Valentine's Day
Knowing that one of my New Year's resolutions had been to start playing my dad's guitar, Kristi had it restrung and bought me some instructional books. And five picks! One for each finger, apparently -- or one to use when Emma and Smudge have appropriated the other four.
Labels: family, gifts, music
A Renaissance Festival Poem
Dragon snot.
Ice when it's hot.
Human benches.
Inspiring wenches.
Em takes wing.
Zilch ... doesn't sing.
Renaissance dog.
Dudes on a log.
Paper making.
And corn snaking.
Emma flies high.
Twig says 'bye'!
Labels: family, renaissance festival
Synchronicity
Madeleine L'Engle died yesterday. I came home to find a very beaten-up copy of "A Wrinkle In Time" on the dining room table. We do not, to my knowledge,
own a copy of "A Wrinkle In Time," and the source of the book (and the reason it sits out) will remain a mystery until Kristi gets home. Add to that Scooter and Poo-Tee-Wheet's daughter starting this year at
Tesseract, and I figure it all has to mean something.
Labels: family, weirdness
Father's Day
Yesterday my next-door neighbor, Steve, recommended that I try out the Midtown Greenway in Minneapolis. Never having ridden it, I thought that sounded like a fine idea, so this morning I headed on over.
The greenway runs east-west through the heart of Minneapolis, all the way from the Mississippi River Parkway to Lake Calhoun and Lake of the Isles. Oddly enough, as I transitioned from the River Parkway to the greenway, I saw yet another two-door purple RAV. They're suddenly everywhere I'm bicycling, but when I'm out driving mine, I never see another one. Weird.
The greenway makes good use of existing and former railway rights-of-way to carve a path across town with a minimum of cross-traffic. Much of the route is below-grade, between 29th and 28th streets, with "onramps/offramps" every half-mile or so to get you back into traffic if you're so inclined. (
Here's an example of one looping off of the greenway and up to 18th Avenue, and
here's a picture of one from on the greenway itself.) Dotting the path are community gardens and other things to look at, including a
restaurant patio at the back of the old Sears building (now upscale condos, hotel, shopping and dining). When you get to Uptown and close to the lakes, people's front yards come right down to the path, and you can admire the landscaping and (inwardly) thank them for the scenery.
The whole ride this morning was about 17 or 18 miles. Sitting at the lakes, I considered riding south past Calhoun and Harriet and catching the Minnehaha Creek trail back east, but I figured that would've taken too long. So I simply retraced.
When I got home, Emma had a Father's Day present waiting for me. I'm wearing it now: a blue t-shirt with "Dad: The Man, The Myth, The Legend" embroidered on it. (Very tastefully.)
After a (prolonged) call to Kristi's dad, we walked down to the Saint Clair Broiler, where Emma has bought me breakfast the last two Father's Days. With Kristi no longer working weekends, this was the first time we'd all eaten there together. Food: fine. Company: great. Booths: in serious need of repair.
Then a relaxing rest-of-the-morning around the house, followed by
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End in Oakdale. I was thoroughly satisfied; despite what I'd heard, I had no trouble whatsoever sorting out the various plots and double-crosses. Topped off everything with dinner at Sawatdee, another Father's Day tradition.
Labels: bicycling, family, movies
My Wife Is Very Smart
So why is she completely unable to insert a Netflix movie into its return envelope
with the barcode visible before sealing the flap?
Labels: family, movies
Hidden Jewel
Well,
Scooter and Ming may (or may not) have gone to
House of Wu without me today, but I had a fine day regardless. Mom and I went to the
Museum of Russian Art. Aside from a painful detour caused by the Crosstown Freeway construction, it was a brilliant success. It's a small but beautiful museum with excellent handicapped access (we'd rented a wheelchair for mom, as she's having some serious mobility issues again). The current exhibitions are all spectacular. I particularly enjoyed the Andrew Moore photographs on display in the lower level gallery; really beautiful work. But the "Soviet Breadbasket" display has some incredible paintings in it. The gift shop is quite something, too, very different from your "typical" museum shop.
On the way out, we ran into
Judi Dutcher. She's been working at the Museum as Director for several weeks, and seemed on top of her game already, seemingly knowing everything about the current and planned exhibitions. She was very nice and very helpful, answering mom's questions and retrieving some additional info from her office for us. I'd vote for her,
E-85 or no E-85.
Labels: arts, family, politics
My Brother Says I Should Blog More
He's right, of course. Older brothers are always right; if they're wrong, they beat you up until they're right. Them's the rules.
Right now my mom is visiting from California, it's been prime gardening season (which means Kristi's busy, which means I'm cooking/dishwashing/Emma-shepherding, I've been attempting to rebuild our porch screens, my allergies are kicking in, work has been high-maintenance,
and it's prime development season for CDFFL, which is getting an entirely new look, 100% new code (of course), and a number of new features. And I've been catching up on my missed episodes of
Heroes. In short, I've been busy. Deal with it.
Believe me, if I'd had time to blog, you'd have heard lots the last few weeks about Alberto Gonzalez and his nonstop effort to subvert the Constitution. You really weren't interested in reading about that, were you?
I'll do better.
Labels: blogging, family, politics
"The Bunny Story"
By popular demand. Really, this is Kristi's story to tell, but she thinks blogging is every bit as big a waste of time as watching
Buffy DVDs or reading the Worth1000.com forums. So it falls to me. I know I won't do it justice, but a man's got to try. I apologize in advance.
Emma has been particularly difficult lately. I won't go into all of the details; just trust me when I say that she's been a real strain on both my patience and Kristi's. One way it manifests itself is hypochondria. Every couple of weeks I'll get a call from Emma, using the school nurse's phone. "Dad?" "Hi, Emma." "I'm not feeling well." Even when the nurse says she's got a fever and I take her home, by the time 4:00 rolls around and Elli next door gets home, Emma is feeling great and wanting to play (not that I let her). Kristi and I have talked to her about our jobs and responsibilities, and how we can't just take off any time Emma's not feeling 100%, and how school is
her job and she's got to tough it out just like we try to do when we're not feeling great.
One morning a couple of weeks ago, I got
three calls from Em. Each time I told her that if she didn't have a fever she needed to stay at school. She did, finally, stay until school was over. Kristi and I were at a loss to understand this one. Finally, though, after Emma went to bed, Kristi had a sudden realization while brushing her teeth, and burst out of the bathroom to tell me about the drive to school that morning.
The girls were (typically) rushing to get Emma to school in time to avoid another tardy slip. Kristi was driving, concentrating on balancing speed versus safety. Emma, on the other hand, wanted to talk about her material needs. Specifically, she wanted to discuss her need for another pair of red cowgirl boots for her birthday.
Now, this would be her third pair of red cowgirl boots. She outgrew pair #1 years ago, and passed them on to her cousin Tatum in California. She can still squeeze into pair #2, but not comfortably. So clearly she
needs another pair (much like I
need to start a collection of
Angel season sets, now that my
Buffy collection is complete).
Kristi, being a reasonable adult (and a stressed driver), pointed out that Emma's birthday is in April. If she got tooled leather boots in April, she wouldn't wear them most of the summer (they're too hot, and summertime is flip-flop and watershoe time anyway). And by the time things cooled off in the fall, they probably wouldn't fit anymore. Why not wait for Christmas?
Emma, being an 8-year-old girl and thus inherently unreasonable, wouldn't accept this. If she couldn't have them for her birthday, what about Easter? "Easter is in April too," Kristi pointed out, "and if we're not buying them for your birthday, we're not buying them for Easter either." Emma tried cajoling, arguing, and finally whining, and (I think) Kristi actually pulled over at this point because she was so stressed.
"We are
not buying you the boots. We're not buying them for your birthday, and we're not buying them for Easter." "Fine," pouted Emma. "Maybe the Easter Bunny will bring them."
At which point, Kristi clutches at the air with both hands and shouts, "Emma,
I am the Easter Bunny!!!"Result: one sick child.
Labels: family, humor
Birthday Follow-Up
So, the gift list, which was very satisfying in a geeky sort of way (although, really, nothing can compete with the Toshiba notebook computer Kristi gave me for my birthday/holiday present last year):
- A Rockler gift card from my brother-in-law and his family;
- Two CDs from my sister-in-law and her family (a Kinks CD to fill a gap in my collection, and Marykate O'Neil's latest;
- Four O'Reilly books from my mom and Kristi's parents (the CVS and shell scripting books are going to come in very, very handy in my new life as a NetKernel-on-Linux developer);
- Also from Kristi's folks, the seventh and final season of Buffy on DVD, finishing out my collection;
- From Emma, a tub of Red Vines (my favorite treat);
- And from Kristi, a fondue set (yes, I've been wanting one for a while, 'cuz if I can make cheese fun for Emma, maybe she'll actually consume some protein -- plus, you know, chocolatey fun).
We took a drive (the five of us in a Yaris (cramped but, well, cramped) down to Red Wing, just to get out of the house. John hadn't been that direction before, and it's been years and years since I have. Tonight Kristi and I will do dinner and maybe a movie -- depending on how soon we get out of here.
Labels: birthday, family
Birthday Report: Early Edition
It's a funny thing. I woke up knowing it was my birthday, but it never occurred to me until I sat down to write this that it was my birthday
and that I was another year older. So I'm kinda thinking maybe I'm not.
Kristi got up early to get groceries, and I got up early to do some work (writing documentation) -- but thought I'd pop in here quickly to wish myself a happy birthday. I know there's a pumpkin pie for me in the fridge; beyond that, the gift situation is hazy. More later.
Labels: birthday, family
Stuff and Other Stuff
As previously noted, we went to the Renaissance Festival, and didn't see Twig. We did, however, see these guys.
Emma had really, really wanted to try the Jacob's Ladder. So she did.
Hey! I don't know who you are, but get your hand off my wife's butt!
Back at home, Izzy proves she's not very discriminating.
And finally: today, the RAV saw snow for the first time this fall.
Labels: family
