Business Trips And Uncomfortable Conversations

Last week my job sent me on a short trip to San Diego for some ‘Focus Group Testing’. This is when they basically bring in kids and we sit behind a two-way glass (eating fancy food and drinks) and a moderator talks/shows stuff to the kids getting their opinions while the parents are outside eagerly awaiting a cool $90. I enjoy them and these things are usually entertaining and extremely helpful (for the super secret projects that I can’t talk about or I may wake up one day in some garage in Ohio).

If you’ve ever gone on a business trip the worse part about it is sometimes the co-workers you travel with. Sometimes they’re cool, and sometimes they’re weird. And sometimes they share awkward information you don’t really want to hear or know about. This one girl (Who’s 30 - I call anybody younger than me girl for some reason) started telling me and this other dude about how she’s leaving her husband in two weeks. Say what? Talk about something I didn’t want to hear about last week (after just going through my own family restraining order drama). So I did something I normally don’t do – stayed silent and let somebody else talk (it was tough). I don’t know, usually in tough life stages like this, all somebody needs is to just talk about it without interruption and they’ll usually figure it out on their own (hey, I think I just figured out what therapist do, and they charge more…). But she kept going on and on. I felt pretty bad.

Then she started asking questions about my own marriage and the other dude’s relationship with his partner (he’s gay and lives with his partner and their 6 year-old daughter –she’s from his partner’s previous hetero-relationship…). I told her where I met my wife (in Paris) and why I knew I wanted to marry her (a whole other post), the other dude went on about his deal (which was very Jerry Springer-like except with a happier ending). She then got really quiet and didn’t talk to anybody for the rest of the trip.

I have this weird theory, and it came up again when the other guy and I were talking when this girl wasn’t around. Most women friends, co-workers, acquaintances go through this strange mid-life crisis at around 30 when their lives aren’t going the way they wanted. This girl and her husband were talking about getting pregnant for years, but she kept putting it off, making excuses like “the kitchen needs to be remodeled first”, “we need to get our furniture first”, “we need to go to Burning Man first”…and it never ended. In reality, she didn’t really want kids with him and she didn’t even know why show got married to him in the first place (Oh yeah, her sisters, friends, and parents liked him, so she thought they knew something she didn’t know yet). Ouch! We both felt really bad for this guy we never met.

In the end, my only advice to her was that if she did get back with him, don’t have kids hoping it’ll fix the marriage or make things better. I grew up in a house like that and it really, really sucked. It took years for me to repair, and in most cases children of marriages like that never get repaired, it goes on forever.

I should write fortune cookies.

It’s Hard To Believe She’s 15 Months Today

And time seems to be going by pretty quick.

I use to roll my eyes at parents who use to tell my wife and I, when we just came home with our daughter, things like “Why can’t they stay this little forever”, “This time goes by REAL fast, savor it”, “It’s the best right now, because they sleep and can’t move”.
You know what? My daughter is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen (even enough for me to even use the word “cute” which was not part of my vocabulary pre-dad), but I didn’t enjoy it that much. I didn’t enjoy the continuous sleeping; feeding that only the wife could do (‘cause of the boob-thing), holding her like she was delicate plutonium. From a Mother’s point-of-view it’s great, from a Dad’s, you kind of sterilize things, changes diapers, and dream of the days when she can run around, play and laugh at silly things. The early infant stage - it wasn’t fun. The fun part happens when they start reacting to things, walk/run, and play, learn words, and do really weird stuff. All of that has just kicked into high gear, and it’s really cool-

A few things that I find odd and very entertaining now:

-My daughter just discovered I have hair on my legs and arms and now tries to pull it. And it hurts, a lot. She then grabs her stuffed animals and does it to them, but they don’t yelp nearly as loud.

-After she drinks a bottle of Milk she acts a little intoxicated, like she’s just downed a bottle of Vodka. She lies down, moans and slaps the belly all while licking her Milk moustache and grabbing her tongue. When she does this, I want to dress her as a pirate.

-You can point at nearly anything and say it’s name and she’ll parrot it. For instance “Dog”, she’ll call it “Dawww”. Or “Light” is “Lieeeeee”, or “Barry White” is “Bebebebebe-fffff”.

-She likes to move the furniture around (chairs, barstools, her high chair), even at restaurants.

-Anytime you say, “dance”, she’ll stop what she’s doing and does this Bill Cosby/Elaine (from Seinfeld) dance combo. Sometimes she’ll even toss in sound effects.

-She makes piles of toys and stuffed animals which takes about 5-10 minutes and then when she’s done she’ll sit on it and look around. I’ve noticed the last few times she’ll actually poop.



All of that sterilizing, changing diapers, waiting on the sidelines, etc. was worth the wait.

How Does A Guy Compliment Another Guy On Loosing Weight?

The short answer: he doesn't.

There's this guy at work that has had a spare tire ever since I've known him. Well, it's actually more like a Tractor Tire (one of those big tractors that moves large hills). The guy had the worse eating habits I've seen in a long time (habits that I didn't even come close to in H.S. or college), everything he ate was either deep fried or can sit on a shelf for about 40 years and still be preserved inside a ship wreck. But in the last few months he's been snacking on nothing but fruit, nuts (sticks, rocks, leaves...) and salads. I have to admit, that takes some discipline and it's working.

So this morning some women at work were all standing out in the hall talking about how impressive it is that he's done this, they then followed it up with compliments to him and then they asked me if I've noticed. My short answer was "yeah" but keeping within the "guy code of honor", I was following the centuries old tradition by not saying anything about it. Seriously, there's nothing more strange than two guys sitting around talking about how big their butts and thighs look. It just doesn't happen. When guys compliment each other it's more like "Hey Dude, I bet you can outrun a bull if it were chasing you after you took its Pork Grinds" or something like that. In guy language that means "Hey, you've lost weight, so now the Hooters waitresses will probably refill your drink without asking".