I'm not your friend

I am trying to teach my kids to address adults by a title, be it uncle, Ms., Mr., or whatever. I am not particularly concerned if it is an accurate title at this point (and in fact have a particular dislike for titles of imagined prestige), but just that the adult is not addressed by his or her first name unless the adult asks the child to do so. To quote George Gobel, "I feel like the whole world's a tuxedo and I'm a brown pair of shoes" in this near-solitary effort. It's just proper manners, as kids are not the equals of adults (they're kids), and should show respect for their elders. It's a start, but difficult to do with so many adults trying to be the "friend" of children. Play with them, talk to them, love them, and teach them, but you are not a peer.

Paris Hilton

Trailer trash with cash. Enough already.

A Boy is Not a Man Until His Father Dies

Don't know where that saying comes from, but it certainly is cheery. I guess I see the point, though.

Father's Day. As my dad used to say, I don't know what the big deal is about Father's Day, as it seems a lot harder to keep from being a father than it is to be one.

It's tough to be a dad, expected, stereotypically, to provide for the family, and expected to be with the family, which often pull against each other. Still, I feel incredibly blessed to have two such great kids. I adore them so. We'll see if I feel the same way when they start driving...

Well, you can't pick your parents, they say, so I'm glad I got lucky with mine. Hope you did too.

The transitive law of sandwiches

In mathematics and logic, this law states that if A bears some relation to B and B bears the same relation to C, then A bears it to C. My five year old discriminating gourmet son seems to believe that this applies to food as well, witness today's jelly and fluff sandwich.

The transitive law is an interesting one, and seems to become less utilized as we age. When kids dress themselves, they wear what they like and give little thought to how things go together. But as we age, we come to stress the final product more, the end rather than the means. This may lead to rather unimaginative thoughts, focusing on traditional themes and outputs. Maybe focusing on the inputs, on the things that we like, will yield creative, unexpected outcomes. In the area of decor, for instance, I've always thought that combining just about anything you like will yield a positive outome (in other words, you'll like it, though others may not), and really dislike "themes" and overstructured environments. While the method does not have to be dialectical, and often will result in failure (do you hear that, matchmakers?), be creative; try combining the jelly and fluff in your life and see what happens.