Young Gru: Look, Mom, I drew a picture of me landing on the moon.
Gru’s Mom: Eh.
Young Gru: Look, Mom, I made a prototype of a rocket out of macaroni.
Gru’s Mom: Eh.
Young Gru: Look, Mom, I built a real rocket based on the macaroni prototype.
[Fires rocket]
Gru’s Mom: [holds her breath in amazement for a moment] … Eh.

— Despicable Me

Every parent has been there.  You’re trying to do something, and the kid wants your attention.  You may be enjoying your first quiet moment in weeks, and suddenly some child wants you to look at something.  You want nothing more than to ignore them or tell them to be quiet and go away.  You’ve worked hard.  You have things to do.  You deserve some peace.

But you can’t, or at least you shouldn’t.  I’m as guilty of this as the next dad, but you need to listen to your kids.  You need to look at what they think is important, because it tells them that they’re important.  You can’t make them feel like there is anything more important than them.  I’ve been that dad, and the results suck.

My chest hairs are tingling! Something’s wrong. — Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

Listen to your instincts.  That little voice that says “Look over your shoulder” or “Don’t go in there” just might be your brain picking up on something that you’re not consciously seeing.  That tingling sensation on the back of your neck just might be the difference between “Whew, that was close!” and “Ma’am, I’m sorry to bring you this news…”.

It’s giving life that counts. Until you’re ready for it, all the rest is just a big fraud. All the crazy haircuts in the world won’t keep it turning. Life isn’t a love in, it’s the dishes and the orthodontist and the shoe repairman and… ground round instead of roast beef. And I’ll tell you something else: it isn’t going to a bed with a man that proves you’re in love with him; it’s getting up in the morning and facing the drab, miserable, wonderful everyday world with him that counts. — Yours, Mine, and Ours

Last night, Irish Woman and I showed each other just how much in love we are.  We didn’t go out to a nice restaurant, nor were there gifts exchanged.  We showed our love by getting out of bed at 3 in the morning, going out in 25 degree weather, and getting a sprinkler to work so that our fruit trees wouldn’t get burnt by the frost and freeze.  We had finished our evening by turning on heat lamps and firing up charcoal fires under them at 11 PM.  You never know how much you love a woman until you’re on your knees in frozen grass, feeling around in the dark for a black plastic cap to a sprinkler so that she will have home-grown cherries and peaches this summer.  She put up with my grumbling and growling and worked just as hard as I did because she knows just how important having fresh fruit in the house is to me.*

Love is not Romeo and Juliet.  That was infatuation.  Same goes for Titanic and most of the other ways in which romantic love is portrayed in movies, plays, and TV.  Love is getting up at 2 in the morning and feeding the baby so that your wife can get some rest.  Love is making a hot meal and bringing it to your husband while he’s working outside in an ice storm.  Love is The Gift of the Magi, where both of you sacrifice for the benefit of the other.

If only I’d learned that lesson earlier in life.

*I’m a lace curtain Norwegian.  We have fruit in the house even when nobody is sick.

• From the “How Dare You!?” Department – Congressional busybodies are taking the electronic cigarette industry to task for having the gall to actually advertise their product.  They also take issue with the way in which e-cigarette manufacturers tailor their product to the tastes of their customers, particularly where they make it taste like something that people want to taste.  Their assertion is that all this is done as part of some nefarious scheme to get kids hooked on tobacco and take us back to the bad old days where a carton of Lucky Strikes was shipped, at no cost, to each and every school child in America.  How dare these companies try to advertise a product to young adults that might get them hooked on nicotine, but probably won’t give them emphysema or cancer?  I mean, yes, prohibition of tobacco, in any form, would work so well, and making its use a taboo will make 19 year olds not want to have anything to do with it.  Bravo for those brave Congresscritters who took time out of their busy days to demand that something be done for the just-a-little-too-old-to-be-children.  Of course, it has to be couched in terms of protecting underage youths, but until we find a way to keep a 17-year-old from not seeing an ad while allowing an 18-year-old to see it, we just have to get rid of all advertising of potentially harmful products, such as tobacco, alcohol, fast food, fast cars, and politicians.
• From the “In A Mirror Darkly” Department – Remember my screed a couple of days ago about us needing more taxes so that people might get outraged and demand reform?  This article over at the New Republic looks at the same issue from the other side of the political coin.
• From the “Facepalm” Department – A local Louisville florist is selling prom corsages that come with a gift certificate for Kentucky Fried Chicken so that the young man can hang a leg or a wing on the corsage before he pins it to his date’s breast.  You know, I remember my little girl sitting at the dinner table just the other night, wistfully speaking of her dream of going to prom or the JROTC ball smelling of fried chicken and having grease stains on her gown.  Something tells me that if a boy ever tries to hang one of these on Girlie Bear, he’s going to need me to protect him from her, rather than the other way around.
• From the “Overreaction” Department – Several children in Chicago were rushed to the hospital recently when a restaurant mistakenly served them alcohol spiked punch.  It appears that after the staff realized their mistake, they swooped in and retrieved the children’s cups.  The parents then became irate, and this apparently freaked out the kids enough that several of them became physically ill.  Because, you know, a couple of ounces of Hawaiian Punch with a bit of rum in it is enough to dissolve the kids from the inside out, and the only antidote is to induce vomiting through parental outrage.  And to think, my father took my young life in his hands on multiple occasions by letting me take sips of his beer, even to the point that I took a nice, long nap afterward.  My thoughts and prayers are with these kids, because with parents that uptight, they’re going to need them.
• From the “Outrage” Department – Two men in California have been accused of raping and killing at least four women while wearing GPS tracking bracelets and being under supervision of the state for previous sexual crimes.  Gee, it’s almost as if sex offenders can’t be rehabilitated and will tend to re-offend if let loose as wolves among the sheep.  The really outrageous thing here is that both men were arrested in 2012 after cutting off their ankle bracelets so they could party in Las Vegas.  I guess putting a little bracelet on someone and making them check in every 30 days isn’t as effective as 10 feet of good hemp rope.
• From the “Indefensible” Department – A miscreant in Chicago is in custody after he pointed a gun at people in a store over the sales tax on his soda.  Apparently Captain Success feels that he should be exempt from taxes and tried to make his point with a .22 semi-automatic.  Personally, I’m insulted by his actions, and if he’s guilty, I hope he’s put away for a very long time.  The constitutional right to keep and bear arms does not mean he has the right to use a gun to be a dickhead.  We’ve made a lot of progress in the past few years, but jackasses like this make things hard for everyone, especially gun owners in Illinois.  Oh, and unless that thing had a happy switch, someone needs to get in touch with the journalists in this case and ask them to stop calling what he pulled out of his waistband a “submachine gun”.

Jake: How often does the train go by?
Elwood: So often that you won’t even notice it.

— The Blues Brothers

It’s amazing what you can get used to, even to the point of being hostile to something that is arguably better.  My favorite car ever was a 1991 two-door Dodge Shadow, with a little four-cylinder engine and a five speed manual.  It had absolutely no get up and go, topped out at 92 miles an hour (clocked by Arizona state trooper one beautiful afternoon in 1994), leaked more fluids than I do, and went through clutch cables at the same rate that I go underwear.  But I loved that car, and always regret trading it in.

The same can go for guns.  My favorite gun is my Mosin Nagant 91/30.  It’s heavy, was invented before the advent of ergonomics, kicks like a mule, and has to be slapped around like it owes me money to cycle.  It’s also so much fun to shoot that I’d probably part with 3/4 of my gun collection before I’d consider parting with it.

Familiarity breeds acceptance.  Acceptance breeds comfort.  Comfort breeds affection.