Robby Wrednesday: Thursday edition

Here's a shot from Rob called Malibu Carnival:

If I'm not mistaken, that's one of those potato sack slides. We buy our potatoes individually plastic-wrapped so you can just nuke 'em in seven minutes. Maybe we should start buying them by the sack instead, so we could bring our own sacks to our next carnival. We'd be like those bowlers who don't have to rent shoes.

King of the wild frontier

While tromping through the woods with Memphis last weekend, we happened upon the biggest pawprints I think I've ever seen. Being the expert tracker that I am, I immediately identified the prints as bear tracks.

Here's a picture of Memphis' paws beside one of the prints, taken with the tail from my coonskin cap held out of the way:

When I got home, the stupid Internet said that a bear track looks like this:

And a dog track looks like this:


Which is pretty much exactly what we found. Oh well. Still, we must have been hot on the heels on one big effing dog. Something like an English Mastiff:

or a Giant Pomeranian:

To maternity and beyond

After it became clear that the button and the button hole on her non-pregnant-person pants were destined ne’er to meet again, at least not prenatally, my wife Kara finally surrendered this week, making the switch to maternity pants. You wouldn’t be able to tell by looking; maternity pants look just like normal pants, except that they have an elastic band hidden under the shirt that allows so much growth that Kara could easily, if she were so inclined, sneak into a movie theater concealing a large soda, a bucket of popcorn and a teenaged walrus. This added functionality raises the obvious question: Why aren’t all pants maternity pants?

This question seems especially relevant to me right now, because Kara keeps dragging me to Pizza Hut, where I busily set to work growing a sympathy belly.

“I’m craving their creamy Italian salad dressing,” she tells me. To which an average person would reply, “Pizza Hut has salad?”

It does, unfortunately, and Kara can ignore its siren call no more than she can be disabused of the notion that a salad can serve as a meal. All by itself. Seriously.

“Please, no more Pizza Hut,” I implore her. “I’ve ingested more Pizza Hut than should be expected of any one man. Have mercy on me.”

But of course, pregnant women are not famous for having mercy upon the people responsible for their conditions. Like a twitching needle on a seismometer, she lets me know that there are precious few moments remaining before disaster strikes.

“If we don’t leave for Pizza Hut soon, I might get grouchy,” she says quietly, at which point I’ve already started the car.

Really, it’s nice that she wants to eat anything at all, as the first months of her pregnancy were marked by far more aversions than cravings, unless you count her sudden attraction to the toilet. She still hasn’t lost her superhuman sense of smell, though, which is so powerful that she could probably qualify to be an X-Man (named Nostril?) if only she could find a maternity leotard cool enough. At the very least, before her nose goes back to normal, she could probably pick up a few extra bucks at the airport sniffing luggage.

If you ever want to go as a pregnant lady for Halloween, just stuff a pillow up your shirt, and when the door opens, say, “Trick or…ew, what stinks?”

With her senses heightened and her squeamishness so easily triggered, supporting Kara by accompanying her to Pizza Hut is really the least I can do, though definitely not the least greasy. While she can order a salad for dinner and be content, I’m more from the school of thought that the proper place for a salad at dinnertime, absent hungry bunnies, is between the patty and the bun.

Besides, the place is not called Lettuce Hut. When I’m there, I have no choice but to order their shimmering, shiny pizza, which then allows me to fix my hair by the reflection off of the crust. We’ve eaten there so many times recently, I’m thinking of joining the pro wrestling circuit under the stage name Grease Trap. I’m still working out the details of my signature move, but it will definitely be called “the stuffed crust.”

I never thought I’d live to see the day where I’d be complaining about a woman forcing me to eat too much pizza, which is a phrase that had no meaning to me until very recently. With grease beginning to seep out of my pores, though, I’m starting to have many new health-related concerns, primarily that they’re going to put me in a pen at the county fair and make a contest out of which kid can catch me.

You can put Mike Todd in your purse and sneak him into the theater at mikectodd@gmail.com.

Robby Wrednesday: Wreloaded

Here's a shot from Rob called Nag & Colt, taken in Baja, Mexico:

When thinking about what sort of caption this picture deserved, I thought that maybe after complimenting Rob on another awesome photo, I could sneak in some sort of pun on "nag" that would test whether or not Kara ever reads my blog. But then I thought it might be wiser not to risk my recently proven ability to procreate.

Memphis and Coaliath

Last weekend, our friends Jen and Gary came up to visit, bringing their two-year-old daughter and their 140-pound Newfoundland, Coaly.

Here's what our puppy Memphis looks like standing next to Coaly (all photos courtesy of Gary):

The dogs hit it off famously. I think, though, that in varsity tug-of-war, they would have been in different weight divisions.

These pictures remind me of a skit from Robot Chicken called "The World's Most One-Sided Fistfights Caught on Film".

I have nothing more to offer but maximum cuteness from the You Have Two Seconds to Take This Picture Before Chaos Reigns Again department:

Another day, another banner

Perlson strikes again:

This one's in the rotation now. My suggestion for a caption was "A weekly column that stuffs cheese in places you'd never dream of," but it works better with Perlson's idea. Also, blotting pizza with a napkin makes it diet.

Taking care of the practice baby

A couple of years ago, my wife Kara and I couldn’t even consider the possibility of having a child, in no small part because we’d accidentally moved into our current house before selling our old one, a chest-clutching deviation from the original gameplan.

If you are among the 13 million people who have watched the post-anesthetization observations of the small boy in the YouTube clip titled “David After Dentist,” you might be familiar with some of his questions, which could well have been asked by someone paying two mortgages every month, namely: “Why is this happening to me?” and “Is this going to be forever?”

It wasn’t forever for us, but for the six long months that we owned a vacant house, the thought of adding a baby to our family was out of the question. We were practicing birth control via real estate, a mode of contraception that, thanks to the moribund housing market, continues to grow in popularity.

When we finally sold the house, all four of parents were surely thinking, “Here comes our first grandchild!”

But Kara and I were thinking, “Here comes our first rectangular TV!”

Actually, we were really thinking that we needed a practice baby, a way to get our feet used to the water before diving in. Our puppy Memphis has been invaluable in this regard.

For the first eight weeks, Memphis taught us what it was like to wake up every couple of hours. Eventually, she woke us up less and less, until she just naturally started sleeping through the night. Though the entire process took two whole months, Kara and I have great confidence that a baby will settle in much faster. A few weeks of reduced sleep might even be fun, like a slumber party that keeps on going.

Having a puppy also gets you used to the idea of being tethered to your house. You can’t just run out without first making sure that your dog’s needs are taken care of. Of course, we understand that there are probably differences here between puppies and babies, especially in regard to how long you can leave them crated. Most veterinarians say six hours is the absolute maximum for a dog, so I expect a pediatrician would say something in the same ballpark for a baby. Perhaps, though, you can get a couple more hours out of a baby if you leave the TV on for them. Tuned to PBS, of course. You want your child to learn while you’re at the ballgame.

Of course I know you can’t really crate a baby, which is why people bring screaming ones into whichever movie theater I’m in, but I do have serious reasons to doubt whether I’ll actually be fit to be a father before the August deadline, when our baby is scheduled to be delivered. My main concern is that I’ve never been able to toss a baseball to myself and hit it to a desired location. Pretty much every father I’ve ever seen has had this ability, especially my own, who could hit a pop fly or a grounder right to me every time, calling the shot beforehand like Babe Ruth.

Sometimes, I picture our own child, glove on knee, yawning, perhaps texting a friend with their free hand, as their father keeps yelling, “Just a minute!” and whiffing, over and over again, the ball pathetically plunking at his feet. Then I wake up screaming.

Also, with the publishing of this week’s column, I have successfully met the challenge from reader Anne Carra of Roxborough, who asked if I’d ever been able to use the word “moribund” correctly in a column. Of course I hadn’t, because as of a few hours ago, I thought a moribund was something you dunk into your coffee.

You can send Mike Todd a practice email at mikectodd@gmail.com.