientifically proven. Him and 23 of his buddies.

24

That number sounds low to me, but then again I’m not in very good shape.

The other night I was leaving Fred Meyer with $250 worth of groceries in my cart when I came upon an old guy ringing the bell for the Salvation Army. An unfamiliar thought occurred to me: “I think I’ll give the Army a buck or two.” (I still don’t know where that came from, but the thought was there.) So I looked in my wallet. No bills. Dammit. I was pretty sure I had some coins in my pocket leftover from lunch so I fished around in there. I had one nickel. I flipped it into his kettle and went on my way. The “Merry Christmas” I received in return from the Major was not the most enthusiastic one I have ever received.

Well, the final frontier has been crossed by the boy. The CEO was changing clothes in my room last night. My pants were on the ground and I was working on my shirt. I then proceeded to step on my belt buckle. The pointy part that goes through the holes in the belt was pointing straight up when I did this, so it was pretty much the equivalent of stepping on a dull nail with bare feet. I avoided a full on impalement only by falling over instead of continuing my step but it still hurt like a son of a bitch; as I did this a declaration of “FUCK!!” escaped from my lips.

You know where this is going: of-fucking-course the Jr VP was in the room with me, and of-fucking-course he immediately runs out to Mommy in the kitchen and starts yelling “Daddy said fuck!” “Daddy said fuck!” Stinky is at an age where you can’t tell him not to say something like that, you can only instead quickly change the subject and hope he forgets that word. It seemed to work last night, as the lad eventually stopped repeating his newfound favorite saying, but I am not looking forward to picking him up from ’school’ today.

A gambling note from this weekend: it is bullshit to lose a poker hand when you are holding five Kings. It was that sort of evening.

I look funny, but yo I’m making money see.

A whole slew of similar charts and graphs here.

This Saturday night must be one of the most difficult nights of the year to find a babysitter. Almost everyone I know has some sort of holiday party or obligation this Saturday night, including me and the CFO. We were lucky to find a friend of the CFO who can watch the lads for a few hours. Otherwise we were pretty much down to calling this guy:

Tacoma teen accused of tossing baby cousin
TACOMA — Tacoma police believe a 15-year-old boy might have thrown his baby cousin in the air and let him fall to the ground. There’s also evidence the 13-month old was violently shaken. The teen who had been baby-sitting was charged Tuesday in juvenile court in Tacoma with assault and Pierce County prosecutors say a hearing will be held Dec. 24 to determine if the case will move to adult court. Court records say the baby was admitted Monday to Mary Bridge children’s hospital with serious injuries.

I’d bet I could negotiate him down on his per-hour rate, too.

The CEO is no huge fan of Taco Bell; when I am in the mood for cheap fast food Wendy’s or McD’s usually gets my dollar. However, Taco Bell has one thing seriously going for it: the Double Decker taco. The boffins in the Taco Bell R&D department (aka “The Taco Lab”) really outdid themselves when they put the Double Decker on the menu. For those of you who don’t know, imagine a regular hard taco then wrapped in a flour tortilla, with refried beans used as the ‘glue’ to hold the two together. A breathtaking work of staggering genius, if you ask me.

On Fridays my office usually gets lunch catered; today lunch was from Taco Del Mar. There was a nice spread of taco makings and sides delivered in our lunch room by about noon. I was running a little late and didn’t make it in there until about 12:30, so most of the office was already eating when I arrived to assemble my lunch. I made myself a Double Decker taco and went to sit down. The table went silent. People stared at my glorious taco in disbelief. Jaws were dropped. I could easily read their minds: “I wish I had his taco. I am so stupid. Why didn’t I do that?” I ate it nice and slow, making sure everyone got a good long look. The superiority of the CEO’s taco-fu is now unquestioned in my place of employment. If only I could say the same about the actual duties of my job.

The anniversary of the CFO’s birth just so happens to be today. My gift to her this year? I got some new shorts to wear around the HQ. Happy birthday baby.

Sometimes I think the CFO wishes that the Jr VP was a little girl; I think she imagines that there would then be less yelling and fighting at the HQ. In her fantasy she has a calm and delightfully girly little child to do girly stuff with like, say, decorate the HQ or a Christmas tree. More importantly in her fantasy, her child only very rarely growls, tackles people, throws things or gets in the habit of yelling in Monster voice “Watch me break stuff Mommy!” every 10 seconds and then actually trying to follow through on his command.

Anyway, that’s neither here nor there as the CFO is firmly stuck in the real world. Here is the lad, helping his Mommy this Saturday.

We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm. — Winston Churchill

Late last night a terrible shriek came from the Jr. VP’s bedroom. Me: Goddamn monsters again. I kicked open the door to his room, dove in and did a tactical roll, then popped up next to the lad’s bed in a kung-fu stance. Let’s rock, bitches! I scanned the room for threats and/or targets. Nothing. Bastards! Escaped again! I’ll get ‘em next time. Stinky, you OK? I peeked over at the Jr VP. He was laying on his bed in a puddle of blood. Oh no! I’m too late! Thankfully, I was able to quickly ascertain that the boy hadn’t received any monster bites but instead had suffered a nose bleed. I got him calmed down, got his face cleaned up and a clean shirt on him. His bed though was still a wreck: I mean, who doesn’t want to go to sleep in a foot wide circle of their own blood? I was then faced with what I call a Mommy/Daddy type decision, and I stayed true to form. I knew that in this situation Mommy would strip the lad’s bed down to the mattress, get out new sheets and re-make his bed, and then start a load of laundry before going back to bed. I’m not Mommy. Daddy laid a red towel over the bloody mess and called it good. The Jr VP is my boy: he was perfectly happy with the towel solution. An emphatic Thank you Daddy! came from Stinkboy when I made the blood, er, disappear, and about 45 seconds later he was asleep again. Like I always say: Probably better to deal with this in the morning.

The Man from the Dalles and I caught a show from the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World last night at Dantes. Awesome. I didn’t get to bed until about 1:30. Suck. I’m moving a little slow today, and the tasty beverages consumed here and here beforehand aren’t helping.

Two guys got on the elevator with me today. They were apparently in the middle of a fascinating conversation, but since they were only traveling one floor I overheard but a snippet of it. Here it is:

“… the thing about cat meat is that you only get diarrhea the first time you eat it. After that, your body will start producing the required enzymes and then you’ll be able to properly digest. . .”

I really wanted to ask the guy about that, but they got off too fast. Damn those fast elevators!

The Jr. VP can at times be quite a philosopher. Yesterday, he was wrestling with a quote from St. Thomas Aquinas*, trying to understand how it relates to the nature of good and evil and his own capacity for both. He used the following demonstration to illustrate for me his current thinking with on the topic at hand. Or something like that. Stinkboy last night:

“I’m Spider-Man, I’ll save you!” [said with normal voice]

He then spins 180 degrees and faces the other direction.

“Oh no, I’m Bad Spider-Man! I’m gonna get you!” [said in Monster Voice]

Spins again.

“Yay, I’m Spider-Man!” [normal voice]

Another spin.

“Watch out Daddy, I’m Bad Spider-Man!” [Monster Voice]

He repeated this quite a few times, until finally the Daddy-Robot attacked Bad Spider-Man and we had our showdown. Evil prevailed.

The Jr. VP is slightly obsessed with Spider-Man right now. The weird thing is that as far as I know he’s never seen any of the movies, cartoons, comic books, or other normal media featuring Spider-Man. I know that a friend of his at ’school’ has a Spider-Man back-pack that Stinkboy talks about constantly and I know that he has seen a Spidey toy or two. He has also heard me singing the Spider-Man song (it confuses him a bit when I start singing about Spider-Pig) but that’s about it. Not really sure why he is so fascinated but I’ve learned just to roll with it when the lad gets obsessed like this. It’s a lot easier than trying to understand it.

The lucky lad very recently acquired himself a Spider-Man t-shirt, and as is his way he refuses to take it off. Ever. He wears it over his pajamas at night. The solution to the that problem is coming at Christmas (turn away now if you are reading, Stinky): the lad will find some Spider-Man pajamas under the tree this year. I hope his head doesn’t explode.

* “A capacity for good and a capacity for evil are one and the same capacity. To realize the good, dispositions are necessary.” — Aquinas

Kjel.org awoke Saturday to the promise of snow. Luckily, it was a secret promise: I neglected to tell the Jr VP about the possibility because I know that all the weathermen in this town live to crush the snowy dreams of little boys, so their bogus forecast caused no tears when the snow didn’t come as advertised.

I for one wasn’t too sad. I was going to get downtown for the Holiday Ale Fest even if I had to chain up all four wheels on the Suby. Thankfully, I did not have to chain up the Suby.

The Fest was crowded this year. Normally we show up at 11:00 and are some of the first people in. This year there was a 100 person line at 11:00; I need to stop talking it up during the rest of the year. The Edumacator and I were lucky to be inside the gates by 11:07. Once in the tent everything was awesome as usual. The first beer of the morning is always the toughest, but they get progressively smoother after that. All of us in fact proceeded to get pretty smooth.

The Chief Photographer making a rare appearance:

A few other distinguished gentlemen joined us in the wetting of our whistles:

Dam right we’re Beavers! And drunk!

We somehow then found ourselves at Rock Bottom in the bar upstairs. They let us in why?

Is there anything better than watching football after a long morning of drinking, while having appetizer sampler plates periodically sent to your table? Unlikely. Rock Bottom beer doesn’t do much for me but by God the lads down there know their way around a deep fryer. Bravo! Oh, and congrats to the Beavs too.

The HQ survived the weekend windstorm relatively unscathed and the roof seems to be holding. A certain gutter on our house is super clogged because the CFO is too lazy to clean it, so we now have what I like to think of as a “cascading water feature” onto the back deck but otherwise I think we’ll make it. I will anyway; the CFO is hurting due to the loss of her favorite never-visited tree:

Storm Snaps World’s Tallest Sitka Spruce
SEASIDE, Ore. — The world’s tallest Sitka spruce near Seaside survived 700 years of storms and a threat from chain saws, but snapped in half during Sunday’s powerful winds. The 204-foot tree was badly damaged in 2006 during a powerful storm and officials had considered cutting it down. “Its such a landmark. You drive by and you stop. You take a picture with your kids and you keep going. It’s a sad day. Kind of lost a piece of Oregon coast history,” said one local resident. Some visitors stopped by the tree on Sunday to take pieces of it as keepsakes.

One of the CFO’s favorite things to do was hassle me about stopping at the Sitka roadside attraction every time we drove to the coast, seeing how many different ways I could deny her the pleasure of looking at a big tree, always hoping against hope that this might be the time where I breakdown and Kjel.org actually stops. Sorry CFO. That big tree (and your attempts at dragging me to see it) will have to live on in your memory. And your dreams. Now I wonder if there is an Air Museum we could go to around here somewhere?