You know what's nice?

Well lots of things are nice.
Warm spring days in Madison are nice.
Espresso Royale coffee on state street is nice.
Having someone offer you their seat whent hey get up to leave because they noticed you'd been standing by your wife for a while is nice.
McDonalds Shamrock shakes are nice. But probably because you can only get them once a year.... like morels... Is it weird for someone to crave something they've never had before? Like if someone had never had a shamrock shake before, would it be weird for them to come home and say "i'm craving a shamrock shake"?
Shortbread girl scout cookies are nice with coffee, and carmel delites are nice with cold milk.
Paperback books that fit in your pocket are nice.

But that's not really what I had in mind.
When you've been with a person for the better part of a decade you forget to look at them sometimes. You see them, you gaze into their eyes, you get infatuated with their fingers - and sometimes you spend hours obsession over their cuticles.
Sometimes you have to pop their zits too. Or check to see if a piercing is infected. Sometimes if you're really lucky you get to peel their sunburn.
But you forget to look at them. It's not that you're avoiding them, or trying to look elsewhere, but you quite seeing them as other people see them.
I think that's why new haircuts get you laid. At least it works for married people or long running couples. It forces you to stop and look at them all over again. Or a new dress, or even just getting a little fancied up for an evening out.
But I digress....
I took Ashley to piano lessons today, and since it was so nice out I sat out in the car and read my book.
Towards the end of the lesson this car pulls up behind me. I glanced up into the mirror "probably the Mom of the next kid in line for lessons" I thought. And I did a double take. She was hot. In that first second when I saw this beautiful mom I had all sorts of impure thoughts. Then I felt guilty and looked back down at my book. Then in the third second it dawned on me. That's my Sarah!
She had been having a bad day, so she swung by to see if she could catch me at before we left lessons (to ask if I had any cash so she could buy a shamrock shake).

When you unexpectedly see someone that you've known for the better part of a decade, and you get that moment when you look at them like you are seeing them for the first time, and still find them just as beautiful as you ever did.... ...that's nice.

Grandma got a what!?

This is Sarah's story. But she's got all the good stories, and sometimes I get jealous. So I'm stealing it, and taking inappropriate artistic liberties with it. But for the most part this story is absolutely true.

She is a Grandma, but not the card playing type. Small and quiet, she's always admired the modern woman. The way that a modest stage hand admires the lead. She giggles discreetly at dirty jokes, but wouldn't repeat one under penalty of death.

She is as likely to take an impulsive turn into Hot Topic as The Yarn Barn.

She was on state street and passed a quirky little store that she'd never been in before. Feeling adventurous, she rarely feels differently, she turned and went inside. She took everything in. As enchanted with the little baby bibs that said "spit happens" as she was with the little wind up penis toys. And then her eyes fall on these cute little plushie toys. They are in all sorts of geometrical shapes. Round ones, triangles, and ones like curled string. All soft and fuzzy with cute little eyes and bright colours.

She snatched them up, and in a sort of drugged euphoria that only a grandparent sending whimsical gifts to their grandchildren can know, took them home and boxed them up. The next morning she kept smiling to herself, thinking about her grandaughter and grandson, who live in Florida, opening them. Her Grandson is 3, her Gandaughter is 5. Just old enough to think that Grandman is a little quirky, but still young enough to appreciate any gifts they get in the mail. Especially fuzzy colourful ones.

She sent them off, still smiling as she imagined their faces when her daughter - their mother - called out "kids, you got something in the mail from Grandma!"

She only had to wait a couple days, she'd splurged a bit on the postage, before her daughter called.

"Mom, we got your package."
"Oh did you?" Her grin sparking down the phone lines, bright enough to be heard on the other end, "Did they like them?"
"Oh they loved them, little johnny is chewing on his already."
"That's great, i was hoping they'd get a kick out of them"
"Um, Mom.... Did you look at the tags before you picked them out?"
"No, did I leave a price tag on them?"
"Oh no, it's not that at all," Now it was her's daughters turn to smile so loudly it blared out the other end. A grin on teettering on the verge of full blown laughter, "It's just that, well these are sort of special plushies. Scientific ones."
"Scientific ones?"
"Ya, they're microbes."
"Microbes? Like bacteria."
"Like bacteria. And you made an..... interesting choice," She broke, and her next words came out in between gasps of laughter that threatened to, "Mom, you gave you're grandkids gonorrhea!!"

bountiful basket of.... some other "B" word....

We've got this basket in our place. It convienently sits by the door, so that when you come in, if you've got too much in your hands, you can easily drop it in the basket. If you need to take your mittens off before you can wiggle out of your coat, drop 'em in the basket. No place to set your bike helmet as you rush towards the bathroom? Toss it in the basket.

It get's pretty bad.

Last night Sarah sort of went through it. Not really cleaning it entirely, that's going to take an entire weekend. But the soft mound of miscellania was threatining to topple over. And small children may have been trapped underneath. So for the sake of the children, she "cleaned it down" a bit.

There was cash hidden in there, cards we forgot to send, and other strange things along with the mismatched mittens we'd expected. And there was even a Valentine's gift that Sarah had forgotten to give me.

So I got my Valentines gift (even though we mutually agreed to boycott it this year) a little late.

It was a little paperback book called The Art of Kissing: Tips and Techniques from the 1930s

I read through a little bit of it over breakfast. And there is one passage that I found particularily enlightening.

"First of all it is necessary to explain that, although an act can be painful, it can still be pleasurable. The explanation is merely another indication of the variability of human nature. To begin, there are some people who derive an extreme pleasure out of being whipped or burned or beaten. There is no rational explanation for this strange delight. The fact remains that they react pleasurably to pain. These people are called masochists. Similarly, there are other people who derive the same pleasure out of being the ones who inflict the pain or perfomr the beating. Their abnormality, too, is inexplicable. They are called sadists."

Of my stars and garters... that seems a little racey for the 1930s! But it cracked me up, so I had to share.

on marriage.....

On the way home from the grocery store.
In the car.
"I think that Mari-Ela may have ruined me for all other asian news reporters"
"What? I should be the one that ruins you!"
"Well Mari-Ela just ruined me for... you know... news reporters"
"Your wife should be the one that ruins you for everyone and everything"

Freedom T-shirt

Found Here

Never tickle a woman's ass when she's drinking grapejuice

As Sarah is drinking grape juice from the plastic grape juice container. That's a treasured indulgence for her. The first taste of freshly made grape juice from the chalice (or plasitc container as it is) that it was frozen in. It's something meconium I guess.
I sneak up behind her.
"Hey! NEVER tickle a woman's woman's ass when she's drinking grape juice"
She hands me the drink. A gesture not lost on me. It's like sharing that last can of Mt. Dew on hot summer day when the caffeine shakes are starting to set in. It's Love baby.
"Hey!! Never tickle a MAN'S ass when HE'S drinking grape juice."
"Nope. It doesn't go both ways"
"They're grapes baby, they always go both ways"
"Nuh-uh. You do."

See, that's the sort or rapier sharp verbal sparring that takes place after we do something as cultured as going out to see an Oscar Wilde play.

lifeline screening saved my life...

I don't know where that subject line came from.
A commercial i think.

Sometimes you get a phrase stuck in your head and it just keeps repeating somewhere in the background. It becomes completely detached from whatever it was originally supposed to sell.

And I don't know if that's good advertising (since it sticks) or bad advertising (since it's not selling anything if I can't remember where it came from)

And I've got a word stuck in my head. I'm worried that I'm mumbling it under my breathe right now.

Gehenna
gehenna, gehenna, gehenna, gehenna......

[gi-hen-uh]
1. the valley of Hinnom, near Jerusalem, where propitiatory sacrifices were made to Moloch. II Kings 23:10.
2. hell (def. 1).
3. any place of extreme torment or suffering.

Maybe that's some sort of advertising gone awry as well.

my pet dragon, i named him Bob

I found a new toy!!! Yippee for me!!!!
And it's free and it's made out of paper.
bonus.



That's my video. My camera isn't very good, and I was stupid enough to hold it up to my face while shooting, so it sounds like Darth Vader is directing it.

Here are a couple more than are shot better, and show the illusion better.

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoufjevVGZ0

I've had a short lived, and i think ending, obsession with the little paper craft projects that you download online and then fold into buildings and stuff. Just another manifestation of my obsession with all things miniature I guess. And that's how I ran across this. Usually I look for buildings (I've got a fairly neat little paper model of Shakespeares "Globe" now), but I coudn't pass up a chance at a paper dragon.

I've lost the link now, but I saved the original PDF. So if anyone wants a copy just let me know and I can email it to you.

Redefined and random babbling

I'm going to blog more. For real this time.
It might just be filler.
It might not be interesting.
But I'm going to do it more as an exercise than entertainment anyway.
So maybe this is more of a warning than advertisement.
If, within the first few sentences, it doens't sound like I'm about to say anything interesting.... it probably isnt' going to get much better.

I do have a plug for today though
(I have no career in sales what-so-ever, so I'm not sure if the soon to be mention target of said plug should be grateful or bothered)

There is an A Capella group from the UW Madison called Redefined.
I've never been much of a fan of A Capella. My feelings toward it have ranged from luke-warm to slightly sickish feeling.

When i first moved to Madison someone told me that I HAD to see the Mad Hatters. I'm always open to music suggestions. I freakin' love listening to new music, even when it's not in one of the genres that I normally like (I draw the line at country though, unless it's really old country then i'll still give it a chance). And if it's local music, that's even better.

I don't even remember where I first heard the Mad Hatters (crap, I'm digressing.... you might want to think about tuning out for a bit). I think it was at the Union. A free show I'm sure. And the lure of anything at the union tends to draw me more than if it was at someplace else. I think you could sell me on a some pretty absurd things if you throw in "and they'll be at the union. It's supposed to be nice out, and I'll buy you a beer".

One way or the other I saw the Mad Hatters, and I'm sorry to say. I just wasn't impressed. Somewhere less than luke warm but no where near the point where "I want to crawl up into my own ass and vomit. That's right, throw up in my own butt." (I stole that quote from Sheena Morris who, if you're looking for an good new artist is worth checking out. I've been trying to figure out a way to fit it into a conversation all day. I think i may hav failed).

Then... later in life.... We (me, wife, daughter) went to Duck Soup Cinema. ( thumbs up , in the family event category). And we caught a shortened version of a Redefined concert (http://www.uwredefined.com/). And by jorge, I found an A Capella group that I liked.

We've become sort of unofficial groupies (without the sexual undertones). We try to catch them whenever they do a show in Madison. If you see that they are perfoming, and you've got an open spot in your calendar that happens to coincide, I highly recommend giving them a chance.

Here are a couple youtube videos I found. They aren't perfect, but you'll get the idea.