A Note About Dave's Blog

At the beginning of the year I (Dave) had started my own blog. It was meant to be a site where a few invited friends of mine could visit and discuss certain topics. I thought I took steps to keep it private, but somehow I missed the fact it showed up under Shelley's list of blogs. Within the past two weeks I have had a few people tell me they read my blog, which was a surprise until I learned how easy it was to access! I debated whether to shift the site's purpose to being open to anyone to read and decided I would try it. My first post after making this decision was written Friday, the 28th. The posts before that date were odds and ends left over from discussions before I was aware of its general availability. I tend to be a somewhat cerebral guy when I write and so if that is your sort of thing I hope you enjoy reading it. www.davidcapener.blogspot.com

Mamma Mia, here I come!

I had lunch with a friend, and fellow Zumba instructor last week and she and I decided we would should have a girls trip to Broadway one of these days to see a show together. We also talked about how I really like ABBA...she has seen the musical Mamma Mia, based on the songs of ABBA and LOVED it so we decided we would see that together some time. Long story short, we're going THIS Sunday to the matinee performance. That's the nice thing about having husbands who work in the City. They can just swing by the box office and get good deals on good seats and save $$ over buying on-line tickets. Anyhoo, so I am very excited about that. I really don't know anything about this show but I figure how can you NOT have fun at a show where people look like this.
In addition to the show, we decided to go into the City early to attend a Zumba class given by another fellow instructor and friend, Ben Byrd. It will be at the world famous Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. So now I'll be able to say I "shaked my groove thang' at the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. Who knows, maybe they'll ask me to join their dance company and tour the world to share my expertise and unbridled talent. ;o) Hey, I'm sure that could happen...
p.s. Even though we "saved" money on our tickets, I'm still counting on certain people to send me birthday money to help cover the costs...hint, hint. You know who you are.

Tide Talking Stain

Hopefully you already saw my favorite Super Bowl commercial from this earlier post. I had way too much free time on the computer today and decided to do this:

Great use of spare time, eh?!

One more...

I just found one more random sampling:
I found these tags on the floor of the garage yesterday as I was digging through boxes looking for Easter baskets, etc. Somehow they had fallen out of the trash can. They are from last Fall when Dave "processed" John Mayer's watch at work. His particular watch costs around $250,000. It looks like this, if you're interested. No, just kidding; it really looks like this. And it really does cost that much.

Random Sampler

This post is full of random stuff, daily drivel, nothing important really. Just some things I keep forgetting to blog about.
Last weekend, over dinner, we were discussing Dave's upcoming trip to Switzerland. He will be gone for a month. I am very anxious about this as I do not do well as a single mom, much less a single working mom with no family and few friends nearby. But I digress...
We've been talking openly about this trip for awhile but for some reason, just this past Saturday, it finally sunk in with Peter. We were eating dinner and talking about the trip and that little light bulb went off over Peter's head and he said to Dave, "You're leaving for a whole month?!?!" Then things spiraled downward from there. You see, when Peter gets sad, truly sad, it is a most pathetic sight. It makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time. First his eyes become HUGE and the lower edges brim with tears. Then, I swear, his entire face slides slowly south. It's like his whole face collapses with sadness, in slow motion, and then the alligator tears start flowing. It's the saddest thing to watch so you feel like crying, too, but you have to laugh to keep from crying and also because it's so darn cute. Then he thinks you're laughing AT him and he buries his face in his hands and sobs harder which makes you feel like a total heel. Anyway, enough about me. Here's Peter AFTER he was done with his crying jag. He actually removed himself from the dinner table and I sat on the couch and held him for awhile.
Here's Dave trying to finish his dinner and feeling like a heel:

I forgot to mention what Peter said right after, "You're leaving for a whole month?!?!" He said, "But who's going to help me play Zelda?!" Zelda, as many of you know, is a video game and Dave "helps" Peter with the difficult parts. I certainly can't do it. I know nothing about video games. I can't even watch them because I get motion sick when I do. We're hoping Sam and Caleb will be able to help Peter with Zelda next month...

Moving on, see how unhappy I look in this picture?
I am unhappy because my Schick Quattro for women (razor) fell in the shower the other day and broke so I had to buy a new one. No, just kidding, that is not why I'm unhappy. I'm unhappy because WHY WHY WHY do they package these things so that you can't get the darn thing OPEN?!?!? I can't tell you how long it took me to get that razor out of the package. And I'm a smart person. And strong too. I kept looking at the package thinking maybe there were instructions somewhere that I was missing. Surely I missed something somewhere; it surely can't be THIS hard. Alas, YES, it IS this hard. A few weeks ago I was trying to open a package of batteries and I just about had to get a blow torch to get a one stupid battery out. And don't even get me started on children's toys. How they twist-tie every single component into the box..."Merry Christmas kids! You can play with your new toy in about 2 hours when we finally get it out of the package!"...ugh...

Moving on...Sam had to do a report on Alabama recently. He had to make a poster which he, unfortunately, put off until the night before it was due. Here he is at 10:30pm:I was really torn with wanting to help him with it or let him suffer the full consequences of procrastinating and just go to bed. I figured he's in 5th grade, this might be a good time to learn this. To his credit, he never once complained, whined, or asked for help. Unfortunately, this made me want to help him more. I did stay up to show him how to try to make his lettering evenly-spaced and straight, but he didn't let me help him color or anything at all. When I offered, he said "Well, we're really supposed to do all the work ourselves." SO, I went to bed. I heard him go to bed finally at midnight. The next morning I thought I'd be dragging a tired, cranky 5th grader out of bed but he got himself up and ready fo school as usual. Then I asked to see his poster. I half-expected a sloppy job but then he showed me this:

I was really impressed! I thought he did a great job and can hardly believe he stayed up to color every inch of that darn thing. Hopefully his teacher will agree...

All the kids have chores to do around the house. One of Peter's is to take the disinfectant wipes and wipe down the bathroom counters and sink. I think he actually only cleans the faucet so we are still working on the rest...anyway, the other day as he was cleaning the faucet he said to me, "You know Mom, if we used CLOROX wipes, we'd have a streak-free shine on the faucet. See how there are streaks left on the faucet? See? With CLOROX wipes there aren't any streaks."
So here's a picture of the non-Clorox/generic brand wipes we use from Wal-Mart. Warning: these disinfectant wipes have been known to leave streaks on faucets.
I'm thinking I let them watch way too much television...or at least too many commercials...
Speaking of Peter, this morning I was making breakfast and he shuffled into the kitchen looking sad and forlorn. I think he even sniffled. I asked him what was wrong and he gestured towards the window and pointed outside.
"THIS" he said.
I quickly looked out he window but didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
"Um, what?" I said.
"LOOK!" he exclaimed.
I looked outside again. I thought maybe there was some kind of catastrophe going on that I somehow missed. I still didn't see anything. I tentatively asked again,
"What is it, honey? What's wrong?"
As his eyes filled with tears and his face slowly slid south (oh no!) he waved his arm towards the window again and finally wailed,
"THIS IS SPRING?!?!"
Then the light bulb went off over MY head and I realized he was referring to the weather. The cold weather, that is. Plus it is very windy today which makes it feel much colder.
So apparently they've been learning, in Kindergarten, all about Spring and the first day of Spring, etc., and what that entails. I think he honestly thought he would wake up this morning and put on a t-shirt and shorts...all the flowers would be blooming and butterflies would gaily fly by his window. Then we'd go outside and bask in the warm sunlight as we blew bubbles and played hopscotch with sidewalk chalk. Uh, yeah, NOT in New Jersey. Poor kid. I felt really bad for him. Somehow I was able to distract him with breakfast. I, myself, am easily distracted by food so it works for now.

One last random funny:

Is it Spring?

Although they are talking snow for tonight, we enjoyed 50 degree weather yesterday. The kids actually played outside a lot and they weren't even wearing coats! We came across this lonely little crocus smack-dab in the middle of our yard. I'm not sure how it ended up there and I'm even more amazed that it hasn't been stepped on or picked. I'm hoping it's a sign that Spring will actually arrive soon. Maybe even on March 21st?Can you find me?

Frozen in Grand Central Station

I thought this was a really cool "prank" in Grand Central Station. A very simple idea, but probably took some planning to pull off. Wish I had been there when it happened.

Lost in NYC

Last Saturday I went into the City for more all-day training at New York Sports Club. The training itself was somewhat uneventful. Actually it went really great because only 3 of us showed up (out of 10) so we got lots of 1:1 instruction and were able to finish earlier than the eight hours we were scheduled to be there. In case you're wondering what the heck I was doing there, I was finishing up my pilates reformer training as I will start teaching my own reformer classes at NYSC starting next week. It's kinda like pilates personal training on a machine/contraption that looks like a torturing device. I love it! The best part about teaching it is that I don't have to DO it; so it is not tiring or hard on my knee, obviously.
Anyhoo, I took the bus into the City and then had to walk a few blocks through Times Square to get to the right subway line. I wasn't sure how many blocks I needed to go so I was actually just standing at a corner wondering to myself, "Where is that darn subway? Where, oh where, could it be? It's got to be around here somewhere. Surely it's close by. Maybe I should check my map..." when I finally just looked up and saw this right in front of me:
Yeah...doesn't get much more obvious than THAT. At least I hadn't stooped so low as to ask someone for help. I would've marked myself as a tourist and instantly alerted every pick-pocket within a two block radius of my presence.

Later, after my training ended early, I decided to run a few errands. I'm a pro at the subway now (with the exception of finding it, apparently) so I was all set to jet about the City, by subway, to all my various destinations. There's one problem with going into the City on a weekend, though. They frig with the subway system. Any and all repairs are done during nights and weekends so service can unexpectedly interrupted, thus confusing us New Jersians to no end. Here's a picture of this weekends "service changes":OK, so did you catch all that? Have you figured out, yet, how to get from downtown to the West Village? No?! I know it's hard because you need a #1 red-line train to get there and there are NO #1 trains south of 14th St. on the weekends now. The #1 red-line is the ONLY train that goes to the West Village. (It's very uppity that way). So now you have to catch another train and go north to 14th St. and then go back south on a red-line #2 or #3 until you get remotely close to where you need to go and then you just have to hoof it. (In the pouring rain, by the way). Oh, but wait, as you're going south on the red-line #3 train an announcement is made over the train's P.A. system. It sounds like the teacher on Charlie Brown with a lot of extra static thrown in for good measure. ::static::mwa mwa mwa mwa service change mwa mwa F train mwa mwa the village mwa mwa mwa mwa::more static.
This didn't actually alarm me 'cause I figured I already knew all I needed to know about service changes for that weekend. No #1 train south of 14th street, blah blah blah. I should have been concerned, however, when everyone got off at the next stop except for me and this guy:Instead I was thinking about how thirsty I was and wondering if he would share some of that Gatorade. At the next stop I figured out what was happening as we were no longer even ON the red-line anymore. We were now on an orange line headed East towards Queens. What the-? Are they allowed to do that? What are the people in Queens going to think when a train pulls up with a red #3 on it instead of an orange F? They're gonna think they died and went to heaven 'cause they're not in Queens anymore. There's no red trains in Queens.
Anyway, I said to myself, forget this, I'm outta here. So I jumped off (after one final swig of Gatorade) and decided I would just walk...in the pouring rain with my broken umbrella. I was smack dab in the middle of Greenwich Village (I knew because I was surrounded by all things gay...including, but not limited to The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center with it's rainbow flag and then a terrific shoe store).
But I digress. So I'm in Greenwich Village and I need to get to the West Village so which direction do I need to go? In addition to having difficulty finding obvious subway stations, I am apparently impaired in the ability to know which direction I am facing once I ascend out from the underground subway. I can't tell you how many blocks East I walked, but it was A LOT. (Did I mention the pouring rain or the broken umbrella yet)? I tried to very inconspicuously turn around and head West without anyone noticing what a ditzo I was. I tried to make it look totally natural. I almost considered asking for directions as I suddenly pictured my children at home quietly whimpering and praying, "Please, please help Mummy find her way home..."
Then I walked many many many blocks West (passing all things gay again) to the West Village where I finally reached my destination. I'm sure you're wondering by n0w "WHY did she need to go to the West Village SO badly? WHAT could possibly be SO important? WHY WHY WHY?" If you really know me, you'll already know the answer. I'll give you a hint. One word: chocolate.
For those of you who can't quite make out the picture, it says Jacques Torres Chocolate. It's a delightful place and I strongly encourage you to check it out if you're ever in the Village and all the subway trains are running. My friend, Nichole, introduced me to it last Fall. YEA, Nichole! I burned an extra gazillion calories trying to get to that darned store so I figured I'd better indulge a little extra, right?

My navigation back to Times Square was remarkably uneventful, thank heaven, and I took a couple pictures of the military recruiting center that was bombed just a few days before. As you can see, it was no worse off than before. I don't think that place has every been photographed so much!
Note: I hope I don't offend anyone by the statement: all things gay. It was not meant to offend or be derisive in any way. On the contrary, I really liked being in that area. I was surrounded by great looking guys and terrific shoe stores! Also, I would never, ever, steal a homeless person's Gatorade...or would I...?

Does Size Matter?

Last week, I had an unexpected afternoon all to myself so I took full advantage and went to a mall I'd never been to before. It was HUGE. It had four levels and the usual big name department stores. It also had other big name stores like Target, Home Depot, BJ's (a.k.a. Sam's club), a New York Sports Club, and a LOT of restaurants...all in ONE mall. The best part was it even had a post office store so I could buy my stamps!

Anyway, the whole reason I went there was to go to this store called Steve & Barry's. I had never heard of it before but they sell a lot of workout apparel AND occasionally they decide to make everything in the store only $8.98. Clothes, shoes, heavy winter coats, everything is $8.98. Also, they're the only store to carry the new clothing line "Bitten" by Sarah Jessica Parker. (Normal clothes, not workout clothes). SO, I had to go check it out, naturally!

I was a little disappointed because I found almost NO workout clothes at all. They do have a line of clothing by Venus Williams but none of it would work for me and Zumba. They also carry a lot of collegiate apparel so if you need a sweatshirt with your favorite college team, this is the place to go.

Since I needed a new pair of jeans, I decided to check out Sarah Jessica Parker's line. How could I go wrong there, right? So there's this WALL of jeans, all in these cute white cubicles, you know. Each cubicle wasn't labeled but I think they were supposed to be somewhat categorized...in a perfect world. I decided to try to focus on one "style" at a time. There's the boot cut, flare cut, low rise, mid rise, and a new cut to me: the "boyfriend jean". I'm still not sure what that means, I didn't try on the boyfriend jeans. I knew I didn't want anything really low rise and I stuck to boot cut instead of flare because SJP's jeans didn't come in flare. I assumed that that meant that flare was out and boot cut is back.

So now I'm looking through the cubicles for mid-rise boot cut jeans and realize I have no idea what size to get. The jeans I was wearing, which fit snug straight out of the dryer say size 11. But I also have a pair of jean/capris at home that are size 6 and are too loose. I held up a size 10 and it looked like it might be too big. I spent a LOT of time digging through for a size 8. OH, and then I have to find a size 8 regular (length) instead of short or long length. And once I thought I had the right pair, I'd look at it and find something wrong, like it was actually the "boyfriend cut" or they were capris or there were rhinestones on the back pockets. Suddenly my nice relaxing afternoon of shopping is getting very stressful. Long story short: after spending all that time searching for the right style and size, turns out in THIS brand I wear a size four!?!? What?! I haven't worn a size four since...well, I never remember wearing a size four. Ever. I think I skipped right to a 7 in junior high and I'm certainly not thinner now than I was then.

I'm not bringing this all up to brag about being a size four 'cause, seriously folks, I am NOT a size four. Today I'm wearing my 11's. I'm just sayin' that we need to somehow standardize all this sizing nonsense in the U.S. It makes for a very stressful afternoon for me. (The only thing more stressful is bathing suit shopping. Ugh)! And what am I supposed to say when someone asks me what size I wear? Am I supposed to tell them I'm somewhere between a four and an eleven? That sounds ridiculous! I guess I'll just stick with saying, "Medium".

p.s. I DID buy the size four, mid-rise, boot cut in case any of you are wondering. I already have a chocolate stain on one thigh. Sigh...alas, they only cost $8.98 so who cares?!