Cold Turkey

I'm having turkey again. Who knew?

See, what happened was that I ordered turkey breast but it didn't have the bone in, so I got a turkey at the store. And, as you know, the later you get a bird, the bigger it is, so we got one that was around 16 pounds. It was great. Still is, that's the point.

And thanks to enlisting the friend who was over (and brought awesome pecan pie), we now call gravy "Yummy Steve Sauce." Email me and I can give you the recipe for "Yummy Steve Sauce." Heh, heh.

Anyway, it seems odd that "going cold turkey" means abstaining entirely from the addictive substance, when in real life cold turkey seems to last forever and translates to a kind of overdose.

stars, I tell you, stars

Go to (or wait for) the 50 second mark (and, briefly, 1:31).

新唐人電視台 http://www.ntdtv.com

basketball

The oddest thing. When we go to baseball games, Madge tunes out.

But the basketball we saw this weekend was right up her alley. The noise, the excitement, and the Newcastle on tap.

Wait. The last one was me.

Conrad was not as sold on the event, but I think that's because we timed the cotton candy intake badly. He had his face sticky by the end of the first quarter and the game went into overtime. Or, in sugar-high terms: 23 minutes into The Crash.

Still fun, though. Now if only the local team were any good...

oboyoboy

By now I think you know I fall behind on posting when we have guests or we are on vacation or the kids are sick - basically when I don't have a prolonged period of alone time.

Today was one of the first days in a while that I've been able to sit here and type and now, of course, I'm not sure what to write about.

We had swimming again today and it was the first time of the new session that both kids were fit to swim. Jeez, what a day. While I was able to schedule both on the same day, there's a 45-minute gap between the classes, so we don't get home from 8:20am to 6pm. Which can be a lot. Especially if one of us is still recuperating from a week of fever and cough.

But we made it.

In different news, I've decided to try to learn a few more things by heart, partly because I get bored on solo walks around the neighborhood and partly because my lengthy ear-popping cold has gotten me off the iPod for a while.

I've learned all of Burns' "To a Mouse" - with accent and all - and was starting on Arnold's "Dover Beach" when I realized that "Dover Beach" doesn't flow off the tongue as well. I like it, but I can't figure out how to say it right.

You can't prove it (other from my mangled punctuation), but this is the last verse from memory:

Ah, love, let us be true

to one another. For the world which seems

to lie before us in a land of dreams

so various, so beautiful, so new

hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

and we are here as on a darkling plain

swept by confused alarms of struggle and flight,

where ignorant armies clash by night.

I also learned - perhaps you sense a theme - the beginning of Yeats' "Second Coming":

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

the falcon cannot hear the falconer.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world;

the blood-dimmed tide is loosed; and everywhere

the ceremony of innocence is drowned;

the best lack all conviction; while the worst

are full of passionate intensity.

I should go back to Pippa's Song, no?

I welcome suggestions what to learn next. I might be going on a fifth-grade field trip to Gettysburg, so I'm thinking of learning Lincoln's speech.

By the way, if you don't mind talking to yourself as you walk, I recommend this. It is quite fun to learn lines while wandering about. "To a Mouse" took me more than a week, I think.

embarrassing

I'm not talking about the old news of Papa Phillips here.

I was just listening to this song (at random) and realized that, thanks to a Hal Leonard Jazz Pak, I still know that %$#!!#$! flute solo by heart.

It starts at 1:18

nerdy, I know

This poem doesn't look like much on the page, but I challenge you to read it aloud and not get chills while speaking the last line.

Oh, it's by Robert Browning (jr., the star of the upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie - not!)

You can also take it to the next level and learn it by heart. It's short. You can impress people in the early morning hours. Give them chills, too. But, remember, saying it aloud is the trick.

[Pippa's Song]

The year's at the spring;

The day's at the morn,

Morning's at seven;

The hill-side's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in His heaven -

All's right with the world.

Of course the cynic in me (and, having read some of Browning's other poems, I think the cynic in him, too) points out that it won't and can't last.

And yet, that not-lasting-ness off the moment is what makes it so poignant. (Also, Greek story style, things are only right with the world when the gods butt out of human affairs.)

you ask, we deliver

All Hallow's Eve with warm fuzzies:

yard sale with entertainment

Today was a day off because the elections are held in the schools. In SF and Mpls, they were just in seemingly random homes and garages. In Chicago, we voted in the old people's residence across the street, but I have the feeling in retrospect that it was just another version of "random homes and garages." It smelled more official, though.

So I was home with the kids. Coco didn't want to leave or change out of his pjs until he had the idea to have a yard sale. So we had one. Not that I'm a big fan or that we were very successful, but it got him out of the house and got us to clean a little. Win/win.

And I got to play guitar outside to lure in the customers. Coco kept insisting I put out the case to earn some money for myself but I didn't want to distract from him. Also, it would have meant playing complete songs rather than playing songs I sort of know up to the point where I forget things or mess up and blame a passing squirrel or car for my fudging. Or, put another way, it would have meant playing two songs over and over again rather than playing an aggregate of 6.2883 songs.

Coco earned 6 bucks, mostly because he pulled a bait-and-switch. All toys for one dollar, except for some - was his motto.

H-H-Halloween

In a sense, Julie and I got lucky and Madge and Coco didn't get jealous.

Because, man, in our Bert and Ernie costumes, we were celebrities.

"Look, it's Bert and Ernie!" "Hey, Bert!" "Ernieeee!" Over and over again.

Highlights include:

A group of Asians had their picture taken with us. Various kids had their pictures taken with us, too, but the Asian group was in their twenties.

Kids ran up and hugged us. One kid, while Coco and I were in line for a haunted house, just held my hand for a while.

And one kid, believing a bit too much, asked me, "Bert, what are you going as?"

We, of course, played it up and waved to anyone who recognized us.

Individually, we didn't get as much attention. When Julie was out on her own or when I was off doing something, we didn't get as many shouts. But the one-two combination of America's favorite same-sex couple was always a hit.

Warms the heart.

field trip

The problem - one of the many problems - of Julie being out of town is that I don't really have someone to laugh about things with. Let's say what I mean: laugh about other people. At. At other people.

Anyone can read this, so I'll try to code this as abstractly as I can.

Certain people come on field trips and are no help whatsoever. Don't listen, wander off, space out, and then drag their kids off to do special little excursions. But enough about me... (badum! Why is it so hard to resist the easy joke? Again, because Julie isn't here. Really, she guides me in ways she doesn't even realize.)

No. It was someone else. But I'm guessing by the behavior on the field trip this person wouldn't really know I was writing about him or her because he or she isn't strong in the attention-paying department. His or her attention is several payments behind and about to be foreclosed on. (The metaphor does extend, after all, to attention deficit.)

Anyway. Grr. Julie, you know what I mean, right? Grrr.

It was a Madge field trip, so it was fifth graders and I wasn't so much a shepherd as a goatherd. And part-time monkey wrestler.

Report to London

Today's report is not as elaborate.

It's been rainy. But Coco no longer wants to wear his boots because they're too heavy. Can't blame him. Turns out I didn't need to rush with the kazoos because the choir teacher was out today and his assistant took over.

Coco was irritable all afternoon while Madge took advantage of the iPod that Julie had forgotten to take along, so there was much awkward, non-blissful silence.

Trying to think of some haha moment that happened today but I can't really think of any right now. Madge enjoyed the New Yorker cover, as she always does when it is trying to be funny and Coco enjoyed his after-school Oreos.

I think I just realized one of the sources of his irritability. Oops.

Kazoo-istry

I know, I know, a pun. But, c'mon, it's not bad as puns go which makes it forgivable. If not, write me a letter of complaint and I'll refund your money.

Anyway, I finally remembered to get a kazoo, which Madge needs for chorus. Yikes, right? Having two kids, I got two kazoos. (And you people thought I'd never learn.) Why not three, you might ask, knowing full well that for most intents and purposes (barring a few NC-17 ones) I'm still a child as well? Ha-HAA! I had the opportunity to impress the wee ones with some wax paper over a comb. Old-school. They really were impressed, too.

Now I need to buy more combs.

As to the pun, well. Unlike the laws of thermodynamics, I rarely let matters rest and looked up the word "casuistry." Sure enough, it's pronounced kaj-OO-eh-stree. Still not satisfied, I even looked up what it means. Now here's the thing (pay attention, you might learn something):

It involved applying *general* ethical principles to *particular* cases of conscience or conduct.

But - ah-HAA! (that's two times in one post) - the word "casuist" has its origin 1600-1610, the word "casuistic" 1650-60, and the word "casuistry" 1715-25.

Odd, huh, how the word that focuses on applying general concepts to particular cases originates with the individual who does so and only abstracts a general concept more than a hundred years later. Dumb ol' word.

Oh, it also refers to "oversubtle, fallacious, or disingenuous reasoning." I have no idea what that means and can't be bothered to look it up.

Library Background

Yep, the kids have graduated from the laser background on the school pictures.

Julie's out of town, so the posts will be a bit more detailed. Good for everyone except my fingers.

On Monday, I successfully got a white button shirt and a striped clip-on tie for Coco, just as he wished. This morning, the shirt was a bit big, but his old one was way too small, so we rolled up the sleeves and clipped on the tie and were good to go. Or so I thought until he walked around for a bit and realized how uncomfortable it was to actually wear these clothes. So we dumped them and looked or something else and something else and something else and finally chose a red shirt.

This red shirt is meaningless to most of you, but Julie knows this is the exact red shirt we had to buy for the last set of pictures. It's red and has no logos or insignia, but because those are hard to find, it, too, is too big. Or rather was, as now the sleeves merely approach his elbows - rather than cover them - and we were good to go.

So there's still hope for the white shirt and tie.

And Madge (yesterday) merely tortured me by asking "which shirt?" and then not liking my response. I've learned enough to not change my response and stick to my admittedly low-caliber guns, but at least I wasn't accused of changing my mind just to please her.

Please put in your requests for copies of the pictures now.

For a a wallet-sized picture, send in, oh, I don't know, $59.95 for each child.

darn that iPod

Julie's out of town and my stupid iPod launched me into a feeling-sorry-for-myself cycle just because it chose to play Patsy Cline.

Now I need to work through my maudlin "Daddy's Other Mood" playlist. Feel free to suggest songs. This one is on it.

Stupid iPod. Sniff.

Heintje!

Wait.

Why have I never seen this movie?

I Love Rowan Atkinson

Even if you say you don't - and, honestly, you may *say* but deep down you do; it's like *saying* you don't like the Beatles: the homo sapiens DNA does not permit this to be true or the organism will self-destruct - where was I? Oh. Even if you say you don't, you'll have to admit that this is strangely informative, or, as the people across the great spittoon might say: spot on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9fsn6lQBV4

My big sister, the star

My sister sent in a message that will be projected onto the Brandenburg Gate on Oct. 22, but she won't be able to see it live because she's out of town.

Her message is, "Congratulations, you are going to be a star for a night!"

A bit Andy Warhol-ish, but she's just being modest. She's always a star.

If anyone's around, please go, take a picture, upload it, and see what happens.

Here are the details:

Dear Participant,

thank you for submitting your personal three-part phrase to the Festival
of Lights.
*Congratulations, you are going to be a star for a night! *

On October 22, 2009 between 7 pm and midnight, we are going to project
your message onto the Brandenburg Gate and make it /your/ landmark. Your
"triads" and your name will light up the gate together with 60 other
phrases from all over the world.

Don't forget that you might have to wait a bit to see your message on
the Brandenburg Gate: the 60 phrases will repeat roughly every 30
minutes that night. If you wait long enough, you'll get to see your
message projected a number of times.
If you can't make it to the Brandenburg Gate in person, we invite you to
watch your message being projected by accessing the webcam *live on the
Internet *at http://www.sei.berlin.de/live-dabei/festival-of-lights/

All the best from the */be /Berlin* team.

Coco Day

Coco had to stay home today because of overly digested stuff zipping out of his body wherever it could. Graphic enough?

On the way to picking up Madge (and a friend of Coco's and two friends of Madge's - I'm turning into the rat catcher of Brooklyn) Coco said, "My butt buns are sticky."

Excellent. But: what other buns does he think he has?

Bud Powell

Jeeez.

Just watch those hands dance.

Madge Monday

Madge's friend was over for pizza last night and the girls (including Julie) got to talking about books. They pointed out how hard it was to read Tuck Everlasting in class because it is hard to keep from crying at certain points and nobody really wants to cry in class in fifth grade over a book.

Julie asked Madge if she ever cried over a book and Madge said No, she didn't, but she almost did over this one story.

And then she started telling about (the classic really, the kind that made me weep as a kid) about an animal sacrificing its life to save the child friend/owner. And while she told about this book that didn't make her cry while she read it, she ended up crying while speaking. Aww.

But this, in turn, made her and her friend and Julie laugh, so poor Madge was a wreck: red-faced, laughing and crying at the same time.

And this was when I very confusedly entered the conversation.