Whip It Good!

One of my birthday gifts was babysitting services provided by my in-laws so Amanda and I could hit the movies. With nothing "must-see" currently playing, we decided on the roller derby flick Whip It. While not the greatest movie ever, there is a lot to love: Ellen Page is adorable yet saucy, Kristen Wiig is funny as always, hot chicks in short shorts and roller skates, there are enough recognizable location shots in Austin to make me pine for a return trip there, a Daniel Stern sighting and a tiny, but funny homage to one of my favorite movies, Slapshot. All in all, not a bad way to spend two hours.

Enlarging the Lexicon.

My wife, Amanda, inadvertently helped me coin a phrase last week. Much to her chagrin, mostly because the phrase is crass and juvenile, I haven't stopped using it since. I was watching one of my favorite Food Network shows, Diners, Drive-thrus and Dumps, when apparently I made a sound like I was enjoying the idea of bacon-wrapped meatloaf a little too much. Amanda sarcastically asked me if I had popped a boner and I told her, "Yes, dear. A food boner."

So now I'm out to make "food boner" the preferred measuring stick(so to speak) for rating dishes. Male food critics of the world I implore you to drop the star system in favor of the Food Boner Index. Your sushi was fresh, delicious and perfectly rolled? How about three food boners out four? The food was okay, but the atmosphere was terrible? Perhaps this cafe only merits two food boners. Better yet, since I'm not terribly interested in counting boners, maybe we could make it all or nothing, pass/fail style. If the food and experience rock, you get a Food Boner. If the food and experience stink, you get a "Flaccid" next to your name in the write-up. Help me America, join in the crusade to make "Food Boner" so popular that it joins bling, green-collar and staycation as ridiculous additions to Webster's Dictionary.

And while on the subject of words, I'll hip you to another of my mini-crusades(you'd think I really have nothing important to do)-I want to bring Grass back as the preferred slang term for marijuana. Not pot, weed or dope-grass. As in "Pass the Grass." or the cheesy bumper sticker form decades past, "Ass, gas or grass, nobody rides for free."

Happy Birthday Grace

It seems impossible to me that my daughter is turning one today. To say the least, my life has changed immeasurably in the last year. As I watch her laying stretched out sleeping I can't believe how big she has become. Though she is neither talking or walking, she is far more toddler than baby. It's been awesome to watch her change, seemingly daily, as her temperament, attitude and personality develop. Sure, there have been big milestones and markers this year-rolling over, pulling herself up, recovering from her palate surgery. But I realized that I have measured this past year in many much smaller moments strung together to form our father/daughter bond- bouncing and a happy squeal when I get home from work, her crawling across the living room to knock over every stack of blocks that I build, a headbutt "kiss", her pointing out her head and Mommy's belly button, her grabbing her hairbrush attempting to comb her hair and mine. The past year has been everything people said it would be and more. It's been faster, more difficult, and most importantly, far better than I ever could have imagined. Thanks, Grace. I love you and Happy First Birthday.