Me to 7-Year Old Daughter: “You’ve got to stop biting your nails!”

7-Year Old Daughter: “Okay! Seriously, if I do it again, I’ll stick a rose with thorns down my throat.”

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3-Year Old Daughter: “Daddy what time is it?”

Me: “1:40”

3-Year Old Daughter: “Why?”

I hate ‘why.’ I can’t wait until she grows out of the ‘why’ phase. It’s maddening.

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Random shots with my cheap-o cell phone camera. Both clickable.

This is my attempt at conceptual art. It’s called Pant Leg, Favorite Pair of Shoes, Subway Platform Edge.

I know. You don’t have to say it.

This is the interior of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on 5th Avenue next door to Saks Fifth Avenue with my cell camera set to “cloudy.” The temple of Catholicism next to the temple of consumerism. Are they really so far apart?

This post is specifically for family lurkers who live 500 miles away and never get to see The Daughters [or Mrs. Wife and I, for that matter]. The rest of you might find this too saccharine. It almost verges into mommy blog territory. *Shudder!*

Here are the little darlings on the beach in Asbury Park flying a kite. It’s off-season and living on the Jersey Shore is suddenly a pleasure. The beaches are gloriously empty and, more importantly, there’s NO shore traffic. Would it be wrong for me to spread rumors of an epidemic next June to keep the seasonals away?

Mrs. Wife has no experience flying a kite, so it’s a lucky thing she brought an old pro like me along.

Here’s a rare full-frontal shot. I assume that only family members have made it this far into the post, so there’s no fear of outing the kiddies to the general public.

I was in Barnes & Noble picking out a few books for The Daughters and came across this end display in the pre-teen literature department. It’s a series of books that tell the story of people who devoted—and in some cases gave—their lives fighting for the rights of the oppressed. They were great humanitarians who were beacons of hope for the poor and the disenfranchised.

In my humble opinion, one of these books was slipped in as a joke. It’s almost shocking in its inclusion. Click on this pic and see if you can figure out which of these books does NOT belong. C’mon! Play along!

Did you happen to see the covers of last month’s Vanity Fair? It was two black and white photos of Farrah and Michael in the exact same pose. It’s an interesting juxtaposition.

It was clever and weird and a little sad. I’m sure they each had their pictures taken thousands of times and since there are a finite number of poses you can strike, it stands to reason that you can find two similar pics of these two. Vanity Fair should have gone for the trifecta and dug out a black and white glam shot of Ed McMahon with his arms crossed.

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Keyword activity used for a recent hit on my blog:

I can assure you that I have NO information about that! You’ll not find ANY medical advice on my blog that concerns the ingestion of any bodily fluids.

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I’m having some personnel problems at A Company Called Malice, Inc. I need some money. I need a LOT of money. I need so much money, that I don’t ever have to go into work again. How do I do that?

A happy 10th anniversary, Mrs. Wife. 10 years is pretty good, don’t you think? A lot of couples don’t make it this far. But we did. And it was fun, too! Well, most of it. The whole childbirth episode was pretty upsetting, if you don’t mind my saying so. We’re a long ways away from good ole’ Avenue B and Houston.

We were together for a bit over 2 years prior to getting hitched so do you think I could backdate our anniversary and say we’ve been together for a dozen years? I’ve been living the life of a married man for that amount of time so I’d like the credit for it.

Tonight we will abandon our children to the in-laws and stay at The Chateau Inn in Spring Lake, New Jersey, and dine at Vivas in scenic Belmar.

I will have the same conversation I always have with you when we find ourselves in these circumstances: How did we get so lucky? More importantly, can you imagine anyone else putting up with our shared neurosis? :10 minutes early is :10 minutes late.

That was pretty easy. How about it? Are you up for another 10?