Howefitz Blog

Let's go, Squaddies!

Before my wife and I started having kids, I imagined some day in the distant future, bouncing my son or daughter (or both!) on my knee and trying to figure out how to introduce them to the wonderful comic book characters I knew as a child. The movies are too adult and the cartoons I watched as a kid are just plain old.

I started buying toys. Then, there was a line from Marvel called ‘Spiderman and Friends‘. These featured little kid versions of my favorite Marvel heroes. I snatched up everything from teethers to board books to action figures and vehicles, anticipating the demise of the current Super Hero trend.

“Who came up with pancakes?

‘No, Dear, you can’t have cake for breakfast, you can have fried cake with syrup for breakfast.

Load up on that and try not to nap.’”

-Jim Gaffigan

I can remember getting up in the morning to the smells of my father cooking breakfast. One of his favorite ways to break the fast was by cooking blueberry pancakes. He didn’t use just ordinary pancake mix however. Oh, no. That wasn’t good enough. He would fry up blueberry muffin mix into the shape of a pancake. These blueberry monstrosities were then covered in butter and syrup. These things were so thick, so heavy, and so rich that two bites were usually good for me. As a kid, I remember enjoying those first few bites, and then I’d be sorry. A few days later though, I was at the breakfast table awaiting a serving of blueberry muffin-pancake hybrids.

Today was really crappy. Super crappy. I mean, it couldn’t have gotten worse if Murphy himself showed up, slapped me around a bit and screamed his law in my face. It was seriously that bad. I was so depressed and mopey when I got home that my wife, empathic soul that she is, immediately felt depressed and mopey too. A few minutes before Heroes started, my wife got a phone call and left the room. Not wanting to watch one of my favorite shows without my favorite companion, I hit record, changed the channel on the T.V., and sulked some more.

In the spirit of this new blog, I’m not going to tie myself down to a set pattern, i.e. Manic Mondays, Two-fer Tuesdays, Whimsy Wednesdays, etc. However, with the release of the latest preview for J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek movie, (view it here) I think I will try to stick to one dedicated feature. Every Friday, I will post a piece of fiction from yours truly. Since I just decided to do this about ten minutes ago and didn’t have all week to prepare an original story, I’m posting my favorite Star Trek story that I entered into the Strange New Worlds short story contest. Needless to say, I didn’t win, but this story still reserves a soft spot in my heart. Deep Space Nine remains my all time favorite Star Trek series, and ‘Far Beyond the Stars’ is, for me, the quintessential Star Trek episode. So I decided to dig into that just a little deeper. Unfortunately, I forgot to include a tribble, so Dean Wesley Smith passed on publishing it.