Wheel of Symbolism: Penguin Edition

Boy howdy do I hate mob movies! Vampire movies, too. If When they make the first movie about the vampire mafia ... well, I'm probably just going to exaggeratedly roll my eyes and blaspheme, but I'm really really not going to be happy. I'm not going to see "Don of the Dead." I'm not going to see "The Forsaken-by-God-Father." I might see "The Undeadables," if they get Sean Connery and some appropriate vampire-defaming slurs. "Just like a sparkly, bringing a knife to a stake-fight." "They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs back to the morgue. Without their head, which you send to a separate morgue across a river. That's the Chicago way!" 
It's not just mob movies I hate, but mob stories, really. Unless Until mobsters "rub me out," I just really don't think I could care less about their exploits. Except for "The Sopranos." No, wait, even "The Sopranos." But I totally get the ducks. I used to get them on an intellectual level, but now I feel like I really get the ducks. Unless the metaphor extends to having members of your family filled with buckshot or end up hanging in a butcher shop or something else specific to mobsters. Then, if we're being completist, I don't totally get the ducks. But to the extent I can get them, having watched the pilot episode and probably bits totaling another 34 minutes of the series, I get the ducks. And one of mine is starting to lose some down.

 He's taken his first step into society, really. He's starting to deal with people on his own. I didn't even get to introduce him to his class. He's walking up to other little human beings and making first contact all by himself. I know he's going to need me less and less as time goes by. I'm sure if I really thought about it I could figure out other things he doesn't need me for anymore. Probably I'll do that tonight when I go to bed. What the heck - how about every night? This feels like the first real separation, though. From now on, more and more often, he's going to just be Primo. Not "my son Primo." Except when I'm talking to people and he's not there.

Now, before we get too far off on another subject, let's bring this back around to me. There was a review of "Public Enemies" that described John Dillinger as "handsome" before the "more" link. Leading as it did to the rest of a review of a gangster movie, the link went unclicked, but it did make me wonder why, of the adjectives that could describe a thief and murderer, "handsome" beat the jump. The biographical entry I ended up reading because of it said that "[H]is father, a hardworking grocer, raised him in an atmosphere of disciplinary extremes, harsh and repressive on some occasions, but generous and permissive on others." Except for the grocer part, that could be me! And even that part is really just a matter of time! I've taken away his whole collection of "Bob the Builder" vehicles for not listening to me before! And we've provided him with a whole collection of "Bob the Builder" vehicles!
But my son is a well-adjusted, right? Why, he's just today been telling us about one of his new friends at school. He's forming connections with people. He's played with this kid every day at recess this first week of school. He sits near him at lunch.
"You have a friend at school? What's his name, honey?"
"I don't know, but he likes to be Robin!"

A week in, my son doesn't know a single name. They sit four-to-a-table four seven hours a day, he doesn't know a single name. 

If you don't let them in, they can't hurt you, son.

Here's another cold little sociopath you can spend lunchtime with.



This is the first onigiri for Primo. It's stuffed with smoked mussels and garnished with nori, a cucumber slice and a cracker. If it looks exotic, please bear in mind that it is ultimately a wad of white rice. My son loves some white rice. His hat is a roll, also with mussels,  that wasn't quite sealed to give a highlight. The shirt and tie are a BabyBel mini cheese wheel and the penguins are shrimp balls with nori and carrots.



And Dillinger is no Alvin Karpowicz.

Room-a-zoom-zoom.