Week 112: 1975 Chevy Van

Happy Halloween from Daddy's Tiny Cars. I'll keep it brief and send out candy wishes to all, hoping everyone is safe and dry following Sandy's arrival.

Trick or treating was postponed in my neighborhood due to the rains and downed trees around our heavily wooded streets. When I was young this would have been devastating, but Halloween now has a lot more options for kids so that trick or treating, while still valued, is not the only game in town.

For example, last week my five-year-old son's school sponsored a Pumpkin Social, a chaotic mass of face-painted kids pushing around make-shift cornhole and other carnival type games. My kids loved it.

I don't like being crowded, so this event was stressful, but I diabolically found a partial solution. The indoor, school-sponsored fundraiser used purchased tickets for all of the games, and in the cafeteria area they had set up a snow cone machine, also taking tickets. MuHAHAHA. What kid can resist a snow cone? I steered my kids near the machine.

What does this have to do with my aversion to crowds, you may wonder? Snow cones take time to make, so the kids would be in line for awhile. Snow cones take time to eat, so they would be out of the throngs of kids for awhile. They were getting sugary ice, so they didn't feel tricked, and I let them come up with the idea of the snow cone, so they didn't know I had manipulated the whole thing.

It was all so perfect.

Yes, eventually the snow cones were eaten, but an added bonus was the blue stained my three-year-old's face adding a spooky effect to his skeleton costume.

And then we found the dance room.

Four tickets each got the kids into a room with a real DJ and disco lights. They were hooked (my kids love music), and, fueled by high octane snow cone fuel, they were ready.

Once in, G, my three-year-old, began a repetitive robot dance, accented with a Three Stooges style Curly floor roundabout -- weird, but strangely compelling to watch. The dance was like an old school Peanuts special where all the kids have their singular signature dance floor moves. The dance room was occupied but not packed, so I was fine that my youngest kids wanted to spend most of the time there.Meanwhile, my older son, who was with us and once went to the school, got to catch up with some former teachers and met some friends, so he was happy. All was perfect.

The kids had a great time, and there have been other Halloween events besides that one, so the disappointment of a delayed trick or treating is minor. I love it when things work out.

So I'm waiting for them to go to sleep, and I'll kick on an old black and white monster movie for Daddy for Halloween, and if you have power, I hope you'll be able to do the same.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Photo of my 1975, black light era van, by Phil Pekarcik.

Week 111: 1969 Mercury Cougar Eliminator

Serious muscle this week -- a Hot Wheel's 1969 Mercury Cougar Eliminator, decked out in yellow, white and red flames and presumably part of the Cranston Fire Department.

Firemen are a mainstay of childhood pretend games, as are robots. Even now, I would find a robot fireman cool. A robot fireman... that can fly.

And shoot lasers out of his eyes.

Yes, that would be cool. Maybe not as cool as the Eliminator above, but still very cool.

My youngest son, G, loves robots, the old school, 1950's I..AM..A RO..BOT type. A few days ago I had prepared a special treat with dinner (Stouffer's  Harvest Apples, if you must know), and after we ate, G picked up the discarded red Stouffer's box and put it over his right hand.

"Boop.........Boop....... I....AM...THE....KITCHEN....ROBOT.........Boop...."

G moved about kitchen in classic robot style, fingers straight out on the left hand and probably straight out on the right, too, if I had been able to see them under the box.  All the while, he continued to say "Boop.....Boop.....Boop....." at about five second intervals.

To make a Kitchen Robot: 1. Purchase Stouffer's Harvest Apples 2. Eat contents. 3. Put empty box on right hand. Now you're ready for Halloween.

As it turns out, while the Kitchen Robot did a bit of pretend cooking, it primarily just said "Boop," and G never broke character. He booped easily for one-half hour (which would be approximately 360 Boops), and finally his brother Racer A got tired of the booping and told him the robot broke.

G's eyes began to well up tears as he fought to fight back his sorrow. I shot a furrowed eyebrow glance at A, who smiled and shrugged, and went into parental damage control mode.

"Oh, the Kitchen Robot isn't broken. Don't listen to your brother."

*Sob*"He is broken! *sob* The Kitchen Robot is broken! He doesn't work anymore." G had become so wrapped up in the character he had lost track of the pretend aspect.

We were seconds away from a meltdown, and I had to think fast.

"A----, quick, get me the number five robot wrench over there and the spare 4B circuit on the shelf."

If there's only one thing I have learned about parenting, it is that kids can't resist a pretend command given with minimal instruction. Like a type of magical summoning, kids will respond. Unless they are pouting.

Racer A wasn't pouting, though, and he quickly moved to the back of the Kitchen Robot, losening  the pretend bolt and popping off the pretend plate to install the spare 4B circuit board, whatever it looked like.

"Great. Good job. Now power him down now and reboot him and we should be good."

Racer A made a "ZHouuuuuuu .. pop" noise with his mouth, and we both waited, watching G.

"Boop.......Boop.... Boop.... began G, his expressionless robot face looking straight ahead as he resumed his Kitchen Robot duties, apparently unaware of the temporary technical failure he had just endured.

Crisis averted.

Oddly, the Kitchen Robot returned the next day, and even the day after, but only when the Harvest Apples box was on his hand.

Such is the true beauty of a method actor.

Boop....Boop...THANK...Y0U...PHIL...PEKARC1K....F0R....PH0T0...OF H0T WH33LS EL1M1NAT0R...Boop....Boop...

Week 110: 1963 Cadillac Ambulance

This week's tiny car is a strange one, a combination of a 1963 Cadillac Ambulance and a surf buggy. I've featured this same car before back in Week 35, but it was a straight-forward ambulance and not all beach funky.

I've featured this one because I'm going to blog about odd combinations. Forgive me in advance.

Three-year-old G, five-year-old Racer A and myself were on sitting on the couch when G nonchalantly began telling me about an imaginary person, Mr. Maht-Maht, who has a golden chore chart.

The kids have weekly chore charts I print every week, with G's on blue paper and A's on green. Last week, A switched to Purple. Apparently, a golden chore chart is top of the line.

So, Mr. Maht-Maht and his golden chore chart. Here's where things go south.

I've got a golden chore chart, I've got a golden twinkle in my eye. Wait, what the...!!!

In the past I've talked about Racer A's imaginary friends Nickadizzy and Shotts, but Mr. Maht-Maht is something quite different. I had to go tell my wife, who, after laughing, came out to ask G about him. Here's the conversation:

Rochelle: Tell Me about your friend, what's his name, Maht-Maht?

G: He's not my friend. He's just some imaginary guy.

Rochelle: Okay, well tell me about Maht-Maht.

G: MR. Maht-Maht.

Rochelle: Mr. Maht-Maht. Tell me about MR. Maht-Maht.

G: Ummm. He has a golden chore chart.

Rochelle. He does? A golden chore chart? What else.

G: Ummm. I don't know. Let's see. Oh yeah, he's a wiener.

Rochelle: A wiener?

G: (with the tiniest smirk at the corner of his mouth. Yes. He's a weiner. He's growing boobs.

Rochelle: Oh, he's a weiner that's growing boobs. Do you know what boobs are?

G: Oh sure. They're what you got. (G points)

Rochelle: That's right. Anything else?

G: (thinking). Oh yeah. He's got a...a.... (G points to his wrist and looks me.)

Daddy: A watch?

G: YES! A watch. He's got a watch, and when it gets to three, he can turn into a human. But just at three. But he can grow legs if he wants when it's not three. He has a friend, Mr. Cot-Cot. He's human. And a super hero. He has a sword."
---------------------------------

Not even acknowledging all the Freudian, gender-development discomfort of this imaginary guy, I'm not sure I want Mr. Maht-Maht hanging around. There was a cartoon on Cartoon Network called Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.  I don't want to picture Mr. Maht-Maht as a character.

I'm going to go play with Mr. Maht-Maht.
What's so funny? Why is everyone laughing?

OR

Why do we have to wait until 3:00
before we can go swimming with Mr. Maht-Maht?

Okay, the truth is I had no intention of blogging about this one but my wife begged me, so this is fulfilling a rare blogging request.

 I don't think I'm taking requests anymore.

Thanks to Phil Pekarcik for the great pic of the surf Caddy. Sorry it had to be featured with Maht-Maht. I mean MR. Maht-Maht.

Week 109: 2012 Camaro ZL1

We love looking at cars over at Daddy's Tiny Cars, like the hot little Hot Wheels Camaro above -- especially my son Racer A and I. While the rest of the family might not have the same enthusiasm as we do, our combined gusto for cars, old and new, is enough for the whole family, and we would even have some left over enthusiasm for a dog or cat, if we had one.

Today, Racer A and I packed up our car-looking-energy and took it to Rock-N-Roll Capital Street Machines'  Halloween Cruise Appreciation Night in Solon, Ohio. Accompanying us was my wife and son G -- Racer Z had some other things to do so couldn't make it this time.

On the off chance this blog makes its way to anyone at Rock-N-Roll Capital Street Machines, Daddy's Tiny Cars wants to give a big shout out to the great folks over there and this cool event. We all had an excellent time, and the free candy given out made it even better for the kids.

At every car, A was awestruck -- he even loved the look of the old dashboards, and that's without any prompting from me. As we went around and looked at the cars, A wanted me to snap a picture of him in front of some of his favorites, so below is a montage of some of the cars.

Halloween, muscle cars and candy, with beautiful autumn leaves on the trees -- do you really need anything else?

For tonight, I'd say no. I don't need anything else.

Photo of modern day Camaro muscle car courtesy of Phil Pekarcik.

Week 108: 1965 Mustang

RETRACTION!!

For the first time since DTC debuted, I'm going to do something I haven't done before.

I'm going to retract an entry.

Daddy's Tiny Cars is a blog diary, and as such shows the ups and downs of life, but nonetheless, it's also a mission statement of the future and on how I look at life.

I wrote a blog about about the possibility of never owning a restored muscle car, and the more I thought about it, the more that blog bugged me.

One, because the blog in retrospect came off as defeatist.
Two, because the blog lacked any real pizzazz.
Three, because I actually believe I will one day own a restored muscle car.

Seriously, the above Hot Wheels '65 Mustang deserves a more energetic blog. That is not a car for focusing on deficits. That's a car for kicking butt. Even as a tiny die-cast Hot Wheels, it doesn't take any whining. That is a car for action.

In that spirit, I've cut out the parts of the blog I felt were wimpy, and kept the good stuff.

Unfortunately, all I had left after cutting was the opening fragment of a sentence:

My five year old son and I were watching the Barrett-Jackson muscle car auctions on cable the other day, pointing out the cars we liked ...


Okay.

That's much better!


By the way, that awesome staging of that awesome Mustang courtesy of photographer Phil Pekarcik.