Foolery

Nerds In Europe Day Six: Monday, June 1, 1992

The water finally came back on around noon or earlier.  Dad didn’t feel like sightseeing, so he went to the beach, and the four of us went down the coast to Fuengirola (about 20 minutes away).  Ken’s friend Robin had a friend, a former student, who now works in Fuengirola (his family is from here).  Ken knew him too, and had arranged to meet him at his office.

Javier and his older brother Guillermo have an architectural business in a building right across the street from a huge beach.  Javier gave us a tour of Habitat, their three-story business.  Very cool.  Afterwards we went across the street to a beach bar and had a beer.  We made plans to have dinner with Javier Tuesday night.

Next we headed inland to Grenada, to see the Alhambra.  The trip was pleasant but long.  The Alhambra was interesting, but too much of a good thing.  I like the Moorish influence on Spain, and seeing the Alhambra made me realize how pervasive Moorish influence on architecture has been.
 

In the last segment of the tour -- the Alcazaba, I think -- we climbed up a winding stairway to the top of the highest tower, from which we could see miles beyond Grenada.  We counted 52 steps on the way down -- more than four stories in that tower alone.




We got home in time for dinner at Bogart’s, down the hill with the rest of the British places.  We ate on the patio as usual, but it was colder than usual, so I left a little early.  Besides, sitting on the patio makes you fair game for all the guys coming around trying to sell you stuff.  I walked back up the hill by myself.

Television has been interesting here.  The best part is the advertising, especially English.  The ads are usually funny, and pretty creative.  But when they’re corny they’re really corny.

The Grand Prix at Monaco was on all weekend, and the French Open has been on, too.  Other than that the choices are pretty slim, unless you count Dad and Ken’s favorite, “Tutti-Frutti.”  It’s a soft-porn game show or something from Germany.  There’s also “Love at First Sight,” England’s version of “Love Connection.”  It’s so bad you have to watch it out of disbelief.

Nerds In Europe Day Five: Sunday, May 31, 1992

Another chilly morning.  The weather has been surprising; it’s really not warm enough to swim or eat outside, but it’s not too bad, so we try anyway.  Not that any of us are swimming; we’re not.  The Mediterranean is very cold here, probably because we’re so close to the Atlantic.  Besides, I’m not sure that the town’s sewage doesn’t come right down the hill into the sea.  I’ll stick to Hawaii and our pool, thanks.

No water yet, but it’s been promised for about half an hour in the afternoon.  About noon we went down to the entrance to Marbella (a big gaudy white arch over the highway with MARBELLA carved out of the plaster) and went to Banana Beach.  It was pretty quiet when we arrived.  We staked out some chaise longues and got some rays (350 pasetas apiece for the chairs.  At 98.75 exchange rate it’s about $3.50 American).

Dad and Ken got plenty of boobs for their money, although they were mostly middle-aged milktoast British boobs on holiday.  Lots of little kids who said things like, “Duddy” and “Mum” and “khan we ‘ave a go at the wottah, Duddy?”  Big loudmouth jerks sunning themselves in their jeans and motorcycle boots.

“I’M GOING SWIMMING!”  -- big obnoxious, loud thug upon seeing a lovely young topless thing head for the water

The beach bar was right behind us, and they fired up a huge stereo and warmed up a rock band, so we left.  Pretty much a Ft. Lauderdale atmosphere with families.  Lots of Spaniards on holiday and locals out on a Sunday.  Good sun, good beer, but just a little too Coney Island for us.

“I’ll bet there’s 57 tits up there.”

We headed back home to use the little water we were allowed, cleaned up, and went to the pub downstairs.

English child:  “Duddy, Duddy, that mean man has taken my chair.  Duddy, I don’t like it here.  I want to go home, Duddy.”

One of the bartenders suggested the Royal Beach Restaurant just a few blocks down the highway, so we tried it.  You could tell it was almost entirely open air in the summer, but because the ocean wind was so chilly they had all the glass siding up.

Dad:  “What do I want to eat, Lynne?”

We finally got our paella.  Dad and Bocci and I ordered it together, and they brought it out in a large iron skillet.  Instead of mixing it all together, they laid the seafood on top, so it pretty much stared up at you while you ate.  All shrimp are served whole -- even the vein is left in, eyes bulging out, etc.  But they’re great.  I’m not as crazy about the mussels, though.

Back home to bed, very late as usual.  The hours are easy to adjust to here:  we get up about 8:30, sometimes later, and dawdle until about 11:30.  Lunch is usually around 2:30 or 3:00, happy hour at 8:00, dinner at 9:30 or 10:00, and bed at about 1:00 a.m.  The sun seems to be about an hour or more behind our time, because it doesn’t get completely dark until about 10:00.  I could live this way.

Nerds In Europe Day Four: Saturday, May 30, 1992

I was the lucky one -- I got a shower.  I was so careful to be frugal with the hot water that I even endured a mostly-cold shower.  So I couldn’t understand it when our water supply dwindled to a drip by 11:30 a.m.  We found out later it wasn’t my fault -- a water main for most of the coastal towns broke, and nobody informed the condo managers.  All their reserve supply, which could have been rationed, was used up.

“Oh, by the way, did I mention this lamp is broken?”

So we piled into our tight little car and took a late-afternoon trip to Ronda.  The drive was pleasant but probably nerve-wracking for Ken, who drove.  The road wound around the cliffs of the high coastal range, heading inland.

Ronda is a small town built on top of cliffs and bisected by an extremely deep and very narrow gorge.  The town drainage falls into the stream at the bottom, which is visibly polluted and smells even from a long way above it.
 

http://pie.blogs.com

The town was quaint and very European, with cobblestone streets and marble and tiles everywhere.  Ronda also boasts Spain’s oldest bull ring, which we toured and clowned around in.  Its museum was interesting, and included more bullfighting memorabilia than I thought existed.

We had lunch at a small cafe in a very old building.  The art was, as Kenny described it, “appalling,” but the food was pretty good.  Mom and Bocci ordered gazpacho, which to everyone’s amusement came blended in a tall glass.  They drank it like a V8.  I thought Dad was going to choke on his laughter.

It looked like rain, so we headed for home.  The views of the Mediterranean and the chalk-white villas were stunning.  Some of the villas were clumped together in tight knots of urbanization on the side of a hill.  We’re not used to that type of lifestyle, because we’re so territorial, and because we have too many earthquakes.

“We’ve seen Africa!  Now we won’t have to go there.”

We did a large shopping at a grocery store in Marbella, then back to the condo.  Still no water, but it had apparently been on for a while, because we had enough water to flush the toilets once.

Again we decided to eat with the Brits, this time halfway down the hill at the “Brahms and Lizst” pub.  Kenny said that was Cockney for something-and-pissed (drunk).  The food was pretty disgusting, but the waiter was nice and the beer was great.

Dad, to Ken:  “Why do you like beer?  Your mother and your father or your sister or your brother don’t like beer.”
Ken:  “Why do you want to learn to read?  Your mother and father, sister or brother can’t read -- why do you have to?”

We had a constant flow of African men selling crappy tourist stuff -- nothing interesting, always too expensive, always the same.  Dad, of course, encouraged them.  He tried to get me to buy something -- anything -- but I wouldn’t even look.

Dad:  “My new Rolex better be working.  It cost me almost $45.00.”
Ken:  At least your watch is right twice a day.”
Dad:  “I should have gotten the one with diamonds; it was only $5.00 more.”

Home again to go to bed grubby.  The water was promised by Monday morning, but this is Spain.  Nobody’s betting any money.

Nerds In Europe Day Three: Friday, May 29, 1992

Leaving Los Yébenes by noon or so, we drove south through hours of rolling terrain with nothing but olive orchards.  It finally began to clear up, with periods of intermittent rain.





http://www.widgetracing.com

Mom:  “This looks like southern Oregon, except with more olive trees.”
Dad:  “It looks a LOT like Spain to me.”

We arrived in Málaga in the early evening and headed up the coast to Mijas Costa.  Our condo was in the Calahonda district.  It specializes in British tourists, so everything is in English (or at least secondarily in English).

Our first meal was, of course, Chinese.  First, however, we went to happy hour at an English pub in our complex.  We drank a lot of beer, then walked the 1/2 mile or more down hill to dinner.  It was actually very good.  The walk back up the hill was necessary.

Nerds In Europe Day Two: Thursday, May 28, 1992

More attrocious flight attendants, but the food was good.  We drank like fish because the alcohol was free.  Seat by the bathroom under an air duct, and the movie broke.  Is this a Chinese prison camp?  Can I come back?

 
 

Madrid was totally clouded over and cold.  We piled into a little Citroën and drove through the city.  Somehow we got stuck on a three-lane one-way street that converged to one lane.  Worse than an L.A. freeway at rush hour.  But the city was attractive and it was worth it.

“THERE’S a woman without a mirror.”

We left Madrid after much difficulty and drove to Toledo, a beautiful old city on a hill.  We toured the cathedral there -- amazing.  The streets didn’t seem to make much sense -- very narrow, not at right angles, etc.  But picturesque.



Dad:  “¿Donde esta las vacas?”

Lunch was an experience.  Foolishly we wanted to eat at an out-of-the-way place, so we found a very local place upstairs, down a long, narrow alley.  Ordering was humiliating -- it took almost ten minutes.

“Mi Español es pequeño [I speak a small Spanish].”

We stayed at a forgettable little hotel on a hill above Los Yébenes.  It was clean and functional, but in the morning our “fried” eggs were almost completely raw.  We did catch up on some needed sleep.

“Can you turn our eggs over, or haven’t you got the technology?”

Nerds In Europe Day One: Wednesday, May 27, 1992

Dad:  “Kenny tricked us.  He told us he was taking us to Modesto.”

We got up much too early after going to bed much too late.  After picking up Kenny in Davis we braved commuter traffic through San Francisco and were underway by 11:00.

Remind me never to fly American again -- the food sucked, the attendants were Leona Helmsley wannabes, and they allow screaming toddlers on board.

Sitting in an icy Dallas airport drinking as much as we can seems to help.  Our flight has been delayed -- no big surprise.  Apparently they’re striking at the Madrid airport so we’ll see if we can even go.

Nerds In Europe: 1992 Trip Prologue

What do you do with a timeshare week which is about to expire?  If you’re my parents, and it’s 1992, you try to get a week in Baltimore.

Yes, I know how funny that is.  But if you remember back to 1992, the Baltimore Orioles had just completed their new ballpark, Oriole Park at Camden Yards.  Mom and Dad decided it would be fun to go catch a couple of games there, and see D.C. and the surrounding area.

No dice.  There were no timeshares available there within their time frame.  Broadening their search, they were frustrated to learn that there was NOTHING available in the U.S. in any area they wanted to visit (and I assert here that if Baltimore was number one of their list, they weren’t being overly picky.  Sorry Baltimore; no offense).

They had pretty much given up the idea of using their vacation week, when my Uncle Ken suggested Europe.  HA!  I thought.  Why would there be ANYTHING available in Europe in late spring if BALTIMORE was booked up?

So naïve.   Of me.

They found a lovely condo on the sunny south coast of Spain, near Mijas Costa and Marbella.  It was the perfect place to use as a launching pad for day trips to the Alhambra, the Mezquita, and so on.

So they invited Uncle Ken, and they very generously brought my brother Bocci and me along at their expense.  I tried to make myself useful by brushing up on my Spanish and learning French.  I practiced in the car every day for three weeks while commuting, listening to tapes and chanting “bon jour, mademoiselle!” over and over and over.  I learned a lot, and as is typical for me I nailed the pronunciation, but retained very few verbs.

While going through some old boxes in my parents’ storage room the other day I found my trip diary from that 1992 trip, which I’d about given up as lost.  What follows are my daily entries for the first half of our trip, which took place in Spain.  I was able to write each evening and so faithfully recorded each day’s activities.  Once we hit the road for France, however, we were in the rental car all day, and writing was way too difficult.  I recorded our experiences in France by writing down only the goofy quotes that are inevitable in a cramped car full of American smart alecks driving from patisserie to patisserie and butchering the language wherever we went.

Uncredited photos were stolen from Wikipedia.com.  All pulled quotes are courtesy of my family: parents Dave and Lynne, uncle Ken, and brother Bocci.  My brother Mantel Man was also in Spain that week, but it was with the U.S. Navy, and they didn’t let him come with us.  A good thing, too -- we put 4000 miles on the rented 4-door Citroën hatchback, and there wasn’t one inch of available space for Mantel Man (who was known as Ensign Butthead in those days).

A final note:  in the spring of 1992 Spain was furiously preparing for not one but TWO international events: the World’s Fair in Seville, and the summer Olympics in Barcelona.  We avoided both places like the plague.

My Sports Year

In our little house, Chas watches sports, therefore we ALL watch at least a little bit of sports . . . all year long.

 

Following sports on TV can alter life and seasonal changes as we know them.  Here's how our "sports year" goes, starting with, um, well it's hard to find a good starting place?  How about the two days of the year when there are NO major sporting events.  Do you know them?

 

I do.  They're religious holidays for me.

 

They are the day immediately preceding and following Major League Baseball's All Star game (usually right around my birthday, in early July).

 

So, our sports year begins with baseball; in our house it's the Dodgers and the Angels (although the Giants and the A's should be watched sometimes just to keep up on the enemies).  Golf happens each weekend, of course, beginning on Thursday and ending Sunday.  The British Open is a very important golf event in our house, although Chas can't kid ME -- he'd watch the Rosanne Barr Classic if there should be one.  I have a special fondness for the British Open, going back to when Chas and I were dating.  He'd show up at my apartment at 6:00 a.m. with doughnuts and hot chocolate.  He'd turn on the TV just loud enough to hear the announcers whispering.  I'd wake up, mumble "How's Monty doing?" eat a doughnut, then go back to sleep until the hot chocolate was cool enough to drink.  The good old days.

 

By August golf and baseball are in full swing, lousy pun intended.  Football is starting with a whimper in the form of exhibition games.  Thankfully, Chas is not as fanatical as my dad and doesn't insist on watching every single pre-season game.

 

September throws the NFL into the mix for real.  Chas's beloved Rams are now so far away in St. Louis that he gets to watch only some of their games.  Still, important match-ups among other teams must be watched.  Baseball is either over or just getting good, depending upon how the L.A. teams are doing.

 

October is a critical month for sports fans.  The World Series wraps up baseball, NFL football is dominating the airwaves (not to mention college ball; can't live without UCLA and some USC games on Saturdays, can we?), and little whuffles are coming from the corner where the NBA has been hibernating.  Basketball has actually started encroaching on baseball's final days in recent years, and with golf in its "silly season," as Chas calls it, well, the TV never cools down at our house.

 

November, December and January are all about football and basketball.  I have no idea when the soccer season might be, but I suspect it's like golf -- it goes all year, and how dare they actually call it a "season?"  Glory Be, Chas doesn't like soccer or hockey.  In fact, he may be poisoning the girls' minds against those sports, because on Saturday Sparky (in accusatory tones one might use for seeing someone pick his nose on camera) yelled, "DADDY!  There's HOCKEY on TV!"

 

After football ends in early February, college basketball is the big deal, and March Madness adequately describes my mental state.  If I have to live with sports on TV all the time, I'm lucky to be married to a man who is annoyed by most sports commentators, and who keeps the volume near zero.  Because if I had to hear Dick Vitale -- "Yeah bayyyy-beeeee!" -- any more than just on vacuous TV ads, I'd go postal by St. Patty's Day.

 

So here we are in April, and the NBA season has ended.  Not to worry, though; the playoff season is nearly as long as the regular season!  Whoopee!  The Lakers lost their first playoff game last night, as predicted by Chas.  It shouldn't be long now . . .

 

After April we're back where we started, with baseball and golf -- two of the most exciting AND boring spectator sports on the planet.  Maybe Dick Vitale is available for commentary, bayyyy-beeeee.

That You, Rocky?

Just had a weird thing happen.

 

Sitting here having lunch at my desk, when right outside the office door (five feet away) I heard the strangest squeaking sound -- like a dog's chew toy.  Very loud and panicked-sounding.  It had to be a bird, but the sound was coming from down low.  I opened the door very slowly so no bird could fly in . . .

 

. . . only, it wasn't a bird, it was a baby gray squirrel.  Not a tiny baby, but only half-grown.  Right there next to the doorstep.  It moved away, but not that quickly, actually, and then it turned back toward me as if it wanted IN.  I closed the door suddenly, and it scampered across the hall to the opposite wall, where it tried futilely to scale the corner of the building.

 

At first I thought it might be rabid, but I'm pretty sure it was just inexperienced and confused by concrete and walls.  It moved on to the lawn next to the bushes.  I followed slowly to see if it was acting strangely, but it wasn't.  It seemed relieved to be back on grass, and began foraging.  It moved away from me quickly, obviously frightened of a human, so I'm satisfied that it was just lost and confused.

 

Here, Kitty Kitty . . . Canned Cat Food . . .

Here's a new expense I bet you've never heard of:  having to replace your satellite receiver because the cat hacked up a lunger on it and apparently shorted it out.

 

Missing TV programs (including the Lakers, Dodgers, Angels, golf, and the Big Joe Polka Show):  Zero dollars.

 

Cost of replacing the receiver:  We'll find out.

 

Ability to use the phrase "hacked up a lunger" in a post:  Priceless.

Not Mourning Imus in the Morning

I've spent a lot of time this week reading people's opinions of the Imus affair --

WHEW!

And I have some comments.

First, for disclosure, I am . . .

white
female
conservative by nature
liberal on occasion
a native Californian, which tends to liberalize one's social views
mouthy as hell when I get my dander up
never an Imus viewer/listener, other than a few Dwight Yoakam clips 

WHAT I BELIEVE:

-- It is never okay to use the words Imus used, or any other racial slurs and slang.
-- There is no such thing as "reverse racism." Racism is racism.
-- "Just joking" is not a defense I let my children get away with much.
-- Good people aren't nice to the guests but mean to the waiter. Good is good, mean is mean.
-- Private citizens minding their own business are not acceptable targets for slings and arrows -- the basketball team had no idea they were going to be socio-political representatives last week, and had no forum to fight back.
-- Public figures -- especially elected officials and media darlings (include Imus and Rev. 1 and Rev. 2 in this) -- have made themselves available for public scrutiny of their public behavior. They need to suck it up.
-- IF IT'S OKAY to use hateful words (like the N-word, Whitey, Cracker, and several others) because you're "being casual" and "just joking," then it's just as okay to display SYMBOLS of racial hatred, such as white hoods, swastikas, burning crosses, and the rebel flag.
-- Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are no more "reverend" than I am, and I'm a non-believer.
-- Imus may do wonderful things for the world -- I understand he does and he is to be commended. But don't forget the phrase "Hitler made the trains run on time." No, I don't think Imus is anywhere near as bad as Hitler -- of course not. I'm just saying that it's not okay to "buy off" your bad behavior with money and good deeds. If that were true then sleazebuckets like Jack Abramoff, et al, would NEVER pay for their sins, instead of just RARELY pay for their sins.
-- MSNBC, and now CBS, had every right to fire Imus. We don't have to like it or agree with them (I do agree with them, from what I've read of it), but they are businesses and they have the right to say he crossed their line and they no longer want him to represent them. We have the right to boycott them, and any of their advertisers we wish to.

Additionally, it is apparently okay with the American public to malign Jewish men. See Rev. Jackson's comments and Imus's previous anti-Semitic remarks.

WHEW! again!

Thank you for indulging me.

Nature Walk

Took the girls for a walk Easter Sunday, and I kicked myself later that I didn't take my camera.  The late afternoon sun through a thin layer of silver clouds lit the fields of mustard seemingly from within.  It's rare that my part of California can be called "breathtaking," but that's what it was Sunday afternoon.

 

Our walk became a nature walk quite by accident.  Last year I explained to the girls what volunteer trees are, and we've watched a couple of them growing along the north half of our road, where we tend to walk.  I had told the girls that these scruffy little trees are usually found below telephone wires, because the birds sit on the wires, poop out seeds, and voila!  A new tree is started.  Smedley asked me if we could put up some telephone wires near our house to get some trees of our own started.  It takes a child to think that way.

 

Our favorite little volunteer tree was a young oak.  It was about five feet tall, and a couple of weeks ago was newly budding.  We watched the buds open over a two-day period, and saw the new leaves the following weekend.  So I was very sad to notice the wide swath of short grass along that side of the road . . . someone had mowed, and sure enough, our tree was gone.  I can't imagine what the machine must look like that could mow down a five-foot oak tree, but the resulting tree stump was a ten-inch high bristle of fibers.  Sad.  Understandable, because the tree was too close to the road for safety, ultimately, but still it was sad.

 

Continuing on up the road, Smedley collected oak leaves and walnut leaves to take home to trace, so she could learn what shapes those leaves have.  We saw a lot of poppies and lupin growing among the wild mustard and green grass; a riot of color to remember a month from now, when everything will be going brown and yellow for the rest of the year.

 

At the end of the road we stopped at the irrigation ditch which runs under the road and spits out the other side.  A low volume of water was flowing, so I felt safe letting the girls play around it.  We played Pooh Sticks (the game from the Winnie the Pooh books in which you race sticks under the bridge).  We saw killdeer wading in the irrigated fields. 
We scared up a pheasant rooster.

 

Sparky was most interested in the many, many anthills beside the road.  Each one so delighted her that it was like she was seeing one for the first time.  "Look!" she'd gasp.  "Thith one'th REALLY thmall!"  Thparky hasth a thmall lithp.

 

And then Smedley found a new volunteer oak tree.  It's only about a foot high, and quite healthy.  It'll be years before the county comes by again to mow it down, but I'm considering trying to transplant it in our yard.  I'd hate to see it die, but I'd like to try to move it while it's tiny.  After all, the likelihood of routing telephone wires over our yard to start new trees seems pretty slim.

That's MR. ED to You

I would make a lousy pharmacist.  For so many reasons, of course, but a new one just came to light yesterday:  I can't keep the names of drugs straight.

 

Not that I have to; I'm fortunate not to require any prescriptions yet.  But while chatting with my great aunt yesterday, I saw her flinch when I mentioned that my sister and I drove to town to buy her son some Cialis.

 

Oops -- my bad; no 17-year-old needs Cialis.  I meant CLARITIN.

 

I'm just as bad trying to differentiate between Flonase and Flomax.  Why DOES Big Pharma make all their allergy pills sound just like their willy pills?

 

I haven't confused anything with Viagra . . . yet.

 

Along this line of thought, I have been getting a lot of SPAM this week asking this question:  "Is ED affecting your sex life?"  Of course we're all bombarded with SPAM about every conceivable facet of our personal lives, and I'm no exception.  But this one confused me at first.  "Who's Ed?" I wondered, "And why would he be affecting my sex life?"

 

See?  Be glad you don't see me behind the counter at your local Walgreens.

Easter Is For Overindulgence

Easter weekend has largely come and gone, and we’re all a little fatter and happier.  Well, mostly fatter.

Friday morning when most bartenders were tapping their watch faces and barflys were getting desperate, my sister and her two teenaged boys were pulling into Orland on their way out to the ranch.  They picked up Uncle Ken on the way up, and they all stumbled in to Mom and Dad’s house to crash.  I worked Friday of course -- a busy and trying day which I was grateful to see end -- but the rest of them hung out and did the ranch thing.  These days “the ranch thing” includes watching baseball, talking about baseball, talking about watching baseball, thinking about talking about watching baseball, and power snacking.

After a desperation trip to Longs for Easter sugar I joined the group and helped Mom get dinner on the table.  We had our ham dinner Friday night, as it was the only night the whole group would be there.  Everything was delicious and it was great to spend an evening with Beth, and with the boys, who are no longer children but shaving young pre-adults.

Our arteries are apparently entirely too flexible and pliant, because we were hell-bent on hardening them up this weekend.  Milkshakes, truffles, brie cheese, Kenny’s homemade cheesecake, pizza, ham, bacon and eggs, cookies, buttered biscuits -- these were on the weekend menu (and that was just the first course).

Saturday morning Dad saw that he had a new calf, born to a very young cow whom Dad didn’t even know was pregnant.  Dad, Beth, and the kids and I headed out into the pasture to see the calf, but she was hiding.  We searched that pasture but she wasn’t in it.  I had about decided that Dad dreamed the whole thing because that calf was nowhere to be found.  On a hunch Dad crossed a fence into some high grass, and nearly stepped on the calf.  She jumped up with a bawl, as they do, but Dad wrestled her down.  For a tiny little thing she was pretty strong, and she tipped Dad over, which we enjoyed.  He straddled her neck, trapped her head, and punched an ear tag into her ear -- #5.  Getting her back under the fence was a little work, but he did it, and by then Mama cow was wondering what we were doing and came running.  We got out of the way.  NEVER get between a cow and her calf.

How that calf got under the fence is no mystery -- they lie down next to the fence, then wake up and stand up on the wrong side of the cables.  But she seemed to have crossed the fence on purpose in order to sleep in the tall grass.  Who ever imagined that long-domesticated cows would have such survival instincts?  I’ve never seen that level of cleverness before from a cow.

Dad got two new miniature rabbits last week, so we had them out on the lawn several times.  Both females; the brown one is Bon-Bon and the black one is Claudia.  So much for letting kids name your animals (actually, I think they did pretty well).

Dad decided to force a little male bonding, so he brought out a porch swing still in its box, complete with charts and graphs and 5000 pieces to assemble.  Uncle Ken and the boys did the work, while Dad sat and directed and talked about the benefits of a military career.  I’m sure my nephews were thrilled.  They did a fine job on the porch swing, however.

Auntie Beth and the girls and I colored Easter eggs in the kitchen.  The whole process was quite painless and they did a great job.

And today is Easter.  The bunny stayed up late stuffing plastic eggs, stuffing baskets, stuffing her face.  Effective quality control depends upon a good-sized representative sample, I always say.  Nearly 100 eggs to be hidden around the yard at 11:30 at night, while wearing my bathrobe.  With my hand I brushed a sticky spider web in some dark place, and nearly threw up.  The bunny left Daddy a 6-pack of Guinness.  Daddy’s luck gets better every year.

The girls came in at 6:30 a.m. to tell me that the bunny had left them Easter goodies by their beds.  It’s not hard to act surprised at 6:30 on a Sunday morning; it’s just hard to act awake.  Anything you are able to mumble registers as “WOW!  That’s TERRIFIC!” to an excited 4-year-old.  By their fourth and fifth return to ask to start the hunt, they’re less easily put off.

So I staggered out of bed and into my bathrobe, and we went out to see what the bunny had left.  It was quite a haul.  The girls loved it, and Smedley was very generous with Sparky, pointing out eggs Sparky should get instead of grabbing them first herself.

A hot air balloon launched from somewhere south of us.  I called Mom to tell her to look.  Mom is the only person I would ever dream of calling at 7:15 a.m. on a Sunday to tell her to look out the window.

So it’s been a lovely day.  We are now busy with the traditional Easter afternoon activities:  counting eggs, arranging eggs, sorting candy, and watching the Masters.  I have made for later the traditional Easter dinner -- tamale pie -- and am trying to revive myself after a raft of pastel peanut M&Ms.   A walk is in order.

Happy Easter to all of you!

Poo Tickets

I'm actually going to recommend a movie to you -- well, some of you.  Most of you, close your ears, because you won't like it.

Any recommendation coming from me is funny because I pretty much stopped watching movies about fifteen years ago, when I first had my store.  Don't buy 'em, hardly rent 'em, so I've missed most movies you could name.

So out of the blue my friend Jed in Australia told me he was sending me a movie that he thought I'd like -- an Australian film.  It played just fine in my DVD player, but we watched it in black and white, and I don't know if it was supposed to be!  The film is called "Kenny," and it's a mockumentary.  If that's all you know about it then you know more now than I did before I dropped it into the player last week.  We were halfway through the movie before I was sure it wasn't a DOCumentary.  Here's a site where you can read a REAL review of it:

http://www.infilm.com.au/reviews/kenny.htm

I loved it as much as any movie I've seen in years, but I'd recommend it to about three people.  It deals with the subject of "poo" quite a bit -- constantly, really -- so if you can't handle that, you can't watch the movie.  Briefly, Kenny is a big lovable guy who manages a toilet rental company that supplies porta-loos to festivals, fairs, and other large events.  Now don't worry -- no sight gags are involved, though it certainly  would have been easy to do.  No effluent is shown on camera, and no one falls head-first into a porta-loo.  Just keep telling yourself, "It's 85% water, it's 85% water."

The F-bomb is dropped quite a bit -- it's an Aussie film by and about Aussie men, after all, and they're not pantywaists -- but other than language there's nothing offensive about it.  Oh, well, language and the poo.  Poo tickets -- my new phrase for toilet paper.

Let me know if you're brave enough to rent it.

Weirdest News of the Week, By a Nose

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME.

 

Yesterday news reports flew about Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards snorting his father's ashes.  To say I'm underwhelmed is an understatement.  This would be news if, say, Dick Cheney, or Ted Kennedy, or -- no, scratch Ted Kennedy; not that big a stretch . . . um . . . gimme a minute . . . Oprah!  Yes, it would be news if Oprah had snorted her father.  But it's not news when Keith admits to it.  I'm absolutely sure he was a nose-picker as a child.

 

This gives new meaning to the saying "smell ya later."

A Subtle Difference, But It Matters

Out of nowhere tonight at dinner . . .

Sparky, in a taunting, sing-song voice: "Daddy's ba-ald!"

Smedley: "Sparky, Daddy is NOT bald. He just has a HUGE bald spot."