MonkeyFight

The Boy’s Irish Side

St. Patrick’s Day is an appropriate time to reflect on The Boy’s Irish side.  After all, right now people all over the city are getting drunk and bragging about being Irish. Some are even in traditional Irish dress: green foam hats, shamrock necklaces, and vomit-speckled shoes.

I only hear people brag about being Irish when they’re talking about drinking or actually drinking. It’s a sucker’s move. The drink has crushed a lot of great Irish (among others) and it’s only romantic from a distance.  Don’t get me wrong – I’ve embraced the drink plenty. In our youth, my brothers and I worked out a neat little routine called tequila chugging. And at one time my drink of choice was a funnel of Jack Daniels. I eventually evolved to a rocks glass - but please - no rocks. I’m no stranger to the drink but it’s silly and demeaning to attach it to your Irishness.

 When The Boy’s old enough, instead of introducing him to shamrocks and whiskey and green beer I’ll make sure he knows about a couple of Redmonds. There are a lot of them in my family.  I’ll make sure he knows that his great grandfather, my mother’s father, Redmond Burke, came over from County Kerry on the Lusitania after foregoing his scheduled passage on the Titanic because his suit wasn’t ready. Grandpa, I hope you tipped that tailor. And I’ll make sure The Boy knows that this Redmond enlisted in the Navy in 1918 and then worked for the NYPD and provided opportunities to his children that he never would have had back on the farm.

And I’ll tell The Boy about my Uncle Redmond who passed away last year.  His Veteran’s Day funeral inspired my post about the endless, ignored war in Afghanistan. In the days around his passing I learned that Uncle Redmond enlisted in the Navy before he even finished high school to fight in WWII. At the funeral home I heard about a letter he’d written in which he described an encounter with Kamikaze pilots at sea. The closest I’ve come to facing a Kamikaze pilot is when my dogs charge me when I’ve been away from home too long. Like his father, Uncle Redmond went on to the NYPD, working there for 39 years while rising to the rank of Captain. He worked in the infamous Bronx precinct nicknamed Fort Apache. I suppose staring down the Kamikaze pilots was good training for his time on the Force.

While I didn’t spend much time with these Redmonds I’ve always carried a lot of respect for them and for that entire side of my family - my mother’s side - my Irish half. It won’t be hard to inform The Boy about his Irish side. For one, the family’s been steadily working on the genealogy so we’ll have the who’s and where’s of it all.  And the topic is bound to come up when he's old enough to start asking about his name:  Enrico Lucas Redmond Gullo.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

P.S. I’m drunk.

Blizzard Gizzard

The City finally has the snow under control. A plow came down our street this morning, burying the cars that had been dug out over the past few days. And then there was the true measure that the hardships of the blizzard have come to an end: The Boy and I saw the first discarded chicken bone since the snow arrived.

It was perched in a snow bank just out of reach from Moose, my fifteen year old, handsome-as-ever dog. In his younger years (age 1 month-12 years) he would have lept the two feet to the top of the snowbank and been crunching bone before I could even tighten the leash. But this morning he just strained at the end of his leash, his snout longingly taking in the scent of greasey chicken flesh mixed with the crisp winter air.

I imagined he was remembering all the great food he's snatched off the sidewalks over the years. And there's been a lot: chicken bones, pizza crusts, half sandwiches, mysterious food wrapped in tin foil. For most of his life, I would fight with him to release the culinary treats he'd found. More than once I've grabbed the end of a pork chop bone that was clamped between his jaws as if it was a greasy door handle.  During those struggles, he must have been convinced that we were in direct competition for survival. After all, he was out scavenging for food and I was pulling it out of his mouth. And then, to his horror, I would throw the food back into the street. It's amazing he listens to anything I say after seeing that sort of behavior.

Chicken bones are the bane of urban dog owner's lives (except when pigeons are eating the meat off the bone which most people agree is grotesquely entertaining). They seem to be everywhere and it's often said they can be lethal since chicken bones can splinter and get caught in the dog's wind pipe. That said, Moose is 15 years old and he's eaten about 147 chicken bones over the years and he's never so much as had to clear his throat after eating one. So these days if I suddenly hear a satisfied crunching from Moose, I get less stressed about it. Instead I think, 'Well done, old man. You've still got it.' 

Anyway, we've got quite the cycle of life in the household between Moose's whopping fifteen years on the planet (that's 105 to you and me) and Enrico's measly four months. With New Year's Eve upon us it's like we've got our very own Father Time and Baby New Year in the house. 

I've learned a lot from Moose over the years - he's smart and strong, enthusiastic and resilient - all traits I'll encourage as a parent. But I'll still wrestle a dirty chicken bone from The Boy's mouth if he finds one on the sidewalk or playground.  I don't care what Moose says - that's nasty.

 

 

Vitamin ReDux

The Boy just turned three months old.  He’s plumping up nicely, and yesterday he flipped from his stomach to his back. Unfortunately, The Wife and I missed it because we were getting frisky.  But this isn’t that kind of blog. (Note to self: research those kinds of blogs.)  An article in today's paper relates to a post I wrote on October 6th and more recently to The Boy's two month medical checkup which brought shame upon our household. I wish I had written about it then. 

We were in the doctor’s office, cartoon hypodermic needles on the wall, and things were going fairly well. The doctor looked in The Boy’s eyes and ears and asked how he was eating. The usual checklist. She inspected his head and told us we should give him more tummy time because, “There’s a little flattening going on back there. It’s just aesthetic, but you know, if you can avoid it.” Our horrified silence told her we agreed.

Then, her eyes on her chart, she asked, almost as an after thought or a confirmation, “You’re giving him a Vitamin D supplement?” I paused, thinking of my blog entry, feeling slightly insane, like a reluctant crusader for a cause I didn’t care that much about. I said, “Yeahhh, I don’t really buy all that Vitamin D stuff.” The doctor looked up at me and her eyes changed. Like she had assumed she was talking to a completely rational, responsible parent one moment and a potential flight risk the next. Her eyes darted to The Wife as she explained why we should give the Vitamin D supplement. “I’ve done a lot of reading about this…and if you do all the reading you’ll see…” The Wife and I stammered through our response, assuring her we were not negligent, “Of course, oh, ok, we weren’t sure, it just seemed…hem haw…”  The doc closed by saying, “I mean, nobody’s gonna come to your house to make sure you’re giving him the Vitamin D but you really should do it.”

Ultimately, we walked out of the 2 month check up thinking we’d better get our act together unless we wanted a flat-headed, rickets-ridden kid. I mean, aesthetics matter. Frankenstein had a flat head and we all know how he ended up -  a misunderstood, gentle, flatheaded giant.  Needless to say, The Wife and I bought the Vitamin D drops and have been giving them to The Boy for the last few weeks.

And now today I hear about this new report that's all over the news.  A commitee of experts has concluded:  The very high levels of vitamin D that are often recommended by doctors and testing laboratories — and can be achieved only by taking supplements — are unnecessary and could be harmful, an expert committee says.

 And so it goes. 

Do scientists really need to spend this much time and energy on vitamins? Don’t we already know, for the most part, how to eat well? When I was growing up, my father, The Boy's namesake, had great nutritional advice. He preached in simple phrases that could fit on bumper stickers: “Eat food not food products!” ; “Use meat as a condiment!” That kind of common sense stuff. Stuff The Boy will be hearing from me I’m sure.

I wouldn't even notice this news if I wasn't a new parent parsing medical advice for the first time. But this confirms my vague, mostly uninformed, but adamant theories regarding the Great Vitamin D Conspiracy: the Vitamin Industry went to a conference with the Medical Industry, they had a few drinks, got freaky in a hotel room, and gave birth to a study that cites a need for Vitamin D supplements in just about every life form on the planet. The trend was rooted in profit not people. And that's why I think this is an important topic even for people who don't give a damn about Vitamins D, E, or F (but sometimes give a damn about Y). On some level, this seems to be another case of manufactured demand, a perfectly accepted practice that involves twisting the truth in hopes of selling us things, even if it puts us at risk.

The same report discounts much of the recent advice to consume more Calcium as well, which leads me to wonder what will happen to all that orange juice that must have been invented based on this medical advice? I’m referring of course to the delightful Tropicana Pure Premium Lots of Pulp Calcium + Vitamin D Orange Juice. (actual name).  Maybe another study will come out to convince us The Boy shouldn’t have the breast milk from his mother’s breast but from a newly designed feeding apparatus: The Mother Udder® that has an ergonomic design better suited for the development of an infant’s teeth and gums. Whatever it is, I’m sure they’ll find another thing we need. After all, the holidays are coming.

 
   
 

 

 

 

DON'T TREAD ON CHEESE!

The Boy received his first round of vaccines yesterday.  It was clearly alarming for him. He was yawning on the examination table one moment, and the next he was being jabbed in the thigh with a needle, only to be jabbed in the other thigh the very next moment.  Poor little fella — his face went all red and he started crying.  I tried to dull the pain by explaining to him that life is full of pain and he might as well get used to it sooner rather than later, but The Wife seemed to think putting him on the breast was a better idea.

Afterward, we took him to Taco Bell as a treat. Not only does Taco Bell have delicious, affordable food, but it’s really become a bastion of creative thought by encouraging us all to think outside the bun. The Boy has only just turned 9 weeks old so he’s not eating solid foods yet, but he does seem to enjoy the colorful photos of food-like objects. I suppose fatherhood has had a profound impact on me because this time it struck me that a lot of the menu items look strangely like what would happen if we replaced The Boy’s diaper with a flour tortilla.

As usual The Wife and I each got the steak quesadilla with cheddar, pepper jack, mozzarella, and pepper jack sauce. As you might have guessed from our order, we like cheese in this household. Our weekly date night usually consists of a trip to Dominos for their Wisconsin Six Cheese Pizza which has mozzarella, feta, provolone, cheddar, parmesan, and asiago with a parmesan and asiago crust.

Anyway, after the quesadillas and a heated, outside the bun conversation about campaign finance reform, we headed home, confidant The Boy would soon be sharing our delicious meal through The Wife’s milk ducts.

And then today I woke up to find a disturbing story splashed across the front page of The New York Times. Apparently Taco Bell, Dominos, and other fast food giants have teamed up with Dairy Management, an organization committed to increasing American’s consumption of cheese. The problem is that Dairy Management is a marketing creation of the US Department of Agriculture, the agency at the center of an anti-obesity drive that discourages over-consumption of the foods Dairy Management is promoting through its 140 million dollar budget.  I’m not sure what bothers me more — that the government takeover so well articulated by The Tea Party has extended into our cheese industry—or the grotesque hypocrisy displayed by a government agency simultaneously encouraging gluttonous consumption of cheese while telling us to reduce saturated fats. 

This has left me uncertain about my own enjoyment of cheese.  Do I really prefer the Wisconsin Six Cheese Pizza over the traditional One Cheese Pizza? Or am I at the mercy of some complex web of influence, a back room conspiracy hosted by powerful corporate and government interests, organizations with hundreds of millions of dollars dedicated to influencing our thinking. And what about The Boy?  It’s only a matter of time before he starts clamoring for that String Cheese I see being handed out like crack cocaine in all the local playgrounds. How will I be sure he really wants the cheese and hasn’t just fallen prey to an omnipresent cheese conspiracy? 

As for myself, I’ll have to start from scratch, reevaluating all of my tastes and preferences. But for now, to protect us all from such confusion and instability which could rattle our treasured consumer confidence, it’s time this country expanded on its tradition of separation of Church and State to include the separation of Cheese and State.