JamesAsh.com

They say the one man’s trash is another’s treasure. Nowhere is that more evident than in the world of marriage. Whether you are dating and living together or if you have been married for 50 years, a woman remains focused on one task: getting rid of all your stuff that she doesn’t like. This isn’t limited to a woman’s belief that she can change a man’s flaws. In this case, I am talking about our possessions.

When my wife and I first started dating, I owned a pair of cutoff sweat paints. They were broken in just the way I liked them. They had holes in places and were thread bare in others. I had had them for at least five years and they were so comfortable. Given the condition that they were in, I never wore them out in public. That didn’t stop her from loathing their existence though.

You shouldn’t be surprised to learn that these shorts disappeared before our first child was even born. Women are constantly nesting. Yes, like birds. The things that get used to make the nest all have to fit. My shorts didn’t fit. They had to go. She denies it, which makes the whole situation even more frustrating over a dozen years later. Women feel justified in whatever sneaky thing they do to maintain their sanity, but they can never admit to doing the act in the first place.

I’m sure my wife will be rushing over to throw out some lame defense, but the fact is it is indefensible to rid a home of another person’s possessions just because you find them objectionable. But that’s women for you.

My wife and I ate lunch at the park. Among the things we saw, these guys were flying a kite. At one point, there were about 10 of them, including one dude with an incredible Czech sweater.

Not a lot to this post. Just a before and after of my haircut. (The whole point was to see how video creation and posting from the iPad comes out. Next week, will be more entertaining.)

We all have movies that we love, movies that we hate, and movies that we love to hate. But there is a special class of movie that will make us stop flipping channels and watch them. Here are 5 of mine, plus one that should but doesn’t, in no particular order.

Wedding Crashers: What’s not to love about this movie? It’s really funny. It has great one liners. No matter where it is in the movie, you can jump right in and watch it. That’s probably the most important criteria for a movie to make this list. You need to be able to jump in at any point. The fact that Wedding Crashers is on a lot of channels also helps it make this list.

Sweet Home Alabama: Starring Reese Witherspoon as a Southern belle fashion designer living in New York City, I will always watch it. She’s incredibly cute, and even though I think she lost her accent long ago, there’s just something about a Southern accent. It’s also set in Alabama, so I don’t mind the stereotypes being put on them. They deserve it. [...]

I saw Guster at the HOB last night.  It was every bit as good as I thought it would be. Unlike most people, I got there in time to see Jukebox The Ghost open the show. They are a 3 piece band from Washington, D.C. consisting of a drummer, keyboardist, and a guitar. They have a lot of great originals, but they had a lot of fun with this Donna Lewis cover.

It started innocent enough – a family outing to Jason’s Deli. It’s a regular Sunday lunch destination for us. Everything was going smooth until my daughter decided to get smart with me. To take a step back, she gets her smart mouth from me. It’s 100% mine. I’ll own it. But I thought we were in agreement that being a smart mouth would not be directed towards me. After all, I can teach her how to use those powers for her own personal gain.

Like I said, it was typical enough. She started messing with me, so I tried to put a piece of red onion in her mouth. “You can’t make me eat an onion,” she lashes out. We laugh it off, but soon enough, she says it again and wags her finger in my face. As I like to say, it got real real, real quick.

I felt like my parental bounds were being pushed, and I am sure they were, to a degree. So I told her that she couldn’t have any ice cream unless she took a bite of the red onion piece.

Let the standoff begin.

She decides that she needs some sympathy, so she starts working her eyes to make herself cry. That just made me laugh. So she started working it harder, eventually bringing forth tears. Of course, I am unphased by this because I watched her make herself cry. So did my wife. So did both of our boys. But before you know it, my wife has turned on me for making the girl cry! Can you believe that? Witnessing the whole thing, my wife actually sided with our daughter! I guess girls do stick together.

In the end, I did win out. My daughter tried the red onion. She hated it. Everyone got their ice cream and we all went about our day.

The moral of the story is that you can’t trust girls. They are fake and they naturally side with each other.