Procrastination... It's making me late

Work, the kids, volunteer commitments—I am a busy guy! How do I cope? One word...

procrastination

For the past month or so, this has meant checking the news every fifteen minutes. (Just a sec... gotta' check Huffington Post.) But, thankfully, this two-year travail that the United States calls an election is finally coming to a close. Blog posts represent another big time-suckage opportunity. (Help, my other blog is keeping from writing on my blog!) Then, when all else fails, there are car sites.

The car thing started over the summer. The lease on our Honda Odyssey was expiring in November, so, being the consummate (read obsessive) comparison shopper that I am, I started checking things out. With gas prices nearing $4.00 a gallon at the time, I was hoping to find the holy grail of vehicles—a Honda Odyssey that gets 40 mpg (combined, not that highway bull). Don't get me wrong, I love the Odyssey, which, incidentally, has the best gas mileage of any minivan, but you can't call 17 mpg thrifty.

Then Volkswagen announced they were about to introduce a clean diesel station wagon, the Jetta Sportwagen, that got the magic 40. I was sorely afflicted. Could I buy a German car?

The answer was no. The Holocaust legacy of the German manufacturers weighed too heavily on me. Even if I could afford them, I could not see myself in a Mercedes 300SL (slave labor) or a BMW M5 (the M is for murder). Most of the Japanese manufacturers have their own Second World War ghosts and the Big Three build crap cars (except in Europe, where Ford and GM build pretty good cars, I'm told). This leaves Honda/Acura, founded in 1948, which manufactures many of its North American-sold models right here in North America.

That got me to thinking. Why can't I buy a European car that's not made in Germany? Gas has been expensive in Europe for ages so they have lots of cool thrifty cars, none of which can be purchased Stateside. I know I'll probably never buy a Ferrari or Maserati, but why can't I get an Italian car like a Fiat? (Because they're crap and unreliable.) Why can't a brother get an Alfa Romeo?

I mean look at this Alfa Mi To (for Milano and Torino). Affordable, fuel efficient, stylish, cool and available through Maserati dealers sometime in 2011 (maybe).



The inside is even better! All leather and carbon fiber. (Fiber keeps you regular.)


So, for now, we're getting rid of the minivan, keeping one car (Acura), and awaiting the day we become Alfisti.

I Spoke too Soon

My wife and daughter went out canvassing for Barack Obama today while the boy and I stayed home. (She tried taking both kids once. Let's just say it didn't work out and leave it at that.)

I may have spoken too soon when I said that South Florida didn't represent "the kind of right-wing-Republican-agenda conservatism of northern Florida." The politics of divisiveness are certainly as popular here as elsewhere. First, there's this horribly slanderous poster, hanging until quite recently in a local (like around the corner from me) Republican campaign office, which compares Barack Obama to Hitler, among others. (Hitler! Really? Though this sentiment is not exclusive to FL.) Then there's the emails my brother's been getting from someone in our running group (his running group really; I'm a poseur). One email linked to a story about Muammar Gaddafi's pronouncement that Barack Obama is a Muslim of Kenyan origin who studied at Muslim schools (tell us something we don't know, Muammar), or so he said at a rally. He also expressed the hope that Senator Obama's pronouncements on Israel were just empty election year rhetoric. (You can read Gaddafi in translation here.) Now despite the fact that the source for the story emailed to my brother is a right-wing site famous for partial truths and hatchet jobs on Democrats, I'm sure that Gaddafi believes what he says. That doesn't make it true. Anyway, Gaddafi is probably getting his facts from American right-wing websites.

There's a lot to like about Florida (mostly weather) but politics is not one of them. I'll be glad when the election is over.

Most Probably Gay

I live in South Florida and like most of us down here, I'm from away. I've been here for about five years now and with each passing day what used to seem surprising, even glaringly different from my BF (Before Florida) life, now seems normal—well almost normal anyway.

One of the first things you need to know about South Florida is that it is pretty traditional. I don't mean the kind of right-wing-Republican-agenda conservatism of northern Florida. But Florida is still the south, after all. There's definitely a Driving Miss Daisy vibe to things. All those retired bubbies and zaydies, Latino and Haitian immigrants may vote democratic, but they love themselves some family values.

So you can imagine my first days at pre-school. We moved when my daughter was two and a half and, as I had just started my business, I was the one to drop her off and pick her up. To say that I was a bit of an oddity at the school is pretty accurate. Other fathers picked up or dropped off but I think I was the only one who did both. I was also one of the few fathers who worked from home. Again, there were others but they were either wasters, guys who couldn't get jobs, etc., or independently wealthy. Since I was neither and working in the rather ephemeral field of "marketing," I was different. Sure plenty of the moms "worked" from home but it was their husbands (lawyers, doctors, mortgage brokers, general contractors, etc.) who really provided for the family—just as my wife provided for ours. The moms sold jewelry or clothing or Juice plus, or worked in their family's businesses, which left plenty of time to volunteer at the school. And that's what really set me apart. I was the first ever "room dad" at pre-school.

Room moms are the heart of pre-school. They're the women who volunteer to help out in their kids' classrooms. They read to the kids, fill in when teachers need to be at a meeting and coordinate volunteer activities like the Thanksgiving bake sale. This fits with the natural order of things. A dad who would actually volunteer in a classroom full of children was obviously flawed and a likely pedophile. Room moms have names like Miss Debbie, Miss Allison, Miss Melissa, Miss Tiffany; they called me Mr. Jay.

A phone call from the room mom might sound something like this:

"Hi, this is Miss Misty (Floridian women often have names that verge on the pornographic), I'm calling to remind you about the bake sale on the 24th."

Here's how my calls sounded:

"Hi this is Jay, I'm calling to remind you about the bake sale on the 24th."

"Who is this?"

"Jay, I'm the room dad in Tiffany's class." (That kid is three and has a better room mom name than me!)

Oh right. (That poor man, he must've lost his job.) Yes, I'll be there. I was planning to volunteer in the morning."

"Me too, I guess we'll be working together." (Better see if I can change my shift.)

"Terrific! (Better see if I can change my shift.)

Being introduced to people at the school was also a hoot.

"Miss Chantal, this is Jay; he's the room dad in 1F."

"Very nice to meet you. What do you do when you're not here?" (Men most likely.)

"I run a marketing and communications company." (Probably thinks I'm gay and unemployed.) "Let me introduce you to my wife."

"Nice to meet you!" (Poor woman, husband's gay and unemployed.)