Here are some observations from today.

-- My dogs simply stopped liking me. Sick kid = no walks all week = lose 2 buddies.

-- I am reading WAR AND PEACE and I can't stop thinking about it. I love Russia.

-- The Snoopy sticker I bought off Amazon for the Honda somehow got half scraped off. This shouldn't really bother me, but it makes me super blue.

-- We got a Blu-Ray player a month ago. Number of Blu-Rays watched so far: 0.0

-- Took my daughter to the doctor this afternoon. Long drive. This time I took five Binkys though. It was sublime; she drops a Bink and starts to cry, I reach down at 70mph and grab a fresh one like I was digging pretzels from a bag, hand it back, feel her little fingers grab it. No more tears. A few mile later, we do the same duet. I am a Daddy Genius.

--Rotisserie chickens at the supermarket go from like 5 bucks to like 3 bucks right after the way-home-from-work-rush ends. I lurk around, keep passing their hot case until they get the sale sticker. What is fucking wrong with me?

--While watching Real Housewives of Orange County I am overcome with real emotion when a scene plays out between a couple fighting really nasty in their limo. I start to call my wife to tell her I never want us to roll that same evil way again. I keep stuffing Baked Lays in my pie-hole though and forget to dial her up.

--Around 6:30pm I pull Violet from her bath of plastic ships and rubber ducks and empty VO5 bottles filled with three fingers of old water and wrap her in her big blue beach towel. Then I sit all twenty pounds of her on my lap and point us at the mirror. We both smile at each others reflections for a good thirty or forty seconds. And no shit: I am as happy as I have ever been in this lifetime.

--All week I thought about my Friday night bottle of red. Through Violet's late night coughing fits and early rises, through shitty dinners of supermarket cheese microwave quesadillas, through hours at work sweeping up filthy garages and planting little pines in March mud: through it all I had this back row vision of a bottle of Steak House that I would finally uncork come Friday night. Then, after the doctor's, when we pulled up to the liquor store , Violet had drifted off to sleep in her car seat like an angel kid with a crusty booger nose and I just didn't have the heart to wake her up. So, no wine.

--We cashed in our coin jar at the supermarket when we moved. Got 48 bucks, They had the option to put it all on an Amazon gift card so I did. Today some books arrived that I ordered. ANNA KARENINA, TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES, EMMA, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, and MOBY DICK. I put 'em all in a stack. Time machine.

-- After I put Violet to sleep and was draining her bath from the tub I noticed she had stashed her little red plastic ship (her favorite) up on the corner edge of the tub behind the shower curtain. I don't know why but this blew my mind and really made me smile.

--I've been eating dried apricots a lot lately. I stalk discount cooked chickens and eat dried apricots. Oy vey.

--I've bought all the old albums by The Cure over the past couple months. I'm glad I waited all these years. They're perfect for me now.

--Now that I wanna watch this JERSEY SHORE show, its never fucking on.

--My father painted a portrait of my daughter. How cool is it to be able to write that? I never would have guessed I'd write that particular sentence in my lifetime. Its such a fabulous picture too, with so many damn stories mixed in with all its paints.

--After waking up this morning to another huge snow dump I have finally decided that snow is for people under age 35. That's that/don't argue it/you know its true. Snow is for Shaun White. And Violet.

--Every Friday night I lay on this bed with these dogs, all of us waiting to hear the front door thud open and Monica to finally come home. And once again: here I am. Here we are.

--Lastly: for those of you with similar outlooks/inlooks to mine: don't worry about me: I got a hold of a 12 pack of Corona: so I'm good.