Cheeky's Hideaway

Can I Get Partial Credit With the Tooth Fairy?

So I'm sitting in Union Square today, eating a tasty salad from Chipotle and soaking up yet another glorious summer day, when...

CRUNCH

My tongue darts across a molar in the back of my mouth and feels a sharp rim around what appears to be a crater in my tooth, as if someone had taken a melon-baller to it and scooped out a spoonful of enamel.  Sure enough I feel around my mouth and pull out a lump of white bone, formerly used to grind nachos to tasty pulp but now swimming around with black beans and lettuce in the back of my throat. 

What the hell?

OK, so MAYBE it's just a coincidence that the pain I'd been feeling on the side of my mouth when I bit down for the last couple weeks was suddenly gone.  And MAYBE it's just a coincidence that I was carrying around a dentist's phone number in my pocket, which I'd been putting off calling because visiting the dentist is right up there with live organ transplants as one of my favorite things to do.

But still, did it have to break off?  Was that really necessary? 

Guess what...I made that call to the dentist.  I'm heading in tomorrow morning.  I hope he doesn't tell me my diet is to blame... 

Night Moves

A glance in the mirror can reveal a great deal.

You may grab a razor when you realize why people think you're a terrorist or porn star.

Or you may realize you drank too much last night.

The perpetually dazed and exhausted look on my face tells me that I'm not waking up right.  And Cheeky is to blame.

Ever since the "big girl bed" was introduced, she has kept hours that would make a truck-stop waitress proud.  Night and day blur, the only commonality is the impunity with which she has extended and marked her territory.  Although I like to think that, like the buffalo before her, the freedom to roam is good for the herd, it can be a bitch when you're trying to sleep.

Which brings me to Cheeky's new morning routine.

While Oodgie and I sleep--or more precisely, while I sleep and Oodgie stares at the ceiling for the third consecutive hour and curses the ease with which I can just lie there comatose--Cheeky's little mind snaps awake.  Not content to pull covers over head and ignore the world until the last possible second like the rest of us, she makes her way to our bedroom. 

She gets close to the bed, and she just stands there.

Which, if you're just on the edge of consciousness, is freaky as shit.

Sometimes we're lucky, and she uses her "Rolling Thunder" approach, which gives us just enough warning to struggle free from whatever Mad Men-related dream Oodgie or I is in the middle of and grudgingly face reality.

But more often enough she uses her "Ninja" approach.  In this scenario, she is instantly, unexpectedly THERE! 

I'm usually so deeply asleep at her moment of arrival that it would take a blow of enormous force to wake me up.  But even in the subterranean depths of REM some primeval parental instinct must sense Cheeky's presence and tickles my brain. 

The shock to my system is pretty intense.

Now, no matter how much sleep I get, I start the day startled and tired, with an extra modicum of resentment mixed in for good measure.  No wonder I look like hell...the kid's aging me before my eyes.

Summer Music Series: 1982

Remember a few weeks back when I mentioned I was working on a music mix highlighting 1982?

I was having a really hard time with it, because it was such a formative year in my musical appreciation.  My original mix was 48 songs long, and I every time I tried to cut something I felt like I was losing a limb.  To complicate things, my own musical memories of that year were competing with all the great music I'd discovered and come to appreciate since then.

So I cheated.

Below are TWO mixes from 1982.  Vol. 1 represents the music of that year as I remember it, listening to my parents' tiny AM radio in my bedroom in the summer before junior high.  Vol. 2 is made up of tunes from 1982 which are both awesome and a part of my psyche, but which didn't become so until later.

You can download them both from a download site I put them on.  Download Vol. 1 here, and download Vol. 2 here.

Enjoy!

VOLUME 1

#	Artist	Title
1	Dexy's Midnight Runners	The Celtic Soul Brothers (More, Please, Thank You)
2	ABC	The Look of Love (part one)
3	Paul McCartney	Take It Away
4	Haircut 100	Love Plus One
5	Duran Duran	Hold Back The Rain
6	Billy Idol	Hot In The City
7	The Go-Go's	Get Up And Go
8	Men At Work	Be Good Johnny
9	Hall & Oates	I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)
10	After The Fire	Der Kommisar
11	Dazz Band	Let It Whip
12	The Human League	Don't You Want Me
13	Michael Jackson	P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)
14	Men Without Hats	The Safety Dance
15	Asia	Heat Of The Moment
16	Steel Breeze	You Don't Want Me Anymore
17	John Cougar	Jack and Diane
18	Queen	Under Pressure
19	Squeeze	Black Coffee In Bed
20	Marvin Gaye	Sexual Healing

VOLUME 2

#	Artist	Title
1	The Who	Eminence Front
2	Richard & Linda Thompson	Man in Need
3	The dB's	Amplifier
4	Dire Straits	Industrial Disease
5	INXS	The One Thing
6	Adam Ant	Desperate But Not Serious
7	The Jam	Town Called Malice
8	Madness	House Of Fun
9	The Suburbs	Waiting
10	Roxy Music	More Than This
11	Modern English	I Melt With You
12	Joe Jackson	Steppin' Out
13	Yaz	Situation
14	The Time	777-9311
15	Prince	All the Critics Love U In New York
16	Pete Townshend	Slit Skirts
17	Violent Femmes	Kiss Off
18	Scorpions	No One Like You
19	Iron Maiden	The Number Of The Beast

There Goes the Neighborhood

When Oodgie and I went looking for an apartment a few years back, we really lucked out.

We had originally planned on finding a nice two-bedroom place in Manhattan, but everything we saw was either too small or too grungy in our price-range.  One person had covered every wall and cabinet with mirrors.  One place was huge, but missed our baseline threshold for sanitation.  It didn't take long for us to leave Manhattan to the celebrities, investment bankers, and Midwestern immigrants willing to sleep nine to a room.

When we originally emerged from the subway in Brooklyn, we were greeted with sun-dappled streets, beautiful brownstones framed by rich green foliage, and a sense of peace and tranquility we thought was only available in the nice part of Imaginationland.  There were quaint shops and restaurants, affordable apartments, and breathtaking view of Manhattan just yards away.  Our reservations about leaving the city were swept away by a feeling of warmth and...well, home. 

For the last few years we've reaped the benefits of living in such a nice neighborhood.  Oodgie is always running into friends at playgrounds and grocery stores.  My commute is relatively painless.  We rarely deal with the slack-jawed tourists you want to punch in the back of the head.  And our periodic forays into suburbia usually end up reinforcing our quality of life.

Lately, though, we've had a bad run.

• Our local grocery store, known as much its pervasive stench of vomit as for it's offensive prices, burned to a crisp in the spring.  I originally cheered when I heard this, but I do miss the convenience of, you know, BUYING GROCERIES
• The NYC equivalent to ivy has sprung up on every street within a five block radius, effectively turning day into night for blocks at a time.
• The city saw fit to eviscerate our sidewalk so that leaking transformers and incomplete sewer lines could be repaired.  And the wholes and construction keep migrating, as if they're trying to booby-trap my path to the subway.
• And in a final stick in the eye, four businesses down the street, including a wine bar and Cheeky's favorite ice cream shop, closed within 24 hours last week due to creative accounting. 

This hasn't really spoiled the 'hood for us yet, but it feels a little like its heart has been ripped out. It's hard to relax and enjoy the summer when you start expecting bad things to happen.

I'm a hopeful person in general, so I keep thinking thoughts like "this will be better when they rebuild it" or "at least there aren't pools of acid and blood on the pavement," or even "maybe they'll FINALLY build a Starbucks on the corner."  (Doubtful)  But it's taking a loooong time, and new stuff keeps happening.  It's like we've replaced Florida on God's "most hated" list.

I'm just ranting of course.  I'm sure by next spring it will look like Sesame Street again.  I'll fit right in.

The Internet if Full of Crazy People Who Hate Each Other

I think it was Metrodad who first alerted me to I Saw Your Nanny.  For those of you not familiar with it, it's a site where people document bad nanny behavior they observe at local parks, playgrounds, etc., around New York City.  Since I have a generally low opinion of the majority of humanity, I initially considered this a useful service, exposing what I assumed to be rampant neglect and disinterest among the majority of care-givers in the world (ignoring, of course, my own occasional neglect and disinterest, which I'm certain is wholly justified during those moments I feel it). 

We don't have a nanny per se, so it's easy to sit back and judge the choices of others.  But Oodgie doesn't get much of a break taking care of Cheeky, so we do occasionally hire a nanny who works down the hall from us as a part-time babysitter during the day so she can focus on her knitting her business and maintain some shred of humanity get some personal time.  We've known her for a long time and observed her with kids, and felt confident that she takes good care of Cheeky.  That's not to say that she doesn't occasionally spend more time on her cell phone than necessary, or that she gives Cheeky the same love and attention that we would give her, but considering the alternatives we're pretty happy. 

A couple days ago she came back from the playground with Cheeky traumatized.  According to her, she was at the local playground right by the Promenade, and Cheeky wanted to see the boats on the river.  Cheeky, being tired, irrational, and three insisted on staying strapped into her stroller, so the babysitter pushed her down towards the river.  According to her, a woman, apparently perceiving a child trapped in a stroller against her will, began yelling at her and taking pictures with her cell phone.  A shouting match broke out, and the sitter, visibly upset, left as quickly as possible.  Cheeky was asleep within two minutes of the altercation, and the sitter came home quickly and told us about it.

My first thoughts, upon hearing this, were:

1. If someone--anyone--was taking pictures of my kid without my permission I'd yell at them, too.  And if they threatened me about it I'd break every bone in their face.
2. If she was taking pictures, they'd no doubt surface on I Saw Your Nanny.
3. What the fuck right does she have to intercede in our child's life unless there's imminent danger involved?  I may look down on your as a parent, but I've got no right to lecture you on how to raise them.  I leave that to the La Leche nazis.

Oodgie and I have been checking out the site to see if something would get posted.  Sure enough, it showed up yesterday.  As I expected, the story was one-sided and judgmental, although her description of the battle of words definitely gave us pause and made us worried about who our sitter is hanging out with.  We obviously don't know the real story and can't disregard everything this woman said, but we know 80% of the players better than her, and feel like our sitter's side jives better with the personalities involved than the paparazzi.

But what troubled me was the comments.  Holy Christ, people are small-minded and awful.  Attacks were initiated, accusations were made, and tiny little egos were bruised.  It quickly devolved into the sort of name-calling and brow-beating you normally see on that sphincter of a website, UrbanBaby (which I won't even dignify with a link because simply thinking about connecting it to my blog make my skin crawl).  Oodgie even went on to the site to make a comment, and was yelled at for being a bad parent and accused of being the nanny covering her tracks. 

WTF PEOPLE HAVE YOU NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH YOUR BRIEF, COWARDLY TIME ON THIS PLANET THAN TO VERBALLY DEFECATE ON OTHER PEOPLE WHILE CONSTANTLY REFRESHING YOUR BROWSER IN A MASTURBATORY MANNER IN HOPES OF SOME VALIDATION FROM YOUR EQUALLY SELF-SATISFIED "FRIENDS?"

OK, got that off my chest.

Anyway, maybe I'm being unfair...I acknowledge that I don't know shit about anything besides ancient Greek history and 80s movies.  And the whole Rashoman angle of he said/she said to this tale definitely makes a guy wonder if he's being blind.  So at the risk of inviting unwanted scrutiny and bile upon this blog, let me ask you...what do you think?  Is my distaste for this behavior making me stupid?  Am I justified, or a dick?  Is there a salient point to this madness that my feeble mind cannot grasp?  And should we be more worried than we are?  Let me know!

Happy Birthday, Cheeky!

This weekend we celebrated Cheeky's third birthday.  Balloons were purchased, children were present, snack mix was eaten, ice cream cake was left in the sun to melt.  Invitations were extended to a small coterie of people who fit the description of "friends of Oodgie from college who had kids and also happened to be on the North Fork of Long Island that particular weekend" and we all basked in the glorious weather and general confusion that any party involving kids between 2 and 12 inevitably includes. 

I could say something sappy about how much Cheeky has expanded my concept of love and the ways in which she delights me every single day, but I'm feeling minimalist today.  I hope that on some level she knows that her daddy is proud of her and treasures every breath she takes. 

But probably she just knows me as the guy who gets the snacks out of the cabinet and protects her when her mother is ready to kill her.

Happy Birthday, Cheeky!

OK, so I totally dropped the ball on this year's Cheeky birthday video.  As Oodgie aptly pointed out, "I haven't had time" is a bullshit excuse...I've just been a flake.  Maybe if I think of a good song to go with the pictures I'll put up a belated montage, but at this point....

8 AM

I am sooooo juiced for tomorrow morning.

After two insufferable years with the crappiest, most aggravating, poorly designed, useless piece of garbage phone in the history of telecommunications, I'm getting an iPhone.

I've been drooling over them for a year now, but Verizon's absurd contract terms and termination fee has kept me from pulling the trigger.  Meanwhile all the cool people are googling themselves as they walk down the street, or twittering about how the dork next to them (i.e. me) is carrying some lame-ass phone that doesn't even play movies.  In my line of work if you don't have an iPhone you might as well be carrying a beeper.

The line at the AT&T store down the block has already formed, and the Apple Store has had a line since last Saturday.  I can only think of one thing that would get me to camp out for a week on a urine-soaked sidewalk, and this ain't it.  But come 8 AM you'd better believe I'll be scratching at the window of one of those stores.  I will not be denied.

And finally, my life will be complete.

That's 21 More Than Miley Cyrus

Cheeky's birthday is coming up this weekend, and the Crouton family (the feminine portion, at least) is getting geared up for some major festivities.  Cups, hats, banners, and god knows what else will all be lovingly assembled for a cacophony of Cheeky's "friends", who will in turn dump said preparations into the pool and cry. 

I have my own preparations, including the obligatory birthday post, Ver. 3.0, which I have to get crackin' on.  In the interim, I'm going to yet again steal a music meme from my comrades-in-tunes (although also simultaneously posted by DadCentric maestro Jason, who himself stole it from here) and pass it along to you, my faithful reader(s). 

The meme:  pick your favorite album from every year you've been alive. 

Here's my list.  Yes, it's very, very long, so consider all your age jokes as delivered and duly received.  Leave me a comment with a link to your list so I can steal check it out!

1970:  Van Morrison - Moondance

1971:  David Bowie - Hunky Dory

1972:  Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street

1973:  Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy

1974:  Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks

1975:  Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

1976:  Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life

1977:  Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

1978:  AC/DC - Powerage

1979:  The Clash - London Calling (unofficially, the best year in music EVAH)

1980:  Dire Straits - Making Movies

1981:  Hall & Oates - Private Eyes 

1982:  Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast

1983:  The Police - Synchronicity

1984:  Prince - Purple Rain

1985:  The Replacements - Tim

1986:  Paul Simon - Graceland

1987:  Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction

1988:  Traveling Wilburys - Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1

1989:  Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique

1990:  They Might Be Giants - Flood

1991:  P.M. Dawn - Of the Heart, Of the Soul, and the Cross....

1992:  Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine

1993:  Urge Overkill - Saturation

1994:  Green Day - Dookie

1995:  The Jayhawks - Tomorrow the Green Grass

1996:  Semisonic - Great Divide

1997:  Mason Jennings - Mason Jennings

1998:  Air - Moon Safari

1999:  Wilco - Summerteeth

2000:  Los Amigos Invisibles - Arepa 3000

2001:  Ben Folds - Rockin' the Suburbs

2002:  The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

2003:  The White Stripes - Elephant

2004:  Palomar - Palomar III:  Revenge of Palomar

2005:  Goldfrapp - Supernature

2006:  The Kleptones - 24 Hours or Wolfmother - Wolfmother (I need more time to let these age to decide)

2007:  Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga or LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver  (See above)

2008 (so far):  Flight of the Conchords - Flight of the Conchords  (although the new Girl Talk is lookin' very, very good....)

Kara, is this the summer meme you were looking for?

Spirit of '76

My clearest memories of Independence Day growing up--aside from lighting snakes on the driveway--was around the US Bicentennial in 1976.  All the teachers in school were a-twitter about the significance ("200 years old!") and regaled us with tales of Paul Revere, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin.  The fireworks were an extra-big deal that year, and celebrities like Sandy Duncan , Captain & Tennille, and Evel Knievel all seemed to have specials celebrating it.  As a six year-old, it was AWESOME.

So when a group of comrades on a music bulletin board I periodically waste time on decided to split up the 70's and make mixes for each year of the decade, I volunteered for 1976.  I was a little worried at first, since '76 was when Zeppelin and the Stones started phoning it in and just before punk really took off, but I was able to pull together a respectable retrospective of the year.

To celebrate your 4th, and perhaps transport yourself back to a time when there wasn't all the hand-wringing about flag-pins and patriotism, I'm sharing the mix with you.  While you're at it, you should check out some of the great other mixes from the decade, like 1975 and 1978.

Here's the tracklist, and you can download it here.  You go enjoy now.

1. Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak
2. AC/DC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
3. Kiss - Shout it Out Loud
4. Aerosmith - Sick as a Dog
5. Boston - More Than a Feeling
6. Styx - Lorelei
7. Flamin' Groovies - Shake Some Action
8. Electric Light Orchestra - Do Ya
9. Rod Stewart - The Killing of Georgie (Part I and II)
10. Peter Frampton - Lines on my Face
11. The Modern Lovers - Pablo Picasso
12. Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band - Night Moves
13. Tom Waits - Tom Traubert's Blues
14. Gordon Lightfoot - Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
15. Blue Oyster Cult - (Don't Fear) The Reaper
16. Bob Dylan - Mozambique
17. The Commodores  - Fancy Dancer
18. Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing
19. KC & The Sunshine Band - I'm Your Boogie Man
20. Boz Scaggs - Lido Shuffle
21. Stevie Wonder - Sir Duke

We're doing the 80's next so keep your eyes open for another mix once we kick that off.  I've already claimed 1982, and I've whittled the tracklist down to a cozy 41 songs. 

Why Noggin' is a Better English Teacher than Me

Cheeky:  Look, that's my new fool!

Me:  Right, it's your new school.  Can you say "school?"  SK-OOL?

Cheeky:  Fool!

Me:  No, it's SK-OOL.  School!

Cheeky:  Right, daddy.  Fool!

Me:  Yeah.  Fool.  Whatever...

Some time later...

Me:  What do you want to eat?

Cheeky:  Um....I want some pfthert!

Me:  Some what? 

Cheeky:  I want some pfthert, Daddy.

Me:  Pfthert?  What the hell is pfthert?

Oodgie:  (translating) She means dessert.

Me:  You want some dessert.  Can you say, "dessert?"  DA-ZERT?

Cheeky:  Sure!  Fazert!

Me:  Um, let's try one more time.  DA-ZERT.  Say it with me.

Cheeky;  FA-ZERT!

Oodgie:  Cheeky, why don't you tell daddy what you told me you were good at today.

Cheeky:  (smiling)  METACOGNITION!