Obsessions... Part I: Greg

It's funny. We all have our obsessions. I think that over the next few posts, I'm going to explore and discuss some of our family's fun little obsessions.

Greg is enthralled with quite a few different subjects...

(Just in case you're wondering, Kaleb "got" him in this photo, if you know what I mean)

It's a Wonderful Life. (IAWL) For those of you who live under a rock, it's a Christmas movie. If you're one of those rock-dwellers, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT tell Greg that you have a) never heard of it or b) never seen it. You will get a lecture about it, and then forced to watch it. To understand this particular obsession, let me tell you a little about our house.... In our hallway, we have two It's a Wonderful Life posters and a Harvey poster. Why the Harvey poster? Well, Jimmy Stewart stars in it. But I digress. Our bedroom is decorated with IAWL memorabilia... Including a butterfly "painting" that his mother got him that is similar to one seen in the corner of a living room in the movie. Yeah. It's that bad. Oh, and he has a Christmas Village of the town featured in IAWL. We even call our son, Kaleb, "George". I call Greg "George" from time-to-time, as well. Really. Greg has even written a book about the movie that started out as a senior project when he was in college, if I remember correctly. He pulls it out and edits it from time-to-time. Someday, he hopes to publish it. Oh, and he's watched the movie about 5 bazillion times. He can recite it word for word, with the inflection that the characters give. He believes that in some ways, his life is like George's. Oh, and the most romantic thing that he has ever said to me is that I am "his Mary".

Stephen King is another area that Greg is obsessed with. Not nearly as much as he is with IAWL, but darn near close! He has every book ever written by King. Some, he has in both hard and soft back. King has started publishing comic books, and these, too, have been added to Greg's collection. I think he has all of the movies based on King's books, as well. I, on the other hand, try to steer clear of his books. I read Misery once, and was rather disturbed by both the book and movie. Now, the movie Green Mile, I didn't even realize was one of King's books.

He also loves A Christmas Story. Heh as all the ornaments, t-shirts, etc. Oh, he also has a LIFE SIZE version of the Leg Lamp, thanks to his handy-dandy father. Thanks to Dad, we now enjoy the Christmas Story leg lamp in all its glory year around. I will say that I did put my foot down last year, and it is currently stored. My 9 month old and 5 1/2-3/4 year old boys do not need to be caressing the leg. It's bad enough that we have 2 other lamps year-round in the house. He's been to the Christmas Story house in Cleveland several times. 2 years ago, I got to go along. We purchased tours as well as a plethera of other little things for my dad and uncle for Christmas that year. OH, and we also got them a gift certificate for the chinese restuarant featured in the movie. Unfortunately, by the time they got around to going, the resturant had closed due to economic times. He also loves Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer (Burl Ives version-- 1964) (again, has all the ornaments, and is particularly obsessed with Hermie, the wishing-to-be-a-dentist elf). Come to think of it, he's pretty obsessed with all things Christmas. He loves most of the old Christmas movies, including Mickey's Christmas Carol. I'm working on convincing him that Santa Conquers the Martians really is an excellent Christmas movie. I try to torture share this movie with him it at least once every holiday season.


I think one of his biggest obsessions is the rock band, Poison. He is over-the-top obsessed, along with his brother, Lance. I think that if he were given the option to leave me and marry Bret Michaels, he probably would. Am I serious? Yes. I think that there are more photo albums of Poison in this house than there are of our children. Greg recently put a Poison sticker on the window of our van and shows it to everyone. Last year, I surprised Greg by taking him to the Poison concert in Detroit. I was 8 months pregnant. Seriously. We went to see C.C. Deville, the lead guitarist, a couple of times. One such time is pictured to the right. Yes, that is Greg and Lance on stage, rockin' out with him. Greg even unplugged C.C. from the amp by mistake. He'll never live it down. We watched Seasons 1, 2, 3 of Rock of Love. We try to catch any interview or appearance that Poison makes. He rescues discarded CASSETTE TAPES (despite the fact that we don't even own a cassette player anymore) at garage sales. You should see the memorabilia box he has in storage with concert t-shirts, and more. If there is anything you would like to know about Poison, he's your man! (although Lance is probably currently winning in the obsession race between the two. Not only does he have a Poison Green motorcycle, he also has a billboard in the stairwell to the basement. Now that, my friends, is obsession).

He's also pretty obsessed with music in general. He has about 5 bazillion songs loaded onto his Zune. I can close my eyes and randomly pick a song off of it, and he can name the song, artist, album it is off of and sometimes even the year. Usually, within a note or two. Favorite genre of course is rock-- especially 80s rock-- hair bands, mostly. Greg gets back at me all year long for torturing sharing my Santa movie with him by making me listen to every song under the sun at deafeningly loud decibles. Fortunately, Kaleb is now with us most of the time, so the music has to be a little lower. It seems that he's passed his love of rock-n-roll on to his boys, though. Both of them enjoy it-- Kaleb sings along in his sweet little baby babble and Evan, well, he is currently requesting KISS (and laughs about Gene Simmons' tongue), Black Sabbath (only ONE or two of these song), a few other old-school groups and of course, Poison. He's so proud. Greg also loves rocking out with Guitar Hero and Rock Band. He also owns several guitars that he doesn't get out and play nearly often enough.


I've been told that when we own a bigger house, he will be taking over the basement, and turning it into a man-cave. Poison will take over one wall, and IAWL will take over another. What a combination.

Don't get me wrong. I don't list out these obsessions to pick on him. I love that he's so into these things. At times, they might be a little exasperating, like watching IAWL for the 5 bazillion and oneth time, but for the most part, I think it's fun, and he's introduced me to so many different things in the 3 1/2 years that we've been together. I like to think that I've introduced him to a few things, too.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about the kids and their obsessions, as well as the things we've forced on introduced them to.

Happy Independence Day!

It's Independence Day.

I love this holiday. I love spending time with my family. Having picnics, spending time out in the sun (unfortunately, I think we're going without the sun this year), and of course, watching fireworks.

Fireworks on Independence Day rank right up there with Christmas in my book. I love, love, LOVE fireworks. I can't get enough of them.

Last night, we went to the Perrysburg/Maumee firework display. Wow. They were spectacular. The picture below is inside the fort. We sat right outside of Fort Meigs. They had a little fair going on before hand, so we got our first taste of hand-cut french fries, hot dogs/brats and kettle corn. A perfect evening.


Evan was full of questions, most importantly, "Is it time for the fireworks to start yet?". I think we heard that question AT LEAST three dozen times. I think I finally started asking him the question to see how he would respond. Considering we arrived at 7:30, he had a while to wait, but did so with as much patience as a 5 1/2-3/4 child can muster. So asking the question is excused.

Kaleb was fantastic, as well. We were a little worried at first, because he started out the trip rather fussy. He enjoyed just riding around in his stroller, taking in all of the people. He also enjoyed a few fries with his very first taste of ketchup.

Hopefully, he won't be as obsessed with the tomato sauce as his older brother, who informed me the other day that ketchup is good for you. Okay, I know it contains Lycopine, but I would think that the vast amounts of sugar would outweigh the healthy benefits of lyopine.

But, I digress... Kaleb. He was good. yeah. In the last half hour before the display began, he got extra fussy, but I think that's because he hadn't nursed most of the evening, and he was also getting tired. SO, we settled down in his sling and nursed. Unfortunately, he wasn't terribly happy to be in his sling, so we made due without, and actually did really well.

Once the fireworks started, both kids were mesmerized. I was mesmerized by the kids. I think I watched the two of them more than I did the fireworks. Evan had a running commentary of questions-- "What are fireworks, how do they work, what are they made of, etc etc etc." I tried to get some on video, but was unsuccessful. It was very cute, though. Kaleb was content to just watch the fireworks. I teared up a little, watching him enjoy his first firework display.
(Evan and Kaleb were snugged up together watching the fireworks for a while in this picture.)


Once the show was over, the mass of people trying to get out of that area was insane. Fortunately, Greg had the foresight to bring a movie along for Evan to watch (Star Wars, AGAIN-- but we'll get to that in another post). I think Evan managed to watch about half of it, if that tells you just how long we were stuck traffic.

It was a great evening. As I write this, Evan and Greg are out playing baseball. I think our good friend Kyle has just joined them. I think I heard a rumor that there might be fishing today as well. Kaleb has FINALLY gone down for his first nap of the day. We're only 4 hours behind on that one.

My hope is that we can have a late picnic lunch and maybe go see the Bowling Green fireworks display tonight. Because you know, I love, love, LOVE fireworks. Maybe tonight, I'll get to see more of them, rather that being mesmerized by the kids. I doubt it, though. They're more fun to watch!

-jenn