Future Poltergeist

And from what I understand, the Royal family only needed one rehearsal. Also, Princess Beatrice's hat has its own website . (h/t Tim Blair )

When we walk out at the MOA, we often pass a store called 'Aldo'. For some time they had this picture as part of their storefront. A simple bit of that modern 'who cares if it makes sense' approach to sales. A few months back, on a whim, I asked Relia if we should get a shark head for momma. She was in favor but we didn't go in. We sometimes mentioned it again from time to time. Once I asked her if we should get one for daddy. "No," she said, "those are only for women". Which, given the picture, is fair enough. The other day we walked past and as luck would have it, they've changed their art. She stopped and looked all forlorn. "Now momma can't get a shark head!" I don't know how to reassure a girl with that problem.

The NFL draft starts tonight. Most years this is a big event but the whole labor situation has screwed up the anticipation. It's hard to get excited about new players on your team when you don't know if they'll play this fall. (A word on that first. I'm not optimistic that the season starts on time. So far everything has gone the players direction. But the owners can more easily afford to miss money. That could mean a war of attrition. I'm hoping that it doesn't come to that . . . but I'm not that hopeful.) The Vikings have the 12th pick in the draft. Their QB situation is famously bad and the belief is that they'll hope to get a franchise QB. Everything I hear says that there are two QBs that are head and shoulders above the others this year and both should be taken earlier. So then what? Do they reach and pick the third best QB? Man, I hope not. The biggest needs for this team are offensive line, defensive secondary and defensive line. I ...

I have caught something and I'd like to let it go. Fever chills, body aches and I'm not keeping food down. Ugh.

Woke up this morning to a nice steady drizzle. This is, you may know, my favorite type of day. Got the kids ready to go with only the ordinary amount of fighting ( please , put your pants on right now!). And then took them out to the car. My winter routine for this was to have Relia stay on the porch while I got DF into his car seat. Then back for her and away we'd go. Now that the snow is gone and she can actually get to the car without climbing over the white stuff, we usually all go at once. Not today. So I only had DF to worry about as we went to the car. My hat had a brim, his hod didn't so he got rained on. Which he thought was the weirdest thing ever! He gave me a look that said, "daddy, are we sure about this?". When I stopped at daycare the wind was positioned perfectly to blow rain on him as I got him out. Same look. DF, my luck duck, this is one of life's lessons. Sometimes it rains.

A wonderful post here from Joe Posnanski about the confidence of his six year old daughter and how little he had to do with it. I'm (of course) reminded of my fearless little Relia. Whenever we run into strangers she takes it upon herself to introduce herself and however much of her family is with her. Usually the second thing she asks a stranger is 'how do you like my dress?'. Other people are (usually) charmed by her but her fearless breaking of Minnesota Nice norms is strange to us. Strange, but not anything that we want to discourage. And this is something that I've been thinking about lately. How do we help our children stay outgoing as they grow up? This may seem like a strange question from a person who did years and years of theater and still can't help going up on a stage to sing. I've joked about how you could push me out on the 50 yard line at the Super Bowl halftime show and I'd try to do something entertaining. But this is different so...

The 2011 Hugo Nominees are (finally) out. They waited a few weeks this year so that they could time the announcement with a convention. The full list is here but per usual, I'm more interested in the Best Novel nominees: Best Novel Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis (Ballantine Spectra) Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen) The Dervish House by Ian McDonald (Gollancz; Pyr) Feed by Mira Grant (Orbit) The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit) A few notes on the nominees. I haven't read any of these but from the online buzz, I'm expecting to like 'The Dervish House' the most. It'll be interesting to see if that holds up or not. Lois McMaster Bujold is a very familiar name to the Hugo list. If she wins here, she'll have a record five Hugos for best novel. This will break a tie with my hero Robert Heinlein. I haven't gotten to any of her novels yet in my reading but man, she better be good. There is some controversy over ...

The FP Gal had this past Friday off so we braved the confusing streets of St Paul and went to the Children's Museum. After some prime playing (Relia makes a very good ant) and lunch, we got back in the car to go home. We saw the capitol building and I suggested that we stop and go inside. Relia learned a bit about it at preschool. She knew about the horses on the roof. She told me it was where the governor lives (though she called him the boss of Minnesota). I told her we would go there sometime and, well, this seemed like a good opportunity. She asked me if the building was made out of metal. I told her it was a kind of stone called 'marble'. Then I told her that we couldn't yell while we're in there. She seemed doubtful, but was good enough to obey. Relia and the horses. The stuff on her face is paint from the Children's Museum. You can't see it well but her chin and throat were blackened. She explained that this was to 'guard the flowers on...

The FP Gal: (to DF) You are so lucky. You have the best big sister. Relia: She's not as good as me! - - - Also, Relia has informed as that the Easter Bunny doesn't only leave eggs. He also poops out jelly beans and other candies.

This doesn't say anything good about me, but I laughed at #12. (Sorry about the ad at the end. Just try to ignore it, I did.)

Forty-two years ago tomorrow, Robin Knox-Johnston completed the first solo circumnavigation of the world. The Velux-5-Oceans folks (the current round the world race) have put together an video of him talking about the trip. It's here and I think it's pretty interesting .

An update from last week's list . Arizona - lots of desert, with cactus. Did you know that cactus have arms?!? Also, one of the deserts was painted. Utah - the one with a great salty ocean. It's gray. And people ski here. Nevada - more desert. People play games here. Also, Hoover dam where they turn water into electricity. Idaho - It has the same state bird as the last one*. (After some prompting she told me that they grow potatoes here. I guess Idaho doesn't really stand out.) It sounds like tomorrow is the last day of the program. She doesn't go on Friday so I think she'll miss out on two of my favorites, Washington and Oregon. I'll have to do some home teaching. Maybe we'll watch 'Goonies' and 'Snow Falling on Cedars'. She told me that her next learning program will be about 'mans'. They'll learn what is inside that makes us tick-tock. *This is true by the way, both of them have the Mountain Bluebird.

We dodged something of a blizzard here. Early forecasts were mentioning up to 14 inches of snow last night. Yeah, that didn't happen. We woke up to an inch or so on the ground. Almost all of it had melted by the afternoon. I blame Easter. You see, I've come to believe that spring isn't prepared to really be here until Easter has arrived. And this year, it's a very late Easter. I was curious how the date for Easter is calculated so I went over to Wikipedia and found this : Easter is determined on the basis of lunisolar cycles. The lunar year consists of 30-day and 29-day lunar months, generally alternating, with an embolismic month ecclesiastical new moon falling in the 29-day period from March 8 to April 5 inclusive is designated as the paschal lunar month for that year. Easter is the 3rd Sunday in the paschal lunar month, or, in other words, the Sunday after the paschal lunar month's 14th day. The 14th of the paschal lunar month is designated by conv...

Relia: We should put pictures on the house. Me: Pictures? Relia: Yes! Me: Like what. Relia: (without pause for thinking) Of Nana's arthritis! So if you pull up to our curb and see some hands with red lightning near the knuckles, you'll now know the rest of the story. And one more story about this subject? A few months back Relia was talking about arthritis and she stopped to tell me that it was 'our-thritis' because it can be a problem for everyone.

While driving . . . Relia: How big would a tiger be in our house. Me: Um, probably as big as the couch. Relia: We should get one! Me: No. It would be too expensive to feed him. He'd have to be well fed or he'd think you and DF were snacks. Relia: And he'd eat us? Me: Yes. Relia: And we'd be dead? Me: (realizing his mistake too late) Um, yes. Relia: (pause) What if we got a baby tiger? He wouldn't eat us! Me: Well, the problem with baby tigers is that they grow up to be big tigers. Relia: (thinking some more) When he gets big we could let him go! Then he'd go home! Me: (trying to stay ahead of her) But if we raised him at our house he'd think that was home. He'd just come right back to us. Relia: Then we'd lock the doors! Lock, lock, lock, lock, lock! Me: (giving in) Ok. I'm on board. If you can convince Mama, we can get a baby tiger.

Today we drove down to Austin so Relia could see a real live stage play. She is such a natural performer that it's hard for me not to see some theater in her future. I figured the first step was to let her see some of it for herself and see if the bug catches. We met up with Pop Pop at Godfather's Pizza. They have a nice pizza buffet and plenty of room for extended family so it works out well. The music there started with 'Everybody Walk the Dinosaur' and continued on with George Michael's 'Faith' and Genesis 'Land of Confusion'. In other words, they haven't changed their music selection in twenty some years. Not that I was complaining! We left Felix with Pop Pop at the church (lots of room to run around and an actual nursery). Then it was off to the Paramount. This was my first time in there since it was renovated. It's gorgeous. Lots of older style decor and glitz, of course. And the auditorium is painted like a city at dusk. Th...

I'd never heard of this song until about a year ago. It's pretty darn good. And when that fog horn blows I'll be coming home . . .

I thought you might enjoy to learn along with us as Relia is taught the U.S. states. She only goes three days a week so there are some gaps in her map. And some days we forgot to ask her. Ready? Rhode Island - the red colored state. Where the inator of some kind of cloth was from. (Me: 'Inator'? Relia: Yes, inator. Me: Inventor ? Relia: Yes, that's it.) Also, it is small. Massachusetts - the white colored state next to it. (There was some process of elimination involved here.) New York - Where the Statue of Liberty is. Pennsylvania - Some state with a bell. Florida - the one with all of the alligators. Louisiana - the state where they eat alligators. (Me: Did you know they have lots of pelicans there? Relia: Hahahahahaha!) Illinois - Where they have a museum with a T-Rex named Sue. Iowa - They have lots of corn. They sell it to us! Arkansas - The capital city is a rock. They have bad kings here who shoot cannonballs at people. They also have good kings who a...

I've been meaning to say this for some time, if you enjoy these pictures you should check out the daily pictures that Bing uses as their background. Earlier this week they had this beauty .

This video made DF very happy today.

It's been warm enough lately for visits to the park but this afternoon it was cool and spitting rain so we went to the MOA instead. Yeah, I know, this is shocking. When I picked up Relia at preschool she quickly asked me if we could go to the mall and it was nice to be able to say yes. Sometimes I wish I could film our short drives to and from preschool. That's where she says the best stuff. Lately they've been learning about U.S. states, two per day. It's always a challenge to figure out which ones they studied. The description usually starts off with something like "it was a green one". One of today's states was North Dakota and she told me that it is windy and cold there. I can't agree more. It was kind of slow out at the MOA. Most of the spring breakers are gone and this isn't a big retail time. That meant that we could take our time at the newly renovated aquarium. In fact, it was quiet enough that I got DF out of the stroller and l...

You could also file this under Phrases I Never Thought I'd Say: Relia: I'm milking my brother! Me: Um, we don't milk each other.

We got word today that Aunt Liz has passed on. She had so much fire and joy in her. I'm glad that she got a chance to meet the kids. She was one of a kind and she'll be missed.

Our little DF is walking around more confidently . Up until yesterday he would only walk around the edges of each room where he could hang on to something with at least one hand. If we stranded him in the middle he could take some steps to us but that was about it. And then he just decided that he could do it! Check out the link up there for some video. You can also hear the song styles of our divine Ms Relia.

And . . . I'm back! Sorry for the long absence. It was a great episode of Amazing Race tonight (spoilers follow). The start was in Calcutta and the teams were quickly off to Varnasi , still in India. All the teams had plenty of time to make it to the airport for the quickest set of flights, with Kingfisher Air. And all of them did, except for the Cowboys who simply walked up to the other big domestic Indian airline booth, Jet Airways, and bought tickets on a flight that was an hour later. A simple mistake, made much worse by the fact that they didn't double check for something earlier. So they simply gave all the other teams an hour headstart. Not smart. Varnasi was described as the spiritual heart of India. It is the holiest place in Hinduism and (according to Wikipedia) one of the oldest continually settled places on the planet. Needless to say, it was a bit of a culture shock. The streets were filled with cars, bicycles, pedestrians, cows and elephants. Traffic ru...

An interesting interview here about a book called 'Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids'. It takes on some of the recent happiness studies which have showed that modern parenting is a drag. Well worth reading. Update: And related, this PJ O'Rourke review of 'Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother' made me laugh out loud.

In the car tonight, completely unconnected from any other conversation. Relia: I don't want you to ever tell me again about what is in a tree!

Ok, this post is about a week late but I still would like to mark the occasion! The baseball season is under way, a more sure sign of spring than the disappearance of the snow drifts. The season always used to start on the first Monday of April but then they decided to add a special Sunday night game as kind of a kick off. This year they backed it up a few days and we got a full weekend of games. I've been wanting this exact approach for a few years so I was glad they were trying it. And it really seems to have worked. There has been nothing but positive response. Every year I get some kind of baseball deal so that I can watch my White Sox even though I'm far outside of their territory. I've bounced back and forth between programs to watch it over the computer and the TV. Back at Christmas we were gifted an Apple TV unit which we've been using nearly daily. About a month ago they included an easy hook up to MLB.tv so I quickly went that route. This gives me al...

I heard part of an interesting list on the radio, VH1's top 100 80's songs . I found it online and thought I'd share the top twenty: 20. Jessie's Girl - Rick Springfield (I'm surprised this made the top 100, much less the top 20.) 19. Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper (Not as good a song as 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' or 'True Colors'.) 18. Come On Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners (A prototypical one hit wonder and a good one.) 17. Here I Go Again - Whitesnake (Not my style of music, never really cared for it.) 16. Need You Tonight - INXS (I've got no problem with this pick. Great song.) 15. Jump - Van Halen (Another great song. Not my style but I've got no argument with it.) 14. Walk Like an Egyptian - The Bangles (Kind of gimmicky but it works. Certainly wouldn't crack my top 20.) 13. With Or Without You - U2 (Great, great song and could be #1 on my list.) 12. How Will I Know - Whitney Houston (Not a big fan but I know she...

I look better with a beard than just the goatee, right?

DF is at a stage where he picks one thing to wander around the house with. He still isn't confidently walking on his own so that means a lot of careful balancing on chairs and tables while only using one hand. Yesterday he spent most of an hour wandering with a little tub of cheerios. Occasionally he'd drop them and then have to bend down and pick them back up, paying special attention to using the proper grip. (I'm sure Relia did this too but I don't remember it.) This morning it is an old remote control. This is his totem and he can't get enough of remotes in general. The trick for us is to keep him supplied with ones that we don't use. Not easy as he figures it out pretty quickly. The best thing is that he is sooooo cute during all of this. Just an adorable explorer.

Relia requested that this be posted. She said "I like it, it's really pretty. I think you should put it on your computer."