Pinchy Dies...

I spoil the ending with the title, but I bought a fiddler crab for our fish tank because when I saw them in the store, it cracked me up watching them scuttle around the bottom of the tank, the males with one over sized claw and one tiny claw, using the tiny claw to feed themselves and the over sized claw to attract females. Carter and I were looking at the crabs when one of them started to do the robot! It was like he was hearing some music from somewhere unknown and dancing to it by jerking his claws in opposite directions. I knew then that I was going to be the proud owner of a fiddler crab. So we bought Pinchy for $3.09 at Pet smart. Carter gave him his name. It wasn't until we got him home and I was reading up on them, that I learned that they needed access to oxygen for them to live longer, which our tank did not have. But Pinchy was a smart crab and periodically would climb up the floating plants onto the thermometer or the oxygen tubes and up to the top of the tank for air. Once he even was sitting on top of the tank on the outside when my wife came to feed the fish late one afternoon. She called me in a panic at my work and cried "Pinchy is staring at me!" But that is another story for another day.

So I go downstairs this morning with our oldest son who is 3 1/2 and I notice our fiddler crab in our fish tank is looking sideways and sort of hanging there, not moving. Thinking that this will be another opportune moment to teach my son about death and to not be afraid of it when he encounters it in his life (which is inevitable), I point out (probably in the wrong way) "Oh No. It looks like Pinchy died." (Saying "Oh No" sends a message of dread and alarm, which I realize after it leaves my mouth. That was my first thought in my head, not too much emotion with the fact the crab had died, mostly annoyance at now having to figure out what to do with a crab body. You can't flush those can you? Bury them in the backyard? If I were still in Idaho, maybe, but out here you need a license to do anything and I didn't want to pay $200 for a pet burial license or whatever it may be, so I guess I'll have to figure it out tonight after work.) (Update, Pinchy was given the "throw-into-the-woods" burial. I'm sure there are plenty of stray animals that would love a nice crab meal.) My son then repeats after me "Pinchy died?"

"Yeah, but it's okay! He's now in heaven with Heavenly Father and he's happy!"

I'm good, I think to myself as I tell him this. Because that is just the thing you should tell your 3 1/2 year old and in fact, it's the same thing my parents probably told me at that age. You can't well go into detail about how he might be in Crab spirit prison because he misbehaved and ate some of our fish in the fish tank. But I guess that's not cause for him to be dubbed a "wicked" crab because we too eat fish, though for him its close to passing into the realms of cannibalism. Or I don't explain that he's not quite yet in Heaven, but at peace in Crab paradise, if he was judged to be a righteous crab, awaiting the resurrection. Do we really know what happens to animals after they die? Are all animals righteous and go to heaven? I worked on a dairy farm for 4 years and all animals righteous is a debatable statement. Well I hadn't studied up on it enough so I made do with the limited knowledge I had.


"Why did Pinchy die?" he asks. I can't perform a crab biopsy so I tell him that he was old. I'm an accountant so all I can do is count Pinchy's legs and know that my pocketbook is now $3.09 lighter. But $3.09 for all of the entertainment he gave us, well worth it. Fiddler crabs get 3 out of 4 stars. May pinchy have air access in that great fish tank in the sky.

The Middle Offender

So I was flipped off today while driving home, and I didn't deserve it! Kinda funny how we never feel we deserve it, but I really didn't! And boy did it really strike a nerve, because I didn't deserve it. If I had deserved it I would have taken it like a man. I was driving home along the same roads that I always do when I decided to get over into my right lane just as I was coming up on a stop light. So I head check and as a car goes by me on the right, I see that I have plenty of time to get in before the next car behind him, so I merge into the right lane and almost within 30 or 40 feet do I make a full stop to wait in line at the stoplight. But the guy behind me was going way way too fast and acted very irritated that I had "cut him off", which I hadn't because he was driving like an idiot at 100 mph before he had to stop. ( I exaggerate on the speed because this guy was really driving way too fast for the situation, so I say it for the reader to side with me and understand that this guy was the one at fault, yet I end up getting flipped off?! I don't understand it either.) So as we start to go again he tails me way too close trying to make a point. I was soooo tempted to push on my brakes just enough to give him a scare, but I resisted the temptation and keep driving, not wanting to put my life in danger over making a point to this irritated person who had no reason to be irritated except that there were other cars on his road and they were driving only 10 mph above the speed limit instead of 30 over like he was, so he had to wait for all of us. Then realizing that maybe this guy is in an emergency situation and needs to get somewhere fast(he should put his emergency flashers on though, its not just for car breakdowns), like his wife may be on the floor screaming in labor pain. Oh, and I didn't want him tailgating me anymore, so I get over in the left lane. As soon as I do he zips by me on the right and almost immediately his turn comes up and he makes a right turn. As he is making his right turn I look to see the face of this idiot driver, just so I can know his type, because however this person looks is how all idiot drivers look I'm sure. Then I can know who to avoid on the road just by looking at their faces. As I look at him as he is turning right (he should be busy driving and making his right turn) he holds his hand up to the drivers side window and there I see the middle finger staring back at me as I pass by him. It was all I saw. I missed his face completely. It wasn't the solo middle finger with all of the others down, but the stylish bird with the pointer and index fingers bent at the first knuckles, the pinky just a bit lower, and the thumb extended. At that, I don't know if I should be more or less offended, but offended I am. Then my mind races with what if scenarios. What if I turned around and followed the guy into the parking lot and he sees me coming, wouldn't he then be afraid that someone actually is calling him on his bird offense and that would make him think twice next time. What if I follow him, get out and start yelling at him that he is the idiot who is driving like a madman and to slow down. What if he then yells back and keeps walking inside whatever building hes going in and I yell, "You'd better not leave your vehicle out here alone with me now after the stunt you pulled buddy!" Threatening his precious race truck. What if I were a bodybuilder and he sees me driving a little altima, but when my 6'5" frame steps out of the car he drops to his knees begging me not to beat his face in. What if I pretended to turn the other cheek and pretend to be so sorry and hurt that he flipped me off. "I'm sorry sir, but I think you just flipped me off back there and I was just wondering what I did so I can avoid doing that in the future." Would he then see my sorry apologetic state and say "No, no, it's okay, I am the real idiot here and I'm sorry I flipped you off." All of these things race through my head on the way home, as well as the thoughts, why are we offended at the sign of the bird? It is something our culture has taught us to take offense at. I chose whether or not to be offended, and in this case I chose to be. And of all my what if scenarios, the last one where I turn the other cheek would be the best scenario, though if I truly turned the other cheek, I wouldn't bother to turn around and apologize would I? I'd just keep driving, which is what I did...so did I turn the other cheek? No, because I chose to be offended and go through the what if scenarios in my head. I had let him get to me. Me. Who had much more important things to worry about and care about in life, such as a loving wife and two precious little boys who I love to make laugh. I have bigger concerns in life than how to teach the average flipper-offer a lesson. And with that thought I pull into our neighborhood and laugh out loud as I think again of the turn the cheek, apologetic scenario and I even say it out loud in a dialogue with myself.

Those Hazy Lazy Crazy Days of Summer

So my 3 year old son and I went "camping" this last Friday. We missed our wards annual father and son camp-out this year so we made up for it on Friday. We went over to my in-laws house who were out of town for the weekend and we pitched a tent in their backyard and made a fire in their portable fire pit to roast hot dogs and marshmallows in. It was camping with modern conveniences. Anything but roughing it. And I used to enjoy the roughing it factor, but the older I get, the more I like the convenience camping. We made ourselves at home and went inside to watch a movie before we went out to sleep in the tent. I thought I'd be nice and let him stay up really late watching a fun Disney movie, and a benefit on the side for me would be that he would be so tired that he would sleep in the next morning (didn't happen, he was still up by 7:30). The only Disney DVD they had that was Peter Pan and I thought it would be a fun film, non-violent, older Disney movie that he would enjoy. He did enjoy it all right, but I was shocked at some of the content! Peter Pan fighting Captain hook, threatening to feed the rest of him to the crocodile, the lost boys fighting all of the time and calling each other names, the pirates and how Captain hook was always calling Smee an idiot, the way everyone picked on poor Wendy including the mermaids, how Peter Pan was kind of a pimp with all of the ladies who were trying to get near him, Wendy, the mermaids, Princess Tiger Lily, and Tinkerbell! He meanwhile is aloof of the whole thing and is simply being a kid. What kind of kid is he anyway with pointed ears?! The lost boys don't have pointed ears. And he's always playing a flute? More like a Nymph or Tinkerbell's older brother because he falls in the elfish phylum, class, and order. (I remembered something from high school science) Anyways, Carter seemed to really enjoy the movie, so much so that after we went out to the tent to sleep at 11:30 he was so wound up he wanted to play with the glow-sticks we had brought. So we did for about 10 minutes, then he asked me about bears for the 15th time that night if bears would get us. I once again reassured him there weren't any bears where we were at and to not worry because I wouldn't let anything get him and to just relax and listen to "natures music" in the trees. He didn't know what nature's music was so I tried to explain it is the sounds of the insects singing to us all night long from the trees. They were actually rather loud, but it was fun to be "out with nature", a full 30 yards from the front door of the house. All in all a great time and a fun weekend. I give outdoor camping 4 out of 4 stars and Peter Pan 2 out of 4 stars.

Ignorant and Lazy?

Okay, maybe this pegs me as someone who is ignorant and lazy, but I get tired of the information age sometimes. Don't get me wrong, I feel so blessed to live in such an age where information and knowledge can be found at the touch of a button. But, this said, it too can be extrememly overwhelming. At times I loose my desire to want to learn anything because I am too overwhelmed by all of it. And maybe it's not ignorance or lazyness, but perfectionism? I wander through bookstores and either want or feel the need to know what the contents of each book contains. The need to increase my vocabulary. The pull to search out sites on the internet and figure everything out. I feel that somebody knows it so why not I? Somebody knows how to replace a bathroom floor, how to invest during a bear market, the secret art of getting what you want when you want it, how to network computers, etc... If somebody knows these things, shouldn't I? I want to be a better person and knowing each of these things will make me a more knowledgable person (thus a better person). But lately I've been thinking about my need to know (and do) everything. And here is my 29 years of wisdom, 'there are more good things to do and read than one is capable of effectively learning in a lifetime. As long as a person has the desire and ability to pick and learn a handful of good things and learn them well, then that person has lived up to their potential in the learning realm. ' And I'm sure I'm not the first person to ever come to this conclusion. But life is a learning process and I'm learning to not be overwhelmed at having the need to learn it all. In actuality, it's liberating to realize and accept the fact that I can't learn and do everything.

The Smashed Down Puppets

The title actually comes from a comment my wife made a few weeks ago. As we were doing our customary basement organizing one day, she was putting the hand puppets (that she managed to acquire at various yard sales that she loves to frequent) into a small storage container and she must've been struggling or making an odd face and when I asked her what she was doing, or if she was okay, she replied "Yeah, Im trying to smash down these puppets." That's when I thought that would be a great name for a band. And since I don't play in a band, own a band, nor did I want my great band name to fade away into forgetfulness, I thought I'd name this blog after it. Then if there ever is a band called the smashed down puppets, I can either sue them for copyright charges or tell other people that I had the idea first. Wouldn't that be so rewarding to be able to tell people, "Hey, you know I thought of that band name before they were even organized into a band!"