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...