Healy Listens to Technotronic

Pump up the jam
Pump it up
While your feet are stompin'
And the jam is pumpin'
Look at here the crowd is jumpin'
Pump it up a little more
Get the party going on the dance floor

The Yorkshire Redemption

So flash back to last August. I have this huge three-sink cement laundry tub in the basement that I have HATED for years. So when my Dad and my brother and nephew are all in town, they help me reduce it to a rubble pile (think sledge-hammer-applied-to-cement project) so I can finally replace it with a nice simple laundry tub.

But okay, how do I get rid of the rubble pile? There must be at least 600 lbs or more of cement lying on my basement floor. So I call up the city, and they say "yes, put it on the curb, we will pick it up."

I doubt this. I doubt it greatly.

But okay, I took a little bit of it to the curb and piled it up (kind of a mini Stonehenge) to see if they would take it.

Of course, they didn't.

So I call the city again, and am told "oh, to be picked up, it has to be in a container."

A container?

"Yes, no more than 40 lbs per container."

Now, this is an enormous pile of fist-sized concrete shards, with stiff structural wire lacing through many of the pieces. I can't just put them in garbage bags or cardboard boxes; they aren't strong enough to hold more than a few pieces, and the wires will rip the bags/boxes to shreds. (It should go without saying that I'm too cheap to hire someone to take this stuff away.)

So, I break the thing down even further and, piece by piece, week by week, toss a little bit into a garbage bag and take it to the curb. I feel like Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins' character) in The Shawshank Redemption, who digs a tunnel in his prison cell and carts the cement from the tunnel out to the prison yard, little by little, of the course of many years.

All winter, into spring, I'm taking these cement shards out in the weekly trash, little by little. And tonight, the last of it got set out of the curb. It's all finally gone. Time to go to Zihuatanejo...

Wacko Shave-down Poll

So Brenna usually has Wacko shaved down each spring. This year, Wacko pulled me aside and whispered "ix-nay on the ave-shay." Now, I can understand his reluctance -- I suspect all the other dogs laugh and point at him when this happens. So I figure we'll see what our devoted MGW blog readers have to say about the issue -- should he get shaved this spring or not??? The poll is below, feel free to weigh in.

To help you with your decision, I'll first post a picture of him with his beautiful long coat:



Isn't he a fantastic looking dog??? And now, in the interest of a fair and balanced presentation of both sides of the issue, here is what he looked like after his shave-down last spring:



Hmm. Well, as they say "We report; you decide." So here's your chance to weigh in: shave, or not?

Trip Log

So the car trip (driving Cleveland -> Northern Virginia and back again) actually went very well. Notable mile markers:

mile 1.9: Abra pulls out beeping toy cellphone.
mile 2.1: Chris confiscates beeping toy cellphone.
mile 5.3: First "Are we there yet?" (Abra)
mile 21.8: Second "Are we there yet?" (Abra)
mile 21.9: First "Is it lunchtime?" (Abra again)
mile 36.0: First rest stop (Brenna)
mile 68.4: First "I need to go potty" (Thalia)

and so on. As we crossed the border into Pennsylvania, Abra asked if they spoke English or Spanish in Pennsylvania.

The return trip was even smoother, the girls were great. At mile 1.2, Thalia announced "I'm hungry," but they settled down for a long while. At mile 233, I said to Brenna "the girls have been fantastic", so of course at mile 234 Thalia spilled yogurt all over Abra, and at mile 236 Abra gave the first "Are we home yet?" -- but given she has just had yogurt spilled all over her, who can blame her? The girls then settled back down, and except for a very occasional "how much longer" out of Abra, it was a fine ride...

I think I got off lucky this time...

Are We There Yet? Are We There Yet?

Tomorrow I do my first extended drive with the girls in the back seat -- 7 hours from Cleveland to Northern Virginia.

Wish me luck!