13 Jan 2012

Grandparenthood Chapter Two: The Cupcake Reveal. So, young parents these days want to know what sex their baby is before actually giving birth. I kind of liked being surprised 2/3rds of the time. But my son and daughter-in-law are going to find out on Tuesday. What's planned is that the doctor will write the baby's sex on a piece of paper, which he'll give to Sarah, who won't look at it. She'll take it to a cupcake shop and have cupcakes made: blue frosting for a boy, pink frosting for a girl. They'll be in a sealed box. She and my son will open it for a FaceTime video connection with us in Virginia, which I, of course, will videotape and, this being 2012, post. Pretty neat, huh? So stay tuned.

This is what star quality looks like.

I downloaded Twitter onto my iPhone. I am not totally convinced yet that this is worth it. For instance, the Old Farmer's Almanac tweeted, "In times past, barbers were also surgeons. Among their primary tasks was bloodletting, a remedy thought to cure many diseases. The red-and-white-striped pole originally represented a bleeding arm wrapped in bandages." Hmmm. Sounded like an urban legend to me. But confirmation is here and elsewhere, and I can't find anything which debunks it. So, okay, OFA, I'll give you that one.

The Weird Al Yankovic tweets are pretty funny. But I find myself being compelled to come up with clever and original one-liners for tweets and, frankly, I don't need the literary pressure. (I suppose that last sentence counts as a tweet.)

Finally, it's unseemly for a former Marine to "tweet." (And there's another possible tweet.) So I may be giving that app the heave-ho. If I don't you may "follow" me - why would anyone want to do that? - at "@wesleyhclark."

My son pointed out - in a tweet, of course - that it's yet another way for he and I to communicate: e-mail, cell phone voice calls, Face Time videoteleconferencing, text messaging, comments on my blogs, Facebook, iChat (haven't tried that one yet) and face-to-face talking. Possibly telepathy is next.

...which smoothly brings me to the topic of a father and sons Wonder Years episode I saw, where Kevin describes the failure of he and his father to communicate. The situation is so bad that the idea of the two of them heading out to a men's store to buy Kevin a suit is something akin to torture. In this particular episode he is fourteen, which is, there's no denying it, a difficult age. Junior high school/middle school - eck. But I don't understand the episode. When I was fourteen my Dad and I went on many Sunday rides in his Karmann-Ghia, and we got along just fine. We stayed up late at night and watched old movies on TV. If there were any times of stunted communication, I don't remember them.

Likewise, while my own son went through some unpleasant stages (I remember thirteen as being rather bumpy - he seemed unusually insolent then, and worse, parted his hair down the middle), I don't recall times when we would just sit in a car and refuse to communicate. Anyway, I am happy to report that we get along just fine now. We always have, really.

Anyway, getting back to the subject of The Wonder Years, I am nearing the end of the fourth season. It hasn't jumped the shark yet. In fact, I am continually surprised at just how good the writing was for this show.

I found an amusing Flickr page, "j.i's photostream" (a more memorable title might be a good idea). Anyway, there's all sorts of interesting vintage images here, including covers to 1960's Scholastic books.

I got a kick out of:

The Dude magazine, July 1958 - Can you imagine telling your friends that you read The Dude magazine? Or, worse yet, Satan magazine? Wait, I know. Back then you didn't tell anyone you read these.

Adam magazine - I found a discarded copy of an Adam magazine, once, when I was a kid. In the letters to the editor section I learned that strippers afix tassels to their, uh, pointy parts, with a special purpose gum. It caused me to wonder, "Where on earth does one buy that gum?"

The Lunch Box Cookbook - "Taste-tempting?" Not entirely.

Chantal Montellier's 1996 - I loved this strip. Trying to figure out what the characters were saying was part of the fun.

Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine - Undeniable appeal to kids, I would think.

Glazunov's The Seasons - I like this album cover.

Antal Dorati - So that's what he looks like. I have a bunch of his albums, none of which have his photo.

More attractive album cover art - Where did this guy get all these?

Till Eulenspiegel - My favorite, I think.

...and so many more. Take a look!

Have a great three day weekend!

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