4 Topic Sunday

1. Ryan Reynolds-Looking Super Dad

I was at the library with the family yesterday. At the Chicago Public Library you can get museum passes for free entries for your entire family. Nice tip right there for the 4 people still reading this page. Anyway, so I'm diddling around on my phone while my 3-year-old son is playing with other kids and another (and better) random dad, and I hear young Erik Noisewater say, "Let's make a Transformer!" The kids and the random dad were building things out of giant Legos that were about a foot across. I hear the random dad say in a slightly effeminate voice, "Does this look like a Transformer?" I look up to see that the son of a bitch had whipped up an amazing five foot tall robot in a matter of a couple minutes, and Erik was smiling ear-to-ear. This guy looked like gay Ryan Reynolds, he was in better shape than me, better looking than me, and on this day for sure, a better dad than me. He was on the floor with everyone's kids like the Deadpool Pied Piper Super Father doing all these creative things and with boundless energy. I'm so glad that this dude exists in the time he does so that he can get legally married to another man and have a family without judgement from anyone. Just think, if he were born 50 years ago he may never have been able to be the super dad he was born to be.

The face you make at other dads when you just made the perfect Lego Transformer.

2. Bane!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The other night I'm putting Erik to bed and he says to me, "Daddy, why don't you have muscles like Bane? Then he starts squeezing my pathetic arms, searching everywhere on them and saying, "Where are your muscles?" Thanks a lot, kid. I mean, I can't live up to the standard of cartoon super hero physiques, but he is right that I could certainly stand to put on a touch more muscle up top. He's like my little personal trainer now. I did some push-ups with him on my back yesterday, so he and I are working on it.

Overdeveloped the trap muscles a touch, if you ask me.

3. The 1980's, the Decade of Amazing Walkie Talkies

Do you ever notice in 80's movies the kids all seemed to have walkie talkies where they could talk to their friends from their respective bedrooms from a mile away? I was a kid in the 1980's, and I didn't know one kid who had those. We had the G.I. Joe ones where you were lucky to hear your friend in the next room, and even then it was like a bad McDonald's drive through sound so you couldn't make out what the F he was saying, as if it what he was saying was anything more important than "Can you hear me?"

We have the Jolt cola. Repeat. We have the Jolt cola!!

4. How was everyone's holiday?

Mine was pretty awesome. It was our first one waking up in our own house with Santa coming for the kids, so pretty exciting stuff. We discovered a new drink too: Captain Morgan and egg nog. We call it Captain Nog. I just love that name. Captain Nog sounds like a ruthless cutthroat gangster on the high seas. Drunk with white goop all over his beard.

Captain Morgan Freeman himself.

Great Weekend, But I Have One Regret

Until this weekend, I had never been to a wedding with coolers of beer with stickers on top saying which beers were in each one, and you could just reach in and grab them yourself. I'm telling you this because it led to HLP (Heterosexual Life Patner) and myself lining up the tops of them on our table in an attempt to drink every different type of beer, which led to horrible, horrible drunkenness on my part.

Back in our cottage with other guests, while in varying stages of blacking out watching the World Series, I threw a stuffed goose for this great dog that was along for the wedding, she jumped over a couch to get it, knocking red wine all over some poor guy's suit. I don't remember much of this, but apparently I thought this was hilarious and I never so much as apologized.

Now, I know this was stupid on my part, but when there's a stuffed goose and a terrific dog in the room with me, I'm not NOT going to throw the stuffed goose for the terrific dog. Right?

No, it was dumb, and I need to get my boozing under control . . .