Category Archives: Family News

Limber Shaming – It needs to stop

Posted on by

I feel compelled today to tell you about something that happened to me recently.  I should say “again” since I have experienced this over and over again my entire life.  I’m finally mature enough, and strong enough to talk about it.  We’re here to talk about limber shaming, folks.  It’s very real.

In grade school I took Tae Kwon Do for several years, got my red belt even (this is a lot of Tae Kwon Do for a 6, 7, 8th grader).  Like any martial art, there’s a tremendous amount of kicking, and stretching.  Despite all of that practice, even gifted with youth, the best I was able to do was to really kick the crap out of somebody’s shins.  I just wasn’t flexible enough to manage a kick above my own waist.

I have long since resigned myself that touching of toes is just not for me.  The children’s song “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” is actually “Head, Shoulders, Knees and lower shins” for me.

I like to think of my challenges as more of a gift.  After all, my hamstrings are obviously much stronger (although half the length they should be) than most.  Maybe they were installed sideways, I will never know.

Needless to say the passage of time has not been kind to my flexibility.  Through a twisted and perverse fate, I happened to marry a wonderful woman who does not even have ligaments.  Nikki has the flexibility of an octopus, and never skips an opportunity to laugh and tease me when she notices how stiff I am.  This kind of shaming is the worst.  From time to time when she is bored she will arrange for me to do a yoga class with her and Lockrey.  I can easily hear their snickers and snorts over my own labored breathing as we do even the most basic of yoga poses.  I can do yoga no problem, but my repertoire is limited to the “sweaty two by four”, the “sideways two by four” and the “downward facing slightly warped two by four”.  Maybe one day her freakish flexibility will extend to her heart so she can really understand the struggles of the stiff <sniff>.

I have passed on my gifts to my sons, who sadly are doomed to stiffly clatter through life with me.  It’s very telling that Cael just said today:  “One day I will save my money and buy a long shoe horn so I can put on my shoes more easily.”

Weep for the Vallentyne children, people….  Think of us as Vallentyne Tin Men.  But of course, we already have very very sad hearts.  Just no hamstrings.

Me touching my toes

Me touching my toes

 

User Interface Design?

Posted on by

We have a relatively new dishwasher.  It’s very nice, and has a cool display that tells you what’s going on, it’s the only visible control when it’s closed. For instance when it starts the cycle, it tells you that now is a fine time to add that glass you just finished drinking from, and no, you didn’t miss anything yet in terms of washing awesomeness.

Or at least, that’s what it’s trying to do.  It has a fatal user interface flaw that prevented this from happening one memorable time.

Nikki’s Mom and Dad were over watching the boys for us one weekend while we were away, and decided (rather uncharacteristically) that they would run the dishwasher.  The boys helped out, they loaded everything up, and the boys helped to put the soap packet thing in.  They even pushed the right button (a very good choice in user interface) called Start.

The dishwasher then starts to make a few muted sounds, there’s a bit of water running, etc.  On the display, a somewhat tentative pair of grandparents and two young boys looked and saw this:

Add a dish

They looked at each other, and came to the only sensible conclusion:  they must not have put enough dishes into the dishwasher.  “Add a dish” the display says in ominous red.

Needless to say they opened the dishwasher and added a dish, whatever was close at hand, maybe something not yet ready for the wash yet, but hey.  Restart the cycle, close the door, and there it was:

Add a dish

The next logical thing was, we must not have added the right dish.  That’s a bit of a poser of a problem, because at some point they start to wonder how in the hell does the dishwasher know what dishes are in there?  Nevertheless, they gamely try to figure out what dish is missing, what is the special dish the dishwasher needs to run?

You might have figured out that the fatal flaw of this interface is essentially summed up as lacking a single question mark.  If that glowing red message said “Add a Dish?” there would have been no question in anyone’s mind that it was indeed optional, and poor Paul and Darlene would not have stuffed the dishwasher full of every darn dish in the house in an effort to satisfy the implacable smug machine.

Happy Teenager Day

Posted on by

Today Quinn turns into a teenager, the very thought makes me realize just how crazy time is.  I won’t get all maudlin about how he was an adorable baby just like last week and he’s made of puppy kisses and rainbows.  Well, he is, but that’s irrelevant.

I thought instead I would just say how proud I am that he is becoming the person he is.  He’s my son, but more so he’s my friend, and I’m pretty happy to know him.  He’s a good person, and funny.  I will take credit for one of those things, the other happened because that’s who he is (yeah that’s just a proud parent thing).  I value his friendship and look forward to many years of it.  Sharing a laugh because what makes us laugh is usually the exact same thing is the best thing ever.

Anyway, just wanted to leave a little note to say that my buddy turned 13 here on the blog, and I’m proud of him.  I’ll just leave this here for him to read at some point later on.  🙂

Electrical food puns, or ohm my god this food is good

Posted on by

Cael and I have done a lot of driving to and from the Pakenham ski hill recently and we have noticed that there is a particularly interesting sign placement for the Centennial restaurant beside a hydro power station.  Being Vallentynes and bored, of course this leads to electrical puns, we quickly rotated through the more obvious ones:

Watts on the menu?

The prices are shocking(ly) low!

etc.

However, just when I thought we had exhausted the whole gamut entirely, Cael came up with this one that I hadn’t actually thought of:

You’ll be ecstatic with our service!

I think that’s a top grade pun right there, and it brought a tear to my eye, being the corny dad that I am.

Here kitty kitty……GAH!

Posted on by

The recent story about the cat that “came back” so to speak from the dead is of course terrifying all by itself.  Just click through and read about this poor creature that decided it just wasn’t done eating the young and terrorizing the countryside.  I mean, seriously just look at this thing.

Why have you awoken me?

It looks like this particular cat is going to make it, somehow, which I suppose is great news for the cat but not so great for the family that buried him, as we all know.

This all reminded me of a story that I don’t believe made it to the blog yet, but I believe the statute of limitations has expired on it now and it can finally come to light.

Years ago, Jordy had a cat at her Dad’s house that wandered off one day unexpectedly.  It was missing for a while, but it did that often enough that she wasn’t too concerned, until one day when she was on her way back to Kanata after a weekend in Cornwall and she saw what was obviously her cat, dead on the road near her Dad’s house.  Needless to say by the time she got to Kanata she was fully worked up and very upset.  Nikki and I tried to calm her down the best we could, but it was soon clear that there really was only one choice.

So, with garbage bags, a shovel and gloves (and garlic, stakes and a crucifix) I drove off that evening to Cornwall to collect the cat.  There are few things that look as suspicious as being parked on the side of the road with the trunk up and a shovel in hand at night.  I made it back successfully without being arrested for questioning and proceeded to entomb the creature in our backyard by the ghostly light of the eldritch moon.  Or at least that’s what it felt like by this time, because there’s just something about moving dead things around in your car at night that gets to you…

The next morning I told Jordy that all was well, and the cat was at rest in our backyard.  Well, nice try there sucker, but Jordy had by this time written a letter to say goodbye, which she wanted buried with the cat.  Sooo we dug up the cat one more time, said a few words and re-buried the cat with the letter in the much friendlier and less sinister daylight.

End of story.

Except it wasn’t the end of the story.  Three weeks later, Jordy calls us from a weekend at her Dad’s house in Cornwall and says brightly on the phone:  “Guess what?  Caillou came back!”  I didn’t mention that the cat’s name was Caillou, did I?  Well it is.

And that friends, is how I came to drive most of two hours by moonlight to collect somebody else’s cat and bury it twice in my own backyard.