Got Plans For The 4th?

Well, here we are once again. It’s July 4th tomorrow, the American Independence Day holiday. Most often it is celebrated with a barbecue/cook out, maybe a pool party, and a fireworks show. That’s all fine and well, but sometimes you just don’t want to celebrate in that way.

Maybe it’s due to the nation’s fractured politics. Maybe it’s because you or someone in your household is not a fan of fireworks due to noise/light sensitivity or, worse, because of PTSD. Maybe you’re just exhausted and need a day to stay indoors, rest, and recuperate.

You may not have any plans for the 4th of July holiday, willfully so, yet something feels off if you don’t mark the occasion somehow. Well, I agree, and I can think of very little that’s more American than sitting in your easy chair, grabbing some snacks and having your own movie marathon right there in your own living room. With that in mind, here is the official MonDAVES 4th of July, “Happy Birthday ‘Merica” movie list. Most of these are super long, so I’d suggest picking a maybe a few favorites, and hopefully one or two you haven’t seen, getting comfy and get it going. Save me some popcorn and happy viewing.

Independence Day (1996)
-Easy choice, since the holiday is right there in the title. Still, this is a fun Alien Invasion movie, with some stirring moments, decent effects, one of the best Presidential speeches ever courtesy of Bill Pullman (who I’d probably vote for, come to think of it), and Will Smith back when he was still Will Smith. While I tend to be more of a Mars Attacks! guy when it comes to this sort of film, Independence Day is way more fitting, and still good fun.

Patton (1970)
-I’m not one for most military flicks, but I know a good one when I see it. No matter your feelings about the man, the propaganda, or the history involved, this is a well made and, more importantly, well acted film. If you’ve never seen it, let whatever cynicism you may have go and give it a watch. It truly is an excellent film, and Patton’s speech in front of the American flag is just about as iconic an American movie shot can get. Also, when you’re done with this one, check out the Sesame Street parody of that iconic scene from their movie Follow That Bird. Oscar’s “Grouch Anthem” absolutely rules.

Lincoln (2012)
-Speilberg. Daniel Day Lewis. Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. ‘Nuff said.

Young Abraham Lincoln (1939)
-Another Lincoln bio focusing mostly on his early pre presidential days as a lawyer. Starring Henry Fonda and directed by the great John Ford, this is certainly a product of its time, but a worthwhile watch nonetheless. Okay, so it’s partially fictionalized but that didn’t stop y’all from loving Bohemian Rhapsody, so no complaining, history nerds. Just enjoy.

Glory (1989)
-One of my all time favorite movies. Glory tells the tale of, and is a tribute to the black veterans who fought against the Confederacy in the Civil War. The cast is amazing with Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman bringing their fine skills into sharp focus here, and Mathew Broderick proving himself to be much better than his Bueller reputation. This is also one of the few performances by Cary Elwes that I actually really like. It’s a fascinating movie and deseves to be seen by everybody.

Red Dawn (1984-not the remake. Who would even watch that? Bunch of heathens, that’s who.)
-Ah, the 1980s. The Cold War was real, and a Russian invasion of the USA was sold to us all as the number one fear of the day, with Nuclear War sure to follow. It was in this environment that Red Dawn was launched upon us. Brief plot synopsis: Russians invade a small town in Colorado. a group of teenagers escape to the forest when the attack begins, and then form a guerilla unit to take back their town. This movie could only come form the paranoia of the 1980s. In other hands this could have been a slapstick farce, but it is actually quite serious. I go back and forth between liking this movie due to its cast, the action, and even the outrageousness of its central idea to hating it for its blatant macho 2nd Amendment fetishism, and glorifying the militia mindset. Either way it is a telling piece of 80’s cinema that is an interesting time capsule sure to be viewed and discussed for many years to come.

Rocky IV (1985)
-Speaking of 80’s time capsules, this is one of the greatest! There was a sweeping Patriotism throughout most of the decade that you kind of got caught up in whether you wanted to or not. It was a positive one though, not like the mean spirited nationalism of today…although one could certainly draw a line between the two. Anyway, Rocky IV capitalized on this sentiment with gusto. From an amazingly cheesy soundtrack to the classic montages, the pull at your heartstrings formula, and the all-American boxer vs. Russian killing-machine plot, this quite possibly encapsulates the era better than any other movie of it’s time. You know what? Forget Red Dawn, watch this instead.

1776 (1972)
-A fictionalized account of the events leading up to the signing of The Declaration Of Independence. It’s a drama. Oh, it’s also a musical. It’s overlong and kind of ridiculous, but I still prefer it to Hamilton. Sorry, soccer moms!

Stripes (1980)
-Okay, so some of the scenes are kinda cringy now, and I’m unsure as to where we all landed on Bill Murray, but there are still plenty of reasons to watch this flick. Most of the bits still hold up, and with a cast that includes not only Bill Murray, but also Harold Ramis, John Candy, PJ Soles, John Larroquette, Sean Young and more, it’s hard not to like this one. The hilarious graduation scene is worth the viewing in and of itself.

M*A*S*H (1970)
-The movie that inspired the television series. The tone here is a little different here though. While still irreverant and undeniably funny, the movie is a black comedy so it’s got a much darker feel to it than the TV show. It can also be a little strange to see the original actors, great as they are, playing the people we’ve come to know and love through countless reruns. It’s a very good movie, but one that can’t help but be viewed differently than intended because of it’s television counterpart. Whether you watch it as a stand alone film, an experiment to compare and contrast with the series, or just because you want to learn the actual words to the theme song, it’s a film that any M*A*S*H fan should not miss.

Okay friends, that’s the list, and that’s more than enough. See you next week!

Elvis Has Left The Building

Sad news to share, friends. We’ve lost a furry friend.

Regular readers will remember back at the beginning of the year when I announced that we had adopted a senior dog named Elvis. I told you how he’d been very sick, but nursed back to health and we welcomed him into our home and our hearts.

When he first arrived, he was dealing with food insecurity. We got him through it.

While we weren’t sure of his backstory, it was pretty obvious that Elvis had a hard time of things before coming to live with us. We gave him snuggles, cuddles, and loved him until he felt secure.

He got to where he was a real part of the family. He followed us around the house. he jumped up on the couch when he wanted snuggles. He dug at the mole hills in the back yard to help guard his territory (good boy!). He didn’t like being put in his kennel, but eventually felt secure enough to know we were coming back for him.

I mention the kennel because it was actually necessary to put him in one when we left the house. Elvis was, let’s just say, a rapscallion. If there was a way to get into food while we were gone he would do it. He figured out early on that he could climb on the dining room chair to get onto the table, so if any one of us absent mindedly left food behind it was fair game for Elvis, wrapped and boxed or not. To his credit, he would happily share his ill gotten gains with his new big sister Zoey (our other dog), but Elvis was the main culprit.

If he could get the pantry open he would do that too, so we lost a few boxes of cereal and some crackers. Elvis also enjoyed a snack in the middle of the night, so he’d often go hunting in the wee hours for any food he could get hold of. Once he got hold of some chicken broth and chewed open several boxes. All over the house. While we did work him through his food insecurity, his appetite definitely remained. As a result, for the first time in years we had to buy a baby gate so we could put an end to the midnight munchies and get a little more sleep. It wasn’t his favorite thing in the world, but he accepted defeat graciously.

Don’t get me wrong, Elvis wasn’t always a scamp. He was a very sweet boy. Even if he did jump off of our son’s bed into the window as if he could fly and proceed to break the blinds in the process. Still unsure what that was all about.

Sorry. Got sidetracked. As I was saying, even with all the shenanigans he got up to, Elvis was a very sweet boy. He warmed up to people quickly. He loved getting pets and snuggles, and seemed to enjoy learning to catch pieces of popcorn thrown to him from the couch during movie time. He wasn’t particularly good at it, but he liked the game. Elvis always wanted to be around the family and a part of things, even if it meant just curling up beside the couch or the easy chair in the living room. We opened our hearts to him, and he did the same for us.

Elvis also liked to sleep a lot. In hindsight, that was probably a clue to what was coming, but since he was a senior dog we just figured he was old and tired. One of his favorite spots was under our son Pat’s bed, which the boy was totally cool with, so they hung out together a lot. It made for some cute moments, but a very sad young man at the end.

For as much as we cared for Elvis, and gave him his old man medications he needed, the dog was always a little underweight. No matter what we tried he just wasn’t gaining anything, and he was already underweight when we brought him home. I think he gained some in the first month actually, but couldn’t get any bigger. Elvis was a terrier with a big scruffy, stringy coat, so we didn’t really notice how skinny he was until he got his Summer haircut. It looked like he’d lost a whole other dog! We bought more food and started feeding him extra meals in hopes that that would do the trick. It turned out not to be the case.

Just a week or so after we realized his weight problem we had to call the vet. Elvis was dry heaving constantly and making all kinds of horrible noises. We were afraid that he had something stuck in his intestines or maybe his throat. Our vet told us to go to the ER, because they suspected bloat. I wasn’t sure how an underweight small breed dog could get bloat, but we took him anyway. Actually, my wife took him in since I was at my day job at the time.

The ER vets did an x ray to figure out what was going on with our boy and discovered that he had lung cancer. It was big, spreading, and untreatable. The only thing we could do was to make him as comfortable as possible until the time came to put him down.

This was two weeks ago.

The prescribed medications actually did wonders for the boy. He got back a lot of his energy and was a genuinely happy dog again, curious, loving, and still hungry. He spent two weeks having a great time and living his best life. We knew he didn’t have long, but as long as the medicine was working and we didn’t see much of a decline we decided to keep him on the meds for a few weeks anyway. We had decided that when the meds started to show signs of not working we would do what needed to be done to avoid him going through unnecessary pain.

Well, that was a nice plan, but plans go awry. This past Friday he was happy as could be. Saturday night, he had trouble keeping food down. Overnight he got worse, and by Sunday morning it was clear the end was coming. We had hoped to get him through the day so that we could go to our own vet to put him down instead of the ER. It became clear very quickly that an ER trip was in order, but he passed away before we could make it there.

It’s a sad story to be sure. Especially when you think about it and realize that he’s almost certainly has cancer the whole time we’ve had him, but nobody caught it. The dog came into the shelter with no medical history at all. They cured him of the pneumonia he caught when they took him in, but no one knew about the cancer. He’d had a few ailments but we were all treating the symptoms and not the cause. Unfortunately this happens sometimes, and this is one of those times. It sucks, but it happens.

When we decided to adopt a senior dog, our goal was to give an older dog a good end of life. Often the older dogs go un-adopted in favor of puppies and young dogs. Sometimes they spend years in and out of different no kill shelters, or they meet their end in the city pound. Obviously we can’t help them all, but if we could make one dog happy, we wanted to do that. We just thought we’d have two or three years as opposed to six months.

Still, mission accomplished. We gave hearts to Elvis and gave him a happy end with a family that loved him. That’s my comfort. No regrets.

Rest well, Elvis. You were the cutest. You were the sweetest. You were a good boy. You brought much love and happiness into our home, even if just for a short while. Thank you very much.

And thanks for reading this. I’ll be back next week with what I certainly hope will be a much happier edition of MonDAVEs.

Last picture taken before the decline. We miss you buddy.

It has been said that there’s no bad ideas when you’re brainstorming. Well…

Me: Hey girls, Dad’s looking for a topic for MonDAVEs this week. Got any ideas?

Melody: Okay, here’s how you start your blog. “Hey readers. Did you ever wonder about the meaning of life? Or why people are different than other people? Why are we here? The answer: Beethoven’s 5th.” And then you make up a weird complicated theory about how everything in the universe relates to Beethoven’s 5th.

Me: Uh-huh. Well, that’s certainly an idea.

Tessa: You could do funny conspiracy theories.

Me: Did that already.

Tessa: Really? Oh. My bad.

Me: It was just a few weeks ago.

Tessa: I don’t read your blog.

Melody: You could rate bee stings. Every time you’ve been stung by a bee, from most pleasant to least pleasant.

Me: When is a bee sting ever pleasant?

Melody: Well some are more pleasant than others. Or less pleasant…PHEASANT! You should rate pheasants.

Tessa: Word association for Melody is wild.

Melody: At least my ideas are original! And cool.

Tessa: You should write about things that should be in the bathroom but aren’t. Like art on the walls.

Me: That is completely unoriginal. Sorry.

Melody: How about a button you could press that plays the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance at the same time and you have to decide which one you want to do. In the bathroom. While you pee.

Tessa: Ooh, and if you can pee for the entire National Anthem you win a prize. A penny. Comes out of the little button.

Melody: America will love it.

Me: Okay, well, super productive session here girls, thanks for your help.

Melody: Wait, what if your toes were replaced by fish? But a different fish for every toe!

Me: Thanks! That’s enough.

I swear I did not make a moment of this up. It literally happened just this way during dessert. It was way better than the wrap up of Father’s Day weekend I was thinking of doing. Gotta love being a dad!

See you next week for more MonDAVEs when absolutely none of these ideas will be used.

Melody (upon reading this): But they’re such BANGERS!

A Scent-imental Blog Post. That’s The Biggest Hack Joke I Have Ever Used. Sorry. I’m Usually Better Than That.

Long time readers may remember a post I made last year titled “The Rejects”, in which I discussed some topics I had thought about writing on but rejected for various reasons. There was one, however, that I did mention I might still do. Well, today is the day, you lucky duckies. Because I’m not afraid to repeat ideas, I had a really weird week and need a little levity, and one guy said he’d actually like to read this when I first mentioned it, I herby present the long awaited, already oversold entry:

Here’s A Bunch Of Smells I Like

-Bread baking in the oven.
Because bread is like, one of the most delicious things ever.

-New car smell.
Smells like success, new beginnings, and freedom. Until the first payment. Then it just smells like debt.

-Burning wood.
Smells like a campfire in the Summer, and a cozy homecoming in Winter.

-Sharpies.
If big, block letters had a smell, this would be it.

-Books.
-New books have that fresh print smell. Old weathered books have the smell of the ages. Unless they are water damaged. Then eww.

-Christmas Trees.
Pines or furs, it’s the most wonderful smell of the year, y’all.

-Leather.
Warm and rich, it smells like history. Not only the history that has been made by those who blazed a trail before us, but also the history that is yet to be made. That sounded cooler in my head. Moving on.

-Oranges And Lemons.
The smell of clean. Also a great album by classic British pop band XTC. Go stream it. After you finish reading this obviously.

-Mountain Air.
Maybe not so much a smell as a feeling, but there’s nothing like it.

-Bacon.
I mean, come on. It’s bacon frying, what’s not to love? Double points for Maple Bacon.

-Barbeque.
Meat. Spices. Wood and/or charcoal. Sensory overload. Half the magic of a cookout is smelling the air before you dig in. Magic.

-Rain.
Rain almost always smells good, but I particularly like a late Summer rain cooling off the day right around dusk. The soil and Summer foliage smells amazing.

-Gasoline.
I know, I’m weird. Still, it reminds me of childhood. I think that the smell of gas was much more prominent at the pumps back then but I have absolutely no proof of that. I wouldn’t suggest sniffing too much of the stuff (ever accidentally get some on you and you stink all day? Not cool!), but a quick smell while filling the tank I find quite pleasurable.

-Popcorn.
Pretty much the greatest all purpose snack food.

-Vanilla.
Some say it’s a boring scent but I disagree. It’s sweet, yet subtle. Rich, yet soothing. It smells clean, and I find it to be a calming scent as well.

-Patchouli.
Kind of a dark scent, sweet yet musky. It’s also super strong, which is why stoners sometimes use it to try and hide the pot smell. FYI-doesn’t work guys. Still dig the scent though.

-Aged Bourbon.
I don’t drink the stuff anymore, but the scent of alcohol mixed with years of being in wood barrels is still delightful to me.

-Frying Chicken.
I mean, like, home made fried chicken. Not the fast food version. Flower, spices, chicken and Crisco-smells like Grandma’s house on a Sunday afternoon.

-Honeysuckle.
A strong, sweet smell found in many a walk through parks and gardens. I even like the “honeysuckle scent” we use in our laundry detergent. Smells like Spring.

-Blacktop.
Yeah, another weird one. I dunno, man, I just like it. It seemed like this scent was everywhere when I was a kid, so that’s probably the reason, but it’s a favorite smell, especially in Summer.

Well, there’s my top twenty favorite smells. This was kind of a fun writing exercise. Using my memory to try and conjure up various scents and then describe them through words was a bit more of a challenge than I anticipated, but an interesting process. Try it, fellow writers, and see what you think.

See you next week for more MonDAVEs!

You know how when you’re binging a show and you get to that one episode in the season that doesn’t quite stack up to the rest? That’s kinda what this is. Only in blog form.

Sometimes when I think about blog topics I go through three or four topics in my head. I then pick two of the strongest ones and, considering the topics item by item and strength to strength I decide which will be the winner that particular week. Usually this process works.

Today, not so much.

I was going to write about something specific but life, as it does, took a slight detour and I can’t write about that thing yet. Sorry to be so vague, but it may be coming up again soon so no spoilers. Unfortunately, I didn’t get it together to properly think out my back up topic either. Which leaves me with very little to say this week.

So here’s two random thoughts I’ve had recently.

1. If I have a super power, it’s enabling people. If you’d like proof of this, track down my brother and ask him about the guitars in his collection he can blame me for. My wife could probably also have a comment or two about my enablist instincts. Wait, is enablist a word? Well, it is now.

Anyway, I think that “The Enabler” would be a decent super villain name. Or possibly a pro wrestler, but I’m not sure how that would work. Of course, this is a power that can be used for good or evil, depending upon which side you’re on. So maybe an anti-hero? Hmmm.

Somebody get Marvel on the phone. No, scratch that. Get D.C., it seems like more their thing. Either is fine, actually, as long as I get credit for the idea. And a check.

2. Sometimes, when life gets too stressful, I daydream about moving to the country and operating a small goat farm. I could tend the land, look after the goats, and use their milk to make cheese or like, soap maybe. Then I’d sell my wares in farmer’s markets on the weekends, and maybe have a small online store. Then I could live a quiet life away from the hustle and bustle, and perhaps find a more peaceful life.

Okay, so it sounds nice, but I don’t actually know anything about goats. Or farming. Or making soap. Or cheese. Or soap cheese. Goat soap cheese, if you will. So it’s probably best I don’t follow through with it. Stupid reality.

Well, that’s all I have for you this week.. This is what happens here at the the ol’ blog when a plan does not come together. Sorry.

I’ll be back soon with stuff about music, movies, family, dad jokes, and all the stuff you’ve come to expect around here, in future editions of MonDAVEs.