Cafe Leone

Tear Here

funny, imponderable | 5 Comments »

Why do they package graham crackers in those useless wax papery wrappers? When you try to open the package, they instantly begin tearing apart the grahams and once opened, there is no ability to reseal the packaging.

With everything today being marketed as Stay-Fresh, Shelf-Stable, Resealable, Individually Wrapped, etc, why are these remnants of 1897, still being packaged that way?

• Do you think it is marketing? Does the homey packaging imply a simpler, more innocent time?
• Do you think it is cost? Do manufacturers save a bajillion dollars per year by wrapping them in wax paper? Then why wrap them at all? They should just throw them in the box.
• Do you think it is to be “green.” But Grahams were around a 100 years before the color green was invented and became the new black.
• Do you think it is a conspiracy to make the lives of a parent more difficult?

Here are the steps involved:

I pop open a box of graham crackers (don’t get me started on that little cardboard tab thingy that was intentionally designed to be weaker than the bond of the glue holding it in place)

1. Tear open the wrapper first with my fingers, then with a knife carefully placed in the fold.
2. Jab myself in the finger with the knife as it slips.
3. Break a few crackers in the process.
4. Be told by my daughter that she doesn’t want a “broked” one….178 times!….ad infinitum…ad nauseum!
5. Pull out the one or two that remain that haven’t been shattered.
6. Run around the pantry to find a creative “parenthack” to keep any more oxygen from hitting the cracker so it doesn’t get EVEN staler because they are already kind of stale to begin with…no matter how fresh they are.
7. Give up and give them an Oreo cookie instead….in the resealable packaging!

Does anyone know a brand that doesn’t come wrapped this way?

funny, imponderable, uncategorized | 3 Comments »

When I was in the 8th grade, I worked for an electronics manufacturer, cleaning the floors and taking out the trash. I worked a few nights per week from 6-10. During this time, the engineers had already left for the day. I remember going over to their drafting tables and staring in awe at their blueprints, which were really blue for reasons I never understood. I drooled over their T-Squares, 30-60-90 triangles, compasses, gum erasers, French curves and pencil leads. But the item I coveted the most, was a fancy slide rule that was tucked into the top drawer of one table. It came complete with a leather box case and a manual. I opened that drawer every day and practiced adding and subtracting with this most amazing device. Their was no way I was going to master the logarithms and trig functions as I did not even know what logs and sines were. In my mind, there can be no more beautiful work of art in the world.

Once in high school, I fully expected to purchase one of these for Mr Manos’ physics class. But when we showed up on the first day, he wrote on the board “Texas Instruments TI-30.” He told us that was the name of the calculator we were expected to purchase. Apparently, this was one of the first years that calculators would be allowed. I remember going home and telling my father that we needed to buy one. Imagine the look on his face when I told him that! He just assumed that a calculator was a form of cheating.

We went to the department store; I wish I could remember which one, and purchased the TI-30 calculator. I brought it home and opened the box and there was a 100 page manual, a blue plastic zippered case and the calculator. What a beautiful thing this was in all its LED goodness. The buttons held an electronic world of numbers, not unlike the slide rule. I can remember the square root and cubed functions as well as parenthesis and memory recall. But what I remember the most was the button that had a solitary symbol on it, pi.

I had no idea what pi stood for, but I remember being fascinated by the symbol, the Greek letter pi. All I knew is that when I pushed the button, the same numbers appeared; 3.14159267. I was so fascinated by this number, that I actually remember going to the library to research what it meant. The librarian happily helped. She soon left me amidst a stack of geometry books. I read with fervor as much as I could and remember being dumbfounded when I found out that the number pi never ends. To this day, I still don’t understand how a number never ends.

Over the years, this number never left my brain. I could recite pi to 8 decimal places since 1978. In the big cosmic picture, so effing what?!

But fast forward this story to 6 months ago. Despite the fact that my oldest is in an advanced work program because of his academic abilities, he was struggling in the fifth grade. Every single night was a disaster of tantrums (his), rage (mine) and even some not-so-nice words (ours). I was completely disgusted at Michael’s apparent lack of enthusiasm or even his inability to simply get his homework over with as quickly as possible. Various techniques to motivate him failed miserably. I even (stupidly) said to Michael: “hey, buddy, if you finish this homework in the next hour, I will give you 5 dollars.” He looked me in the eyes and said: “No thanks.”

Then I had a brainstorm  I just wanted to see if ANYTHING would motivate him. So this is what I did: I wanted to offer him a challenge that was an academic challenge, but not tied to any of his current schoolwork. So, what I took out a dry erase marker and began writing out the first 30 digits to the number pi. I the copied it onto index cards and stuck them everywhere; from his school bag, to the bathroom wall.  I told him that he would have 2 weeks from that day to learn those 30 digits. Simply memorize them. He could try as many times as he wanted. If he made a mistake, just try again later. The reward at the end of this exercise would be the Nintendo Wii (this was before I realized that these consoles were something like a million dollars and impossible to find). The reality was that all I wanted him to do was get close enough and to just show a sincere effort. I actually PLANNED on buying the Wii anyway.

Two weeks to the day and I went to Michael and asked if he wanted to take a shot at it. His answer: “I didn’t memorize ALL of it.” I told him that was OK and asked him what he had already memorized. He said: “3 point something?”

I know full well that bribery really does not have a lot of staying power, but I would have thought if I simply presented this as challenge outside of school, he would look at it the right way. BUT HE MADE NO EFFORT WHATSOEVER! Why is that?

parenting | 7 Comments »

I am proud of my first-generation American status. I am so proud that I am tightly entwined to my relatives across the ocean in Italy and at the bottom of the world in Uruguay. It is through the sum of these two amazingly disparate, impossibly vast landscapes that shapes who I am today.

I can say that my work ethic (or my idealized work ethic that I have not yet realized), my passion for the extended family (my mom and dad live upstairs from us; my in-laws a mile away), my resourcefulness, my stubborn do-it-yourselfullness are all rooted in the role model that my mom and dad set for me.

In all that my family could offer me, they were never able to offer the love of learning. They were too practical and busy providing to be concerned about academics. Both my mom and dad have 5th grade educations. Obviously, this does not make them stupid. Quite the opposite, my parents are two of the most intelligent people I ever met. Their infinite resourcefulness always stunned me. Watching my father take an old piece of rug and cut out insoles for his boots is pure brilliance. Everyone else, myself included would have possibly purchased a new pair of insoles, but more than likely, would have just purchased a new pair of boots.

The Dan Leone that loves to write (yes, I admitted it…leave me alone now) and loves to read and loves to learn…absolutely everything, is what has blossomed all within me, in spite of or perhaps because of my parents.

I remember my first trips to the library. When all my friends would hang out at the Friendly’s, I would sneak away to the Newton Free Library in Newton Corner, just about a mile from my house. I would devour books. I remember the non-fiction racks and thumbing through page after page of exotica from the Time-Life series of books about strange cultures, to the symbols of calculus, to the star maps that I keep in my head even to this day.

But, I was a little older, perhaps 7th grade-ish, when I started hanging out in the fiction aisles. At first, all I did was thumb through the pages until I found a particularly titillating chapter and read it. I didn’t know much about what I read, but I knew that I needed to be hiding in the corner to read it.

Up until that point, I put a lot of effort into not reading fiction as I believed that there was no way to learn from fiction. Fiction was a lie….all fiction, a fantasy.

Then I came upon the first book I ever read as an adult: Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Don’t judge me. I know this is a very preachy and rather juvenile book, and perhaps filled with some spiritual elements that I have always been averse to. But this was the first time in my life that a story captured my imagination. The book made me think and showed me the relationships between story and reality; between symbols and truth.

Over the years, this is one of the few books I have ever read over and over again. I still return to it and have read it to the Baby Goats. I own a first edition and a copy in both Spanish and Greek.

After my introduction to fiction, I began devouring books. I devoured Salinger, Irving, Heller, Poe, Hemingway and even some cold war spy stuff like Follet and Ludlum. Each of them, in my face, with words designed to entertain, subvert, thrill and frighten. I loved them all.
As I have grown older, my love for fiction has grown and so had my love for non-fiction. But then as my passion for reading has grown, my time that I feel I can legitimately devote to it has decreased. This is partially due to the fact that I spend a TON of time on the internet, maximizing it for the way in which I learn; completely spontaneously where the word “surfing” was designed just for me.

Question for BoMR: What work of fiction had the earliest or greatest impact on your life?

reading, writing | 10 Comments »

Why is it that when an actor wants to portray a drunk person on TV or in the movies, they always hiccup? What’s with the hiccup that signals someone is drunk?

I have been drunk on more than one occasion in my life. I also have picked a lot of drunk people off the streets as an EMT. Never in my life have I seen someone become more hiccup-y as they got drunker.

Did it originate with that comedian Foster Brooks? What was his story anyway? All he ever did was play a drunk guy…a hiccuping drunk guy.

I know that people will slur their words, become increasingly socially lubricated and eventually throw up, but at what stage do you hiccup when drunk and why have I never seen it? “I am so dr-hic-dr-hic-dru-hic-drunk!”

Question for BoMR: Do you know anyone predisposed to hiccuping when drunk?

imponderable | 7 Comments »

For those that don’t know, but for some reason care, Analysis Paralysis is the case where the cost of analyzing a decision outweighs the benefit of action. This is essentially the state of thinking about doing something, but not doing it (not really, but it is a way to look at it). This is my biggest personal flaw, besides being a mediocre parent, a mediocre-er writer, and the mediocre-est self-deprecator.

Analysis Paralysis manifests itself in so many ways in my life that I thought I would share some of it with you. Basically, I thought I would bare my soul to you, embarrass myself and, quite possibly, be moved into action.

I was watching my son the other day, “getting ready” to do his homework. I have often noted in my posts that he is very adept at “getting ready to begin thinking about starting to commence” his homework. He meticulously went through each of his 5,798 pencils, looking for the perfect one. Then he set up his workspace with one of his 4,290 notebooks, pads and reams of paper. He then proceeded to get a snack to give him an energy boost of course. Afterwards, he asked me to borrow my IPod and since we live in a closet, I let him listen to his playlist while doing homework because it is either that or listening to me shake my cane at my other baby goats. He fiddled with the IPod until he found the perfect Crazy Frog song to listen to and then he finally lifted his pencil and put it to paper. Thank the gods that he did, because one more second later and my head would have popped off.

Then I had an epiphany, something akin to Harry Chapin when he realized “my boy was just like me.” I know full well that this behavior was strictly a procrastination technique. This is not exactly the same as what happens in my life, because I do not believe I am procrastinating. I sincerely am looking for the best decision, but in the process of deciding, I am essentially paralyzed.

Here are some ways that this manifests in my life:

1. Writing: I spend a lot of time thinking about finishing my novel. Despite the fact that I put it down all the time, I am actually quite proud of my initial attempts at writing. But, lately, I have found myself saying “I want to write tonight” but instead of writing I sit there and wonder if I should write longhand or write on the computer. Then I wonder if I should write online using ZohoWriter (highly recommended) or write using the YWriter software. Then I wonder if I should move forward in the novel or rewrite a previous chapter because it clearly sucks. You can guess what happens: Analysis Paralysis.

2. Reading: I have approximately 500 books on two bookshelves and possibly three times that in RubberMaid containers in the basement. Of those 500 books, I sincerely and eagerly want to read about 30 of them. The rest are fine collecting dust. But, when I am bored out of my mind and I have officially read the entire internet, I go to the shelf and try to decide on one of those 30 books. Each of them has a bookmark conveniently placed on page 5. You can guess what happens: Analysis Paralysis.

3. Organization: This is almost literally what happens every single day: I leave work anywhere between 5 and 7. I get in my car and get to the exit of the parking lot. I then call my wife and ask her what direction I need to go. Where am I supposed to be now? Who am I to pick up from where? What meeting or parent group do I attend tonight? (All these questions happened before I got sick. Now I don’t drive, and all I do is get my butt home and lay down in bed, writhing in pain).

I am a big fan of the Getting Things Done (GTD) system of productivity. If anyone is looking for a way to be more productive in their personal and/or business lives, I would highly recommend reading David Allen’s book on the subject, Getting Things Done. The really cool thing is that there are a ton of resources on the internet to guide you through the process. There are also myriad ways to implement the system, from very low-tech index cards stuffed in your pocket, to high-tech web apps. I am a fan of both sytems. You can even find a category on Flickr to see photos of how others have implemented GTD into their lives. Cool. I have fallen victim to the classic problem with GTD. There are so many ways to incorporate this into your life, that I spend more time trying new ways to be more productive that I end up being very unproductive as I am constantly copying todo’s and calendars and project lists from one system to another. For those that are interested, I am settling on a combination of some apps that I HIGHLY recommend you try: Google Calendar, Remember the Milk and Jott (awesome utility that I have been using for over a year! I can’t live without it.). That does not mean these are the absolute BEST tools to use, but they are fitting into my life and becoming a “trusted system,” which is extremely important to GTD.

4. Work: in 43 years on this planet, I have never taken notes. During meetings, I am not a note taker so I spend a lot of time after meetings wondering what was said. On more than a few occasions, I have been forced to remember what was discussed or how a problem was solved and I was completely empty handed.

Towards the end of last year, I made the decision to find the best method of note-taking that works for me. I am not fast at writing longhand and what usually results is barely legible, but I LOVE the feeling of freehand writing. I am a huge fan of the Circa system of note-taking. Highly customizable and I find that if I spend a little money upfront, I usually take the system more seriously. This is why I do not use the generic spiral notebooks and Bic pens found in every office. I also have toyed with Evernote for my laptop, but of course, this means that I need to carry my laptop into each meeting. This is a little inconvenient and I think that the perception of the other meeting attendees is that I am doing emails or distracted with something else. So, I am settling in on longhand for my note-taking which then is reinforced by the fact that I typically transfer these notes digitally at some later point.

The point of this too long of a post, is that I have been dealing with this Analysis Paralysis for so many years and I am finally getting to the bottom of it and facing it head on.

Question for BoMR (Both of My Readers): Are you a thinker or a doer? Is that a good thing?

getting things done, writing | 8 Comments »

OK, let’s talk about kids. This has been a topic I have avoided over the years, both on the blog and in real life. Unfortunately, I finally realized that I can no longer hide from the fact that I am a parent. There, I said it.

With that realization came the responsibility. These little apprentice humans are looking to me for guidance on the rocky road of this thing called life.

When I was growing up, I had two very loving parents. Never at any moment in my life did I feel the need to question their love. They provided for me, bandaged my boo-boos and made me feel safe. As I thought about my own children (I have something like 2 or 3 at last count!), I realized something that makes me a VERY different parent than my own parents were.

Whereas my mom and dad loved me, they never were my friends. My dad and I had a distant relationship, not physically, but emotionally. That only meant that he was not my buddy. He was my father; a role I understood to be different than that of a friend. I never craved his friendship nor sought him out for advice in times of need. Again, he had a duty as a father…to father and not be my friend.

This is due partially as a response to the Old World mentality of both of my parents. Parents are not friends. Parents are providers. Parents are role models. Parents are there. But my parents were never chummy. My dad never wrapped his giant arms around my shoulders and called me pal. As far as I knew, my dad was not even human….he was simply a father.

But when I had children (don’t ask me why…I am still trying to figure that one out), I thought that I would change all that. I thought that I could be a friend to my children. I am always showing them that too am a human being. I have faults and things scare me and that I am not perfect. I want to share those especially with my 10 year old as he is going through some awkward stages right now.  I want to relate to him on his level. I want to get down eye to eye and hold him and tell him I understand what he is going through.  I want to tell him that I understand if he doesn’t want to go to school because I sometimes don’t feel like going to work. I want to tell him that I know how it feels when a friend betrays him and that he always has me to turn to.  I want to drop to my knees and build a Lego catapult with him and get excited if we can launch one of Nicole’s dolls across the room into the bathroom sink, even if it means knocking over the toothbrushes. I want to share in the wonder of discovery with him. I want him to see me as a partner who is willing to guide as well as willing to be guided. Sometimes I think he gets it. Sometimes I think he thinks I am a little weird.

Question for BoMR (Both of My Readers): What are you doing differently to raise your children than how your parents raised you? What are you doing similarly?

Baby Goats | 7 Comments »

Pain

Shards of glass sanded into skin

Spasms of involuntary twitching

As when flame meets raw nerve endings

Medicine vs Pain and

Pain usually wins

Because the only thing worse than this Pain

Is the humiliation of retching while the family watches

writing | 3 Comments »

Interesting website, called FelonSpy.

By typing in your address, you will be served with a potentially eye-opening, certainly frightening, map of your street with the names and address of local criminals, both convicted and accused.

There are a bunch of caveats I have for you, before you visit the site:

A. I have ABSOLUTELY no idea about the accuracy of the information. The site claims that it scours numerous databases and public records to create the list. But, I would not take this as an open invitation to lynch your neighbor.

B. This is a VERY pro-gun website. There are advertisements and images of guns, so if those images disturb you, keep it in my mind while surfing.

C. The language is a tad intense, especially on the “Remove Your Name”  category.

D. If you read the FAQ’s closely, you may be dissuaded from using the site at all. It appears that anyone can report ANYONE to be added to this site, without verification!

But I found this site helpful. There are a couple of people within a quarter mile radius of me that are convicted sex offenders. One of these people I already knew about and his name is familiar to me, so the site is at least somewhat accurate.

Question for BoMR: Is the type of information found on these types of sites (I am sure there are many more) useful to you? 

uncategorized | 7 Comments »

I don’t care what anyone says, but it is 2:30 in the morning and I am laughing out loudly right now because I just woke up thinking of this joke.

Q: What do you get when someone is diagnosed with both ADD and dyslexia?

A: A DAD!

Funny or not…do I own this one? I have this sneaky suspicion that I will be taking this one down before the end of the night.

 Question for BoMR (Both of My Readers): What was the last thing that woke you from a deep sleep?

funny | 8 Comments »

Mr Lady at Whiskey in My Sippy Cup wrote this haiku in a recent post (I am shamelessly cutting and pasting without asking her permissions….shhhh don’t tell her):

Fourty days until
Easter? Crap! I’m giving up
religion for lent.

I TOTALLY wish I said that! I am so mad. Wit is something I lack (in other words, I am”wit-out” wit or witless). Then pure genius comes along and says something funny, irreverant, thought-provoking AND then manages to squeeze it into the seventeen-syllabled straight-jacket of a haiku

Meanwhile, I site here pondering another post about the urinals in the men’s room!

atheism, blogs way better than mine, funny | 4 Comments »

Anyone over the age of three (but under the age of me) knows that LOL is the internent abbreviation for “Laughing out Loud.” There are a whole slew of these abbreviations which makes chatting and IM’ing even that much more impersonal. But in an age where the thumb is mightier than the pen, I can understand the necessity.

Everyone knows:

ROFLMAO

BRB

AFAIAC

AFK

HTH

IMHO

OMG 

But I have a confession for both of you. Today, in a normal 3-dimensional-land conversation, I said “LOL!” Yup, I said, “Ell-Oh-Ell” when someone said a joke. I said it out loud.  The worse part of it was, the person I said it to, did not know what LOL meant. She asked me what I just said. I repeated it, embarrassed, and she still had no idea.

Question for BoMR: Do you have a favorite internet abbreviation? 

What is funny is that when I worked on the ambulance, we used a ton of abbreviations (this was in the day when the daily newspaper was the internet). My favorite was: LOLFDGB (Little Old Lady, Fall Down, Go Boom)

funny | 15 Comments »

I would Google that ONLY if you are brave. That condition, my friends, is what I have been battling for over a year and a half. I am currently in the midst of an excruciatingly painful time in my life. Due to this condition, I am almost unable to stand up and need a cane to walk If you would allow me a chance to explain it, perhaps it will explain the on again, off again, affair I am having with my blog.

About 18 months ago, I had a spot on my leg that would not heal. It was about the size of a nickel. I went to a dermatologist and was immediately diagnosed with a Brown Recluse Spider bite. I was treated with very painful injections once or twice per week. The wound gradually became bigger and grew to the size of a small saucer on my lower left shin. I had it biopsied and had to spray painful concoctions on it, but with little benefit. All the while, this thing grew bigger and the pain almost floored me. It was greater than the pain that comes from a wound. The pain was throughout my leg.

Eventually, it decreased in size and healed, leaving an ugly scar on my shin. I was able to get back on with my life and thought nothing much about it.

But then it happened again….in a different location on the same leg. This all but ruled out the possibility of a spider bite. It was now diagnosed as pyoderma gangrenosum. PG is a rare, painful condition where an ulcer develops usually on the legs. There is no known etiology and no known cure.

This new ulcer was located on the back of my thigh. This made walking almost impossible. I took a 6 week leave of absence from work this past October and laid flat on my back during most of that time. Taking time off from work is one thing, but there is no taking time off from being a dad. My family was somehow patient with me as I buried myself in the attic. But I still needed to function and be a part of their lives….even if with some difficulty.

This would eventually healed using some really heavy immuno-suppressant drugs. Now add a new scar to the back of my thigh.

Additionally, I have made severe dietary restrictions based on what one of my doctors suggested. That is fine, since I have lost 60 pounds…45 pounds now.

So, I went on with my life, feeling like a nightmare was over. Then last week came. I noticed a small bump in my leg and my heart raced as I thought about what was about to happen to me again. This time it was on the right leg, behind my thigh. One week later and I can barely get off my ass as the pain is already too great to handle. The drugs I need to take now include chemotherapy drugs in low doses. I doubt my hair will fall out, but I can tell you that my stomach is doing somersaults. I need to micro-manage the wound care too which includes a TON of tape and gauze and wincing in pain. I need to carefully take showers as the water is painful too.

As I type this, my leg is in incredible pain. I cannot stand and I can barely drive. It begins, again and there is nothing I can do about it.

Amidst all this pain, the world does not stop spinning for me. Work is presenting itself with many projects and deadlines that normally would excite me but are now just frustrating me. At home, I lay here knowing that I need to continue to be there for my father and mother as he deals with MUCH worse than mere pain in the leg. I need to be there for my family as we struggle with myriad crises; some of them serious. We are in the process of moving from the first floor to the second and bringing my parents from the second to the floor. This is a logistical nightmare which is quickly becoming impossible to manage.

I have not told many of you my battles with this blasted disease, because it is both hard to talk about and because it is humiliating and gross. But, I want to share with you what is happening in my life because you are as much my friends as are the people in my real world, In many cases, more so.

It is 2AM, my hands shake as I type in pain. I feel sick to my stomach and want to go into the basement and hack off my leg and I would if I knew it would solve this problem. But then I remember, that my 10 year old has been lying to us about his homework and now we need to spend all of Sunday trying to make up for the last two months of not doing it. I need to call a tree cutter to deal with the two trees that are precariously close to our bedroom window and I need to go to work to try to meet a deadline this week. All this while trying to forget my leg even exists right now.

Sorry to be so maudlin, but I am mad right now at the cards I have been dealt.

health, uncategorized | 18 Comments »

What day did Chelsea Clinton become kind of hot?

Question for BoMR: Whether male or female, who is bizarrely more attractive than you think should be?

imponderable | 6 Comments »