Dadsguide.

At the Science Fair.

Tuesday night was the kids’ school’s annual Science Fair. Each of the kids between 3rd and 8th grade either do a project or come up with an experiment, and then create a report and presentation about their hypothesis, method, results, and conclusions. So, the scientific method. During the school day, they make presentations to each of the other classes, and in the evening the classrooms are opened up for and hour for the parents and general public.

It’s great. The 3rd graders make a model shelter (everything from igloos made from sugar cubes, to elaborate modern homes from the architect’s kid), the 4th graders created a field guide to native Northern California birds & animals, and the other grades each conducted experiements to parallel what they’ve been learning in their respective curricula, from botany to anatomy to mechanics. Really cool. My personal favorites were the 6th grader who made a 4-wheel vehicle out of old bike parts, and the kid who wanted to see if electricity stimulated plant growth by systematically electrocuting a houseplant (it didn’t).

But boy, were my kids pissed at me! TLW was out of town on business and so I was solo again. I made them both stay with me the entire time and walk me deliberately through the various exhibits, asking guiding, but I’m sure to them inane, questions (“But how do the raccoons communicate with each other?” - even though they’d already seen them all, and wanted nothing more than to run around with their friends. Instead they were stuck with their mean dad having to look at and talk about boring old science experiments.

Well, tough. As I explained, this event wasn’t social deal, it was about the science and the education. Plus, they get to run around with their friends all day, every day, and the evening was family time. And, for my third reason (they actually asked me for three reasons why they couldn’t be with their friends), the evergreen, “Because I said so”. I’m amazed that this rationale, thin as it is, still actually seems to work.

As you can imagine, I didn’t score a lot of Dad popularity points with the kids that night. And they were so foul-tempered that I didn’t even offer to take them out for an ice cream afterwards, which I had fully planned to do before we got there. So there.

From The Archive: Don’t Shave Your Head Drunk (or any other time)

Note: this entry originally appeared on my old blog in March 2009. I’ve since changed aliases for my children - Lucky was formerly known as Rupert, and Didi formerly known as Desdemona. The Lovely Wife (TLW) was and remains The Lovely Wife.

Don’t Shave Your Head Drunk (or any other time).

I’ve always thought it would be interesting to completely shave my head. Over the years I’ve experimented with everything from flat-tops, to shoulder-length locks, to big feathered 70’s ‘do’s, and a variety of facial hair combos, but have never done the complete Telly Savalas. Sure, the buzz cut was different in its day, but voluntary baldness? It always seemed to be the most radical thing, but I’ve never been able to bring myself to do it.

Until tonight, that is.

Last week before the ski trip I’d given myself a buzz cut (#2, for you hair clipper fetishists) which was pretty damn short. All this week I’ve kind of been thinking that my hair’s already really f***ing short now, why not go all the way? And so tonight I finally did. Tucked Rupert & Desdemona into bed, watched a terribly pretentious indie film (I’m sorry, “independent cinema”) with TLW, tucked her in, and then went to work.

(disclaimer: I did at least tell TLW what I was going to do. I recommend that if you decide to go down this path, you consult with your loved ones in advance, so they don’t think you’ve completely lost your marbles.)

First I gave my scalp an all-over with a #1. OK, that was pretty severe, but still fuzzy - kind of Marine-like. Then another once-over with no attachments - #0. A true, to-the-scalp buzz. Extremely, severely short, but still hair left. Not yet good enough. Then, into a warm bath for the final shave-down.

If you’ve never done this, take it from me: it is interesting to put shaving lotion all over your head, and then run your razor over your whole head. Very surprising how many hairs up there need to be trimmed. Of course, once you’ve started with the first step (the #1 buzz for me), there’s no turning back — you certainly can’t show up the next day half-buzzed and half your old hair, unless you want to look totally insane.

So now it’s done. My immediate observations upon being newly, voluntarily, bald:

wow, my scalp is really white!

looks kind of chemo-y. Or worse.

dammit, I’ve got a lumpy head. But at least no weird folds over the ears or neck or stuff like that.

kind of pointy too, now that I take a closer look. What have I done?

so, that fight in 8th grade DID leave a scar there? Cool!!

It actually feels really cool. When else do you get to put after-shave balm on your whole head? That whole, run-your-hand-up-through-your-tousled-hair gesture? Really different now - one smooth movement all the way to the back of your neck.

My scalp is really sensitive - and after shave balm is not particularly soothing.

I realize now where Desdemona got her pointy elf ears. Sorry baby.

You can feel the air breeze over your scalp when you move around or walk. It’s weird.

I think I kind of like it!

We’ll see how the family and friends react tomorrow. Hopefully I won’t scare the children (much!).

Note: My Baldness was met with a 75% disapproval rating among all residents in the Dadsguide houselold. I ended up being the only one who liked it.

(Source: dadsguide.blogspot.com)

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My son is great.

The morning we were scheduled to leave for our ski vacation last weekend, my son stepped on a toothpick lying around on his bedroom floor, and the tip of it broke off in his heel. TLW and I were unsuccessful in removing it after literally hours of soaking, icing, and other pain-numbing techniques. After much howling and many tears (unusual for him), we agreed to put a topical painkiller on it and bandage it up for the trip. Plus, his heels have been bothering him (our physician says its Severs’ Disease, I’d call it an old fashioned growing pain). So, in addition to being kind of peeved with him for not keeping his room clean, I was disappointed that he was following in my footsteps (no pun intended) and being such a wimp.

Anyway, he skied all week except for the last day (6 days in all), advanced a lot as a skier, took a lesson, and got down some difficult black diamond slopes without falls or too much grousing - all with hardly ever a complaint about his heel. He’d always report that it was “OK, getting better” when we asked.

Last night we gave it another look. Time and the evening’s bath had helped it just begin to work itself out - not even a millimeter, but enough to make another attempt at extraction. Just the suggestion of trying again got him totally worked up and near tears. So, after promises that I wouldn’t use a needle this time, and stop if it hurt too much, I reached over with the tweezers and deftly & easily pulled it out.

It was great to see my son so relieved, and, as a parent, to relieve my child’s pain.

But here’s the awesome thing. That splinter was HUGE - easily 3/8” long, and going straight into his (already tender) heel. And he skied on it. For a week. I don’t think I would even have been able to walk with that thing in my heel. Seriously.

What a trooper he’s turned out to be. My entire opinion of my son’s temperament changed last night.

Dadsguide Sunday Night Cocktail: The Negroni

Well, here we are again - Sunday evening, 5PM, and you know what that means … it’s cockail hour here at the la casa de Dadsguide.

Tonight’s specialty is The Negroni. Generally made with equal parts gin, sweet vermouth, and bitters (such as Campari), it’s a classic cocktail. Not as hardcore as a martini and not as frou-frou as a cosmopolitan, its a perfect winter aperitif. Plus, James Bond drank one in one of the original Ian Fleming stories, so you know it’s studly and old school. The wife & I have been ordering/making these for years, well before the recent wave of Negroni trendiness. (See also the amusing wikipedia entry.)

The Negroni

1 oz. Gin
1 oz. sweet vermouth
1 oz. Campari
orange for garnish

Classic prep & serving: shake ingredients, pour over ice into highball glass, garnish with strip of orange peel.
Modern prep: shake ingredients with ice. Pour into martini glass, garnish with strip of orange peel.

Enjoy!

But beware - you’re mixing three alcoholic beverages into one cocktail, so this is definately one to be consumed in moderation (after all, you can’t have the kids seeing you get too sloppy)!

There’s a lot of variation these days with premium and boutique gins, and between different brands of vermouth, so finding the combination that suits your palate may take some time. I think the more floral blends like Bombay Sapphire detract from the drink, myself, so we stick with one of the more straightforward versions. Currently on our shelf are Campari, a local San Francisco gin called No. 209, and a French Dolin vermouth rouge de Chamberey.

Dadsguide Index: Ski Week

Number of days and nights spent at Lake Tahoe: 7

Number of bedrooms at vacation cabin: 4

Number of families that spent all or part of ski week at said cabin: 3

Average nightly occupancy: 6.57

Aggregate Ratio of adults to children: 5:6

Number of ski areas visited: 4

Total Number of person-days skied: 42.5

My 7-year-old daughter’s double black diamond runs, compared to mine and expressed in a baseball score format: 1-0

Fraction of Granite Chief run skied by me & my lovely wife & before we realized we’d made a serious mistake: 1/100th

Number of families with whom we are friends that we either stayed with, skied with, dined with, or otherwise pleasantly and unexpectedly ran into over the course of the week: 12

Age range of the dozen children at dinner party Wednesday night: between 7 and 11

Best song played, and the Pandora station it played on, at Wednesday night’s dinner party: “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty on Gerry Rafferty Radio

Second best song played: “Rock You Like a Hurricane” by Scorpions on Scorpion Radio

Cases of beer consumed: 2

Quarts of guacamole consumed, per capita: 0.125

Granola bars eaten: 23

Rounds of Apples to Apples played: 9

Ratio of Merel’s winning cards to everyone else’s: 2:1

Certainty, expressed in percentage terms, that Sam will talk about either fishing, baseball, or skiing prowress within 60 minutes: 100

Snowmen made: 1

Snowmen subsequently destroyed: 1

Pairs of gloves lost: 1

Pairs of boots accidentally left in parking lot, necessitating unplanned return trip to resort the following morning: 1

Broken bones: 1

Tears: 96

Laughs: approximately 1,000

Awesome days with family & friends: 7