Images - Lizard in the Palm of my Hand

We have at least five of these guys living on our playset. They are all different sizes and change color to blend in. I caught this one in the later afternoon and after I got him settled down, he was happy to sit in my palm where it was warm. I had to encourage him to crawl back onto the playset.

Marcus Belgrave's Octet: A Tribute to Louis Armstrong

We went to a see the Marcus Belgrave Octet perform in concert last night. His show was mostly a tribute to Louis Armstrong and was very enjoyable and entertaining. This was the second in a four part concert series for which we purchased tickets last year from the Town of Cary. The rest of the audience was almost as entertaining as the musicians. There were about 500 people and I would put the median age at around 63. We were amongst the very few people under 40 and there were only three others around our age at the front in the VIP section. We get to sit in the section because we bought tickets for the whole series, but we feel a little out of place without grey hair and walkers. It was real fun to see these little old ladies bobbing to the beat and singing along as the band played Armstrong hits like Blueberry Hill, Old Man Mose and Hello Dolly. Marcus and the trombone and alto sax players got down off of the stage to march around the room as they played When the Saints Go Marching In and they had a troop of geriatrics parading after them, bouncing to the rhythm. It was a delightful scene and I was left to ponder what music from my youth will inspire me to get up and dance as my mortal years wane. As humourous as last night was, I think it will be even funnier to see us as old-timers bee-bopping to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper.

Still hatching

Can had a hard time hatching this morning. Mom brought him down all wrapped up in blankie and he wasn't inclined to change things. I tried tickling his toes that were sticking out of the blanket, but he just tucked them up inside.

Eat the food I give you or starve

I don't understand why my children won't eat the food I give them. Last night, before heading off to a women's book group, my wife made turkey sandwiches with pita bread and pepper-jack cheese. In the context of the sandwich, the cheese wasn't spicy, but Dec and Sul wouldn't touch the sandwiches on the chance that it might be disgusting. Mad's encouragement that it wasn't so bad, didn't even phase them. Of course, Can didn't eat the waffle and syrup that was offered him either. He got waffle because he eats little else, when he does eat, and we have no way to coerce him into eating anyway. With the bigs, at least we can threaten the loss of video games or no dessert. I tried the "nothing else to eat for the rest of the night" line and they jumped at the chance to avoid the pita, perhaps thinking that I would forget before the night was through. Without Mom's support for battle and given the rapidity with which they accepted my initial terms, I could see that there was no way I would prevail in getting the food down their throats, so I ended up throwing away the pita sandwiches (and the waffle). I briefly considered giving them a "we'll put them in the fridge and you can have them for breakfast" but I knew that I would not be around when they were pouring big bowls of sugar coated cereal and mocking me for my tyranical statements, so I just let the food go to waste. Later, as we were doing the dishes for the meal that we didn't really eat, I came across Mad's lunch box and realized that it still had food in it. Upon opening it I found an untouched ham sandwich, on regular bread, and a container of fruit. As expected, there were no cookies, donuts, granola bars or pretzels left. Unfortunately, the ham sandwich had been sitting around all day and so I didn't feel it was safe to save it for tomorrow's lunch. Another meal in the trash. By this time I was pretty fed up, so I left it on the counter for Mom to discover and I decreed that he would get only a sandwich and fruit tomorrow for lunch. I just don't understand why it is so hard to get kids to eat. I bet that if they went a week without food, they would love a little pita and pepper jack. Of course, then they would be living with foster parents when the state took my kids away for trying to teach them not to waste food.

Images - Sandy Hands

Saint Mom and Sickly Can

We are not Catholics and the Latter-day Saints don't require three miracles and death to achieve sainthood, but Mom definitely earned the appellation of a saint after last night. I, of course, slept through most of it. I'm told that Can was up crying about every half-hour for a several hours last night. I was only aware of this when Mom let out an exasperated sigh at about 3:00 in the morning as Can woke up yet again. After coming to the realization that his crying was not some part of my strange dream, I decided to go and check on him. As I came to his bedside he kept saying, "a'quee bwoken, a'quee bwoken." Miraculously, I was blessed with the Gift of Tongues and promptly interpreted his cry to mean that his Lightning McQueen slipper had come off and he couldn't get it back on. As I put the slipper back on I realized that he felt warmer than he should have, so I aroused Mom to administer some acetominophen. He seemed to stay asleep for the rest of the night. I was aware of his blessed restfulness because I was unable to return to slumber, myself. I tossed and turned until after 5:30, when I fell back into a restful repose just in time for the alarm clock to wake me up and tell me to get out of bed. Ahh, the joys of parenthood.

Radical Islamic facists

Here's a good short piece explaining who our enemies are in the war against radical Islamic fascists.

All of us would prefer years of repose to years of conflict. But history will not allow it. And so it once again rests with this remarkable republic to do what we have done in the past: our duty.