Missing Cat

So we woke up this morning to discover Pearl was nowhere to be found. A bit later I found that the screen on the front storm door had been ripped open near the bottom, and so the likely conclusion is that Pearl escaped during the night.

And she has not yet come back.

Sadly, since she is (supposed to be) an indoor cat, and because she had a bad reaction to her last collar (her fur literally fell out around her neck, and never grew back), she does not wear a collar. So if someone finds her, they won't know where she belongs. So we have posted signs and alerted the neighborhood and the city, and we can only hope she comes back soon. Odds are, quite frankly, that she is holed up somewhere within 100 yards of the house, and -- we hope -- will just come back once she's hungry enough...

Of course it is no surprise that if any cat were to do this, it would be Pearl. She's a total stinker. But she's a lovable stinker, and we will be very upset indeed if she doesn't come back soon...

Thalia's New Obsession

Building card castles. And she is amazingly good at it.

And I figure it's very good for her building hand-eye coordination and motor control.

And meanwhile, #1 is getting good at rapid-fire teasing exchanges, like this one last night at dinner (much to Brenna's dismay):

abra: can i have a piece of bread?
me: ok
abra: can i have butter on my bread?
me: if you pay me five bucks
abra: no way. how about i give you a kiss instead?
me: ok, but it has to be on my butt
abra: did you wipe?

At that point I started laughing and gave her a high five (and Brenna rolled her eyes at us). No, I shouldn't condone it, but it was a pretty snappy retort, I thought. We then had a discussion about dinner conversations that shouldn't happen when we are at other people's houses.

Hall of Famers

Last Saturday I went to Canton and met up with my buddies Dave and Mike and Dave's cousin Mark to see the Pro Football Hall of Fame induct two of the all-time Redskins greats, Art Monk and Darrell Green.

Now, see, I'm getting old. Because I remember when the Redskins drafted these guys, and now some 25 years later, they're going into the Hall of Fame. In 1980, Art Monk was the Redskins' first first round pick since, well, Methuselah. Three years later, Darrell Green was this little guy I'd never heard of from a little school that I'd never heard of (no, it wasn't Texas A&M) that we drafted while I was still recovering from the Redskins first Super Bowl win.

They both turned out to be pretty good pickups for the Redskins. That Bobby Beathard knew what he was doing.

Anyway, so I drove down to Canton and met up with Mark, Dave, and Mike at the Hall. Here they are, with Murno wearing his special Joe Theismann home jersey. (As Murno will gladly tell you, anyone can get a burgandy Theismann away jersey, but you dont see many in the home whites....)

As it turns out, we weren't the only Redskins fans there. Not by a long shot. I'd say maybe 90% of the people there were Redskins fans, and I'm not exaggerating. It was like a home game at RFK Stadium. We had planned on maybe picking up a shirt or cap, but by the time we got there two hours before the ceremony, everything Redskins-related had long since sold out. Well not everything. There was quite a sale on Brad Johnson autographed helmets:

(You buy a helmet like this, I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh?)

Ahh, Brad. I'm sorry guy, I know it wasn't really your fault, but if you had managed to control that errant snap on the field goal attempt back in 1999, maybe your autographed Redskin helmet would be worth more than $29.00.

So after wandering around a bit, we went on up to the stadium for the ceremony. The stadium was decked out with big banners of the inductees:



And when we got to our seats, here was our view:


Uh, yeah. Not exactly the front row. But the Joe Montana guy in the visor in front of us notwithstanding, it really was a totally pro-Redskins crowd; look at all this burgandy and gold (and white):


So they started things off by introducing a bunch of Hall of Famers that had come for the ceremony, including Redskins greats like Bobby Mitchell and, of course, Joe Gibbs. And among those Hall of Famers was none other than Michael Irvin. The whole stadium erupted in boos when he was announced, it was the longest, loudest booing I'd ever heard (and you bet your sweet bippy I was booing along with the rest of the crowd). When the booing finally died down, Chris Berman -- who was MC'ing the event -- turned to Irvin and said "Oh, they're just booing because they love you" and in the now-quiet stadium you could hear some guy yell out "No, we really don't." Heh, classic.

Then it was time to introduce the inductees. The first Redskin announced was Darrell Green, and just to give you a flavor of what it was like in the stands, here's a (rather low quality) videoclip:

Yeah, the place went bonkers. Now, I saw some ESPN clips of the ceremony, and I can tell you it was much louder in the stands than it sounds like on TV. And then the place went even more bananas when Art Monk was announced:

And here's Murno when Monk was announced:


And then it was time for all the speeches. Three-and-a-half hours of speeches can get pretty boring, Redskins or not. One amusing moment was when Eddie DeBartolo Jr introduced Fred Dean, at one point in his introduction speech he said "In his first game with the 49ers, Fred sacked Dallas Cowboys quarterback Danny White three times..." and then you couldn't hear anything else but the entire stadium cheering madly for about 30 seconds. Heh, Redskins fans do not like the Cowboys.

Now, people were pretty loud cheering for Darrell when he got up to give his speech, but it was amazing when Monk got up. The place went nuts. It was a four minute standing ovation (timed at 4:04, I read later) which, when you think about it, is a pretty long time. There was clearly some pent up frustration on the part of Redskins fans that it took so long for Monk to be inducted. Heck, even my Mom was mad about that...

Anyway, I'm glad I went. As Murno said, it was kind of closure on that era of the Redskins for us. We watched them get drafted, we watched them lead the Redskins to three Super Bowl wins, we watched them retire, and we watched them go into the Hall of Fame. Now we can get on with the business of rooting for our now-rather-mediocre team, heh.

Oh, and a postscript: at breakfast the next morning back home in my neighborhood, we walked out the door of the diner and nearly walked smack into none other than Tony Dungy. I thought Murno was going to walk straight into a telephone pole, he was so flabbergasted...

Ding Dong! Arf Arf! Hush!

Our doorbell is old and cracked, and although it is still functional, I thought it would be nice to replace it with something a bit more welcoming and nice. (See, I'm not always cheap cheap cheap. I shelled out $6.99 for a fancy new light-up doorbell!)

So today I was on the front porch messing around with removing and replacing the doorbell. So, I'm testing it, wiggling it, bumping it, etc, etc, and every time I mess with it, it rings. Ding Dong! Ding Dong!

No big deal, except that we have a dog who barks every time he hears the door bell. Every. Time.

So for about 10 minutes, we had this going on at the house:

Doorbell: DING DONG!
Wacko: Arf! Arf!
Me: Hush!
(pause)
Doorbell: DING DONG!
Wacko: Arf! Arf!
Me: Hush!
(pause)
Doorbell: DING DONG!
Wacko: Arf! Arf!
Me: Hush!
(pause)
Doorbell: DING DONG!
Wacko: Arf! Arf!
Me: Hush!
etc.
etc.
etc....

The TV is on again

So tonight I turned on the TV for the first time in six weeks. There is football on. Redskins football. Life is that much better tonight.


(is it just me, or does that look like Dave and Mike?)

Bachelor days are here again

Yesterday noon I dropped the wife and kids at the airport -- they're off for a week at Gramma's in Kansas. So it's just me and a herd of animals kicking around the house for a while. I think this is the first time since the wedding (18 months ago) since I've had any appreciable time at home without the family. It feels a bit odd, to be honest.

So what wild plans do I have for my new bachelor life? Uh, work, work, work. Either at the office or at home. Yesterday I

• finished the photometric solution for the data we took at the telescope in May,
• made the flat field calibrations for that same data,
• stained the front door,
• caulked the bathtub, and
• cleaned the heck out of the kitchen.

And that was only Day 1! Just think what the rest of the week will bring...

Now I do have some fun planned for Saturday -- I'm heading down to Canton to meet up with my old high school buddies Dave and Mike and go see two of my all-time favorite Redskins, Art Monk and Darrell Green, get inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. So that should be an amusing spectacle -- overblown pomp and circumstance is what the NFL does best!

My Latest Photo

I call it... "Cats on a Diet"

A busy day

So there was a lot going on today. After the girls spent the morning over at Colleen and Dwight's house frosting cupcakes (more on this in a minute), we were off to Abra's dance recital. Here she is with Raven and Deandre doing their tap dance, with their dance instructor, Mr. Moodie, directing them in front:


Well, heck, it's a dance recital, let's see if we can get some action here! Here's a piece of the tap dance:

And here's part of the ballet

After the recital was over, we dashed home and had a quick lunch so that we could be ready for the giant BAKE SALE! Now this was no ordinary bake sale. Colleen had helped the girls (Abra, Thalia, and their friend Lily) figure out a budget and go shopping for ingredients, then they baked and frostened cupcakes, made lemonade and flower arrangements, and set up shop in front of the house.


Lemonade was 25 cents, cupcakes were 50 cents, and flowers (in recyclable bottles for vases!) were 25 cents each. You might also notice that with your treats, you could also help yourself to some free campaign literature the girls made:

(photo courtesy Dwight)

Then the girls went went with Colleen down to the corner and proceeded to direct traffic down to their lemonade, cupcake, and flower stand:

(photo courtesy Dwight)

Their first "get" was a gentleman driving a spectacular old car, who stopped and chatted with us and the girls while he drank his lemonade.


After that, Thalia started targetting Lexuses, smart child that she is:

(photo courtesy Dwight)

Now you are probably thinking "Lemonade, cupcakes, and flower, how nice!" But wait, there's more! While you enjoy your treats you get to listen to a cello concert by the talented Miss Lily:


In fact, let's take a listen. But first, an apology: I forgot that while you can rotate pictures easily, you can't rotate movies (if you know how, let me know!). So the movie of Lily was taken sideways, but you can just turn your head to the side and watch:

Meanwhile, Thalia is laying a trail of acorns to attract more customers.


Here comes our neighbor John to buy some flowers (John was a good customer: he made several trips to buy lemonade, cupcakes, AND flowers!):

(photo courtesy Dwight)

We of course had the rather unsurprising issue that the proprieters of the stand seemed to eat a bit into their own profits:

(photo courtesy Dwight)

And at one point, the four year old treasurer managed to dump the money bag into the grass:


But she managed to rescue the money, and by the time the bake sale was over, they had accumulated quite the haul. They had the shareholders meeting over at Colleen's and produced back their financial report:

• Gross Receipts: $47.50
• Less Baking Supplies: $12.00
• Less Workers' Salary: $3/each girl
• Net Proceeds: $26.50

The girls decided to donate the proceeds to Providence House, a shelter/crisis center for young at-risk children in Cleveland.

We'd like to thank all our friends and neighbors who came to the sale, and particularly say thanks to Colleen for helping the girls organize and run the event. (And thanks to Dwight for taking some of the pictures I've used here...)

Too Much Candy

We are trying to give the girls an education in the music us old farts listen to. So we were talking about the Rolling Stones tonight, and Abra and I had the following exchange:

Abra: How old are they?
Me: In their sixties
Abra: Are they all still alive?
Me: Well, most of them. One guy died.
Abra: Who?
Me: A guy named Brian Jones.
Abra: Why did he die?
Me: well....
Abra: Did he eat too much candy?
Me: uhhh.....
Abra: Did he?
Me: well, yeah, pretty much.

Unnerving...

Right now, Thalia is in the living room dancing to "Sister Morphine".

Very strange to watch.

More Pets!

So yes: four cats and a dog just weren't enough. We needed more pets.

About four years ago, a few months after I got Nelson and Healy, I turned my fishtank over to my buddy Bill, whose daughters had expressed an interest in getting some fish. It was a win-win situation: Bill and his girls got fish, I got to stop cleaning a fishtank.

Well, Bill's moving houses now (and in some ways that can be traced to my meddling as well), and asked me if I wanted the fishtank back. He must have caught me after I had had a few drinks, because I said yes. Little did I know that Bill had turned the fishtank into a black-and-gold-molly breeding factory...

So the tank came back this week, loaded with fish. Indeed, while I figured the girls would have fun with it, I was more interested to see how the cats would react. Within two minutes of setting up the tank, Healy had his face plastered to the glass. And here's Miss Stinker herself, Pearl, checking out the new tank:


But the amusement doesn't end there.

The very same day that the tank arrived, Nelson and Healy went to the vet for their every-two-years annual checkup. Now, two years ago when this happened, when Nelson came out of the cat carrier at the vet's office, our vet looked a little shocked and gasped "Oh, my!". Yeah, he's big. I was worried what she'd say this time. What she said were those words that strike fear into the hearts of every living being that has to hear them:

DOCTOR-ORDERED WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM

Uh oh. No more free grazing for the boys. And in our house, when one cat's on a diet ALL cats are on a diet. (Upon hearing this, Pearl immediately lodged a protest with the local chapter of the National Association of Oppressed Felines). So the always-full auto feeder has been taken away, and portion control is the slogan for the house.

So I'm just thinking: hungry cats, new fish..... Hmmm....... This will go well.

SCOTS

So I'm late to the party, but let me tell you something: SCOTS rocks.

SCOTS -- aka "Southern Culture on the Skids"-- is a three piece band out of North Carolina. Think "Hillbilly B-52s". But I gotta say they are a blast. How can you deny such beautiful songs as "Liquored Up and Lacquered Down", "Doublewide", "Gasoline and Fried Chicken", and "Daddy Was a Preacher but Mama was a Go-Go Girl"?

I mean, it's not exactly Lena Horne.

But check out their website: http://www.scots.com and take a listen on the jukebox link to hear some tunes or hit the TV link to see 'em live. Lotsa fun. They even showed up on the playlist at our wedding (playing "I Learned to Dance in Mississippi"), not that anyone at the wedding could hear the music, grumble, grumble.

Anyway, thanks to my good buddy JP for turning me on to SCOTS. The rest of you'se need to belly up to the bar....

Another Random Picture Dump

OK, here are a random assortment of pictures dumped off the camera:

Because four cats aren't enough, we now seem to have a fifth cat who visits the house quite often. A very pretty calico, who seems friendly and lets me pick her up. Our cats are less than excited by this new visitor: here's the standoff at the window between the calico and Healy and Pearl:


Here's a shot of the card Thalia made for Brenna on Mother's Day. Or "Muther's Day", I should say -- it sounds like something that Samuel L. Jackson might have made for his mother when *he* was four.


Healy likes to hide in the towel closet:


For those of you who visited back when the front garden was simply an empty bed overrun with ground cover, here's what it looks like now. Brenna has done a great job with it, and the asiatic lillies (Cat: no Dad jokes!) have just exploded now that they are in full sun.

And finally, the clothes dryer broke yesterday, so now our house looks like hillbilly heaven:

I'm going to have to put the red car up on blocks in the yard to complete the scene. (I should say, hillbilly or not, the cheapskate in me likes lowering the energy bill by not running the dryer!)

Fourth of July

OK, another admission -- while I like fireworks shows, I don't like going to fireworks shows. It gets crowded, it gets hot (except in Cleveland), you gotta walk all over the place (now with young children), etc, etc. Yes, I'm lazy. Plus I broke my neck at a fireworks show on the National Mall when I was younger, and I guess I still have bad memories from that.

Luckily I married a woman who shares this opinion. Our daughters, however, do not. Yesterday when Abra woke up she said "Are we going to see fireworks, Daddy?" Oh, groan. I was hoping we'd get through the day without them even realizing it was the Fourth of July, like we did last year.

Then I remembered that we had an old pack of sparklers stuffed in the back of a kitchen drawer. The box had come from Brenna's house when we packed it up 18 months ago, and was probably well older than that. I wasn't even sure they would light, so I tested one when the girls weren't looking. It lit. We were in business.

So when it got dark, I started lighting them up and passing them to the girls. Abra ran around waving them and making wishes. Thalia was a bit afraid at first, but then got brave and held them. Being old sparklers, half of them would die out halfway through and need to be relit. But they held up. And after we went through the dozen sparklers, the girls chased fireflies for ten more minutes. They would name the fireflies "Ted" and "Sally" and the like. Then it was bedtime.

And when we tucked the girls into bed, Abra said "That was the best Fourth of July EVER!"

Heh, the joy of exceeding low expectations.

Cleveland Weather

I knew Cleveland weather could be wierd, but the weather update this morning on the National Weather Service site had me a bit surprised:

Chicago

OK, just updating with some pics from a few weeks ago. I went to a conference in Chicago, and so Brenna and the girls drove with me, dropped me off in Chicago, and then went on to Wisconsin for a few days. They then came back through Chicago after the conference was over and we did some touristy things.

First, we had lunch and then walked down to Navy Pier. The girls put their feet into the lake and then we wandered around for a while. There were some amusing moments with the funhouse mirrors and the binoculars on the pier, and Abra was very excited that she had spotted a "very rare bird" (in her words). You can see the rare bird yourself, pictured right. (Note to self -- must get the children into the city more often....)

We took the trolley back from Navy Pier to the hotel, and the girls were tuckered out enough that they just wanted to watch some TV for a little bit. So they climbed into bed with Deery and Meow-meow to watch:



After that we went swimming in the hotel pool. Abra is at that terrifying age where she insists on not needing help, flails so much you can't tell if she's swimming or drowning, and then screams "Help!" just before sinking underwater. We need to stay close, but not obviously so. Thalia, meanwhile, can cling to the wall very impressively.

Then we walked down to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner. The food was pricey and mediocre, but you don't go for the food -- you go for the environment. Animatronic elephants and gorillas, snakes and crocodiles, lots of aquaria, etc, etc. The girls really liked it, and ran over to hug the tree frog when he came out.



Then we were all in bed early. ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The next morning we got up and went to the Shedd Aquarium. In my mind, that was really the whole reason for taking them to Chicago-- to see a big aquarium. I was a little worried, though, since it was "free admission week": my cheap side loved free admission*, but my crowd-impatient self was worried about a mob scene. But since we went at 9am, it was early enough not to be a madhouse.



The girls had many "WHOA-- MOM! DAD! LOOK AT THAT!" moments: the stingrays, the hammerhead sharks, the giant snapping turtle, the seahorses, the dolphins, the beluga whales, all really neat to see. Unfortunately, the pictures didn't come out all that great since you can't use a flash inside the aquarium. But here's a shot of the girls and Brenna looking at the komodo dragon (who is looking right back at them):



After we had seen most of the aquarium and had lunch, it was starting to get pretty crowded and so we figured it was time to head out on the road to get back to Cleveland. All told, it was about a 24 hour visit (not including my conference days), but we had a fun time. And as Abra said at the end, "Can you believe Dad took us out to a restaurant FOUR MEALS IN A ROW???"


(* I should probably point out here that "free admission" means to the regular exhibits. If you want to see the dolphins and whales and reef exhibits, you still have to pay. And you have to pay to park. And we had lunch there. And so in the end it of course still cost us about $100 to visit on a "free admission" day. But it was still worth it...)

Man Crush

OK, I'll admit it: I have a man crush on Kai Ryssdal.

If you don't know him, he's the host of American Public Media's "Marketplace" radio show. The show focuses on economic news, and Ryssdal takes what could be a highly tedious subject (except maybe to us money geeks) and turns it into a pretty entertaining half hour. (OK, yeah, his writers and producers do that, I understand, but I'm just sayin' he's a darned good host.) And he has a good radio voice. And he just seems kinda... well... you know... kinda cool.

I dig Kai. squee!

Overheard at my house #4412

Thalia (looking at my computer screen): Daddy, what's that?
Me: That's our retirement savings.
(Long pause)
Thalia: Why are there so many zeros?

sigh.

Dear My Neighbors

Often when I'm walking the dog, my neighbors will drive by and wave. This presents a bit of a dilemma to me.

You see, I'm just not very good at remembering cars. So when I see a car driving down the street, I rarely think "Oh, there's Jay" or "Hi, Jeannie!". Instead I'm usually thinking "Why doesn't that car have dents like mine?"

And it's hard to see through the glass to see who's driving, so I usually can only tell at the very last minute that it's actually someone I know, and that they have been waving at me the whole time they've been driving down the street while I've been squinting at the car like Mr. Magoo.

When I finally realize who it is, I frantically try to wave as they flash by. But I've got one hand on the dog leash, and he's pulling hard. So I have to wave with the other hand. That sounds simple, but the fact is that I usually have a plastic bag full of dog poop in that hand. So what to do? I can't be rude, so I raise the hand that has the bag of dog poop as the best wave I can do.

Sigh. It's not very neighborly, I know...

So to my dear neighbors: when you are driving down the street waving at me, and I stare suspiciously at you and then look like I'm about to throw a bag of dog**** at you, just remember that I'm being as neighborly as I can. I really *do* like you people....

Young Consumers

So cheapskate me keeps track of spending by logging receipts into Quicken so I can see how much we spend on food, gas, pets, etc. So Brenna, bless her heart, has gotten used to leaving grocery store receipts and the like on the counter for me to enter into the computer.

Recently, Abra started with an allowance -- a whopping $2/week for now. The other day she went to the grocery store with Brenna and made her first purchase with her allowance: some handisnack pudding!

Well, this was all very exciting -- when I got home that night the girls were telling me all about it: how they went to the store, and how Abra picked out the pudding, and she paid the cashier with her money, and got change, etc, etc.

And then Thalia piped up: "And she got a receipt, too!"

That's my girl.