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Austen and I were at Extra Innings in Laurel yesterday practicing her pitching. Normally the other tunnel next to us has another girl practicing her pitching as well. We usually start off with a little game of catch to warm up. No big deal, back and forth, nice easy pace. Soft to medium throws, cinchy.

So I wasn’t looking for the absolute rocket that came at me on her first “warm up” throw. I’m thinking, whoa Strasburg, no need for the 100mph’er right off the bat here, what gives? Silly me, silly daddy, wake the F up!

The tunnel next to us wasn’t inhabited by the usual, oh no. This time it was crawling with 6ft tall high school BOY hurlers who rotated every 10 minutes or so. It was a never ending parade of testosterone laden baseball players. When its another girl next cage, Austen gives her the “elevator eyes” (general judgmental look up and down that girls somehow intrinsically know how to do). This time it was quick little peeks, stolen here and there. So I guess its not surprising that there were to be NO girl throws, not with the men watching.

We’re having breakfast at Einstein Bros Bagels in College Park a few Sundays ago when a Celine Dion song comes on the store speakers. Cue Erin who is listening to her iPod.
Erin, “Whoa, who is that singing? I think my iPod just broke.”

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Yesterday Lisa and I are sitting in the living room. Erin walks in and starts pointing her finger at me, then Lisa, back and forth.
Erin, “Which one of you ladies is gonna fix me a sammich?”

Walking through Tyson’s Corner Mall today and happen upon some people, actually paying to submit themselves to what? Having their eyebrows tweezed by someone with string in their mouths. WTF? Is it me? Where do I begin?

No f’n way would I let some beotch put a string in her unsanitary mouth and let her tweeze my eyebrows. First of all, have people no shame today? Why would I, even if I was temporarily knocked senseless, ever want to have this done in public? Hey, why not a kiosk to comb my ass hairs? Second, if you need to tweeze your unibrow, do it at home, I don’t want to see that shit. Third, who “trains” these mouth stringers? Isn’t it unsanitary? Why is the string in their mouths in the first place?
All the while people are walking by this scene like its the most common thing ever. God, I just wanted to jump up on the Fake Uggs Kiosk and start yelling.  “What the hell’s wrong with you people? …  don’t you see that chick with the string in her mouth? … Soylent Green is people!”

Look, I’m going to be 50 next week, I know all about Grandpalikeeareyebrowandnosehairesyndrome okay? Once again, I blame my wife. I can’t always keep up with the kudzu like hair growth emanating from my earlobes. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, “warn me when you see wild-ass hairs sticking out of my ears.” Jesus. I don’t care how bad it gets for me, no, a thousand times no.

I was so fucking worked up I nearly missed my appointment at the teeth whitening kiosk.

LOVE this stuff. Love it.  Smells great, feels clean and has a nice refill. I’ve been trying to get in line about not using anti-bacterial soap. If you have kids you’ve no doubt gotten the lecture from your Ped. about too much use of anti-bacterial products be no good. Seems overuse can help germs build immunity to antibiotics, wha? Trouble is, everything is anti-bacterial, soap, tissues, you name it.

So finally found Method Foaming Hand Wash and there ain’t no going back. Other pump hand soaps are too gooey, (Dial) or too anti-bacterially (Softsoap). BTW- If you ever want to see something funny, check out my wife when she has to use a shitty gas station bathroom. That alone is funny, but when she comes out with her hands held up like she’s getting robbed, its a good indicator the soap (if there is any) smells like ass.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti anti-bacterial. Oh no, I love me some antibiotics when me or my gals are sick. Problem with that is you’re reduced to lying like a bastard to get it. I just want some of dat pink stuff or maybe a little ol Z pak. Thats all.

Me, “Uh, yeah Doctor, uh, yeah, my uh, yeah … fever for 7 months now. Whassat? oh, uh … about 107 degrees … yeah shakes … vomiting? … oh yeah, big on that, big on that. Whassat? diarrhea? … oh yeah, pure squirts there, pure squirts … Whassat? throat? oh … (close eyed gulp for effect ) on FIRE, on FIRE“

I find that that kind of plea usually works. Be sure to mention your throat is on FIRE! That is critical to your success, it says BACTERIA writ large. You may want to spray some red dye in there to complete the illusion. What you DO NOT want to hear is the term “Viral”. Viral means you ain’t getting shit.

And that’s why I love Method Hand Soap.

Oh the humanity. If I could list all of the failed chicken soup recipes I’ve tried, Ina’s, Joan’s, American Test Kitchen’s, on and on. I’m being a little harsh with the word “failed.” Failed in the sense that they failed to rise to the Gold Standard of Chicken Soup for TheDadReport.com family. And that would be Max’s Deli in Highland Park, IL. If you’re ever near there, GO. Really hungry? The answer is Mish Mosh. Mish Mosh = chicken soup, kreplach, rice, matzo ball, noodles. Oh, don’t forget the brisket sandwich on Challah. (That’s pronounced Hall-uh, not Chal-uh, ugh.) A close second is the chicken soup at The Stage Deli in NYC. I digress.

After much searching, the winner is from the Pioneer Woman Cooks. This chick has mad skills. Here is her recipe, with pics yo! When you print out her recipe to make the soup, and you will, note I have some mods. Her recipe is simple, fast and delicious. My mods are as follows, I’m sure you’ll have some of your own.

- 1 Carrot instead of 2
- 2 Teaspoons of Season-All Seasoned Salt instead of Lawry’s Seasoned Salt
- Deleted 2 Teaspoons of Jane’s Crazy Mixed-Up Salt or other salt blend
- 3 Teaspoons (heaping) of Better than Bouillon Reduced Sodium Chicken Base instead of 2 Tbs chicken base (See, I name names bitch)
- 1/4 Teaspoon Celery Salt
- 1/4 Teaspoon Black Pepper

Locally, the TDR team is very partial to the Chicken Soup at the Hollywood Diner in Rockville, Md. A very close second is the soup at Woodside Deli in Silver Spring, MD. Woodside is in desperate need of a renovation, so just don’t look too close at any one surface. Taking kids? Sit more to the front, the walls are covered in old black and white pics. Toward the front, the pics are more or less from US History, (A subject they don’t teach anymore) toward the back the pics are more or less Fluffy Soft Porn, (A subject you can’t get away from) think naked pin-up gals. All are covered in the requisite 50 year old Woodside dust. Clean the fricking pics will ya! Drives me nuts. Oy!

Couldn’t sleep the other night so I got up and watched TV. You should know I NEVER get up and watch TV when I can’t sleep. I’ll lay there in bed with my eyes open and stare at the blackness for hours before I go to the TV. Lisa is just the opposite, she bolts after a few non-winks.

So I’m tooling around the dial at 4am when I spy “Erotica” on DirecTV Infomercial channel. WTF? Isn’t this the channel with the “Knife” show? Or is the “Gem” show? Anyway, with eyes half open I turn on this channel and nearly rolled off the couch. Aside: Just the day before Lisa and I programmed the TV to hide any slutty “adult” channels, you know like MTV ;-).

Here are two normal looking infomercial chicks babbling on about this wonderful product that “we can all use to better our …” all the while holding onto this gigantic blue rubber dil … er, “girls best friend.” This thing had ticklers, schmicklers, gewgaws  and a second smaller dil … er, “girls best friend.” Jesus Christ. If you didn’t know better, you’d think these two might have been selling the Shamwow, they played it that straight, like everyone has this monster on their coffee table. “Just slide the helper slowly … you getting this camera guy?”

Next product up for discussion, “a friend for us guys.” OK, I’m listening. “Notice the realistic …” I was just about to scribble the 1-800 number down when I fell asleep.

With great anticipation TheDadReport.com crew headed down to DC to visit the newly re-modeled National Museum of American History. Not good. My advice, do not plan anything around a visit to this museum. The space itself is divided up into East and West wings with a center hall, all rightee. In doing so, it renders each little space in the wing(s) oddly compact and without life. For example: Popular Culture. You wait in line, the first thing you see as you enter is an electronic portrait of Stephen Colbert, uh, okay. Not the first person I think of as representing U.S. Popular Culture but okay, he’s funny and timely. That’s pretty much the highlight right there. Once past “Colberrrr”, you see Archie Bunker’s chair from All In The Family, a few shoes, a few baseball unis, Kermit and you’re out the door. Wow, not much to US pop culture. And the space is devoid of character. The little area where Archie’s chair resides has zero graphics on the wall, nothing indicating more to see ahead. It looks like a temporary exhibit where someone said, “uh, where are we putting this fricking chair?” “Just put it in a glass case and shove the whole shit out the door there to the left.”

To be fair there are a couple of exhibits worth your time. The Star Spangled Banner is super cool and well worth it. This exhibit is nicely designed, you see the flag and then read the history on the way out. Nice. I also enjoyed seeing Julia Child’s kitchen. It is her actual kitchen from her Cambridge, MA. home. Though I can see it only being of interest to a certain age of visitor. You can hear many parents telling their kids who Julia was. A lot of blank stares and “uh huhs” ahead. “Bon Appetit!” indeed.

The other exhibit worth mentioning is The First Ladies. The docent told us the exhibit will get larger, though it’s worth the time now. Take a look at all of the First Ladies portraits around the room and see if you can tell who the first one was to actually smile. As we sport 2 daughters, the First Ladies Inaugural gowns was a big hit. By-the-by, can someone take a better portrait of Michelle Obama? It may have been updated since we were there, but it looked like someone took Michelle’s pic with a cell phone. Come on.

So that’s it. It has a few things worth seeing but I’d skip it if I had a time crunch. I recommend the Natural History Museum, especially with kids in tow. A tip on parking: The Ronald Reagan Building. Located only a block away, you can park on weekends for $10 a day. Very convenient to the museums as well as the Washington Monument. Plus, it has super clean bathrooms and decent food court. It’s a nice place to stop for a drink or food and relax.

At a restaurant in Chicago last week the discussion turned to bacon. Guess who has the line of the day? Yup, Erin.
Erin, “Bacon is fried guilt.”

In the car the other day talking about Niagara Falls. Erin (who recently broke her pinkie) pipes up and sez: “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, I might break my other pinkie.”

I’m out today doing what I shouldn’t be doing: Eating fried chicken at Popeyes. Luv the spicy white 2pc and mashers with cajun gravy all washed down with a gallon of Diet Coke elixir of the Gods. Sad. Anyhoot, as I’m contemplating my choice for dining in the “dining room” I notice a Popeyes employee cleaning the tables. Okay so far, looks like some sort of antiseptic blue liquid . . . I’m cool with germ killing blue liquids. Looks like she’s giving the tabletop a good going-over with the death-to-germs soaked rag. And then I see it.

Uh oh . . .

In the blink of an eye, the tabletop rag has morphed into the seat cleaning rag . . . or ass wipe rag. “Oh no, no, no, . . . nooooooooooooooooo,” she takes the newly morphed ass wipe rag and moves to the next table and  . . . yep . . . it’s now the tabletop rag again. Ass to mouth, mouth to ass, repeat and rinse. Man-o-man. Actually, this is nothing new, I’ve seen this scene repeated many times in many places . . . appetizing.

I do have one bright spot to report: Roy Rogers. I was in a Roy’s in Gaithersburg one fine day getting my Roast Beast on when I spied the ubiquitous bucket of blue. Only this time it had some lettering on it. The lettering said, “For Tabletops ONLY!”

Yes, that’s what I’m talking about. Someone somewhere gets it: “Oh, table wipes are table wipes, and ass wipes are ass wipes, and never the twain shall meet.” Apologies to Kipling.