are thoughts of thinking real thoughts?

Tagged by the meme, I find that I must now go and tag. It's gratifying to know that someone actually feels I deserve the Thinking Blogger award. I don't really feel as if I put a lot of thought into most of what I write. I usually feel like the sieve in my head sometimes gets a little clogged, and I'm not doing anything more when I write than to shake the sieve a little bit so that everything can flow through finally.

Pissed Off Housewife thinks I deserve the Thinking Blogger award, and I can't help but feel a little spark of something. It's like a smile from a stranger seconds after some prick cut you off, the little smile that saw what happened and congratulates you for not murdering the prick. Maybe it's like when the fast food people are nice, and then you're nice back, and you both are happier even if for no more than a moment. Or maybe it's like realizing that maybe people really do read what I write, and I've somehow managed not to drive them away.

The deal is I now have to tag five people. Here is my list, not my top five so much, but five people who think, or so I think, and will hopefully continue the good feelings.

1. We start with Contemplator, a favorite in the halls of academe.

2. Doc is easily one of the best homeschool resource links in the country. She also could stand to stop breaking things.

3. Audrey may be the sexiest homeshooling marxist mommas ever, if we believe everything she says, and the library probably sucks ass without her there.

4. Kim, another unschooling mom, and another fine thinker.

5. Finally I offer you Darryl, my sole dude. He may also be the least likely to play along, but at least he's a thinking blogger, and if nothing else, he can feel included, even if he can get beat by a dead blog. That's not saying anything though as I get beaten by catholics.

It was not my intent to bring you mostly homeschool blogs, though they aren't really necessarily homeschool blogs. Darryl offers news and sometimes some counterpoint. Kim may talk about homeschooling more than the rest, though Audrey and Doc certainly discuss it somewhat. I believe Contemplator keeps herself busy enough for a couple of people. And that is my list.

Does anyone need instructions here? It's pretty simple, and I'm sure we've all been involved in something similar, so have at it. Let's see who else deserves this award.

rude little

Rude little bitch, standing on my porch, trying like hell to be cool, giving me high fives, telling me how cute the boys are, my kids that is. Her partner was also friendly, but he too stood on my porch, running through the scheme they wanted to include me in.

They're earning points to win a trip to London, and all they have to do is get me to pick a book or a magazine. Somehow, they are also learning how to speak to people, speak in public, in front of a crowd. Oh, and for every book or magazine I pick they earn points, and she's one of the top point earners.

"So, you want me to buy a magazine?" I ask as I peruse the list of magazines she's shown me.

Of course I know that's the deal. I knew it was the deal when I saw them on my porch, but I wasn't sure till she opened her mouth what the exact scheme was going to sound like. It's always something similar though it's usually a young black male selling magazines to earn money for college. The magazines don't have to be for me. I can pick a book for the children's hospital or a magazine for a soldier.

Look, I don't have any heartstrings to pluck. You need something to strum and try to get me to buy your magazine it's not the heart you need to look toward. Maybe suck my dick and I might be willing to order a magazine or two, but beyond not being willing to play along, they weren't offering any magazines I'm interested in. So they failed at my door.

And it was all nice enough, the young lady was attractive enough. He male counterpart could not claim the same, but in the end, he was the friendlier.

"I'm not interested," I finally tell her.

She tries to play the friendly smile a bit, offers the aforementioned soldier or children's hospital, but I'm adamant. Not only am I not in the market for magazines, but I'm certainly not helping whatever company has convinced these young people they can sell magazines and win a trip to London. I wonder if they realize they are part of some scheme.

She finally realized I was really not going to buy a magazine. She snatched back her magazine list, and, without so much as a goodbye, she hops off the porch and is off. I watch her turn and go, admire the curves she's been blessed with, a little pink panty peeking from her jeans.

Watching them both go, I turn to trot across the neighbor's yard. While the magazine kids had me stuck at the door, waiting to tell them NO, the dog has slipped out. She's ignored my whistling, my calls. She hasn't gotten far, and as I reach her and get her attention, I turn back to the house. A quick jog and she's right behind me, running along to the house and back inside.

The bitch was rude, interupted my lunch, made me have to chase the dog down, and provided a little post fodder. I suppose it wasn't entirely a loss. Plus she was kinda cute as I said.

trains

Not too far down the street from the house I grew up in was a railroad crossing. Thoughts of trains often are set at this crossing for me, the pastures of the prison farm across and to the right, the small trucking company across and to the left. These are the background as the trains speed past.

The train is coming from one direction or going away depending on the direction you're facing or perhaps on your general point of view. Staring ahead through the windshield gives the train a whole other power as it seems to pull you along, making you almost feel that you're moving.

These days I have other crossings that I sometimes find myself at, watching the trains go by to parts unknown. Before local road construction changed our usual route downtown, we often found ourselves racing alongside a train. It was only a short stretch of road, the train curving away and around the old factories and then back, the softball field in the distance, and then the train peels away to seek its own route downtown. We'll most likely cross over it, picking our way around old streets to the viaduct where we can almost see the train below as it leaves town around a curve and is gone.

This is the real power the trains have over me, the parts unknown. The contents of the train present no mystery I'm inclined to care about. It's all about the tracks leading off around the next bend and the next bend, across an unfamiliar river to wherever is next.

I'd like to say I have few regrets in life. There's a certain amount of wonder in thinking of how I could have decided things differently, but I believe to some extent the eddies around the butterfly's wings are often as likely to effect outcomes as what we do with our options. I end up not knowing what I should regret and what I should embrace.

I've always wanted to hop a train. I never have. I've sat in cars full of brothers counting the cars, getting dizzy from staring so hard, and wanting like hell to get out of the car. I've seen myself doing it, getting that running start as I see my target car coming up behind. Try like hell, I still can't quite match the train, but I run just fast enough. A quick look back, open door and an empty boxcar.

There's no way I could ever do that now, and I fully accept that. The only way I could ever hop a train now would either involve some sort of catastrophe or some sort of hollow, new age men's retreat where we got to rock out, hop trains, box kangaroos, bang drums and lament our lost boyhood.

But I still want to. It's not fixation, not something to concern folks. I sat today watching a train, amazed at all the boxcars I saw rolling past, doors wide open, the cars appearing empty, awaiting only that wandering soul, that vagabond willing to bend to the call of the road. I wanted to be that one who stepped up, leaving the car to take a running, flying leap into the unknown.

beware

The very first thing I have to say is that if this doesn't offend someone, then it's because wiser heads clicked away. I won't be providing the link to this, so you'll have to take my word that this line does in fact exist somewhere. It's from a blog that I may have visited but would never read (beyond a little post fodder I swear) and won't likely visit ever again.

The blog writer is a christian as is evidenced by the mounds of crap tacked up to every visible inch of their page. It's a little unseemly and very much an unpleasant place for me. No it's not just because I'm an atheist, and no my eyes don't burn when I read Bible verses. It just seems a bit much, a bit of Jesus and capitalism that I don't really recall as being part of the Bible, at least not the one I read.

Now to the funny, the line that sort of leapt off the page as I was wondering how exactly this blog was beating another in a particular skewed voting thing I won't link to as well. I have a feeling I'm courting trouble here, and I kind of like it, but I don't want anyone sending me death threats either.

Anyway, the writer who wrote the lines that are the subject of all this was discussing their desires concerning their relationship with their god. They explained it as, "the desire to press in and know Him more deeply."

HaHa, they want to press in and know god more deeply.

And that, friends and neighbors, is why I won't win. So thanks, and ya'll come back now.

aaawwwww

A sweeter story you might never find. Take a minute and go visit Scott and read his story. It made my stony cold heart perhaps no less stony but, even if for a moment, a little less cold. But that's just me. It really is a great little tale, like a commercial for aromatherapy candles but in real life and with no aromatherapy candles.

tunes post number 43-A

The boys have had breakfast and a prelunch granola bar. It's Friday and our homeschool co op day as well as Momma's payday. Lunch will most likely be leftover ramen noodles, and yes I said leftover. I cooked two packages of ramen noodles with some onions, celery, carrots, mushroom, cabbage and leftover beef and gave my kids a great meal of veggies and msg.

All of that is the preface, my excuse if you will, for the newest of my recurring series, youtube as post fodder. It started with looking for whatever Hank Williams might spring up. There isn't a lot, and sadly much of it is some chump putting together a good song with some mismatched film or video footage. At least I haven't yet seen the Naruto/Hank Sr. mashup which would literally send me into a murderous rage though I'm certain it's being worked on currently. Which is not to say I dislike Naruto, though I kind of do.

There of course was also the Hank Jr. stuff, but I largely ignore his ass. He was the talentless fuck in the middle of his father and son, the true stars of the Williams family. So that inevitably leads me to Hank III. What can you say about this guy? He's equally at home with country and rock, and the beauty of it is that both his country and his rock are really great music. I don't go in much for his heavier stuff myself these day tending more toward the country, but when he goes and does something like this . . .

uhhh, really?

It's new word time. This one I expect to be the surprise hit of the season. This word, like none before of which I am aware, takes the award for both giggle and raised eyebrow.

Today's word describes a type of thrush, a songbird according to the word of the day people from whom I steal these things.

The word is turdiform. No, this is not the set of molds inside your gut in which the poo is placed to set after it's mixed, though some days a machine molded poo seems like not the worst idea I've ever heard.

I won't take this any farther than I have already. I'll accept that it's generally accepted that I have very little to do with things as silly as standards, and there is not much in this world I won't gladly rip a funny and wordy hole in. But turdiforms and poo molds may take it just a bit too far.

to complain

That's all I'm going to do right now is complain. I shouldn't really, because I know the kind of real shit that's happening around the world, but what the hell. It's what I do.

I keep seeing the sun or proof that it is indeed shining, but there just too many clouds competing for the sky that we aren't really getting a lot of sun. It's as if the clouds admit those few rays of sun every so often just to fuck with us.

This is the nicest day in what seems like two weeks. We had our little cold snap and some rain, and more rain today wouldn't surpise me. It's also pretty windy today which wouldn't matter so much, but it's just going to blow more shingles off the roof, and I really don't like the idea of climbing from the ladder to the roof. It creeps me the fuck out and is very hard for me without someone behind me rushing me and alerting me to the pussy that I am.

Even ignoring the potential for rain that the sky admits, I can't stand to let the boys out to play. I still haven't mowed the grass, and it just sucks to even look at the yard. If I were to allow that it's nice enough to play outside I couldn't very well justify not doing the yard work. There's also a part that just doesn't want the boys to have to deal with all that grass, but I really don't relish the thought of getting out there only to have it rain halfway through the job.

The worst of the yard isn't the work, it's the neighbor. One in particular that spends a lot more time on his yard than I do mine. He actually goes out of his way as if he enjoys his yard. I watch him sometimes from our kitchen window that looks past our little bit of yard and past his driveway. I see him walking down his driveway sometimes, looking at our jungle and scowling his disapproval. I almost feel bad, then I get mad at him for making me feel bad. I play out scenes in my head where every bit of redneck comes gushing out one day in a burst of "what the fuck you looking at? You don't like it you can bring your fat ass over here and mow it your god damn self!"

followed moments later with, "motherfucker" and I stand there for a brief moment to see if he's going to get buck or back off.

And really, he's a nice enough guy as far as I know, and I wouldn't ever do that sort of thing to him providing he stops looking at my yard like that.

motherfucker

more vote requests

I've asked for my own votes at the homeschool blog awards, and I've voted for some folks that deserve to win. For the most part, I'm not one to worry too much about other people. They can ask for their own votes.

Today I've decided to do things differently. You must believe it's not just the twins that are currently winning driving me to do this because I don't really even know any of these people. I know I likely shouldn't say it, but I wasn't aware that a blog and a link farm were the same thing, but I digress. Oh sure, they do have all those Bible verses, but they didn't write that shit either, and I'd wager they didn't even type it out. They probably just copied and pasted from the eBible, the little savages. Damn I can't stop digressing. Sorry, sometimes things just get to you, like a little piece of wood under a fingernail.

Cocking a Snook Too actually deserves to win the category the twins are leading in, the best teen homeschooling blog. She writes and writes well. She doesn't seem to have to reduce herself to artful cursery like I do, even if she does seem to have olive oil issues. Which, if she reads this, go with extra virgin first cold press. Those are the only words you need to know.

The boys need lunch, and I need a smoke, and I'm ending the plea with whatever you call that last little bit of push, like the NPR folks sounding a little desperate as the hour ends. Click homeschool blog award, then vote for Cocking a Snook Too. Don't take my word for it though. Visit the blog and see for yourself.

hands, ass and flashlight

Perhaps some of you out there haven't heard the phrase, "he couldn't find his asshole with both hands and a flashlight." Well, that's the award I feel I've proven I've won. Thank you Chris for having answered my question the first time. Thank you Audrey for offering your help. Thanks to me for begging for the help that I shouldn't have needed if I'd but taken the time, used both the looking parts and the thinking parts at the same time. The ol' gray matter just aint what she used to be. I need a bath and a beer.

Of course part of me, the part that sat here clicking and copying and pasting and repasting and recopying and cutting and previewing and being astounded when simple things work even when you try to make them hard, yeah, that part nearly giggle at the damn thing working as if I'd solved some real problem. And through the little bit of a feeling of accomplishment I have to admit that it's really not my own fault.

So it's done. The Evolved Homeschooler logo links to the wiki. Click it and go, but don't bother going to my page. It just links back here for something that didn't make sense the first time around or wasn't ever funny anyway. Either way, it works and I need to get the hell away form the computer.

Thanks again Chris and Audrey, and I can see you sitting there shaking your heads at me. Dude, it's all hard for me, so at least keep the "laughing at" to yourselves while I pretend it's "laughing with" that I keep hearing.

help? somebody?

Will you look at that? I seem to be an evolved homeschooler, and I'm certain I couldn't be happier. Sadly this is as close a description of my beliefs as is possible to approach with a homemade logo. There wasn't one explaining how I honor the unholy power of Yog Sothoth and how I quake in fear at the thought that one day the blood of mankind will warm the throats of the old ones. It also doesn't say anything about the stock pile of armaments I'm amassing to be ready for Armageddon, you know, sort of my own death bed confessional but with less confession and more going to get mine.

None of that really matters at this moment. I have a real life emergency here. I'm talking about my inability to fix or even understand computery type things. Sure, when Blogger makes it stupid easy for folks like me, with a couple quick strokes of the mouse, to set up such a fancy blog with all the gewgaws stuffed in and hanging out the edges a little. I imagine I did in fact need another thing, so I got it.

I actually sent Chris a private message trying to figure out what I was doing since he's the one nice enough to set up the wiki that gives us all that much more room to play. I think maybe he wasn't able to read my mind and answer the question I meant to ask, so rather than bother him with it again, I'll toss it here and reward the first person to help me.

As is plain to all, I can easily right click and save as. I can even go into the guts of my blog and add a page element that includes that lovely little logo. What I can't seem to figure now is how to make it a link to the Evolved Homeschoolers wiki. Did you know about that? It's true, an honest to fuck wiki for homeschoolers that don't give all the credit to interstellar entities but allow for sciencey learning as well. I'm not saying there are no interstellar beings, just that you can only credit one with so much having done before the rest of them start to get jealous and wanting their own piece of the pie.

how cool are we?

Backing out of the driveway, heading to the stop sign and the right turn, on our way to soccer practice and looking for something to listen to. This conversation proves that I'm doing something right with my kids.

me-hmm, I think we were listening to The Pietasters on our way to practice last week, and that's sounding good to me

Big Brother-I wouldn't really like to listen to The Pietasters.

me-okay, there's plenty of music here. What sounds good? Phyllis Dillon? Motorhead?

Big Brother-I'd like to listen to Motorhead.

The Boy-MOTORHEAD

me-I can't argue with that.

That was then however and we are back home and we are now listening to Thomas the Tank Engine music which The Boy requested. He has been in the bath for several minutes at this point, and I still haven't stopped it. I also haven't stopped singing along.

award me

It's got to at least be good for shits and giggles, though I have to admit that I could write at least a little more about homeschooling. Perhaps the whole writing about part doesn't quite matter, just that I both homeschool and blog.

Either way, some kind soul was nice enough to nominate me for a Homeschool Blog award. I certainly appreciate that, but I must at the same time admit that I realize how unlikely it is I'll win. I just know homeschoolers too well I think.

I don't agree with the stereotype of homeschooler, though I do admit that the stereotype exists because there is some truth to it. I know it exists when I compare the number of members of my local group with the other local group, the one that does care how you approach matters of personal faith.

With all my expecting not to win, even through the absolute faith I have in me not winning, I still kind of want to win. There is certainly the majority of me that doesn't care, but that little sliver of hope rests quietly, almost unseen because I've buried it so deep under my facade of indifference.

This post all comes down to a plea for votes. If I'm elected, I will not raise taxes, nor will I repeal any blue laws. I won't promise to fund the schools or straighten up congress. What I will do if I win is sort of almost nearly exactly like what I've been doing.

So vote for me. If I win I will continue to write posts with the single minded purpose of making you the reader piss a little in your pants while laughing, a little uncomfortably I hope.

For all our differences we all homeschool and put our pants on one leg at a time. Some of us wear denim jumpers which is like jeans with one big leg for both your legs, and I don't know if you just step into a denim jumper or pull it down over your head. If it's over the head then both legs enter as one, unless you only have one leg, so that defeats the purpose of the "one leg at a time" homily.

Anyway, find me under the following categories, Most Powerful Erection, Most Colorful Use of Language Unsuitable For Human Ears, and Blogger Who Most Misguidedly Thinks Highly of Him/Herself. Vote early and vote often. Roll out your Tammany Hall style machine to push me all the way to the top.

UPDATE: I hopped quickly through the list of other nominated blogs that were nominated under "humorous" and I just have to say that if I don't beat everyone there by a margin of at least 100 to one then the word humorous doesn't mean at all what I thought it did. I'm not trying to be rude (I actually am) or anything, I'm just saying.

wowzers

Because I haven't done it in a while. If you know this song, then you probably need to hear it again anyway. If you don't know this song, then you are being underserved in your musical listening. The Flaming Lips a great band. You might remember them from a random hit they might have had, but that shouldn't be the only reason you remember these guys. They are more than that one song you almost remember.

unfinished as of yet

I tend not to post about books while I'm reading them. I've considered it before as I read over a random bit of prose that just seems especially well crafted, those hidden nuggets that you can hardly find later when your wife wonders aloud about the book you're reading.

We seem to have a fair crop of authors who've graced the town I live in. There must be a certain something that seems to seep into certain people and bring out something good in them. It might just be the bit of smog that seems to get stuck here in our valley.

Suttree is so far as I can tell a story about a guy named Suttree, though some kid named Gene Harrogate keeps showing up. I'm not too deep in the story just yet, and I don't plan to comment beyond the following quote. It's one of those that made me stop reading for a second, sort of double take and reread.

Foreign stars in the night down there. A whole new astronomy. Mensa, Musca, the Chameleon. Austral constellations nigh unknown to northern folks. Wrinkling, fading, through the cold black waters. As he rocks in his rusty pannier to the sea's floor in a drifting stain of guano. What family has no mariner in its tree? No fool, no felon. No fisherman.

from Suttree, by Cormac McCarthy

it better have

"It's stopped snowing," said Momma, peeking through the front window.

"It better have," I answer, not sure what the unspoken "or else" might have been. It was only about an hour ago that the snow started to fall and I was threatening whoever the hell thought that shit up.

Tonight gave us in my li'l town a little of the ol' wtf. I noticed it much earlier in the evening as I drove home from a little shopping jaunt. It was a late night jaunt to the food co-op for coffee, milk and half and half. I'd just passed the lutheran church. I'd laughed at them on my way to the store as they stood outside with their feelings, the spotlights making day of the trio of crosses, a black scarf across the center one as if we would forget which one had held Jesus, duh. Traveling away from the co-op minutes later, the only lutherans I saw were saddling up and heading home.

It was about this point that I swore I wasn't seeing snow. It's been a fairly windy night and ungodly cold the last few days. It had to just be some dust and dirt whipping in front of the wind across the road in front of me. But then I saw it again, not a lot, just little glimmers in the headlights. A quick look past the streetlights, still a little inconclusive, but mostly I just don't want to see snow even knowing by this point that it couldn't be anything else.

I finished my errands without spotting much else that would make me think it was snowing. I wanted so to doubt that I was seeing this infernal shit yet again this late in the year. I was snug and warm in the Carolinas when the blizzard of '93 hit this town, but having read the story and heard the story a few times, an April snow, even of the flurry variety is reason to think of grocery stores and a dozen eggs and a loaf of bread. Or more importantly, the flurry makes one think of extra six packs of beer and perhaps at least one extra pack of smokes.

I finally arrive home and whisper the dark vision to Momma. There was nothing but the cold and the weird clouds above to make one even consider the possibility. She decides to find the humor in the irony of this situation that for me only furrows my brow deeper, brings closer down those dark clouds.

Fast forward to an even later night cigarette, I'm bundled up to stand outside the back door, hating the cold and reading from my current book. What do I get for my efforts but a cold wind whipping what is certainly no longer a flurry. The snow is falling indeed and heavily enough that it's begun collecting on those places that first show the snow, the table on the back porch, the cars. Momma points out the surrealism of seeing this heavy (to us) snow while the trees are all sporting their fresh coats of leaves. The dogwoods are the white beauty we look for now, not that all forgiving blanket of snow.

It was a sight, the snow swirling now, the wind blasting it hard and cold now. It was disturbing and somewhat less than pleasant. I was so happy to wear shorts lately, almost looking forward to the yard work I never get around to. So happy that the kids won't be inside and underfoot quite so all the time. This stupid snow, for all its transience, puts one in a mood. It's the snow's damn fault too. It didn't have to come sneaking up on us.

And then Momma peeked out the front window and made her discovery known, the snow had stopped falling. My own peek confirmed this but also confirmed that for the date, it's still a damn lot of snow sitting on the ground. It better melt by the time my ass gets out of bed, or whoever thought an April snow would be okay is going to get my foot stuck up their ass up to my knee. Maybe if I was in a joking mood, but I'm just not right now, not with snow dammit.

uuuggghhh . . . easter

Let it here be known that I hate Easter. I wouldn't trade a one inch square piece of a turd for Easter if you really want the truth. And it's not just the nonbeliever in me screaming and pouting about having to celebrate one more holiday that isn't really now what it originally was.

I can sort of understand some of the ancient concepts regarding spring time renewal/rebirth celebrations. In days when the animal skins we wore still looked like the animals they had once been, we were very happy to see the end of the deadly winter months. If nothing else the ground would finally thaw enough to bury all the babies that didn't survive the cold so we can quit looking at them finally. I'm imagining a time when we were past eating them but somewhere before the enlightenment.

The reason it really gets me is that so many other people don't really mind celebrating at all, and we just can't get away from it all. I could slip into the usual media rant, but they don't get nearly enough credit for all the education they do of the nation's youth, and there's the whole point of the post to consider.

It's not like we are turning down invitations to Easter celebrations. The family celebration is always worthwhile both because we just don't see family often enough and because, as Momma says, "I may not give a shit about Easter, but I do give a shit about ham."

The only other thing we do for Easter tends to involve our local homeschool friends. I may grunt and groan my misery to Momma, but I won't turn down an opportunity for the kids to see their friends, and I won't turn down a chance to hang out with other grown ups. Plus they're all great people, and they deserve my company, my mood lightening face full of sunshine and peppermint.

Through the drudgery of preparing for the homeschool party I have found myself giggling a bit. The plan is for the families to bring plastic eggs to hide. The eggs can be filled with acceptable items for the kids to enjoy. Mine include jelly beans, some stickers I dug out of a drawer and cash. I still have three eggs that I am clueless as to what to stuff in them as I've run out of crap that I can reasonably expect not to make enemies over. I'm going to have to actually buy something at the store when I stop to get snacks on my way to the group.

The giggles started last night. We needed both eggs as well as filler material. I didn't want to go any farther than the grocery store. I need beer and smokes anyway, so that was the logical store to go to, though as it turns out, they were not the best place to find egg filler material. As I wandered the store contemplating, I kept finding myself imagining sticking every conceivable and some inconceivable items into these eggs. So I end with the list of things I will NOT be placing within an egg regardless of how fucking hilarious it would be to see these lovely children find:

-cotton balls
-combo toothpick/flosser tool
-dried beans
-dollar in pennies
-Qtips
-random legos
-banana (seriously, funny as shit in theory)
-dead battery
-travel toothpaste
-play worn Hot Wheels car
-the tiny rocks I keep finding around the house (most likely from playground at UU church where we meet)
-pencil stub
-Easter candy from last year
-coupons
-beer bottle caps

As has been made plain, I've basically laughingly considered every object upon which my gaze happened to fall that would both fit in an egg and wasn't something just wrong in the situation. I even though about leaving sarcastic little notes in an egg confirming to the finding child that this particular egg did indeed have nothing worthwhile. Alas I can't seem to go out quite like that.

And I still have those last three eggs. I'm tempted at this point to find the Easter pencil erasers we wound up with last year. It seems odd the number of times they've happened to turn up in the last year only to have completely disappeared now. I know they didn't get used because we've found these new pencils that have erasers built onto them. I wonder if anyone would get them and recognize them as having come from them. That would be funny.

random kiddity

Brisingr!

If you don't know, this is the word from the ancient language that comes to Eragon as he kills his first Urgals.

The boys have been fighting bad guys most of the morning. I wasn't sure what they up to, what their play was based on till somewhere in the distant, in the middle of a sword fight, I hear the call.

Brisingr!

And I know that another Urgal is being consumed by the blue flames. With such warriors for the side of justice as Big Brother and The Boy, any household can rest easy assured of their safety.

the letter unsent

This week's Street Talk feature in our local alternative newsweekly was not only entertaining, but it also gave me a good feeling knowing that someone, somewhere is doing some good for underprivileged kids who desire to play golf. It's always gratifying for me to know that someone is taking up the slack of all the good I don't do.

Of course you don't know what I'm talking about. You don't have to click the link because I'll tell you. It's a short interview with a local woman who works at the Underprivileged Kids Who Want To Play Golf Association. It's actually called First Tee Program and sounds both cool and good, assuming that you are mistakenly assuming that golf doesn't suck.

This post has to do with the last question asked of the young lady being interviewed. She was asked if anything funny had ever happened in relation to children and golf and her job. She answered that the children were generally fun to watch and mentioned a particular story involving her own lack of familiarity with the game.

She admitted to standing too closely to a new player and taking a shot from a club swing in the neck. She then suggested that this wasn't actually funny. Here I must take offense. If someone getting knocked out from a golf club to the neck isn't funny then I propose that nothing is ever going to be funny again. Ever!

Here is where I relay my own knockedoutedness as a result of a golf club to a sensitive area now that we've taken care of the "where the fuck is this coming from" out of the way.

I forget now how old I may have been. It would have been in the early days of my family dabbling in golf. If I remember correctly it was my oldest brother originally. Regardless, there was a set of golf clubs at our house, though I was old enough that this brother should have been moved out, or so I remember.

The story involves myself of course as the knockedoutee and my next younger brother as the knockouter. He and I apparently remember this story differently. Due to the nature of the wound that resulted from whichever story is true, I can not justify any real belief in my own story. Wounds of this sort produce oddities of thought and comprehension, and I often wonder if this single day has any bearing on how me and my thinky parts turned out.

My memory involves me walking behind my next younger brother as he swung the golf club. I do in fact remember being on the tail end of the swing, as in, his swing stopped it's long graceful arch in the side of my head.

The brother remembers me trying to pick up a ball that he was about to hit. He claims that he warned me that he wasn't going to not swing just because I was trying to get the ball. According to his version I was being kind of a dick and insisting it was my turn to hit the ball.

Either story makes him look worse, and whichever is true, I still ended up at the hospital getting my very first stitches. I can't say that I actually got knocked out because, as I may have mentioned, my memory of the event is a little fuzzy. I may very well have gotten knocked out.

Whichever story is true, getting hit in the head or neck, whether or not you get knocked out, can be very funny. And that's a bankable truth.

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This one is neat if only because of the birthday I get to list. It seems somewhat familiar but probably because I've actually looked this up. The idea is to look up your birthday, month and day only, on Wikipedia and then list some wacky something or other. See the list. Thanks, Chris, for keeping the good times rolling. I might actually wait till I get a kid in bed, but ya'll won't know if I did or didn't, so what the hell do you even care?

September 7

Three Events That Occurred That Day
1191-Third Crusade-Richard I of England defeats Saladin at the Battle of Arsuf
1776-American submersible, Turtle, launches first submarine attack attempting to attach a bomb to the English ship HMS Eagle
2005-Egypt sees its first presidential election.

Two Important Birthdays
1860-Grandma Moses, American painter
1936-Buddy Holly, rock and roll icon, dead too soon

One Death
1892-John Greenleaf Whittier

One Event Celebrated
Independence Day in Brazil