Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Hiiiii-Ya!

Hiiiii-Ya

Hiiiii-Ya! Explodes into my ear nano seconds after a three foot Ninja gives me a body slam across my back!
Hiiiii-Ya is my grand kids adopted Asian battle cry when battling with the giant intruder....me. No warning is given like 'Grandpa look over here! Grandpa pay attention! Grandpa here I come, Grandpa get ready! Protect your swimsuit area!' There's no 1...2...3 it's just some physical discomfort, followed by a loud Hiiiii-Ya!
I've have the pleasure of being some sort of evil force to four (five if you count the wife) Ninja grand kids. Ages range from 7 - 2/12. Two girls, twin boys. Each with their own fighting style. The oldest, Gabriella, hangs on the outside and circles. Darting in and out with a pretend Japanese fighting stick (that she somehow obtained from Moulan of Disney) she delicately annihilates with tentative strikes. All while the 4yr. old, Charlotte, reins full body blows. The couch is her favorite launch area. From an elevated bounce she flattens the fiery dragon. The then pancaked dragon is kicked, punched and on occasion bitten. Never turn your back on this one! The twins, Peyton and Emmett, just sort of ooze on you, as might a very runny dough. A dough that leaves slug trails from runny noses that seem to know no limits.
It becomes a sea of arms, legs, sticks, swords, spears, bow-n-arrows that I have to carefully direct. Because, if heads are bumped....Ninjas cry. Game over. Too bad James Bond didn't know that.
It's been written the most precious thing around ones neck is not pearls or gold, but that of the arms of a grandchild. Arms that try to squeeze the last dying breath from the evil intruder. Arms that, without hesitation, grab hold and cling tight to a giant trying to get free. Arms that attack a balding overweight dragon that tries to rise but's held down. Arms that will all too soon get longer with fingers that will learn to write. Fingers, painted and decorated in jewelry that will hold on strong to, as yet, an unknown hero.
Arms and hands that will become tentative as the giant, the dragon and evil intruder wrinkle and stoop with age. As the wings and now weakening claws of a once fearsome foe fail, young conquerors take notice of the unfairness age has on the body.
Peace will fall on the kingdom. No more battles to fight. Hiiiii-Ya, now silent from magical valleys and couch tops. The effects of age in all it's ugliness triumphs fortunate youth.
Time is hard on old grandpa........but the memories can't be beat!


Bob Niles

Thursday, March 13, 2014

My wife has a Dyson....the ball kind (cartoon)

My wife has a Dyson

My Wife Has a Dyson,..The Ball Kind

"Don't the two girls look so adorable in their sparkly princess dresses?" my wife states more than asks as she falls all over the living room trying to get that best picture ever of her two fancy fairy beauties. Two and a half and three and a half foot tall fairies with no ability to fly but have the gift of leaving the thousands of magic sparkles (I say magic because they can't stick on their dress but have the ability to stick to everything else) wherever they go.
My so called loving family members have fairy-ized my 2 and 5 yr. old granddaughters, 90% of the home, 100% of the car and all exposed body parts to this sparkly plight. Crowned, wand waving, fancy dressed princess trailing disco dust with every step.
Oh and this isn't their first matching disco dust bombing fancy fairy frocks! People have been hating me for years. Well meaning, God fearing, tax paying good citizens have singled me out and have seemingly wanted to embarrass me at least three times.
At first I didn't know they were doing it. I'd go about my life in my normal routines and not even know. But then I'd clue in with my superior spidy senses that the girl at Starbucks lingered her stare at my forehead just a nano second too long. The nice Asian lady at the dry cleaners purposely wiping her left cheek had seemed to want me to do the same. And then the opened mouth pirate laugh from the guys at work as I walked past with my glittered 'Ba- donkey- donk' gave clue that something was amuck.
I was ablaze with disco glitter dust. Those doggone angelic grandkids had glitter bombed me! My hair with its many magic follicles was only detoured by the four spotlights of attention grabbing glitter that now shared my face. The back of my navy blue jacket was bejeweled with fairy sparkles. And my matching slacks with a circular ring at the back of my swimsuit area looked like I had perhaps unknowingly squished a fairy by sitting on her.
Oh and these shining spotlights don't just wipe off with a swipe from the back of hand, they stick! Like a warm wet sneeze to a screen door! I have to use the Dyson to power suck what's on me and then back track with the vacuum every where they went and sat. Now gone are the four spotlights on my face only to be replaced by four red crop circles.
That was my ignorance the first time. The second time I was well aware the effect fairy dresses had on my dignity, and had a plan. I followed my two little dancing fairies with the wife's ball vacuum everywhere they went. I was like the third dancing fairy only much bigger, without a fancy frock and had the ability to suck up disco dust without the need of a vacuum bag.
It didn't help one bit! My face must be a magnet to glitter! Glitter that waits till your out in public when the light is just right so that it pops forth louder than an oozing pimple at a high school dance. Me, a 58 yr. old grandpa to four grandkids looking like a disco drag queen the day after. Thank-you very much you bag-less Dyson and you third world sweat shops that make fairy dresses affordable to middle classed sparkly faced Canadians like me!
But even with all this I was still to be embarrassed to an even greater degree at the doctors office. How was I to know that one of the little dears had gone potty while I had my back to them vacuuming the couch. The doctor could hardly remain upright because of a vertical challenging fit of laughter. He and the nurse, whom he had asked if it would be okay if she could observe a certain procedure, had me to bend over. At first he had held it together, but soon gave in to the hilarity one expects from a star spangled moon. And him calling himself a professional . He had to use naked me for support to stop from falling over . At least the nurse had some decorum. She, with tweezers, took a sample of he glitter and put it in a little glass jar like it was the problem I had come to see the laughing doctor about.
And what is this stuff made from? It lasts forever! I swear every chair,couch,car seat to ancient log in the forest that has ever had a faux fairy fancy frock pass it, still has some of this shiny curse to adult dignity on or in it. I think this ageless magic dust is now made from all the computer parts we send over to India to be re-cycled. The precious metals are separated then the rest is ground up for fairy dress sparkle. And I don't even think they paint it to give it eye catching bling. They just remove the paint, it's that's already there. Under the colour of your computer is solid glitter, cause they know they're going to crush them in a couple of years to make sparkle dust! Every computer we send them as e-waste comes back in sparkles, 15 trashed computers to a dress.
"Okay girls one more picture of the two of you on grandpas lap!"
"NO!" too late, I've been bedazzled. A full frontal attack! Oh well, get out the Dyson the one they advertise as the ball kind.

Bob Niles

Thursday, March 6, 2014

The Third Dimension.... (cartoon)

The Third Dimension is Disappearing at an Alarming Rate

The Third Dimension is Disappearing at an Alarming Rate

"Aaaaannnd smile." Click.
"What are you taking a picture of?" asks the wife.
"Well if you must know I'm taking a picture of a cheque to send into the bank."
"Oh, and where did you get a cheque from? Did you see a picture of a job?"
"No," I assured her, "I don't go to those web sites. The bank now only needs a picture of my pay cheque. So I'm sending in a selfie of me and my cheque. It's just like me being there, but with one less dimension. Apparently the sense of depth, which a piece of paper is short on anyway, is no longer a requirement at the bank."
"It's because of their lack of a sense of depth in the first place is the only reason they let you open an account there... honey. Now how about I get a picture of you cutting the grass. Because it, unlike this conversation, has a lot of depth!"
Height, width and depth define our three dimensional world. And depth is the least favorite dimensions in this digital age. It's the lack of depth that makes our lives easier. We do a lot of our shopping with only two dimensions on our I, me, you, someone else's Pad. We see heights and width on the screen and if we're interested In something we choose 'Description' and we read about it's depth.
Books, magazines, catalogues and newspapers I no longer hold in my hands but view them on an illuminated flat screen.
I never lose the dice for my Monopoly Game under the couch anymore now that I have an app for it. And it's the apps that have killed depth! Games, cook books, maps, CDs of music and video, musical instruments and many other items of the third dimension all bought through apps are all flat and wide, and lacking in depth.
I don't play games with the grandkids outside running around, in a three dimensional world and possibly breaking a hip. They sit on my lap and play iPad. Why I can't remember the last time I played Angry Birds using real birds.
Television and commercials make us think we're not healthy if we have depth. When you turn sideways you're barely suppose to cast a shadow. TV stars and models are dying at an alarming rate falling through the drain grates!
Having that third dimension just makes things heavy. My height and width are okay but turn sideways to experience my depth and I look like a mama kangaroo with all the kids home!
Great works of literature, on my computer, once heavy because of depth created by many pages now weigh the same as my favorite Scooby-Doo comic.
In heavy industry they no longer climb up ladders and walk for miles to physically examine temperatures, pressures, input and output on gages. They now sit in front of a bank of flat screens like Homer Simpson and maintain safety levels.
The only way to experience that third dimension now a days is to pay big bucks at a movie theater and wear magical glasses to see a motion picture about some fantasy.
"What's that honey?..........You'll show me depth? She's yelling something from upstairs. Something about placing her shoe up some ????side if I don't start cutting the grass. Well I'd better get started then. Excuse me while I remove a bit more depth from my three D world."

Bob Niles