What I did on my summer vacation.

Absence  makes the heart grow fonder, except in the case of pathetically lazy bloggers, we just sicken thee. Went to see the kin folks up in the old holler in old world Wisconsin these past few days. I shall attempt to enlighten you as to our going ons.

Traffic was of hell both coming and going. Satanic stretches of sulfuric emissions, and that was just Gary, IN. Take a pleasant drive in pleasant weather and what could one possibly do to eff that up? Endless road construction intermixed with congestion and the pleasure of paying tolls for the privilege, that ought to do it. Even bugs are smart enough to follow the thing in front of them without constantly braking and accelerating. It's called coasting people and it's not illegal. Yes there is no coast pedal, you just have to trust me on this one, remove your feet from the controls, you will be O K . It is not like you're going to get to pass the guy in front of you just cause you raced up to his fender from a dead stop ten times in a row. The eleventh time isn't going to end any differently.

Attempted to enjoy the beach in Milwaukee but it was enveloped in a strange mid August fog. 84 degrees and sunny one mile inland, we were cool, damp, and dreary on the shore, like England only with a more annoying accent in the air. Beaches do distract children well enough I admit. We arrived with low expectations written across the offsprings mugs, yet they busied themselves promptly. The girls were drawn into the freezing cold water for the better part of an hour. Wife says that the child brains don't process temperature signals as well as the adult brains do. I would think one would have to be severely mentally incapacitated to ignore the stabbing pains of ice cold death tenderizing ones noggin whilst standing in chilly Lac Michigan, not to mention the odor. The boys naturally were drawn to the instruments of malice, namely hand sized rocks with which to beat each other with gingerly. The adults were drawn to folding chairs, with which to pretend we were in our recliners at home and comfortable, without a looming return voyage hanging over our heads. The rolling surf was nice in that it eliminated any acoustical advantages the children held over us with their strategic squabbling, couldn't here a thing they were bitching at each other. That is the standard mode of communication between siblings, naganese.

 Getting there and coming back always nullifies all of the loveliness that can be what was there to begin with. Gone. It's like it didn't even happen. Cancel the day God created Milwaukee. You IDOT bastards. To complete the ambiance of our journey, my youngest two incessantly bickered betwixt themselves in a hostile manner for the entire return trip, a mere two feet directly behind my head, for seven straight hours. How thoughtful of them. We did the standard gorging of ourselves at Cracker Barrel on the way back to attempt to mollify the pain involved in the process of travel. Eli is starting to get the hang of the whole peeing in public ritual. Still diaper clad, he at least insists on using the facilities whenever we are about town. I just wish he would stop picking up the urinal cakes every time we visit the men's room, he apparently finds them fascinating. He always acts so surprised to find them in there, as if he's just cashed in on a successful Easter egg hunt.

Get home and the cats are riled up and acting all feral. Feral is feline for "Hold my catnip and watch me launch myself off of that big bald guys forehead with claws extended." Yes, the inside of my house is so dangerously wild. It's a dog eat dog, law of the jungle kind of residence. Give me a break furbags, just take a two day nap like ya would be doing if we were at home. Stupid cats.

 These trips always make me feel like I'm really missing something in life. Eating, spending, shuttling about, that part's easy; I can act like a commercial, I just don't ever feel like a commercial. The living of it is what just don't come naturally. Drudgery, now that part shows up with no effort at all and makes itself right at home, feet on the furniture and crumbs in the sofa in no time.

Patriotic mayhem.

Went to the old fireworks show last night. Loved the loud ones that don't do nothing but threaten to blow out yer eardrums. I so hated those as a child. Now I would go to a show of nothing but. They are also cool because they illuminate all of the smoking carnage from everything else blowing up, like a flashcube, a flashcube of death. I always think of war during the fireworks show, seems right and noble to me. Imagining the noise as if it were intended for my destruction, not my entertainment. Holy shit if one of them shells landed in the crowd. But boys love noise and damn the consequences, ergo, we sit obediently as the sky explodes in front of us.

Wow, I am one pathetic blogger, last post... April 15th! Holy crap, that was quite a while ago. And it's not like I've been terrble busy or anything. 

Finally had the children clean up their latest lasagna incident. It had been stewing for a couple of weeks upstairs and I was absolutely not going to  touch it. My little nightly hints of "why  don't you go clean up that shit storm in the upstairs toilet?" had had no effect on my patient children, who thought they could wait me out. But today I emerged victorious. Cami's hair dying gloves on the other hand did not fair so well. RIP that old pie pan, too. I didn't want the kids scratching the commode with my rusty old spade in the garage, so we turned to the kitchen for implements. Wanna keep things nice, you see.

Joe had his birthday a couple of weeks ago, just wanted his own personal NintendoDS (dual screen) to play with so as to not to have to bother with the whole sharing farce that we enforce upon the young in this household. Eli had an anniversary too. Less expensive than Joe's, but loads more stuff to have to pick up afterwords. Maddie and Mitch have theirs in about a week. Who knows what the hell they want, they ain't talking. Lilly has a top ten list scrawled out that features some Barbie dolls and a double portion of Ken with the appropriate plastic doll vehicles to go along.

Incredibly, I am mowing again, praise Jesus. The mower is actually a smallish tractor. Kind of overbuilt for the job, but I'm finding that that is what it takes in order to overcome my amazing ability to destroy all that is mine. Downside is that now I have a tool that can take out the garage if I'm not careful (and I generally am not). With the grass cut for the first time in two years, the house actually looks inhabited; like putting a leash on a stray dog or sleeves on a hillbilly.

Went grovelling to our tax guy today. July is a bit late to be starting the filing process, at least for a punctual German guy like me. Sheepishly turned over our books and was informed that no this is still not enough, go get more information. Apparently this will never end. I am stuck in a not able to get my refund, loop from Hell, dollars hanging there in midair taunting me. Still not prepared for 2009. Hope to have my overpayment funds back before 2010.

Wife had a fun time in Seattle. Week of Saturdays. I stayed home with my constantly noisy companions, a week of Mondays. Wife catches a giant flying salmon and gets fishy juice all over her dress. A friend of my wife's asked me what I do for fun. All I had was... grocery shopping? I think I've just lamed myself. Oh well, Target is fun and I guess I don't care how retarded I sound admitting that to normal people.

Win one for the Gipper.

As this blog is named after the United States T@x Code and as it is the anniversary of our yearly tribute to the overlords who so selflessly serve us in WashingtonDC, I would like to comment on a few things that I feel may merit some commentary. Such as...

Walking laps about the government workhole the other day I observed a large snorty digger thingee sidling up to a nearby concrete block structure. This fellows work for the day consisted of demolishing said building to presumably make room for some alternative use of said property. Fine, sounds easy: raise the bucket to about four feet above grade and commence a side to side swinging action meant to mimic a Mike Tyson hot date. Viola' building leveled and plenty of time for a long lunch break. Ahh, but I was thinking on the government side of the fence. What this worker did with his almighty dinosaur looking claw thingee was to carefully peel the layers of sheet metal roofing off of the dump so as to facilitate cash money scrap retrieval bucks. Took him much longer but evidently it was worth the extra effort, else he wouldn't o bothered. Then my mind wandered back in its memories to recover thoughts of the implosion of the Hoosier dome recently here in downtown Indy. Twenty seconds is all she took. Twenty seconds and she was not even paid for yet, yup, upside down on our wonderful little home of the Colts. I assume that my mortgage company would be just fine with me if I engaged in a similar action with their home that I live in. Tired of your old digs and the market goes south? Just level the place and build something ten times grander and just roll the debt on into it. Yes, that is exactly how it works in the real world. Sound financial planning I may add.

But we are told that this building will be such a boon to our local economy. Mental math time...500 million dollars divided by 30 years equals about 16 million bucks per each. Divided by 8 games equals 2 million smackers per home appearance. Divide that by 50,000 seats and that works out to only a mere 40 dollars per seat per game till I'm 70 years old. I'm sure that this fancy smancy new facility will still look just as wonderful in 2039 that we won't even want to replace it. Add to that expenses such as the actual team salaries and assorted costs of running an NFL franchise and I guess I won't be going to any games any time soon, too rich for my wallet. First year operating deficit was only 10 million dollars, but can you feel the boon?

Listening to the radio the other day, I was lucky enough to catch a caller to the local right wing talk show getting berated by the host for not being an actual football fan, whilst discussing the merits of what amounts to millions of dollars torched up in corporate welfare. Yes geeks beware, discussion of tax policy and fiscal spending by the government will now be limited to sports nuts only. You may only contribute your dollars, not your wimpy non football loving opinions. Shut up, touch your toes and fork it over, mister uncoordinated, this is Football we're talking about.

Making your mark in this world.

Welcome weary fans of the poop lasagne. I haven't been too keen on firing up the computer as of late, I offer my humble apologies. It has been far too easy to start meandering around the intertubes, filling your head with streaming mind garbage, and the next thing you know, bam it's tomorrow. All is essentially the same here, with only subtle differences creeping in and nonetheless freaking out my frack. Cami for one has been undergoing some shifts that are starting to add up.

It all started with the Edward. Twilight's pasty faced, sullen looking, flesh eating vampire Edward. First the one book, then the other three, then second copies of each of them, then the viewing of the film with friends, then the finding of different friends to enable multiple viewings, then the sneaking out of the house to view it alone (seven times all together),  then the t-shirts and licence plate covers and the booking of a cross country trip for four to visit the locales depicted in the book and finally it's been the collecting of teen vampire soft p0rn type books. We have a bookshelf full of that particular genre now. She's been using her homeschoolers discount card at the local Barnes&Noble for these purchases, though I would think that tomes of the slutty undead generally would fall outside of my children's required reading list. Well I believe these books are beginning to influence her behavior.

Some things I would say are positive; she has become involved with the ancient art of yoga. This is surely a good thing, I mean aura cleansing, chi flow, feng shui, work the core ... all of that mind-body-soul healthy hindu-asian crap, this is a wonderful development. Recently she's started in with belly dancing lessons, too. Now I like me the Greek food quite a bit, I like jingle skirts and shiny shiny, and I believe that the head slide is the coolest thing ever, so this too is a good thing. 

Today I believe she has crossed a line and gone over into not thinking straight land. She's been asking me which type of imagery she should have tattooed over her nipples: roses, stars, daisies, hearts? Wtf... hell no. I am uncomfortable with the idea of altering regular old ordinary skin. I'm really not liking the idea of needling up anything pink and wrinkly. Having suffered a not to be mentioned shaving accident in one of those areas last summer, let me just say, ouch-dammit that smarts a mother, and the concept of paying someone to do it to both of them is just, let's just say I don't get it. Cami seems to believe that since she has survived being disconnected, literally not attached, to her weather sensors for five hours during her chest reconstruction/reduction operation many moons ago, that now she has super nipples that are impervious to pain. Perhaps she does, I don't know. I guess she could look into having the superman logo placed over each of them in order to accurately convey her feelings about her pointy bits.

Well playtime is over, Cam is back from the fat church (Weight Watchers) and off in the other room distorting her mind with another teen vamp thriller. This I must stop. Tatas for now.

Odl lay odl lay odl lay hee hoo.

Hello, I am on a bit of a holiday right now, so no work for the next six days. Of course, as expected, I have fallen ill and have been feeling crappish. Today eventually found me back in bed watching The Sound of Music for the millionth time in my life. I'm not one to watch a movie that I've seen before, but TSOM just keeps on coming back. I know that I am under the weather as I have spent the whole movie crying. Not sobbing or bawling, just a steady stream of tears, no actual reason for it. Nacho Libre has the same effect on me; must be the nuns, or I'm just going hormonal.

This movie is very important to my family. My baby sister rented a projector and played it in the alley on the side of her garage for her drunken thirtieth birthday gathering. The movie is sort of the Becher family story. My mom was a convent drop-out and went on to marry a Naval veteran who was significantly older than her. I have five sisters and a brother just like they do. We don't sing, we're all kind of tone deaf, but it doesn't stop us from living the VonTrapp dream and breaking into inappropriate bellowing once in a while. My sis even married a guy whose last name starts with Van. For our own sakes, we got us a German exchange student one spring from neighboring Nuremberg. He had never seen TSOM, wasn't even familiar with the concept. I was incredulous.  I mean can you imagine the tourism dollars that this movie must generate for the Bavarian/Austrian region? The night before he was to return to the fatherland, I held him captive and forced him to watch under the threat of my five pound sledge. These kids have got to learn what side their bread is buttered on. If he knew what was good for him he'd be  first in line for wearing handmade leiderhosen crafted out of grandmas drapes and then he'd be dangling his Arian arse from the nearest low hanging branches over the local autobahn every day after school with his goose-stepping buddies. Crafting a memory for any visiting Americaners, it would be like printing your own cash. Some people have no gumption.

 If only the countess had shown up from Vienna prior to Maria infiltrating the VonTrapp family  household. I mean there were eleven other horrible governesses in a row, not a one of them with youth or a waist or those perky Frau Frau dresses with the tie downs under the chest. No, she had to wait to attempt to sweep old Ge'org off of his feet until the hot little nunnette tramps upon his doorstep, all soaked and wet T-shirtty after falling into the Danube. Blondie makes her move two months sooner and those snot faced little Austrian terrors wouldn't of known what hit 'em before they would've been shipped off to boarding school. The old Cap'n would still be blowing his whistle in the North Sea on some leaky Nazi Uboat had she gotten her timing right. Maria would be back at the abbey irritating all of them bitchy penguins. Ralph would have been the unfortunate victim of a little friendly fire, shot by his own troops in the Hitler Youth. Herr Detwieler could of been schlumming around Salzburg attempting to "entertain" the lonely (and may I add, well proportioned) Countess Schroeder and her piles of Deutchmarks. Poor Max, I feel for the guy, he came so close. I'm sure that as soon as the goon squad realized that he had helped them warbling weasels escape, he was summarily executed, in spite of his charming wit. How's that fer your happy ending, Hammerstein? Come on everybody, sing along.

Rumination over Retail Establishments

If you were wearing night vision goggles, and you had pissed me off, this would be the last thing you would see before going to meet your maker in an untimely bedtime 'accident'. I apologize if this imagery frightens you. I do not intend to cause harm to my readers via night terrors or Vietcong flashbacks. I just thought you all should know what danger looks like.

Now that we have that bit of unpleasantry out of the way, I would like to wonder aloud why it is that people who drive unbearably slow on twisty roads appear to be in no hurry for any part of their lives to commence at once, except the part whereby they cut you off in order to be in front of you. That part must begin immediately. Life's a raucous diet Pepsi commercial, with music and dancing and sunglasses and bikini clad chicks and fast cars and all, all until the moment that they find themselves blocking your progress, then it's suddenly more like the commercials that are on during the evening news (incontinence, impotence, enlarged prostrate products)... and I don't like those commercials, nobody does. That's why I chose to NOT KNOW what is happening in the wide world around me via the oh so important evening news. It spares me the oncoming reality of having to sit on the edge of a meadow in a matching claw foot bathtub with my significant elderly other in order to achieve an erection, while wearing an adult sized diaper and suppressing the urge to trot off to the men's room. Some thoughts are just too much for my fragile ego to bear. So I resent having to drive fifteen mph under the posted speed limit with nothing to do but dwell on my chances of having to live through that most unpleasant of futures.

Went to the Wally-World today. It ain't no Target, that's fer damn sure. I don't know what it is. Well actually I do... Wal-Mart has zero sex appeal. Never had, never will. And I'm not just talking about the patrons. I have just never felt anything special about being there and I don't think anybody else ever has either. The place just screams "It's OKay to wear your bathrobe and fuzzy slippers in here, and stagger around with your bedhead and a general odor abouts yourself, I don't mind", preferably through one of them patented Kentucky mouths with a third of the teeth missing, the kind that HeeHaw always tried to pass off as normal by having pretty gals in plaid belly shirts with that seductive knot calling out to you, wearing blackout on their grills, but that in reality has never ever looked good on an actual person. Of course ol' Walter would be staggering around the bed of his pickup truck whilst proclaiming this slurringly and holding his fifteenth Old Milwaukee and considering if it's a good time to go git a little bit of target practice out of the way.

Target, conversely, is more the type of place where one always feels as if the other patrons may be eavesdropping in on you and your spouse's oh so clever banter because your just both so damn good looking and hip. If your feeling exceedingly cool, there is a whole section of black leather furniture and stylish lamps to feed your self importance. There are aisles of organizational entitlements to help you feel stylishly NewYorkish as you unclutter your life. Then there are more aisles of crap that you can put into your freshly purchased bins so that one can feel that they have enough thingees to prevent them from ever having to suffer from anything as horrible as an occasional spate of boredom. Full makeup required. Take a shower you pig. Tuck in that shirt, this is Target, land of the red and white concentric circles. Neat and organized concentric circles, dammit; neat, organized and sexy.

As I prepare to leave you, I would like to share with you this bit of imagery from the ever so cultured Pacific Northwest area. This is a wall that has been lovingly attended to through the years by the refined citizens of upscale Seattle, with decades of old chewing gum. Yes, you too, can go to this wall and contribute, or help yourself to this edible architecture if you prefer, fresher additions will come up easier, watch for the glisten. Sure it's a bit germy, but what a statement, and it's free. If you turn your head sideways, it looks like a huge outpouring of political support for your fave cause celeb. For me it brings to mind those Pakistani taxi driver beaded seat covers, only I'm imagining that this would feel better on my lower back.

Your 2009 posting.

I have been pitiful in my postings and I sort of apologize for that. I will not be able to change this unless I win the free time lottery or get sent to jail and am allowed to post from my cell. I am not a busy person, yet this is not happening with any frequency whatsoever. It may have something to do with me anticipating writing something craptastic and not feeling any urges to put my paltry thoughts on display. Wife says that the title of this blog automatically excuses me from having to do a good job, so here it is...

I wanted to encourage everyone who may be feeling down about the current condition of the economy, politics, the weather or whatever. A while back I was returning from Target and as I sat at the light awaiting my left turn signal, two well dressed fellows pulled by in front of me with the hugest smiles on their faces, apparently enjoying a laugh and some frivolity. Just seeing these two, happily working and looking so joyous, put me in a better mood. In spite of everything going on in the world, this pair could look beyond all of the glumness and doom, and put on a bright face to the world. It was as if the sun was shining directly out of the front of the hearse that they were driving, and illuminating a better future for us all. I was inspired by their simple pleasure in this fleeting life and I hope that their example can lead others to perk up and get happy.

I have just received my lifetime concealed carry permit in the mail yesterday. This means that I must now select my first weapon to arm myself with. I have been dreaming a lot about Bigfoot recently and though I know that I could not shoot the Bigfoot because of his humanity, he's still a Bigfoot and I need a gun big enough to take him down if necessary. Hear me Bigfoot? I am not afraid to take you down. We could be friends and all, as occurred in one of my latest dreams, but I will not put up with any of your Bigfoot shenanigans. No peeking in the window, no dragging the kids off into the woods, and most importantly, never disturb my slumber. I watch for the Bigfoot when I drive to and from work in the dark. 309 deer, zero Bigfoot. Bigfoot should be on the endangered species list, except then it would be illegal for me to put a cap in his hairy, peeping Tom arse. In my dreams, his fur is more like eighteen inch long dreadlocks that cover his tall body. Skinny guy, too. Wears a ball cap and jams, scavenged from campsites of course. Very lonely. Sad.

I am pissed at the Indianapolis fire department. I was driving to Target yesterday, and as I passed a neighborhood entryway, a fire truck emerged from between the houses and into view with its lights on. I didn't have time to pull over prior to the passing, as the road was very slick with snow and ice from our recent weather travails, so I passed the truck and then pulled off to the side of the road to allow them to pass me. These bozos, instead of going around me and continuing on to the Pizza King three blocks ahead of me where I can see three other pieces of fire fighting gear parked in the lot, these public servants pull up right on my rear and lay on the horn, repeatedly. I am off to the side of the road in the snow and have to put it into four wheel drive in order to get out of their way, all of the time they keep up with the incessant air horn bellowing and deafening me in my soft top Jeep. Now I know that Pizza King pizza is not exactly the tastiest za to be had in the land, as a matter of fact it is probably the worst, greasiest crap I've ever been unfortunate enough to have in my mouth, but does that mean that one has time to play jokes on the citizenry instead of hightailing to the raging grease fire that surely is a Pizza King inferno? Priorities children.

Now I must end this. The hour approaches midnight and I am too old to sit up here all night blathering on about the pointlessness of my existence. I'm off to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream.... of Bigfoot, hopefully.

Urgent Christmas Update: Reply at Once.

Hello loyal reader, I am back again. How is your son doing? Good to hear that, we all grow out of that whole secret squatting phase sooner or later, my favorite place was in the front yard landscaping. I hope everyone is prepared to say goodbye to that train wreck we call 2008. I'm sure 2009 will be just peachy.

The wife has me currently occupied with her latest obsession, the 'twilight' series of books. I don't know why I am reading them as she has revealed every last secret within them a multitude of times. It is all rather much just a lot of gushing and smoldering without any surprises left to entertain ma man brain parts. I mean it, it is almost nothing but gushing and smoldering, I don't think I've ever read a book that gushed and smoldered so often in my life. I'm embarrassed to be reading it, honestly. Where's the action? Furthermore, the setting is just so ordinary, Biology class? It makes the depth of their emotions seem a tad overblown, they're in high school for Pete's sake, how big of a deal can this romance be? Finally, he eats people for a living, for crying in the beer, this ought to count for something, something negative, extremely negative. I don't care how smoldering Edward Dalmer is, his diet is just plain disqualifying. So there.

Christmas went off without a hitch, even with me forgetting to take out the trash last week. So what if we had seven large bags of trash in the kitchen for the holidays? The kids could've cared less, as long as the goods got delivered, nobody was gonna get hurt.

Except me of course. Had a real bad case of 'Lego Back' after assembling Eli's ginormous rescue helicopter. It only took an hour and a half to snap together, and I think it lasted all of about three minutes until he decided that it's shiny, pristine newness was so yesterday. Next thing I know, I can hear the theme music from 'Sanford and Son' playing in the living room as he's busy altering the design to better suit his needs.

Madeleine finally has aged enough that Mom thought it was time for a little make up to be had. If she was excited about it, I failed to notice. It's a big deal for her to just wash, dry and style her hair, I think I've witnessed that happening once, so I can't imagine her going all high maintenance on us. Never know, could happen.

Mitchell was content to get even more Bionicles. He now has enough to create a robotic football team sent from the future to kill us all. He sure likes him them posable man dolls.

Lillian had the cat eyeing up one of her toys for her own personal destruction, a sick looking pink stuffed animal creature with blue wings. That sort of toy is right up Fancy Pooh-Fart 'Snickers" La Salles alley (yes, that is the cats actual full name). Lilly has been instructed to hide it well, lest she find it delimbed and soaked to the stuffing with sick cat slobber. Merry Christmas.

Joseph tortured us all with his horrific playing of the Rock and Roll on the Wii Guitar Hero World Tour Game for Middle Aged Parents so That They Can Feel Like They Are Somehow Still Cool. Man that game is fun once you wrestle the axe from your child's tiny hands and evict them all from the room. I can really strum well in leather pants.

Me and Cami got squat, but that was to be mutually expected, being pitiful married people and all. The dog at least got leftovers from dinner, she was happy. She may smell like a$$, but to her she's living the high life.

Temps got up into the 60's on Saturday, so Cami engaged in her annual winter ritual of hand washing her car. She didn't realize that we are currently hoseless, so I had to operate as a one man bucket brigade for her. It was really windy. Boy, I never realized how much fun it is to pour water out of a bucket in high winds, as none of the water hits the ground, it all just flies sideways and disperses in an out of control horizontal rainstorm. Cami was pretty soaked by the time I was done 'helping' her. Car looks good though. Must hide it in garage now. Much too pretty to share.

This will be all for now and thus ends today's exciting tales from the poop lasagne factory. Flush thee well citizens.

Here I am...

Hello loyal readers, yes it is me, I have returned. I think that I have had sufficient time to be pissed off about the old blogger destroying my handiwork and now I am mentally prepared to resume me some blogging. Still no pictures of course, that would be way too much effort for me, camera and all, no thanks. Just me and these twenty six keys, spacebar, comma, period, delete, backspace, shift and enter.

Well Christmas is a coming, we have no goose to get fat, Eli is in the other room screaming his bloody head off. Real boy still is in the diaper way and resisting change. He accepts the whole underwear wearing philosophy, he's just not that into the whole proper use of said undies. Is a shame too, as I have seen a bright future in his toilet flushing abilities. Solid. Boy knows how to pull a lever. If only the others had such promise.

Yes, we have been in an upstairs loo lockdown situation for about six weeks now, as no matter the amount of policing, things very quickly get out of hand with the children's facilities. I made an executive decision to close the washroom and now I live with the frequent interruptions of the offspawn. Better than the odorous alternative. We have recently relaxed the requirements in the household and number one is now allowed in the youth can, but only number one, and full flushing cooperation is expected; and by number one, I don't mean Madeleine. We'll see how it goes.

Our tree is up for the holiday and covered with breakable representations of unrealistic southern Indiana snowfall totals resulting in the construction of artificial men, scantily clad in bare bones hobo ware. This is the wife's favorite form of seasonal celebratory decorative milieu. I don't get it. However, pop in on her blog if you wish to view her odd hobby. Bloomington averages 9.5 inches of snow a year, the lowest total in the state, so one can see where one would hardly ever see a snowman round here.

I have two children hovering over me now, anxiously watching me a typing and impatiently a waiting the use of the family 'puter. Some RPG MMO thingee written by Koreans that they play endlessly. There is only one battle screen format and it is dull. I don't get it, but they do, so I'll relent and let the carnage begin here shortly.

I myself am hovering anxiously over the dinner table awaiting the wife to bring home the room temperature at best pizzas from the burg of Franklin. It's about 10 degrees outside with 30 knot winds so I expect all pizzeria heat will be fully dissipated from the pies by the time of their arrival home. I don't care. Seventeen weeks of weight watchers has taught me to not care what the hell I shove in my mouth as long as it doesn't have too many points.

On that happy note, I'm off to my familial duties. Rest well and enjoy your Christmas time, I'll be at the work keeping your families from having midairs at thirty-seven thousand feet. Toodlie pooh to you.

I'm tracking how much of my lifeforce you suck up, Blogger.

Okay, now I'm pissed. I just wasted 51 minutes of my life ranting about the metric system and the capacities of the modern American toilet and how this relates to sewage water running out of my dining room ceiling and poof. It's gone. This does not please me.

I finally find a few precious minutes to contribute to the world of literature and it's as if I had done nothing for the last hour. I could of been napping, or watching women's beach volleyball, or napping. Such a waste.

This is the sort of life altering event that could cause one to never blog again. Yes, it's that serious.

Well, let me assure you that it was one hilarious post that I'd wrote, probably my best ever. Aah, the muse is gone now, fluttered away never to inspire me again. All that is left is this pitiable showing, my only output for over a month. It's too hideous, I can barely stand to look at it. Yet I stare at its sickening beauty. Drool forms at the corners of my parted lips as I unthinkingly mouth breathe over my keyboard.

I hope you enjoyed today's exciting entree of Poop Lasagne. You're welcome.

Not exactly back in the saddle

Certain things in a father's life cause him to pause and reflect on how he's spending his time, on his influence with his spawn children, and where the path he's on will take him and his family. Things like having this for a son...

make the days a little longer. Boris has taken to his bed at the shock of it all. I'm me, Frau Becher, hijacking this here blog, in the interim. Beers will be consumed, orthodontia will be purchased, and, if all else fails, we'll be commuting to the zoo to visit the middle son. I hope Herr Becher can find his way back to blogging... he's quite the curmudgeon without it.

Aquaman is ripped like Jesus.

I don't know, should I post? I've been considering it lately. Sooner or later I will have to put something up here, something of significance. All of my loyal readership is holding its breath, awaiting my further instruction. I just find it hard to work up the gumption to slog something into the intertubes whilst my wife goes about exceeding a post per day. That's just sick. She takes things to sleep you know. I don't. I have to actually go to bed in order to achieve rest. Not equitable. I estimate that she has an extra four hours a night of kid free time to accomplish all of this blog de blog. She can post from work, too.

So what's happening? Had some rain last week. Nearly 11 inches in 12 hours. Very localized. It pretty much tanked the local wastewater management systems (read 'culverts'). Poor Franklin is the focal point for all watershed in northern Johnson county. Town got slammed. Go to bed and it's raining. All night lightning show, horrible nights sleep (my bedroom has eleven windows), wake up, it's still dumping outside. Go to work, nonstop wave of water flying out from under my tires, crossed a few raging streams, drove left of the rumble lines on a state highway for several blocks trying to stay tires on ground. People woke up in town with water at their doorsteps rising fast and it's still coming down buckets. I'd guess that a third of the homes in town had water in their first floors. Kinda stinky there now.

I would like to point out that unlike the Cedar Rapids flooding, which believe me sucks the kazoo too, this flood was an unforeseen event. Notice that there was no footage of Franklin residents sandbagging in preparation for the big event. No body knew it was coming until it was there. Also one doesn't realize how bad it was because all of the news coverage was after it stopped raining. It was much scarier driving around town for two hours in pouring rain with every other street blocked by high water and sewers spurting water skyward and every way in or out of downtown underwater. The business district was an island about four blocks square and with only about one foot of elevation above the flood.

Okay, gotta scram. Will attempt further communique concerning local weather related phenomena later. (cue the sesame street music, you know, manamana-do doo de do do)

Educate yourselves.

Just in case any of you don't think that I follow politics closely, here are the transcripts from Sen. Obama's latest speech, I think you will find this rather illuminating. I just happened to be reading it when a Hillary Clinton supporter called to encourage me to get out and vote for her. I told her that I would consider it, all the while trying not to break out laughing.

On another note, this site below I find is important for any of you considering starting a family or a career in elementary education. It's for your safety that you should know these things.

18

Ten unrelated statements of undeniable fact.

We are the Monday people. I have beautiful Monday thoughts. This is important, so sit up straight and take mental notage.

I) I was on one of my rare upstairs visits the other day, so I decided to check the kids bathroom status for possible lasagne disorders. I was surprised to find that someone had lined the toilet seat with TeePee and left it that way for emergency purposes, I guess. Strikes me as strange that one of the culprits who makes piles of unflushable hoohah would care about what exactly they are sitting on when they do do this.

II)On my way home from work the other day, I had the pleasure of following a green Dodge van nearly all of the way home. It didn't matter how slow or fast I drove, at every light I looked up and there he was again. Staring disinterestedly at this fellows rear end, it took me a minute to notice his bumper sticker, a stick figure man with one leg slightly lifted circled in red with a bar crosswise, underneath stating simply 'No Farting' . I found myself unconsciously obeying.

III)I have been catching up on 'LOST' lately and am starting to notice that some of the maintenance guys at work look suspiciously like the 'others' from the show. One guy that I never saw before even had a huge fake bristly beard and I think that he is their leader. I'm afraid to tell anyone because I don't know who I can trust anymore. What the hell are these people up to?

IV)Aren't solar panels a form of visual pollution just because they are ugly? Who wants to actually look at these things. Everyone goes on and on about how they don't pollute but then do you want to look out of your window to gaze upon a field of machinery. I would cry like that Indian guy looking over a bunch of tires in the creek bed if I had to look at that all day.

V)The grass it is growing and I can do nothing to stop it. I don't have the gear. I am leaving it up to God to provide me with the resources necessary to cut my lawn. That or drought, pestilence, brimstone, however God wants to handle my landscaping needs, I will obey.

VI)I am disgusted with this country meddling in the world food markets with our Iowa voter buyout ethanol subsidy plan. The very same people who bemoan that food should be a right provided at no cost are the ones driving this Global Warming Monkey and starving real people in the poorest regions of the globe by distorting the crap out of the price of food. This to me is shameful behavior by our politicians and their constituents who are demanding this crap. Pure evil.

VII)Could anyone explain to me how wearing a hoodie to my job endangers the flying public. Why is it more important that I look a certain way, than that they (the Others) keep the room that I work in above 60 degrees. No visitors allowed. Just show up at the guardhouse and see if they'll let you in for a looksie. They won't. But rest assured that I'll be wearing corporate casual inside my radar room meat locker. It's safer that way.

VIII)My dad has had his left titty removed and now is certified 100 percent cancer free. He has big plans to go shirtless in as many public forums as possible. Carnies beware, there's a new player in town.

XI)Why does every soundman on planet earth think that knives constantly make a 'shing' noise when one removes them from storage. Do they learn this in the same place where punches are so gratifyingly loud. How come a rifle butt to the head will always knock a person unconscious. It never causes brain damage, or kills, or just smarts. Every time - unconscious. Just once I would like to see a victim a of a rifle butting react with hunched shoulders, pained expression and an Ouch. Then I would like to see the buttee try it again.

X) Lack of sleep can lead to mental disorders. It can also lead to driving into telephone poles. Choose your bedtime carefully.

Must go eat bread shaped piles of ground up cow with salsa and crackers mixed in, then sleep the sleep of the sleep deprived. Bye bye now.

The glint is blinding

Hi, y'all. I just hacked into my husband's blog to bring you tidings of bald joy. This goes out to Thimbleanna... I think she has a 'thing' for bald guys. They have better "street creds", you know. Without further ado, I bring you... Bill's dome, before...

and after. Nice and shiny, huh? He's sexy, even if he's the biggest friggen' grouch in the whole world. I'll keep him, though. (Can't torture him good if I turn him loose.) This has been Clementine, having a bit of fun at the ol' crank's blog. Type at y'all latah. C

Enough of the wife.... if these pics are not showing here is an appropro link. -Boris

Sick little thoughts from a sick little man.

Good evening reader, how does it all go with you on your end of the line? (rhetorical, please do NOT respond) It has been sick week at the BecherHaus. Cami has the cough and flu like symptoms, I've been snot faced and nose blowing all around, the spawn suffer from malaise and disorder, the usual. Children are playing with their Wii, Clemencam is at her shop making the monies and I am left to hammer out this post. It's hammer time! No, I am not dancing in short gold pants with five pounds of bling chained to my neck right now, I have dignity.

Engrossed in LOST right now. Love the format. Didn't think that one could make a 'stranded on a deserted isle' show that was interesting enough that you actually wanted them to remain stranded on a deserted isle, but it has been done. I like these people too much for me to want to see them be rescued. They are in the middle of nowhere and yet there is no end to the new character possibilities, fresh faces just keep popping up, it's crazy good. The motivation for each of the characters actions is thoroughly investigated via the vehicle of endless non sequential flashbacks. This is done to bridge you from disgust at these slimeballs and their reprehensible actions, to admiration for these noble creatures and respect for the trials they have had to endure. Extra special kudos to the casting department for finding this Hurley actor, this guy is Belushi reincarnated with an extra 100 lbs. thrown on for dramatic effect, he is ha ha ha funny.

My Dad called last week to inform me of a medical malady that he has contracted. Seems that he has developed a bit of the breast cancer, left side variety. Radical mastectomy this Thursday. This is no ones idea of fun. I'm praying for you Dad and hope things go well. Guess I'll have to go get a pink ribbon for my car now. Cami thinks that you should still be able to bowl, so you've got that going for you.

Today is April 15th, the ides of the taxman. Was planning on cleansing the scalp of all hair this day, symbolic of the raping of society by our governmental overlords. I've been letting it grow since Thanksgiving, going all hippie and such, allowing the abundance of hair growth to symbolize the overwhelming plenty that God has given us. Now I find that I am hesitant to take drastic action, I believe that this symbolizes the discontentment of the angry white man as he struggles with the societal guilt ... awe, now I'm just making stuff up, see, I can write a college level paper. I find just as losing the hair is so refreshing in the summer months for its cool skull features, retaining the growth is helpful for not freezing to death in winter. Been waffling the last few days as to whether or not to do it, Cami suddenly doesn't seem to be interested in baldness so much so more. Ahh, it'll grow back, right? Off with it already.

Lookie at the time, nine bells. Must go maniacally scream at the tots to get the he11 to bed, such a loving parent that I is. Then I have a date with a dog clippers and a lady bic. Chow.

Will anyone read this?

What the he11 do you people expect from me? Don't you understand that I am a tired old brainfart of a shadowman who cannot manage to shave itself in a timely fashion, much less input useless babblings into the inter-tubes?

When the authorities are finished with me, I will be tossed aside like the floppy vapid soul-sucked being that I am, forever deskless. Yes, humiliating but true, government bureaucrat that I is, I am without a desk. No cubical to call my own, I have no phone, or calendar, no meetings or paperwork. Forms I do not touch and correspondence I do not engage in. I am a poor lost nanny state nanny without direction or guidance, without paper or pencil to push. No work computer to call my own, no files to misplace or organize or ignore. No teleconferencing, no travel, no continuing education.

My work is more like taking the tediousness of a manufacturing job and intermingling it with the urgency of a short order cook. We have to tell everybody what to do in the language of air traffic control, which is written by lawyers who don't care about keeping it short. We have to tell everybody what to do in a hurry, 900 mph closure rates demand this. Time is of the utmost importance. SpeakFastOrDie lawyerese. Now replace your telephone with a Dixie cup and a string. Add to this a prisonlike setting, PC speech codes, and egos run amok and you have your basic Air Safety Nazi Occupation.

Enough about the beauty that is my work. Yes, me and family went on a little jaunt about the Midwest. Eight days, seven nights, 2000 miles. We went to see Grandmas(2), Parents(4), Siblings(5), Sibling Spouses(4), Aunties(1), Cousins(2), Nephews(1), Great Uncles(1), Friends(1)and Dogs(3). Would I do it again? Give me $2000 and two weeks off from work and sure! Elsewise, I think I should probably just go take a nap.

Milwaukee was magic, as usual. So much in such a little area, what an anomaly! Drove through Arbor Vitae WI, always wanted to see what was the big draw there. It's like Dirty Dancing or The Parent Trap up there. Ashland was as underutilized as ever, could be such a neat place, someday money will find it. Duluth was geologically freaky cool, altitude is fun. Minneapolis was on and off rampy. Infrastructure city. Storm Lake IA has a lighthouse near the entrance to their city (!?) and Sigourney IA still has no fast food (Subway does not count).

Am watching Twin Peaks circa 1990's television. Such wonderful cheese. One can not beat a backwards talking, dancing midget for good entertainment. Excellent portrayals of people being possessed, can't get enough of that. Could do without all of David Lynch's 1950's stylings set in the late eighties, I am quite ready to wretch a gerbil if I see one more leather clad, sunglasses wearing, brooding douchebag on a Harley riding away from his girl cause he can't handle what life has thrown up on his plate. Thank goodness so many characters die, it's therapeutic.

Someday I may post again....

Target is roho, how can you resist?

Tomorrow I go grocery shopping again, only this time it will not be Kroger. Instead I will brave the halls of Target, halls which are lined with the evils that are Pokemon and Yugioh cards. I will be strong and say no to the pleadings of my children, all of whom seem to think that happiness can be found in a packet of cards. I brave the halls of Target because their meat does not look disgusting, because I know where to find the mashed potato flakes, and because their deli does not apply the polychromatic spray to your sliced goods prior to wrapping them up. I go because their halls are wide, there is no music playing overhead, and because it's a different quality of white trash that shops there. But mainly, I go because there are no crazy ass poles in the middle of the aisles and no shopping carts that look like fun to my two year old. Yes, Target, I am coming for you, be prepared.

It's a better way to shop.

Today was a lovely surprise. If one does not listen to the weather reports, then one allows oneself to be pleasantly surprised by the weather. Nice day. I expected sub freezing temperatures, instead it was sunny with no wind and I think 40. Bye bye snow.

Took my wunderkinds to the guvment readin center today. All went well enough. Managed to find all of the books that were due back without having to go psycho on the child units. No fees this time around, there's a first. I also managed to find some neat books for Madeleine to read, which I suspect she won't as she had scared up quite a stack on her own. You never know, that kid eats books for breakfast, if I keep her bored enough she may get the crazy idea to actually look at some of the titles I pulled for her.

After the library, it was off to go Krogering.... I can feel your envy. The older four wanted to sit in the car and read, Eli wanted to go inside the store to drive me crazy. Lately he insists on the ginormous red plastic cart that looks to be a race car designed by a disturbed six year old future animator. It has six wheels, the middle axle sits taller than the front or back, causing the whole conflagration to be nigh well impossible to steer. It also is wider than the average cart, weighs more than the average cart, and holds fewer groceries. Perfect in so many ways, Eli shrieks at the top of his lunguals for several aisles if I dare to deny him the opportunity to ride in that sweet chariot.

So into the red retardo-mobile we go. What a workout. Krogers had decided to reorganize their entire store at once without closing, so every aisle was tore up something bad. I couldn't find anything. I couldn't get around all of their so called 'workers' standing in every aisle, not to mention their infamous displays and randomly placed poles. I couldn't get the cart to roll in a straight line, it was crabbing about 30 degrees to the right, causing me to look like I was hopelessly drunk, which I wish I had been. The way I had to zigzag down the aisles, I felt as if the fake steering wheel in the child seating area actually was hooked up to the wheels. After exhausting myself by having to drag that refrigerator sized piece of brightly colored plastic crap up and down every row twice I finally gave up on my list. I only have a limited time left on this earth, and I am not going to invest it in trying to guess where a crazy person would hide mashed potato flakes in a 50,000 item superstore.

Or at least I thought that I was going to leave, until I discovered that they were only willing to supply two checkers to the whole trying to escape public. For this level of service, perhaps they could cut their high end pricing a bit, a least down to the point where I wouldn't go into seizures whilst gazing at their grotesque meat case. I couldn't believe the prices on their green looking animal flesh. Disgusting quality, Confiscatory pricing. I salivate at the thought of returning.

Back home now. Offspring have had their learning for the day and are now running indoor laps. Wouldn't want to go outside and spoil all of that nature now would we?

Climate change.

Thank you Lord Jesus, for making February go away. I appreciate the onset of Marchiness. 70 degrees today. Yes, all of the snow has gone off to find the Ohio river and I have my lovely brown yard of mud back. What is that I hear? That's the sound of my furnace sitting still and of my propane tank not being drained. Winter is so ovah.

Do you get to drive past the bridge people on your way to work? These are the unemployed, homeless folk who are enterprising enough to scope out the ideal intersections on which to stand with a slab of cardboard that claims that they will willingly work for food. Apparently cash is not acceptable. Cash can in fact be used to purchase food. I notice that these vagabonds only seem to scope out the interchanges with a highest percentage of out of towners. I think locals don't pay up as readily. Driving past these places at all hours, I also notice that they have a definite schedule that does not involve nights or early hours. How long does it take to get enough dough to buy a bucket of KFC , a room at the Knights Inn and a bottle of hooch? Must be lucrative, else they would bother going into one of the fast food places advertising for help. One fellow summed it all up nicely, his sign just read 'Who am I kidding, it's for booze.'

Awkward moment at the Krogers yesterday. I was foraging for foodstuffs with the five monsters in tow. I was in high lazy mode, letting Lilly push the cart, Maddie was in charge of corralling Eli, who was tearing around pointing his forearm at everybody, shooting them dramatically with his forearm laser cannon. Joe and Mitch were going all sideways, blocking the aisles for the other shoppers, and I was stumbling out in front, fairly unconcerned about their whereabouts or what was happening to me. In the frozen fake chicken aisle, an elderly woman said something to me that I didn't quite hear due to Eli's loud shooting noises. I assumed that it was one of the usual comments about what a lovely family I have or being outnumbered, blah, blah, blah. I realized after a second that she had said that I was brave. Caught off guard, I kind of stopped walking and made my dog thinking face, which she interpreted to mean that I was offended. She said that she meant it in the best way possible, and then flustered, she walked right into a pole (Why on earth they can't locate those thingees in the middle of the shelves is beyond me. ) Needless to say, I then felt pretty stupid, as I had just injured someone with the sheer presence of my bulging family. Point is, even walking around looking stoned, those little ones keep tottering along, giving total strangers an excuse to inadvertently think that they insulted you, and then hurl themselves headlong into a stationary object.

Goodbye to all, and a passing farewell to W.F.Buckley, who died this past week during that horrid little month of February. Winter go home, or I'll sock you and you'll stay plastered.

That's where I wanna be...

Seven other things about me that you did not knoweth.

1. Where I come from isn't all that great,
2. my automobile is a piece of crap,
3. my fashion sense is a little wack,
4. and my friends are just as crude as me.
5. I didn't go to boarding school,
6. preppy girls never looked at me,
7. why should they, I ain't nobody, ain't got nothing in my pocket.

The secret to raising children.

1. Kids crap once a day, make sure someone else is in charge when it happens.
2. Child portions are half of an adult portion.
3. Delegate all of your most monotonous work to them as 'chores'.
4. Eight o'clock bedtime, regardless of age.
5. Lecture them to death, they will go to great lengths to avoid you.
6. Forced marches for fun and fitness.
7. Leave them to their own devices, you'll be surprised at what they'll learn.

It is windy today and warm. The children are busying themselves by flying 'kites' made out of old plastic grocery store bags and surplus yarn. Slow week at the shop, please send funds. Watched Fight Club last night and I loved it. Closing credits had my favorite Pixies song, Where is my Mind?, which makes me retroactively cool because I had no idea. Roast Beef, muenster cheese, and grilled onion bun sammies for dindin tonight, so special. Must go now or I'll be sucked into the inter-tubes and trapped forever.

Let me go back to work and get some Rest.

World's stupidest post: My thoughtlings on life.

Harrison Ford's gun in the Indiana Jones movies makes the most amazing cannon blast type noise. Imagine how the popularity of gun ownership would soar if you knew it would be so satisfying to hear yourself shoot things. Explains the popularity of the Harley-Davidson. Big noise make man parts happy.

What a kick ass weekend. Two, count em, two oil changes and a dental visit, all with five kids in tow and no other parent. I'm living a dream here.

Once again our forecasted ten inches of snow turned out to be half an inch maybe. I haven't touched a shovel yet this year. Let's keep it that way, shall we?

Been on a bit of a Rowan Atkinson kick lately. Can't explain it. It all got started with Keeping Mum, an excellent british black comedy which fooled me into accepting Rowan as someone I could possibly stand to watch. Rented the complete Bean television series next and got hooked on this sickness. Watched both Bean movies(horrible) and then a standup show compilation and last night The Black Adder, a brit sit com about medivial power plays, black plague etc. Tonight it will be Not necessarily the nine o'clock news, then Johnny English and then who knows what. Once I run out of material, I won't know what to do with myself. It'll be hard to replace that level of inanity.

The baby has taken to biting the other children. They are so busy laughing at him that he thinks that is okay to nosh on them. Put a hole in Lilly's shirt yesterday, was chomping on Joe's clothing today, just spied him clamping down on Maddie's butt. Kid needs a new hobby.

Was eating some leftover chicken potpie for lunch today when Eli strolls up and stands next to me and gets real quiet. Then starts the low level grunting. Charming dinner companion. I ask him what he thinks he's doing. 'I'm haking a hit' is his reply, then he continues with out missing a beat. I guess I'm not so hungry anymore.

I am so wonderful, so get over yourself already.

I have been chained to this computer by my spouse and will not be allowed to leave until I complete my assignment, an assignment of writing seven items of interest about myself ... seven items of interest, about myself. I have been at work all day, have to get up insanely early, and may have imbided in a wee bit of the alc-ahole. Oh, how I loathe the task set ahead of me. SHOOT ME NOW. (Cami says she will be happy to oblige)

1) I am not an interesting person. I have Five children. What do I do on weekends? I watch them, feed them, clean up after them and prepare myself for going to work and leaving them. How absolutely exciting for me. I go to approximately one movie a year. I eat out at a new restaurant approximately once a year. I do not travel, have hobbies or make small talk. I am a dullard.

2) I have very little identity outside of being an air traffic controller guy. No, I am not the fellow who holds orange cones aloft and waggles them at airplanes, nor am I the fellow who goes up into an air traffic control tower and observes actual airplanes, that would all be far too glamorous for me. Instead I am the schlep who works in a non-descript windowless, hanger sized, office building and who stares at a glorified computer screen, monitoring the progress of blips and then telling them what they may or may not do for eight hours a day. I, sadly, enjoy doing this form of 'work'. I, also sadly, will rarely turn down an opportunity to take a break from said 'work' and go to do nothing of any importance whatsoever.

3) I do not like children. I am not a fan. Like my spouse, I am indifferent to the plight of the altitudinally challenged. I will raise them, but that doesn't mean that I can stand all of their smelly little noisey crying brat antics. I do not approve. Children crawl the face of the earth, when they stop doing that they begin to get interesting. I hate Barney and all that he represents. As you may know, I also do not enjoy the childrens museum, the zoo, child oriented shows, movies, or theme parks, mini vans or kidz menus. To hell with all of em.

4) I am a crab. You may have guessed that one already. I have slammed chairs by their backs against kitchen floors whilst raving like a lunatic and choking on my own spit (Camis fault). I have smashed two by fours with my bare hands, out of frustration with my child's pediatrition. I have used foul language in front of my children in desperate attempts to coax learning out of them. I swear at other drivers continuously when I'm out driving. I bitch endlessly about the vicissitudes of daily life. Sometimes, it hurts to smile. I'm a people person.

5) I am a weenie. I cannot accept the sight of my own blood. I know that most people are not crazy about watching their life giving red jujubee juice spurt all over the floor, but I am very quick to go wobbly and light headed if I even gander at my fill tube during a blood draw. Surgery channel? Never. Alchohol must be administered if I plan on bleeding alot, this I hear is not a good combination. I hate doctors and all that they represent. Nothing personal, it's just gross.

6)I am not a social creature. I am extremely uncomfortable at parties, weddings, bars, get togethers, ceremonies, reunions, anything crowded, anything embarrassingly not crowded, or on the telephone. I am not a social lubricant. I need my wife to carry the chit chatting load. I have nothing of consequence to say to anybody, unless you're standing on my foot. I am the penultimate male, except I don't talk sports, the stock market or home improvement.

7)I break things. I have a curse upon me that causes everything that I touch to turn into something that is freshly broken. Handiness is not within my grasp. I will mentally tell myself to be careful placing an object on a shelf, and then I will go about having uncontrollable spasms that cause said object to go flying across the room to its gauranteed destruction. I break computers, cars, houses, clothing, lawnmowers, leafblowers, weedwackers, shovels, garage door openers, finances, furniture, anything you like. I am an equal opportunity destroyer. Whatever it is, I've probably ruined one or two of them. You're welcome.

That is all. I may have accidentially not of included anything very interesting, but if you've reviewed this list, you should be able to see that a tired worn out old ravelling of a man is not exactly two strippers and a keg of beer. Boris out.

How do you make a duck Fart?

Another Indiana blizzard. Hysterical weatherpersons and crushing grocery store mobs, all for a bit of freeezing rain and a dusting of snow, no accumulation. This is two in a row for our local forecasters. Their credibility is in the toilet from here on out, from now on I will view them the same as I view my car thermometer, always wrong by ten degrees. At least they have the whole glamour thing down, it's the only reason I watch anyway; check out the weather chika's hot weather girl body, sound optional. Similar to my daliances with Telemundo.

Major duck carnage up north of here a couple of days ago. Big cold front came crashing through and hurled little duckies everywhere. Apparently the wee beasties didn't read the tea leaves properly and get the duck out of here in time. Friend of mine had an impaled quacker lying in her front yard, piece o' the house siding stabbed clear through, well not through and out, it still had end bits sticking out of each side, like a rotisserie. Evening news featured this guys buddy sticking ass backwards out of the side of a house, driven head first and lodged into the building, ouch. I guess there was injured poultry lying all over the suburban landscape. I'm imagining bird brains everywhere, or Big Bird in a wood chipper.

I always assumed that birds had this innate sense of changes in the weather, frontal passages, troughs, convective activity, etc. and would therefore scatter before the chickadee hits the fan. I figged that their migrations were a sort of weather protection service. Ends up they have more in common with our local meteorologist's than I first theorized.

Being an air traffic controller, I often consider how birds in a flock are organized and how they go about not smashing into each other even when changing directions in seemingly random patterns. I am reconsidering this lofty height that I have placed these critters at. I now believe that they are possibly hitting each other countless times whilst in flight, and all of the directional changes are just a desperate attempt to avoid getting smashed on their morning commutes. Lots of wasted energy there. Group think, directionless travel, birds are like the animal kingdoms Borg.

Well, I gots to go. My work hole calls like the Lorelei from the rocky place, and I must go drive myself birdlike to my random destination.

Run for your Lives!

For Sale: Hyper intelligent two year old monster child from the bowels of Hell. Make an offer.

I am tired Okay? If anyone doesn't understand this, then you haven't been paying attention. So all I need is a wee little nap sometimes, you know, 20 minutes of shuteye in order to repair the brain. I'm not asking for much, just a cessation of hostilities for a bit, but will that tiny tenacious tyrant allow me a moments rest without consequences? No, he will not. My retarded mom senses kicked in today after their usual delay period to find him standing tippy toe on a chair stretching for the butcher knives hanging on the wall of the kitchen. Apparently, this tot believes that I must die for my sins of napping and interfering with his plans of household domination. I see that he has smeared an entire stick of cat butter all over a fresh pan of brownies too. Moments later I hear his siblings yelling at him for biting cords, my God, the cat is smarter than him. Now he's wresting control of the Wii controls from his elders so that he can stand there and do nothing with it as their characters die a quick and animated death.

So perhaps one could attempt to sympathize with me. Feel my pain, literally. Please come and get him. Any of you people who find him so charming in the shop... he's all yours, take it away. I need to find my rest, sleepy goodness; no danger, no disaster, no dementia ... before I'm dead.

Hot times in the city

I am having a hot butt right now. Sitting on a heating pad set to high, that is what America is all about baby. It feels so good. Who needs the Caribbean when you've got Walgreens? Can you tell that I'm embracing my impending fortyness? My rear is melting. I am tuning out the gang of five in the other room as they argue over the proper techniques for playing Mario on the Wii. It has been a three hour long discussion with no end in sight. I'm focusing on my searing bottom, it is so good, I am floating away from all of this cold, this noise, this mess. I don't care anymore. The cat can lick the butter on the island, I don't care. Hear that Dragonfly? Cat licking butter = I don't care.

My crawlspaces are getting insulated tomorrow, must get those cleaned out before the witnesses... eh hem, construction workers arrive. By the time the earth completes another revolution, I should have a much less drafty house. I suspect that I won't, but I am pretending that I will. Stuffing the heating pad into the back of my quilty flannel shirt now. Letting this warmth penetrate into my spinal cord, relax my nerve passages. Why does this feel like I'm cheating winter?

Found an old house in town for sale. It is a large four bedroom house, built in 1890, suffering from decades of neglect. It had been converted into three separate apartments with endless layers of white paint on the woodwork, eventually condemned by the city. Some outfit bought it cheap; new roof, siding, landscaping, paint, sidewalks, porch rebuilt, windows reconditioned. Outside is glamorous, inside is gutted and trashed. Very appealing to my moron side. It's red. I have a hard time resisting red. Almost has as big of a hold on me as shiny. I'm a fool for shiny. Anyone want to buy a house in the country, so that I can move into some dump in town? Didn't think so.

Wearing the pad like a bulletproof vest now. It's like wearing an electric bra. Wow, do I ever need a nap. I should bring this puppy to work, breaks would never be the same again. May have to crawl in bed and let the children fend for themselves. Goodnight goons, Dad out.

Scary tales from the Crypt.

Sitting home with the children. Yes, I know, it truly does sound glamorous, but it is not really as much fun as it sounds. No one will talk to me. They just want to be left alone with their Wii, or their reading, or coloring . I am quite bored to tears. Well at least there will always be chores, I am a lucky girl. Perhaps I'll make some of that disgusting vanilla bean coffee that makes Cami want to wretch, but that I am so fond of. Finding comfort in food... always works, don't it?

I can't possibly have anything to tell you about, as I have the worlds dullest existence. A guy riding a horse went by the house today. Holey Crap! Calm down, it only happened once, and the horse was walking slowly. An additional horse was following without a rider. That horse was a large animal with an enormous horse rear end part. Black too. Eli was scared and tried to climb up my torso for some sort of anti-horse protection. I have no idea what was so scary about a horse walking 200 feet away out on the road, but it had him and Jemimah both freaked out.

Saw something else pretty frightening this afternoon... Drunk neighbor Paul pulling out onto the streets of Podunkia. He is so slow and so in the middle of the road. If we notice him leaving, and believe me, we take great pains to notice him, we will reroute any trips out of the house for the next half hour or so. You will get stuck otherwise, and nobody wants to move at Paul speed. Paul speed is almost like traveling backwards in time. We have lived here for seven years now and he is still constructing his 'house', which is really more of a guard shack for his outdoor junkyard playland thingee. Yes, he does have an old broken down school bus too, just in case you were wondering about his redneck status.

Me and Maddie hit the dentist today for a cleaning. A cleaning out of my wallet. $250! for a six month checkup for two. Ouch. I think I should just draw straws to decide on which one of my children may have dental visits, and then just write the other four off as a lost cause.

Another Lillian drawing caught my eye today. It's a pic of a mad skeleton saying "Wars the Bafrom" which I believe means "where's the bathroom?", but only said more piratey. I keep seeing 'Barf room', which I guess is cause he looks bulimic. Probably he is just stress eating from having to sit alone all day with his kids again, and he wants to keep his model figure.

Well, I'm off to eat some carrot cake concocted by a twelve year old. Horses asses, drunken driving, Lara Flynn Boyle and highway robbery... told you it was a slow day. Pray for my intestinal fortitude.

Ooo, eee, ooo ah ah...

Welcome to Wednesday, the exits are located here (sick leave), here (suicide), and at the back of the workweek (Friday). Please refrain from adjusting your seatback into the person sitting behind you, as this may lead to uncomfortableness for others, as they will have to watch you be subdued by our crew with tasers. You are now free to move about the blog, though be advised, I am watching you and I am paranoid.

I had thought that my doctors office visit of last week involved some BS runaround, until we went to see a herbalist yesterday. I don't know how much to tell you about this, other than it seems to be a wee bit of loony toons mixed in with a spray of bat shit crazy. My witch doctor says that I have a paraplegic paralegal problem and that I may begin to resolve my electrical imbalances by taking a squeeze of blue potash once daily, or at least that is what I heard, it can be hard to follow someone when they are describing insanity to you in detail, from on the inside. Whatever, I'll give it a whirl, I'm sure in a month she'll have some unverifiable feedback on how I'm doing.

It was extremely difficult to control my face during her analysis. Between revulsion and laughter, I didn't know what to do with my mug. Should I look accepting, understanding, confused, or like I'm trying to ignore the guy wearing six coats wandering on the sidewalk downtown? I kept looking over to Cami, as in 'please help me!', but plastered across her countenance was the look of 'isn't it wonderful', mixed in with the doe eyed, worshipful stare of admiration. She was gloating over her new found friends ability to sense stuff, freakish stuff, much like her own talents for dowsing for water or talking to dead people. My children all looked more like me, similarly uncomfortable, though Eli was in full flirt mode: crazy or not, she was still a chick.

When we got home, we had nine bottles of various concoctions to open and my wallet was about $153 lighter. Had a slight mishap opening Mitch's jar of Red Ju Ju Bee Date Extract, ended up inadvertently flicking the eyedropper and getting Ju Ju Beed right in the eyes. I may have done irreparable harm to my mojo, don't know, I'll have to mention it on my next visit to the town lunatic.

Another horrible nights sleep. Eli just loves to reawaken me every 20 minutes or so. He likes to mix it up, too. One time it will be flutter fingers in your armpit, next time he'll wedge himself under your torso, and for the finale...big toe jambed in your buttcrack. At 2:12 am, I couldn't take it anymore, so I grabbed my pillows and went to sleep out on the loveseat. It has to be pretty bad to think that sleeping with your legs folded over on themselves is an improvement.

At 8:15 Cami came and found me, she who sleeps the enviable sleep of the drugged. She wanted to know why I didn't just go crash upstairs in the guest bed. This should give you an idea of how nonfunctional my brain is during the night watch, smoke detectors and knowledge of the floorplan of my own house are beyond me. I had totally forgotten that we even have a guest room, much less one with an actual made up comfortable bed. At least my inner idiot is self contained and not leaking out into the world.

Lil Bunny Foo Foo

Welcome to the future. Here it is 2008 and we are all flying to work in our floating cars, which never need expensive repairs and never ever crash horrifically as they are being piloted by stupid people who fly drunk at 100 mph below the posted airspeed limit in the middle of the airway while swerving erratically and who whip off all of the other commuters in a fit of overwound air rage based on their increased stress levels, caused by concern for their finances after discovering that floating car insurance is quadruple the rate of traditional auto insurance, and that floating cars are gas hogs that get about 1 mpg, and that the certification and maintenance procedures for a floating car are a bureaucratic nightmare, and that their POS Ford Hindenburg won't start in cold weather and that they still have 68 more payments that exceed their first house's mortgage payment, and you can see that this is going nowhere and Thank God we don't have flying/floating cars.

2008 is off to a bang with a fun trip to the local sawbones for a five kid checkup with a recreational throat culture extravaganza. I just wish that I had duck taped their hands to their legs, so as to prevent the inevitable collection of doctor's office contagions. Hopefully they didn't catch additional illnesses there while seeking their 'treatments'. $15 for medicine, $75 for prescriptions to get medicine. I get to miss a day of work... I know, boo hoo. But still, sitting home with five snot faced, coughing, bickering, ill mannered vagrants and waiting to see how long it will be until they infect me, does not exactly fit my definition of a 'perfect day'. I'm getting the general vibe of a zombie movie when all is lost and the heroes are just awaiting their indoctrination to the cultural proclivities of the undead masses (I, of course, am the hero).

2007 ended with a whimper as I feel that Christmas was a bust. My gift to Cami was an embareassment, and that is not a typo. The robe that I bought for her was labeled a 4XL so I thought I had the whole size thing covered. Only I was reading the handwritten size tag using my 'guy vision', which is wholly inferior to average 'chick vision'. WEP immediately recognized the scribbling as saying L/XL, which led to me immediately getting the cold steely glare of an unrestrained MyHusbandIsAMoronHowCouldIPossiblyHaveEndedUpMarriedToThisIdiot? look. Knee length for a rotund midget perhaps, this robe hardly covers her privates, any of em. Add to that its sicko pink color, the only one available, and I come across as some kind of pervert who's into the whole playboy bunny / homeless lady look, which for the record, I think that I am not, though I am not willing to commit to that answer as of yet.

We had an argument on Christmas Eve over the wrapping of the presents. Eli didn't shut it down until 11:30 pm and I was exhausted, having been awoken by a low battery warning from a random smoke detector at 2:00 am the previous night and having been up since 4:00 am for that pesky employment distraction. I did not feel that the wrapping of the presents would serve the children well, as we would be ridiculously overtired and possess zero coping mechanisms whilst the rug monkeys shredded the wrapped, for six hours, presents. I suggested that we instead bestow the children each with their very own plastic ToysR'Us sack full of loot, and indicate to them to put their trash in their very own Christmas bag for an orderly and convenient disposal process. Needless to say, this concept was not received favorably. After some tussling, we agreed to stacks of gifts versus sacks of gifts. Cami, I feel, was not debating from a position of authority, as she looked like the kid from A Christmas Story in his pink bunny suit, only pornographic...and pissed off.

Christmas morning. 2:43 am. I can't believe another freakin smoke detector has a low battery again. Why can't these flippin things go off during the awake hours? I don't feel that it is so important that sleep must be interrupted, not the precious sleep of two in the morning, the holiest sleep of all. Find flashlight, 9volt battery, step ladder, which detector is beeping, wait for it, is it this one? Nope, shuffle to the next one, wait for it...nope. Curse and repeat.

Christmas morning. 7:00 am. I can't believe the kids are still asleep, what is wrong with them? I get up and find Mitchell watching television. What is wrong with these kids? Hello. Big piles of junk in the other room. Finally they all arise and thus begins the destruction anew. We hold off on the Wii until 1:00 pm, pretending that there wasn't one. No one complains or acts disappointed, I wonder if I have foolishly parted with several hundreds of lira unnecessarily. And then it is over. Only 365 days til Christmas, better luck next year.

Trust me, I am a former Parking Garage Attendant.

Hi Ho reader. Have been unfaithful to the blog as of late, I is soooo busy being underwhelmed by life and all. Will attempt an update as of now.

Today was from hell, courtesy of the MIL. We went to a, God forbid, Children's Museum on our new yearlong family pass, and all I can say is that I feel that this will be a long year. First off, Thank You Connie for the wonderful tickets/pass/membership thingee, it is a lovely gift that will get used often enough by my wife and spawn. Please note that I do not include myself in this list of participants, as I find such places an unholy irritation, a blight on the face of humanity if you will.

Secondly, I would like to thank all of the wonderful people who work at the Children's Museum, volunteer or paid, no diff, Thank You for your efforts etc. blah blah blah. It appears to be a very safe and fairly sterile environment that attempts to impart some such wisdom on the teeming masses of hell spawn, collectively known as 'the chillren'. No person should have to undergo the daily mind sucking sound machine of 'kill me now' that is your existence. Thank You.

Thirdlyest, I would like to thank the great state of Indianapolis for providing the grounds, or the tax deduction, or whatever it is that you do, that makes such a monstrosity arise from the ashes of the near north side. It is wonderful in all of its nanny state like wonderfulness. I love it so much. (This I have to say lest the other parents think I'm a loon. Who doesn't LOVE the Children's Museum and ALL that it represents? Huh?! Are you questioning its supreme loveliness?!?)

That being said, I would just like to state that the entrance to your parking garage is one efffedd up mess. One does NOT have traffic flows switch sides of the road randomly as one is driving on your approach way to enter your garage. This is wrong and the designers of such a horrendous traffic pattern should be held accountable for this death trap that they have erected under the guise of a Children's Museum. I do NOT appreciate having the 'guard' question my sanity upon my arrival at said garage, after having to cross over the median to get to the entrance which is on the wrong side of the road. I refuse to believe that this 'guard ' has not seen this scene endlessly repeated as he stands at the entrance of said garage to stand guard against any would be terrorists who would want to blow up an unoccupied parking structure that is detached from any other buildings. Why the hell are you even standing there, if not only to mock the poor schleps who fall into your sick side-swiping, deranged, garage entrance kerfuffle anyway? Huh, answer me!

I also contend that my explanation for my behavior... 'uhhh, sorry, you know U.S. right, U.K. left?' was quite possibly the most illuminating lightning strike ever received by his brain. I am simply amazed that this reasoning had never been presented to him before. His look of disgust at my arrival, coupled with his look of thoughtfulness at my explanation, was truly a weird disconnect from the reality of his day to day existence. I am freaking out here. Had this thought never occurred to him before? Gee, I wonder why people do that whole driving to the wrong portal thing all of the time? What must not go on in this mans head all day? Needless to say, my enjoyment of said Children's Museum was soiled from the beginning.

Add to that, dozens of ADHD, Ritalin soaked monsters tearing it up, screaming directly at me, bouncing, literally, slamming around and into everything. Hogging exhibits, rude lil' bastards...listen people, I am not impressed with your offspring. Found one boy, or at least I think it was a boy, I mean it could of stood to wear a bra and all, crying for his/its school group. Dragged him over to a red phone and called security on his rear. Apparently, they are losing children all of the time at the Children's Museum, as they nonchalantly informed me that they would send someone over to collect him. I waited with him for the arrival of the authorities, but he was going all apey and batshit crazy and all, kept trying to get to the phone to talk to the operator, wouldn't stand still, wouldn't speak up above the nonstop roar of OPC to tell me if he was in fact a boy or a girl. I finally gave up and left him with what was presumably a member of the staff who was in fact wearing a banana sticker on her forehead, close enough to proper identification for me. Then we spent the rest of our time looking at the exhibits and listening to the intermittent paging every five minutes for 'anyone from school 51' to come and claim the biggen. Not the most sorely missed member of the entourage, I guess.

The place seemed to clear out around 2 p.m. as all of the government kids had to go back to their hangers to prepare for their dismissals upon the unsuspecting public. Lordy I wish that they wouldn't give group discounts, just ruins it for everybody else. Need to schedule institutional madness days and warn all others to STAY AWAY. I'm sure you've all seen it every where you go, too. I apologize for any contributions to this insanity that I may have made over the years. I promise to hermitatize myself in the future. Good day.

Basic Economics - by Thomas Sowell (read this and get back to me)

The youngest has taken to adjusting the thermostat in the house whenever it bloody well pleases him. I am returning home from outings to find the furnace pumping at full bore and the house at a balmy 84' (still need directions to the degree symbol, readers). I am not pleased with this development, as I already am sending a sizable portion of my income to the friendly propane company, and would like to retain what little remains to use to purchase food for my children. I find it particularly disturbing because I only notice it after an absence. I get to shiver all day in my tightwad temperature setting, and then I return and find the cat lying across the front door seeking relief from the excessive heat. Stupid cat.

Wow, am I ever in a bad food rut. I've been feeding these people whom I'm charged with the care of, fast food crapola almost every day of the week. I likewise, end up consuming said crapola. Then off I go to work to further pollute my body with cafeteria food, yes, food from a cafeteria, and all that that implies in its horrificness. This has to be a bad thing. Just don't have the time/gumption/support to cook anymore. If only somebody would consume voraciously for me. Come on Mitchell, you're practically a teenager, time to step up and wolf down. Madeleine, just once could you eat seconds. Lillian, mopey faced picking at your food is not encouraging to me. Joe, please stop announcing at the start of EVERY SINGLE MEAL that you 'hate' whatever it is that has been placed in front of you. Eli, stop everything, just take a day off would you? The house can be destroyed tomorrow, it can wait.

Nod to Cami. What does Lantern Moon care if you discount their wares in southern Indiana where the cost of living is significantly lower than the coasts? Are all of the people going to book cross country tour bus excursions to Franklin to get the illegally priced wares? Will you single handedly destroy all of the yarn shops that carry their overpriced crap, by selling it at a reasonable price? You must be stopped! Lantern Moon must wage war against you and other merchants who have the gall to think that prices are negotiable in a capitalist system. You WILL buy OUR needles and only offer to sell them at a price that no one will purchase them at. You will drain your shop of any remaining capital to accumulate more things that will not sell. I, at Lantern Moon, will feel self righteous at my refusal to deal with you, you entrtapeneur, enteepenuer, ontrapanuure, awh...piece of crap.

(spell check only recognized the third term as meaning entrepreneur) Later losers, love Boris.

I'd like to give the world a Coke...

Unrelated streaming crap from within the confines of the Becher Haus....

I am finding drawings all over the house that feature soda cans with straws poking out of the top of them and the cans are all labeled 'COCK'. I believe that this is a typo, cause Lord help me if it isn't.

The two year old has been chanting 'Bugga King, Bugga King, Bugga King' all morning long. It sounds similar to the second Indiana Jones movie when the Sri Lankans have themselves worked into a frenzy and the bald one is about to thrust his hand deep into his human sacrifice's chest and remove his still beating heart. This is how my kids feel about fast food, it is a religious experience.

I am afraid for my physical well being because Clemmie gets home soon, and I have strayed from the standard formula for concocting a meatloaf. My creation has the Robert Redford (actually, it was Paul Neuman, same diff) extra chunky salsa in it and I believe that she will not be pleased, as extra chunky also implies large pieces of vegetable matter. There are easily pieces of green pepper the size of my thumb, green pepper being an evil veggie in my WEP's eyes. This I am expecting will lead to my incurring the Wrath of Camm, and there will be hell to pay for my vegetable indiscretions. Salsa must not look homemade.

I am tired of people telling me how wonderful my children are, when I have to sit home with them all day and it sounds like WWIII, and looks like it too. There are only so many times one can listen to their brats make the alert noise, before one starts to go a wee bit psychotic. The 'alert' noise is an alarming scream meant to unsettle and unglue normally calm parents, it indicates extreme distress, but my wunderkinds like to use it for routine interfamily communication. Example: pass the peas ... Reply: Aoooooogaaaaah! Aooooogaaaaaaah! Aoooooogaaaaah! I am going all fruitcakey upstairs from all of the meaningless over stimulation - think Britney Spears.

Joe is now sitting behind me crying quietly to hisself after having been b*tch slapped by his baby brother for not showing the proper level of respect to his royal shriekyness. One can imagine where Eli gets these ideas that he is a big deal, as he is wearing a shimmery gold blanket as a robe and being led around the house as a ruling member of the Becher society by his two giggling sisters.

Please send help.

Press one for English

Welcome to the Poop Lasagne Help Center. If you would like to peruse the pages of Poop Lasagne, please just scroll downward, the entrees are listed by date, so you may wish to use the sidebar to quickly scroll to the bottom, if you are new to this site. If you would like to register a complaint, please comment directly on the relevant posting. Please attempt to refrain from threatening the author as that would be in bad taste, and furthermore, being a disembodied, floating head, I do not possess kneecaps, nor do I need to use the little flappy thing in my underwear, so your menacing commentary is quite lost on me in those areas.

If any reader has a clue about why blogger will not post pictures for me or my wife, please drop us a line and let us in on it. My spouse is going fairly crazy from being denied her visual expression capabilities, and things are starting to get -unpleasant- around here. She believes that it has some connection to facebook, as our ability to put up pics apparently went away around the time I opened an account with them. I'm sure that it just doesn't work because of some weird pop-up blocker function or such, that I have no clue how to regulate, is destroying my marriage via saving me from bloggers evil picture posting capabilities. Also, my wireless modem makes a strange scritchy/scratchy noise whenever it powers up. What the hell is that all about, and how do I make it stop? Is it related to the whole picture conflagration? Do tell.

I apologize for the short post, but I do have a full time job that I'm expected to show up for, so I'll have to go without putting any meat into this post *again*. Sorry, for the meatless post. I know that very few of you are blogger vegans so I will attempt offer a more appropriate fare next time. Cause I will be so less busy in the near future...right.

Crime is a family trait.

Yes, hello. I know that it has been eight days, so I'm sorry, I won't do it again, unless I'm really busy or too tired or too lazy, hmmm, the odds are not looking good. We are still without the photographic capabilities, you'll just have to trust me if anything needs describing. I have this awesome head shot of myself, I'd put it up for you to see, but no luck. Let me just paint a vision for you, I'm six foot two with a full head of dark, perfectly coiffed hair and a chiseled chin that juts from my face manfully, oh wait, that's in my imagination, a place where I'm cool and well thought of and not an all around embarrassment. Here in reality world, well I'd rather not talk about it. Back in a minute...bacon alarm.

Bacon forked. Cam had to go a lil loco the other morning as she was attempting to flee the house to go to her place of employment. Couldn't find her keys. Eli has decided that they are fun to cart around and then ditch randomly, much to Cami's enjoyment. Already he won't leave her makeup bag alone, or her fingernail polish. I expect next it will be her wallet and some fiduciary transactions of an unauthorized nature. I was mad at first, due to the fact that I don't appreciate anyone raising my wife's heart rate, but then it reminded me of when I was a wee lad meself. My family was at the grandmothers house for a visit, I was only four or five. At the time it was just me and four sisters. My gramma had taken turns with each of my sissies showing them her junk jewelry box and letting them each select an item to keep. I, however, being a boy, did not get a turn, it was a girl thing. Makes sense, just not to me. I was pretty hurt about the whole being left out thing so I took something for myself that I felt represented my gran to me, I snatched the skeleton key from her kitchen door. Bacon...

Bacon done. Our visit ended normally and family loaded into the yellow station wagon to transit the fifteen miles over to the other grandmom, it was late and we always camped out at the pink stucco ladies place. Bad news when we got there, as phone calls had been made regarding missing keys. I was discovered to be the culprit and had to be extradited back to the scene of the crime. I was appropriately lectured about 'stealing' and made to give back the key, Bertha needed it to lock up. Oh well, Eli's key snatching just brought back a memory I hadn't even considered in thirty years, and I found it hard to be mad at a little boy who was just trying to hold onto something that said 'mother' to him. He's still a brat, he's just the same brat I was. ........Must go make soup happen now, peace out.

I love you Tuesday.

Wow, has this whole blogger thing flipped out or what? I can barely get this lovely site to accept a new post at all. Me and the wife/lady have decided to switch over to a typepad account. Should be soon, will attempt to post a link here. Don't know what to call it, I think 'poop' is a harsh term, it brings to mind... poop, and I think that I'm not crazy about being associated with... poop.

Interesting tidbit from the mind of Lilly. We discovered the other day that two of her 'Littlest Pet Shop' creatures are in fact alcoholics. Lillian maintains that they sit outside the bar whenever it is closed and cry. What I would give to have had a friend like Lil as a child, she sounds like a blast to hang out with.

Off to the library, or libary as my mom likes to call it, 'Hi, Jean'. Clemmie has amassed a significant fine for a two week loan book that is now a week overdue, the shame of it all is that she finished the book within three hours of getting home from our last visit to the govment readin center. Trash man has come, I love the trash man, he has a big truck with a robot arm thingee that grabs large canisters and flings them in the air like a rag doll. I is so jealous, he doesn't even have to get out of the truck to do his job, that is too cool. Some people have all of the luck.

Happy election day, go to your local poll today and make your voice count for which criminal you would like to represent your interests. Sorry about the long delay between these incredibly stupid postings, but I think that you need to cut back on this sort of inanity, it's not good for your inner sanctum. I have five short people to attend to now so try and get along without me.

The destruction of the perfect mind.

I've been gone awhile, had to go to Atlantic City for a conference concerning the Evolution of Whales, very important government activity. Lots of gambling to be had, but I don't gamble. Spent most of my time watching the homeless people and running away from people whom I found intimidating. Awesome flan, Jersey has the best flan.

So cold, so very cold. I refuse to snick that furnace on. It has become a personal thingee now, must make it to Nov 1st, and I don't care how many family members have the flu, I will not heat the house until November. I refuse to buy into this whole October nights are chilly line of BS, I will continue to idealize October as the perfect, flawless month that I see it as. No amount of reality is going to change my settled mind. Just let me have October.

Eli is walking about the house, squealing like a pig at the top of his lungs, pretty much his usual mode of communication. In the movie, Nacho Libre, in the scene where Satan's Cavemen make their grand entrance, the sound of their arrival is similar to Eli's, only his is louder, longer and involves less body hair. I, sadly, am not properly equipped to absorb his level of decibels, this coming from a guy whose workplace lies along the centerline of a major airports primary runway. Last night, I caught the hellion stripping the beading from the fringe off of a floor lamp and then eating them. Food was available. No accounting for his palate. Pizza? No thanks, plastic? Bring it.

I apologize in advance to my parents, who are coming to visit in two days, for the total state of nuclear annihilation that the household is in. Seems the cleaning staff has walked off the job and it's just me and Cami to pick it all up. As we know from previous postings, this is a physical impossibility. So, sorry about the filth, hope you can find the guest room. Must go feed, law of the jungle, ya know.

It's not easy being Green.

Hello. How have you been? Great, that's wonderful, I hope you feel better soon. Lillian was not in the best of health today. She decided that it would be a good idea to puke in the Bob Evans parking lot, right before we were to go in for some grub. Unusual I know, as most of the time that probably happens on the way out. We may venture into a place like Bobs about once a year, this due to the high levels of disappointment in what is supposed to be comfort food, but is usually just semi bland and generally disgusting. I seriously wonder about the other patrons while I'm in a place like that, are they for real? Do they actually EAT here regularly? What is wrong with these people, go get something decent to eat, like Cracker Barrel, so what if it will make you gianormous, at least it has sufficient quantities of bacon fat in it to justify being a lardo, BobEvans-Dennys-Perkins, all the same monotonous bleahck. Well... Lilly kept it down long enough for us to spend way too much for a way too unremarkable culinary extravaganza of totally ordinary breakfast crap. All of this for only $65. Don't I feel satisfied now.

I suppose I should inform you that my assistant Elzo has not exactly been truthfully representing himself to me all of this time. He is not in fact a member of the Minnesota mafia, nor is he a certified accountant. He is in fact an alien life form who has travelled to earth to conduct experiments to discover the elasticity of human skin tissue and also to dismember live cattle, though that second one is more of a weekend thing. Now that his true identity has been discovered he feels that he must go deep undercover so as not to be probed himself by our own government alien probing division. A wise choice I feel. So it is with great regret that I say Adieu to my little friend and I wish him well on his quest to discover the limits of pain tolerance. He won't tell me where he's going, but he did hint at posing himself as a baby boy. Brilliant. Here is a final photo of him all loaded into his spaceship.

I found a tiny turtle today while out on my daily constitutional. I can't tell if she is a snapping or box variety as she is only a wee bit larger than a quarter. She may have been small, but she sure could intimidate. At one point, my whole family was cowering in the corner, afraid to confront this terrifying reptoid as she hissed and flapped her little scaly arms with the soo tiny toenails. We released her in the front yard and I think the kids will be extra careful to wear their shoes outdoors from now on, lest the turtette decide to strike one of them down as her next victim.

Guns, Runs, and Sons gone wild.

Has this kid got some hams or what? I would think that he could seriously mess you up when he grows into those paws. And talk about popeyesque forearms. You lookin at me? I can practically hear him saying it in his baby brain. I retract all previously mentioned accountant commentary, I don't want this bruiser holding a grudge against me, I value my kneecaps too much. Elzo the debilitator, that's his mafia name, or just 'tator' for short. Thank goodness he's far away in the St. Paul crime family and not in the Morgantonio's syndicate, I get nervous just knowing he's on the outside, best to keep a few states betwixt us.

Had a wee bit o the food poisoning fun last night, hard to pin down who exactly the culprit is though, so many options: Could it have been the Three Amigo's dish (1chx, 1beef und 1cheese enchilada: named by WEP) which did taste hepatitisty, that was for our Margarita Monday's, soon to be terminated, traditional groundskeepers lunch? Was it possibly the polychromatic glistening roast beef grilled with Muenster on an onion bun buttered with an unknown born on date, out on the counter for who knows how long, conceivably groomed by our housecat, half stick of the LandOLakes? Or the three week old beef snackies gone rancid, mindlessly consumed with a three year old aged English cheddar and apple slices while blissed out during the sacrosanct Heroes hour? There is no way one could possibly tell, barring a CSI Miamish, on the spot chemical analysis thingee, as my post production facilities had managed only a espresso machine like consistency, which was without any identifying clues, at a pleasant three a.m. in the why am I awake. Funny how much ones guts can really cramp up when they are dissatisfied with the new fall television programming. Ha Ha Ha.

Cami's been gone all day trying to recoup from this latest workweek edition of 'Hell, Live with you and your Offspring'. Manicure, pedicure, massage, bookstore, shopping, and no kids. A quick pit stop at home for a prepared meal and off to a super secret knitting meeting with friends, cookies, and candy corn. She loves her the candy corn, it's a sickness really, way out of proportion to its actual goodness. When she gets home, 80% of the annoyance should be upstairs pretending to be put to bed, with just one cranky, incredibly loud toddler to contend with. This is supposed to tide her over until next weekends getthehellaway from me expedition. I suspect my children will find a way around her Sisyphean attempts at capturing moments of sanity. Bad children, must not drive the old gal loco. Perhaps a squirt bottle of vinegar water would do the trick. Gotta dash, as Eli's busy alerting at pitches almost beyond human hearing, but not quite, damn that human hearing.

Disguised infant Superman photos discovered.

What a riot this working with the masses thing is. I had my shift bumped up to an earlier start time today, Friday for those of you keeping score at home, so I had to function somewhat like a regular human and work an Eight to Four, crowds and all. It took me two hours to get home, what with the parades and fish fry and all. This normally takes half an hour, sans marching bands and tent food. I do not miss this freeway get together at all, I will gladly work Friday nights to avoid all of that rubbish, social calendar be damned. How do you people stand each other? All in the way and all. Yuk.

Farmer guy is mowing his soybeans across the way today, making a large cloud of dust and exciting the pooch considerably. But, you know how it goes, no soybeans, no soybean burgers and soybean lattes. Farms means food I've heard, even if it is the soybean variety, which I 'm pretty sure we would all agree that if we woke up tomorrow and every soybean in the world had magically disappeared, it would be ho-hum news. Not like corn, which is used to make breakfast and gas and Halloween decorations, important stuff. Amazing how much of it one sees out there, soybeans in particular, and how little of it one consciously consumes, you'd think a ten acre patch would about cover the worlds roasted soybean needs at the supermarket, but it don't.

This is my nephew Elzo, that is his actual name, I am not making this up. I believe he is a supergenius. Smart looking at least. I think I'll have him do my taxes this year, he looks like he knows what he's doing, more so than I know what's going on. You are automatically smart if you wear glasses, that's like a universal truth. Contact lenses apparently reverse the process. He appears to be imaginarily keyboarding something important, like my taxes. Go get 'em, baby nerd, stick it to the man at the IRS.

Pre dinner Posting.

What an absolutely beautiful day outside, so nice, I've opened a few windows to the house that I live in. Outside air is touching me as I type this, that is special, as it implies that the inside air has gone away and is touching someone else for a change; that air doesn't understand boundaries, makes me uncomfortable. Them cricket bugs are making their noises, thems squirrels is hunting for nutty goodness, the dog is slavering up something disgusting, the evil emperor is snoozing on the couch, and the other four chitlins are outside being left to their own devices. I don't have to start cooking anything for half an hour, and my brain feels moderately intact; I think I'll write an important post, something big, the Magna Posta perhaps or the Postitution.

Well, if this one's going to be big, I guess I'll have to start with some sort of personal revelation, in order to draw you suckers in. Got laced into watching Pride and Prejudiced the other night. I didn't want to, as it sounded horrifically boring to my man senses. And it was, for a while, then I too slowly got sucked in till the point of no return. How did it come to pass that I would give an elbow about what became of the Bennet girls in their quests to find man meat in the English country side, poor though they may be? Me and Camil almost couldn't stop obsessing about how awful everyone must have smelled at those balls everybody kept having. Camille insisted that the lead character was played by Winona Ryder, which made her seem a tad icky with the sticky fingers and all. Found out as the end credits rolled that it was Kiera Knightly, of whom I have no reservations about whatsoever, thus destroying my one final objection to the film. I kept waiting for the body count, as all non-comedy movies these days insist on corpses, and nobody ever croaked, shocker. Dame Dench played a aristocratic prune faced battle axe as well as one can play someone hateful. Happy ending, very unexpected. That I liked it, disgraceful.

Are you drawn in yet? Did my sappy movie review elicit sympathy from the lurker masses? Did I mention that Eli stayed up riveted for the entire movie even though it ended at two a.m.? Let me check above... nope, I did not. That two year old has an attention span that rivals many adults that I know. Today, he was doing some heavy flirting in the Krogers freezer aisle with an elderly gal in a power shopping chair who was cruising the pizzas. He likes him the ladies at any age, I suggest you watch out if you are of the feminine persuasion. As of now, he leaves the men folk alone, though he is terribly fond of wearing toenail polish and lipstick. That gives me some ideas for a Halloween costume, ideas I will need to photograph for future humiliation purposes. Muah hua hah ha hah haa (evil dad laugh).

Times up. Put down the mouse and step away from the keyboard you. Back to work, no blog for you, stop what you're doing and start grub rustling pronto. That's my personal assistant, Elzo, advising me that my scheduled time for typing has expired. Must go strap on my apron and start searing the sausage or else risk rioting in cell block B. Later brahs, *lame fist bump*.

Digestive difficulties

Hello reader, here is what is going on in my little corner of paradise...

Made the children french toast, potato pancakes, bacon, and vanilla nut decafe coffee tonight, as per their request. The bacon looked a little off and smelled like vinegar but I cooked it up anyway. What a stench, lots of smoking, a really off smelling funk emanating though the house. I tried a piece and am now awaiting the food poisoning later tonight. Had to pitch the whole pound, couldn't even give it to the dog. Mouth is watering just describing it's sour flave, not the good kind of watering, it's the bad pre-heaving kind. Baby added to the ambiance by awakening right as dindin was being served, and then he proceeded to bawl for his mommy for an hour straight, a lovely evening. Camma is out pamper cheffing herself, all glammed up for other people. Eli just wasn't enthused about her night out. He's back to normal now, making car accident noises and shoving people.

Jemima is on the back porch chewing on her last bits of squirrel jerky, I wonder if it's BSD (BadSquirrelDecision) or free range? She is very excited to show it to anyone traversing the back porch to get to the car. I believe she asks herself

'Lookie what I am eating, can you believe how fortunate I am? It's gooood, look at it. Come on, just try and get it from me. Why are you making that face? It tastes like chicken. What the hell is wrong with you people, can't you see I've got half of a digested rodent hanging out of my maw? Maann, if this don't make your bootie shake, your bootie must be dead. Sheeeet, you people wouldn't know a good thing if it were rotting on the welcome mat.'

I'm pretty sure that's what she would sound like if she could talk . It's our ghetto influence, all my peeps are down wit it. It really hurts to be this cool.

Some delivery men brought me a king sized mattress today. This just better be good. I expect sleep to happen regularly on that thing. We're moving our bedroom back downstairs, as it is so much cooler here, just in time for fall/winter. Now that the shop is open, we've room on this level of the abode for our own junk again. No more running stairs twenty times a day to fetch for my WEP (WifeEPooh) yet some other forgotten trinket or undergarment. Downside: it's Lord of the Flies time upstairs. Back to the status quo, especially in regard to non toilet flushing activities. Guess I'll have to do plunger rounds at least twice a day, one can get behind the power curve very quickly with those four. (The four Horseturds of the Apoopalypse. Black, white, green, and red. Sounds like three of them need to see a doctor. Sorry... went all biblical on ya.)

PAN PAN, PAN PAN.

I can't believe you people. I've got a DEAD CAT and no comments?!?! What more do you people want? Human sacrifice! Comment now you laze-about lurkers, I need proof that this thingee gets read by someone. Did my poor poor cat die for nothing? I am ashamed and reduced to silence. I will now sit here and cover my mouth with my hand. Mrwuphf pheffmers.

Fifty Two weeks and a Day

Yes, the cat is quite dead. Faithful till the end, doglike she would follow the children when they played outside, quiet, never a murmur, a tree climbing pro, unbite-able and well mannered, usually pooped outside away from the house. She would race me to the back door when I arrived home late, almost hit her a time or two with the jeep. Good cat, came from nowhere, just adopted us. Slept most nights on my daughter's bed, she would paw at the door to be let out, we think she was raised by dogs, as she had all of their tricks down. Trusting always, trusting me as I backed her into her kennel cab thingee to go to the vet, trusting me as I full well knew she would be no more very soon. Missy had redeemed the tortie breed in my eyes with her calm patience... good cat.

Today is the one year anniversary of my wife freaking me out by almost dying and all. Not the call one wants to get at work. Very sucky thoughts abound still from that night. Following an ambulance is not a good time, much less riding in one. Cami got to do some out of body mind reading stuff, but other than that there wasn't much to recommend having poison injected into your heart to stop it. Best part of it all is that the cardiologist thinks nothing happened because the hospital lost the EKG tapes with the 200+ bpm heart rhythms and all. Oh well, it's been a year so that's something. Still, Cami's style is severely cramped because she can't really ever let the kids have it without killing herself.

Fine example of some typical gov. waste at the work hole. It's September so must blow any remaining budget on crap or lose it in next years allocation. Enormous flat screen TV on a stick is this years nominee. It is huge and it is not allowed to be hooked up to a signal, that is not an approved expenditure. So it is used as a bulletin board for local sports highlights and other stuff that no one honestly thinks needs to be displayed on anything, not on my dime. Last years winner was a truck showing up with a fully constructed Gazebo, so now we have two. It's important to have two so one can be the backup Gazebo in case of a wild animal infestation. Dang, we must be clairvoyant at work as the new Gazebo now houses a rabid skunk. We treat our vermin very well here, nothing's too good for the vermin. Must stop before this morphs into work rage. It's not something the cat would of approved of.

O Glorious Day

Hello faithful reader, thank you for your insightful, yet mildly threatening comment. I am enthralled to learn yet more about the exciting past and the various interactions of the married folk through history. I am posting today because I have been blessed with a week off from the work pits. I am spending my time enjoying the wonderful company of my five delightful children whilst periodically stripping the diaper off of one of them and wiping its vast crevice clear of poo. How romantic. Wish you were here.

Cams discovered some ice cube trays full of water in the freezer on her way out the door today. I have already wiped up the disgusting freezer floor mess, of which its contents I do not know (placenta leakage is chief suspect), and am awaiting to see if my patient will recover on its own or if I must call in a professional. I suspect one of my sweet darling progeny had inadvertently left the door slightly ajar, after fishing for an ice cube to put in their milk last night, hours after they were supposed to be in bed. They are such a blessing, as I am constantly told by others who are not subject to the constant random destruction of their domiciles by hellions one is charged with the care and feeding of. Anyone who wants some thawed tilapia (or placenta) give me a call.

Finally had a piano tuner out to the house yesterday. We've had the beast for three years without ever having it examined and evidently that is our standard period of procrastination. Nice guy, unfortunately he had to declare the instrument fit only for destruction. Bad pin board was the thing that sealed its doom. 102 year old upright picture holder is all its good for now. After he left, I took a stab at self tuning it and I thought that I did a halfway decent job, considering that I'm nearly tone deaf. I just might let Mitchell have a go at dismantling it, as I know that would thrill him to no end. Pianos are just one of those pointless daydreams we all harbor about bettering ourselves or of discovering abilities hidden inside of our guts that are waiting to be explored and appreciated. The 'stuff' or 'gear' isn't what makes any of that happen though, it is an independent thingee that lies inside of your pink parts, and either you've got it or you're just foolin someone named you at great expense.

Well, I need to put my apron back on and finish living the June Cleaver dream. Abandoned cereal bowls full of discolored milk with wilted deformed cookies, await my loving attention. Milla wants her dinner hot and on the table when she gets home or else she gets very ornery and may not be willing to take me to the mall to go shopping later this week. I'll be so sad to have to leave all of this for paid employment on Sunday. These tears are messing up my mascara, gotta go touch up, bye.

Miss Manners strikes again, can she be stopped?

I have some scant minutes here to spare before my trident toting significant udder arrives at the domicile to commandeer the rest of my evening with tasks of litter retrieval, food preparation, and dish patrol, so here are my latent blog thoughts, laid out for any of you to pick up at your leisure.

Are any of you familiar with the 'Bionicle', a futuristic GI Joe, tough guy robot toy for boys made by the insane product designers at the Lego Corporation over in leftist Belgium or some other below sea level country? My oldest boy Mitch is a huge fan, he has perhaps a dozen of these contraptions. There is some similarity to a 'fashion doll'; both are approx. 11" tall, both are pose able, though Barbie's not quite as bendy, and I think the Legos have better balance overall, and both have a ton of accessories, again, some are purses and sweaters and others are more in line with the props appearing in the Saw movies. Lately I've noticed these most manly of dolls arranged about the house in unusual positions; perfect ballerina pirouettes, aerobic kick flex extensions with arms extended sideways in airplane form, or leaping with toes pointed and limbs flung majestically behind: these are not the toughest looking ways to be seen when you're an action figure. I know that this is an attempt at humor on Mitchell's part as I've caught him giggling about it with his big sister. What do you think, should I be disturbed or encouraged? I'm not sure what to make of this new type of questionably gendered robot play. They sure are funny to see acting like that though, disconcordant imagery - my inner idiot is pleased.

Caught Cami giving a little history lesson to the girls last night. Maddie and Lil were having some tea and, being children with no manners, they were clinking their spoons on their glasses as they ladled the drink down their gullets. Cam and I were attempting civilized conversation at the kitchen table, but were finding it hard to hear over all of the ensuing clatter. Finally, Milla snaps and announces loudly to my squirrel children that during the Civil war ladies who clinked their spoons on their glasses were summarily thrown in the street to be trampled to death by passing horses, presumably kept awaiting for just such a need as young lady death stomping. I found this statement slightly out of line, as we home school and I don't really want my brats to believe that in the past, we in this country had no use for little girls and often flung them to their deaths for minor table infractions, whistling in public, or for not sending timely thank you notes to grandma. I voiced how affronted I was at this historical slur and LaLa replied that it must of been during the Revolutionary war that this occurred. Interesting mind that woman has, don't you agree?

Dry martinis, wet bikinis, this is what summer is made of.

I'm in such pain. I have sworn off my lover and I feel as though my head could rip in two. Every morning I would go to her and imbibe in the soothing goodness that is she. Now I drag through life without her calming influence and I can't seem to make myself feel alive again. I wonder if my existence matters without her coursing through my veins and beating deep within my heart. Sleep is all I crave anymore. If I can't have her, I don't think that I want to go on with this pointless painful drudgery of this so called 'life'. Oh Caffeine, you cruel mistress, I curse the day I met you. Really, my head is killing me, I am so jonesin for a cup of coffee right now.

Finally a nice day outside and look at the time, September! I have no use for July or August anymore, wasted months, too hot to even walk outside, living in the AC full time. I feel as a caged animal or as if I've devolved into a subhuman creature that can no longer survive in its native habitat. Give me a large pool, a stiff drink, and something pretty to look at and perhaps I could cope better. I guess I'll worry about it next year. Until then, thank you Autumn, for giving me back my humanity.

Picked all o'thems brats of mine up from the store today to give Clemmy some form of relief from their wonderfulness. Took them grocery store shopping. I discovered the easiest way to handle five of them out in the public food market is to invite them to each make a selection of something from every aisle. No need for a list then either. Efficient. And I can zone out and the cart magically fills itself with the foodstuffs. I have no idea what we're eating this week and I don't really care, my head is ouch. Got real stupid out in the car parking lot. The Long John Silver demon sulfuric odors of grease born aloft from hell got all up in my nostrums and I lost all sense of proportion, scale, and frugality. Before I was aware of my actions, I found myself sitting at the drive thru window awaiting the Treasure Trove sized order of sixteen fish with one buttload of sides and down twenty eight bucks and wondering what the hell just happened. Stupid head problem. Must go now, the glare from this blog is piercing my eyeballs and skewering me brain...ouch.

Poo Cat. Eli's first sentence.

And now for my weekly (weakly) posting, I'm sure you are all anxiously awaiting the up and coming stream of consciousness, so without further delay I present to you my brain unleashed.

That baby won't shut up now as he has started talking in earnest about a week ago. I've discovered that he has an affinity for automobiles, as he mentions them frequently. He likes to play a rousing game of major traffic accident, complete with the appropriate tire screeching and impact sounds. Also, he seems to think that I'm his Mommy, as that is what he calls me when Clemmy is at the plant. No, I'm not in need of a Man-bra, in case you were putting two and two together, Eli just thinks 'Mommy' means 'Obedient Servant' or 'Bottle Jockey' or 'Step und Fetchit' or 'Pointless Underling' or 'Something Uncomplimentary', which in the grand scheme of things, is pretty accurate.

I've been looking over one of Lilly's drawings. At first it disturbed me because it appeared to be a picture of a flaming skeleton holding a giant pitchfork, emerging from hell. He was looking over a dead mermaid which he had just cut in half, and the jolly roger was on the bottom of the page acting as a warning to all. Then after thinking it over, I decided that the pitchfork must actually be a trident, and the skeletal demon must actually be King Neptune, and the flames behind him must actually be a stylized depiction of a high collared cloak, and he's making such an angry face because he has just discovered that someone had hurt his little mermaid daughter, and the jolly roger indicated that he suspected pirates of the dirty deed. I asked Lilly about it and discovered that it really is just a flaming skeletal demon emerging from hell that had just cut a mermaid in two just below the belly button, separating her human parts from her fishy regions. Oh well, at least she gets her point across effectively.

Some one at work today, I won't mention names (your Nut Hugger identity is safe with me), was busying himself by posing the eternal question of 'What is the point of getting Married?', to which all of us married guys just answered with the absolutely blank expressionless cow eyed stares that all men offer when asked about what they are thinking of and/or feeling. Lame replies eventually emitted forth, but we were all given away by our slow response times. Come on, tax benefits? Mythical convenient all access prepaid bedroom time? Handy sparing partner? Finally someone hit on 'To get divorced.' Perhaps there was a wee bit o' bitterness in that last one. I ask for any of you loyal readers with a clue, to offer up to my unhitched friend any plausible excuses for such activity that you may be able to invent. Trust me, he needs the hope, as we haven't been the most inspiring group to model behavior after.

Yes, we do still eat Lasagna once in a while.

Fed the assorted brats some Hamburger Helper Lasagna Flavor tonight. That is what they wanted, I did not coerce them in any way. Had to stretch it with some extra noodles, which killed its flavor, but honestly, if I cared about taste it would not be the Helped Hamburger for dinner. There is cat hair all over this keyboard, evidently the cat is miffed about all of the alone time this week and is setting her butt maliciously on everything we eat or touch. Yes, Clementines is open for da bidnezz. Kids don't know what hit em, Eli mostly. Gets tired, raises huge ruckus, annoys everyone...the usual. We're seasoned pros, so it pretty much doesn't even register that he's there. He's lucky we remember to bring him along at all. Numb five gets the shaft. Get over it, you'll outlive us all and then we'll see who gets the last laugh. (answer: the old guy with no living relatives)

This is Cami and her Mom giving some tude for your pleasure. A very Batmanesque angle meant to intimidate. These tougheys are not going to put up with your whining anymore. MIL has a fist of death and she is just itching to use it on somebuddy somewhere doing sumpthing stupid. Any takers? I thought not. She has been visiting since last Saturday. We have ditched her with all five grandbrats several times. Silly woman seems to weirdly enjoy it, though I can see the veneer starting to pull away, as de children undo all previously accomplished work picking up toys and 'child-crap' all day long in a matter of minutes. *twitch*

Lillian had her birthday partay this Monday. She got a Littlest Pet Shop Gondola Ride trolleylike thingee for her Littlest Pet Shop creatures, which for the uninformed, are little plastic engorged bobble headed animals with overly cute sick looking faces all enormously watery eyed and disgusting. She has dozens of these mutants. The trolley devise is a two story building with hanging baskets upon which one sets their aforementioned freakish menagerie, turns a crank, and wallah! the rodents levitate about the structure slowly like seniors in a stretch golf cart at the zoo, all doe eyed and immobile, awaiting external forces to reanimate them to their next exciting adventure. Point is, I mentioned how much it resembles a sausage factory, wholly expecting my comment to sail right over her head, and she responds that she likes to give her pig character rides in it. Scary smart squirrel she is. I is so proud.

I should go to bed Now.

Everyone at work has been instructed to lead, be leaders, pave the way, be the pathfinder, come in first. Everyone. We All Must Lead. No One May Follow. All Lead, No Following. I personally can't wait to start leading all of the people who are left over from EVERYBODY leading. Won't that be inspiring, all those little generals leading their little platoons of one. What a fantastic bunch of individual teams we'll all separately be, all going in our own directions doing whatever our personal, magically implanted, ingrained sense of leadership tells us is the right thing to do for our huge followings of just ourselves. It may sound like self absorption, or throwing out the collective knowledge of controllers past, or anarchy, but it isn't, because we've all been BRIEFED, see? That means we're now subject matter experts in all aspects of our work, that we all will suddenly start producing 400% gains in productivity because we've been given a talking to, that somehow we've all been holding back at trying to do a good job, but now that we've been knighted by our holy overlords we can start leading ourselves and serving our 'customers' with leadership goodness. Customers being people who have no choice in weather or not to purchase my services. It's a new business model form of government, which is an oxymoron, emphasis on moron, if I've ever heard one. Incentiveless badgering of the teeming controller masses to do more with less, how inspiring, I so want to work harder while being told I deserve less. Constantly. Way to motivate, brainiacs.

But I'm not bitter.

I fixed the shop toilet today. How exciting for me. I also finished my crossword puzzle, (anacin btw ) built a spinney chair and got the whirligig printer doohickey thingee up and running. I managed three hours of sleep last night and I am poohped. It is now officially my weekend however, so the fact that I'm a gurgling pile of unorganized thoughts sitting in a hunched over and drooling man matters very little. I get this time to enjoy myself in all of my zauhsted glory. yah-hoo.

Another one for the Record books.

Ain't no-one wants to read a once a week blog. Waste of time. Daily insight into the turnings of the child mind/brain, that's what the peeps want. What spins in my little ones little heads? I think not much. I imagine a thoroughly broken up glob of condensed pea soup, evenly blended with one half can of water. Small smooshy clods of green thought, offering no resistance to any utensil brought to bear against them. Opaque, featureless aquatic soup grenades of volatility. When boiled down to their essence, kids are just smashed up peas. Judging from Eli's diaper that I'm up against right now, I'm pretty sure that's all that dwells underneath his surface. Thank you White Castle, for your special contribution to the post production facilities of Mr. Stinky. This one's Clemmie's special gift to me, as she has left me tonight for Matilda Jane. I knew it would happen someday, I just didn't know how. I can't compete with these women.

Chief monster is on my lap now thinking about falling asleep as I type awkwardly with a limp hot thingee dangling over my arms with its tickley flyaway baby hair irritating my face. Falling asleep to the mournful tones of Evanescence. Goth rock-a-bye baby. He still smells a wee bit off. Oh well, who doesn't anymore? Other four brattattas are on their own upstairs, presumably putting themselves to bed after picking up their rooms. Not. I'm sure there will be a new layer of toothpaste globs in and around the sink, clothing tossed artfully about the bathroom, random bits of toilet paper spread gingerly about the floor and cabinets, and of course a visual in the bowl for me to take care of. I look forward to it so.

Don't ask about the dumb pictures. I couldn't sleep last night, so at two a.m. I gave up and had a bowl of vanilla ice cream drenched with about a half cup of Kahlua, smelled just like a banana split, only exponentially better. Then I thought I'd take some lame pictures, being as I was the only one up, I did about twenty seven self portraits. I eventually got bored and climbed the stairs to return to the hot house we call bedroom. Zoned my eye, it's easily ten degrees warmer up there. These incredible photos are some of the results of my midnight administrationings of the medicinal Mexican Liqueurs. Man can I ever wrinkle that head skin, amazing isn it?

Antennead child is all suited up for dronehood.

Prepackaged insanity, ready made for your discomfort, children are instinctive learners. When they erupt from the womb and you hear their first cries, which are quiet and tiny sounding, one thinks "Aww, isn't that cute". Let the learning begin. It takes about two weeks for them to develop their pitch into something different, something extremely grating. You can hear them working it out, trying to vary the tone, volume and crassness, until the magic moment whereby they suddenly OWN you. I hate that moment and they know it, and they know that you know that they know it. Smug little baby faces with their big plans to work you over until the brink of death. Welcome to the portals of Hell, grab a pillow and make yourself comfortable. The pillow is to cram over your head as you attempt to get more than four hours of sleep whilst the siren song of Satan is blaring out of your spawns collective orifices at some unGodly hour in the a.m..

I get insanely jealous of quiet homes. I daydream abouts it all of the time. Imagine the resting and thinking possibilities. Project? Have at it. NappyPooh? Why not. Want to start up a new hobby or begin collecting stamps or woodworking? Go for it. Honestly, you had me at nap. Lilly here is the only child who didn't really ever work on her noise, she was always a contented little monster. This kinda makes her scary. That and the fact that such a large percentage of her drawings feature characters with crossed out eyes. I weep for the future when this one is unleashed upon the world, or maybe she really is just pleasant, I can't tell. She does however have the ability to make horrific noise, fortunately it's always directed at her siblings. They deserve each other. For myself I pray for deafness.

The store seemed to be flying along at a good clip, now its just grinding its head into the pavement. Nothing like good old busywork to break up the flow of things. Thank goodness for these productive computers which have been consuming weeks of our time now with no conceivable benefit. You would think that with all of the stock in the store all stickered up and displayed one would be nearly ready to OPEN. Microsoft has other ideas about how America does business. One must have buttloads of files, telling you all sorts of useless information. Oh, and nothing should ever, ever work as advertised. Think opposites. Oh, and fork it over while you're at it, cause you must pay for all of this imaginary productivity you're not having. Can't just know yarn and fabric, must be some sort of non-Amish techno geek who loves consulting with humorless India-ins from twelve time zones away. Don't even get me started on the gov'nment mandated flaming hoop jumping routines. Where's Clemmy keep them little blue pills anyway?

What I meant to say if I had been able to think it out.

So, I've been really tired lately and I think my latest posting may reflect that a little bit. Mentally exhausted, unable to string together cognizant thoughts, perhaps a wee bit drunk, all of that good stuff. Why should anyone care what kind of vehicle was my first anyway? I couldn't begin to tell you. I do believe though, that I should further elaborate on the whole insurance frustration/road rage thingee.

I was struggling, as always, to stay on top of my bills and had found myself painfully close to the due date on my auto insurance renewal without having sent a check. I hate that with every last sinew of my slimy Slytherin self. Seven days before due date is the appropriate time to send the payment, no later. Being who I am, I figged that I would just drive over and physically drop off the check at the insurance office. It was late afternoon Friday so I was not surprised to find the office locked up tight. No biggie, says me, I'll slide it under the door and when they open on Saturday it will be right there for them. So I do's as I says and I'll just leave a message when I get home to let them know what to expect.

I get home and call the office and am surprised to hear a recording telling me that their store has moved to the other side of town and sorry for the inconvenience. Inconvenience? Inconvenience? What the hell? All of the signage was still in place. Hours were posted. Smug giant Snoopy head still intact. The freakin furniture was all in there. I was flummoxed. I drive back and attempt to McGyver my payment back via chewing gum, some popsicle sticks and duck tape (poor man's Viagra). This fails. Return home and call the 'new and improved' office to get directions. Its located about 500,000 people away from where I'm at, across town during rush hour, in the part of Indy known as Hassletown, great. I leave, determined not to let my coverage lapse.

Traffic is slow. Ridiculously so. Rush hour/construction/mall traffic all rolled into one beautiful wet hair ball for my consumptive pleasure. Furthermore, I am not familiar with this part of town, being an agoraphobe and misanthrope and all around crowd hater. I freak out when I don't know where I am going, it is the definition of stress for me. Navigating via fuzzy lackluster directives, I fail to locate this possibly fictional elusive 'office'. Circular driving results. Nondescript officey/warehousey type curvy land of one story sprawlish hell. Street signs nonexistent. I creep without any of the usual rewards.

This is when I finally pull over to allow my ire to subside. It doesn't. I end up flipping out at my poor innocent cars steering wheel and battering the crap out of it with closed fists, all dirty wife-beater, mobile home park style. After my anger management session, I notice a tiny bit o'airbag poking out of the turning thing. Good thing I controlled myself, lest I set the contraption off. Also from then on my car would make a quiet wheezing sound when ever I made a turn, as if it had been a lifelong Marlboro connoisseur, a permanent reminder of what an enormous idiot I am, nice.

I located a phone booth and called Cami for solace. She told me to come home. By the time I returned, she had things all sorted out for me by using her mystic telephone powers. The insurance grunt agreed to go pick up the check from the former office all by hisself. This is why I am still married to Clemmy, she is good to me. No reprisals for the car that now wheezes, only laughs from her when she recounts the story, helps fix it all in the end. Oh, and she is always ready to go make me a gin-n-tonic, even if it leads to nonsensical postings.

This car is not mine.

Tonight I must post the mother of all posts, because I'm Okay and I love you. That's the gin talking. Or face wash as Clemmie calls it. Ford Escort LX, my first car. Red,two door, stick shift, manual everything, no air conditioning, purchased new during the false recession of 1991, February. Remember the first whole Iraq/Kuwait thingee? That's when I waltzed into a Ford dealership and managed to talk them into selling me, a guy with no job, a car off of the showroom floor. I test drove it and I didn't know how to drive a stick. I ruined a leather overcoat of Cami's in the McClownfood drive thru by misshifting whilst she attempted to hold a burning hot beverage of HOT cocoa with out scalding her woman parts (this was pre famous lawsuit in AZ with the coffee crotch incident etc.). That car accelerated like crap, imagine my surprise when I discovered with later vehicles that on ramps are actually long enough to suit their intended purposes. I once punched out the airbag on that POS out of insurance frustration mixed with road rage,( you know what I'm talking about) the steering wheel made a funny wheezing noise for everafter after that. I guess that's why I like windows down. For three years I sweltered in that little coffin and now it's a nostalgic thing to suffer with the air off. Cami says I have to stop now, much too dumb of a post, think I missed my lofty goal of a mother post exhausted thingee again thingee, THINGEE! Never ever all caps nothing says Cami GD stop typing what I say.

Head shoulders knees toes etc.

I am a disembodied floating head now. Therefore, you must do as I say. I didn't make the rules, so stop complaining about it and start obeying. Yes, I am taking this Slytherin stuff very seriously. First, I demand signs of subservience; your face must never make eye contact, EYES DOWN! Look at the floor when I pass. No discussion amongst your fellow underlings in my presence, keep the chit chat in your own homes, I will not have you gossipping amongst yourselves, free speech is hereby suspended pending further investigation. T-shirts or bumper stickers expressing your undying loyalty would be appropriate, but nothing snarky, I can SMELL sarcasm, so be afraid. Secondly, I will be demanding that all lurkers go to Clementines on a routine basis and drop scads of cash/money into the till. It is not easy being armless and legless and torsoless and all, I have new financial obligations that must be met, chauffeurs aren't free ya know, so get in there and begin the necessary fiduciary actions. Finally, I will be requesting a few volunteers to help with feeding myself , as I find I no longer can act in that department (unintended consequence thingee).

Went to see the HP movie this Monday. I have never been so acutely aware of how much my butt hurt during a film before(We went pre torsoectemy surgery). Ouch. What a long film, almost no scenes of Draco and his cool thug buddies. The Snape occlumencey mind control torture stuff was woefully inadequate. The man child boy wonder decided to be all wiggly and grunty and vocally and not sleepy for the first hour and a half, disturbing the other patrons, who all were clustered around our family in a tight little group of fifteen people in an otherwise empty theatre. When nap time eventually arrived, Eli went all limp and heavy and sprawly and hot. Rear end screaming in discomfort, the loud booming and whooshing noises so common in cinematography today were not impressing me at all. BOOM! a door opens. BOOM! someone bangs a walking stick on the floor. BOOM! a spell is cast. Not doing it for me. Such a dark film too, as in turn on the lights, I get tired of endless murky almost nonexistent backdrops. I just dropped fifty two bucks to see this interpretation of a book I've read, lets have something to look at, shall we? I already did all of the imagining stuff when I read the bloody thing. At least Harry finally got a haircut.

Caught the boy with an ink pen upstairs. He had scribbled black on hisself from crotch to toes on both legs. All squiggly and artisticlike he was. No matter, I am numb to his character flaws anymore. Caught the boy attempting to mangle Clemmies laptop also. Whatevah. I am bored with his futile attempts to get a rise out of me. All adrenaline gone. Chaos crashing and burning all around me, I won't be participating. Floating heads gotta do what it does, all disconnected and such. Dictate at you later.

Bad language day, I might be emotional.

In case you haven't noticed in the side bar, I am officially creepy. Haus o' Slytherin automatic scum bag. I knew that that stupid sorting hat would nail me as the slimeball that I is. Sure WEP tried her darndest to be made a subject of Severus, and wound up in the ever popular suckup camp Gryffindor. Girl scout. I try to be a good guy, but wind up branded for life as some sort of evil person. Now how is this going to affect my career progression? Favorably I imagine, provided I get my spine removed and perhaps inflict a wee bit o' the dain bramage upon meselves. I don't wanna be the boss. I just want to put in my 8 (or 6.5) and fuggettaboutit.

Bad karma at the plant today. Had to turn a pilot in for a mistake, a very minor mistake. This will be a bad day for that pilot, possible job action kinda day. It's the new way to foster goodwill amongst the airline community; prosecute everybody. Oh well, I'm sure that fella didn't really LIKE his job anyway. This is an exciting new oppo for him. On my end, it's turn him in or time on the beach ( as we like to call unpaid disciplinary time off ) . My job does actually have the potential to be fun, it just isn't. If only the populous would stop suing every time something happens in the universe, we wouldn't have to be all lawyered up.

I just got home and it's already past my bedtime. I am consuming some manly Leinenkugel's Berry Weiss beer in a hopeless attempt to coax myself into snoozing at nine in the pee em. Gotta get up early and destroy some more lives in true Draco Malfoy style. I heare the shop has some more holes in it, the good kind. Am looking forward to seeing progress seeing as how Shirkit Shitty hasn't come through on THEIR promises to deliver a freaking laptop that is fully paid for and left my darling Clementine high and dry for two f'ing hours with five brats in tow at a location that is under construction and that doesn't have a Fbombing play land yard thingee to entertain said offspring. NOT to mention their refusal to talk on the phone to said paid customer, leaving her on hold on cell phone minutes at 45 cents a click! I'm ready to pilot the d*** suburban boat myself through half of their crappy store with the smug salesmen who can't bother to explainanything in English to non geek types like us. I stop now, must rest, adrenaline subsiding, returning to normal creepy comatose mode.

Great expectations of the little people.

This is what I am doing at this very moment. Drinking 'polka dot' wine and being ignored by my wifey-poo. Glare from the computer screen in my eyes and vacant expression convey my thoughts. Involved look on my face tells you exactly what an engaged person I am. Can't see the actual swaying of my head, so just bobble yours slowly from side to side to create the desired effect. Feeling really intelligent and witty at the moment, typing harder than usual, too. Man, I am one sexy thing.

Birthday's up the yingyang today. Surplus birthdays, Birthdays to spare, Need a birthday I've got extra. Mitch is a big old ten year old, he wanted a game called 'heroscape' or some such nonsense, its just D&D or war gaming wrapped in an attractive child appealing package with figurines and click together hexagon dioramas thingee stuff junk. Madeleine wanted nothing to do with Toys R' arippoff Us as she is now of legal age (to babysit) , books were her primary concern, though she did want a rag doll with yarn hair from TRU. She is still just a little girl, no prostitute dolls (Bratz) for her. The menu was the most exciting thing for the rats; cake, hot dogs, root beer, chips, and later Texas Roadhouse (which totally kicks butt, wish I didn't have to miss it, stupid job/money thing you know).

Lillian surprised her lame home\schooling father the other day by reading aloud to me one of her math questions (it was a word problem) without any prompting. We 'unschool' because it seems to work , strangely enough, and this leads to discoveries such as this. How pleasant for me. Lil brat has been teaching herself to read on the side. Now if she could just pull down a decent paycheck and finance a vacation home for me and WEP (wifey-poo) I would be most appreciative. I figure each one of my spawn owes me a month a year house rental in some exotic location. Different location for each spawn, I'll provide for myself the other seven months a year. This to me sounds like fun. So I'll have lots to be disappointed about in my future. Can't wait.

Happy hygienist = Happy teeth.

Finally had my teeth scraped by Stephanie. She couldn't be more excited about this whole store in Franklin idea. I think she is telling everybody about it; telemarketers , random pedestrians, her confessor, people under bridges, anyone with a pulse. She does work near the hospital, perhaps she has popped in to inform those who are not long for this world too. I appreciate all of the free advertising and the enthusiasm. I can use all of the free I can get right now, and Lord knows that enthusiasm has left the Bill-ding. An excited dental hygienist may not be the most ideal situation, speaking as a patient, as she is holding metal claw like hook thingees and avidly inserting them below my gum lines. Take it easy there Steph, I still have to be able to eat and drink, I'm not a tube feeder yet.

Clemmy's new organizational techniques went into effect today. I am now staring at no less than nine melon colored sticky notes covering all of the nearby vertical surfaces. Horizontal is so yesterday. I think that this five gallon glass bell jar represents her to do list for today (four items) and below the windowsill is the important number storage area. Organic is her secret, make it happen little by little, constantly growing and changing, never the same. She likes it like that. What fun is it to keep something in the same boring place every time, when you can mix it up, randomize, have a party with it, tear it up looking for it. Much better. Of course I should talk, I am helpless to find things sitting directly under my nose. I can be touching the object and still not find it. I would not last five minutes in Cami's world. Must put things away or die.

Spent the weekend gazing at house p0rn. I'm referring to online floor plans, you pervs, of which I am an insatiable consumer. Thought one day of being a residential architect, doing only small commissions for regular people who don't want to build a monument to their foolishness. Went another way instead, though I still dabble and daydream about developing my talents in spacial relations. Figure when I die, I'll get to snoop to my hearts content through homes of all ages, like a home show tour, but stripped of all of the consumerism and stuff. This crap just interests me to no end, but so does what I'm doing for work now, so I guess it's a wash.

Drains, Pains and Automobiles.

I am almost ready to cash it in, so tired I is. Sleep is elusive and without any restorative powers. Eli is winning, I can't compete with him. The destructive process is so much more efficient than the creative ones. The yard is knee high, the suburban is a month overdue on oil, the house needs a bulldozer, the finances have gone, appointments are forgotten, nothing is planned or scheduled or followed through on, weekends are a suck hole of inefficiency, workweeks drag on, yet the time flies by with no progress, my net worth is regressing daily, I have too much thingee and no center, my children are animals , a million tasks at hand, every one overwhelming, sentences go on and on with no end in sight. Focus. Baby step, step, step. Waaaa! I want a frontal lobotomy! Some day this will all be paid for, either with my cooperation or not. Some day children become people who leave you and they take their dirty laundry with them. One fine day I will have it better some how, with no need of a plumber(razor down the tub drain incident chicken has come home to roost).

Do not ever rent Happy Tree Friends, it is all of the gore of Itchy and Scratchy minus the humor, all done in a trendy animae style. I was shocked to actually be shocked by it, I surprised myself by feeling uncomfortable. First person shooter games unnerve me too. Its like discovering a fear of heights after you've reached the top of the thirty foot scaffolding on wheels in the gymnasium and your helpful friends have started pushing your seigeworks around as you are clutching pipes in an awkward attempt not to defenestrate oneself(ahh, fond high school memories). Claustrophobia rearing its head for the first time during an MRI or CAT scan. Childhood revulsion to canned spinach. Feeling woozy at the sight of ones own blood gushing out of a wound (heck, any ones blood will do). Strange how that stuff comes up without your approval, ones self preservation overriding ones idiot actions. Like your insides know something that you don't, and they are not afraid to exercise their veto authority. I am intimidated by the pickle aisle at the grocery store, too much glass, so easy to inadvertently flip ones arm out and start smashing. I can't follow a motorcyclist for fear of human speed bump action. Diving face first into water weirds me out too. Please send help.

I like to drive with all of the windows down. That is important to me. It makes me feel alive. I exist when I can sense the world whishing by. I can hear the tires crawling over the gravel of my driveway, I can feel the temperature changes as I go from woods to fields, ravines to flats, I can brake more exactly because the wind tells me how fast I go. I can smell cut grass, corn growing, turned earth, raspberries, flowers, wood smoke, even wet pavement. Too cold? I'll run the heat, but those windows stay down. I work in a windowless building, so I have to compensate. Having that left elbow resting on the door is therapeutic. Feeds my farmer roots.

Soprannos makes final hit on Joey Poopeytoes

Poor, poor Joseph. He has lost another tooth via unnatural methods. This time the culprit is Madeleine. Soccer ball to the face. Broke one clean off. Bloody mess. That child has the worst luck in regards to his tooth retention abilities. Mitchell got one off of him with a head butt while roughhousing. Lilly got one via the famous 'chicken limbo incident' of 2006 (see below). Joe even got one of his own via a slip on the garage floor in winter and catching a face full of concrete. Just like two weeks ago he finally lost one the normal way. Five down, fifteen to go. 80% bash out ratio, that's like right up there with a professional soccer hooligan or NHLer. Perhaps a move to Kentucky would be in order.

Eli was in his usual form again yesterday. I caught him in the kitchen spice cabinet mixing away like an evil scientist in his underwear, having fun on the weekend in the basement apothecary.

• Ground Mustard
• Chili Powder
• Vanilla Extract
• Tabasco Sauce
• Browning Sauce

It was an unlikely combination, but it smelled kind of good. Anyone excited about developing those ingredients further into a chicken rub or something, I'd love to hear how it turns out. Later, he got busted marking up mom's white Husqvarna sewing machine with one of those blessed StampinUpYourLife markers for adults (green galore) while simultaneously soaking the inner workings with wig spray. Interesting.

What is the Chicken Limbo Incident of 2006? Funny you should ask, as I was planning on addressing that here today. There is a children's toy called Chicken Limbo which features two long red plastic poles that flare out on the base forming a stand, these poles support a crossbar used for playing the Limbo game. There is even a large plastic electronic chicken that rests on the crossbar that makes an incessant mocking chicken song whilst one limbos beneath it. Disturbing the chickens ass sends it into loud caterwauling, indicating that you are a Chicken Limbo loser. Joe und Lilly were playing the game upstairs, when it took a turn for the worse. At some point, the maniacal chicken chant became too much for Lillian, so she disassembled the toy, seized one of its red baseball bat like legs and then, mafia style like, proceeded to pummel Joey in the face with it until an unfortunate tooth came forth. I often imagine Lilly with the red club held aloft, taking that split second to consider what she was about to do, the pros and cons of it, the cost verses benefits, and then in spite of overbearing evidence in favor of setting the tire iron down, deciding to start waling away on Joe anyway, like a maid beating the tar out of the hall rug. Cute does not equal good, as I learned recently when I discovered that having a nice arse is not a redeeming quality for other defective personality traits (this being a huge awakening for a man).

American No Panty Bandstand

Another delivery of five large boxes today. Me brats helped cart it all into the house. This involved rolling the carboard cubes in the grass all the way to the house, of which I disapproved. Yet again a new UPS guy, Clemmy thinks we live on the training route. I suspect not, cauz I would fig that we would scare off all of their newbies, unless it's a high stress washout type scenario, where as if you brave this mess, you're in. I play fast and loose with my sentence structure, as you may have noticed, I don't spend a lot of thought putting this thingee together. I can't even keep my paragraphs on topic. UPS guys are the bomb, USPS guys not hardly ever. Let's eliminate the mail delivery monopoly, shall we? One could contract for their services, just like trash pickup. Unlimited personal mail pickup/delivery for $X.XX a month. I'd be in on that.

These two are tough. See that stick she's holding? You would be mistaken if you were to think that she doesn't know how to throw down. See that evil eye you're getting from the boy? He's the muscle in this outfit. You will yield to their demands, which are numerous and ever changing. Popsicles, Poke'mon and playtime for starters. Fire may erupt out of their heads at a moments notice. I suggest you consider an annual tribute payment just to show your subservience. No one wishes to ignite the wrath of Lillian und Joe. In case you're not scared yet, remember that Lilly has a whole posse of Imaginary Friends who don't take names, cause they kick butt so thoroughly that there is no need to bother with it when they're done with you. Joe has perfected the various Asian forms of audible streaming mind torture. Be afraid.

Busy baby this morning. Turn your back on him at your own risk. If I step away from the computer for a moment, on my return I will find him dying himself blue with another one of those cursed StampinUpYourLife ink pads or opening the wastebasket on the puter's desktop and altering several files. Leave him in the kitchen and its squished and bitten tomatoes rubbed into everything. Leave him upstairs and its naked post poopy dipe dance party time. Can you really write your name on the floor like that? Now it's a full scale meltdown hissy fit with a complimentary rainbow spasm aperitif. Bon Appetit. Cam's at the plant today getting it all made blue, so I get to watch my life crumble into a meaningless pile of child vomit, I mean watch the kids for a while. Really it's fun, Milla luvs it.

Baby Stuey's fairy godmother turns him into a Real boy.

This is a cardboard cutout boy pretending to eat a bread stick. In case of an actual boy eating a bread stick, seek shelter immediately. Cami is patting hamburgers in the kitchen right now. She is a little stressed out right now, as am I. Do not attempt to feed the parents, as they may bite in anger, or just because you don't look useful to them. Must paint the shop ceiling tomorrow, or rather I should say, Cami must paint the shop ceiling tomorrow. I will probably just watch the critters. Must pay some bills tomorrow, lest the collections man cometh to place me in the debtors prison thingee. Actually, that sounds kinda nice and peaceful, bring it.

I totally spaced off a dentist appointment today. It occurred to me at 10:40 a.m. that I was supposed to be getting my gums gouged at 10:20 a.m. Ooops, sorry Steph. I have been extra unreliable lately, I showed up an hour late for work two Fridays ago just because I don't even know why. Its like I entered a one hour time delay machine on my way in and couldn't remember anything significant about it afterwards, like watching sex and the city only more enjoyable.

Anyone out there think I'm sumthing stupid raise your hands, stunned silence, thank you. I don't see no raised hands, not even the one behind me, so I must be pretty darn intellectualish. Now off to watch beerfest and maybe drink myself into a stupor and then light off some of them big fireworks with the short fuses. Sounds like a Kentucky family reunion without all of that being married to your teenage cousin stuff. Gotta go pull baby Stuey out of moms StampinUp ink pad stash fore he does some real damage. A manly toodles to ya.

Five for Fighting. Constructive destructive fun.

Here they are in all of their glory. They are playing 'merchant' or something like that. They buy and sell rocks, leaves, nut hulls, rotten wood and bark with each other. It can be an all day event if you allow it. Maddie is the leader, bully or chief numskull depending on your viewpoint.

Here Mitch is holding 'ElDorocko', one of his rocks that he is so taken with. It has a cage (old tire) with a fashionable hat (acorn lid) and a healthy snack (piece o'weed) all located in the tree fort. Mitch can usually be found accompanied by a deformed lego man bionicle toy thingee or two.

Lilly says her favorite imaginary friend is 'Daisy'. She has been her BIF for the longest, being the first of many. 'Ruby' is the naughty one. Lilly names everything, including the rock so pictured in her brothers hand above. We discovered a littlest pet shop creature yesterday named 'Picky Poodle Freshblood', this makes Lilly too cool for words.

The family ham. Get him alone and Joe will talk your ear off. Non stop indecipherable jabbering. He is a few teeth short of a legible vocabulary. If funny can be had, Joe will attempt to have it. He likes to try to get away with wearing the same clothes for days on end, it's his speciality.

This one loves to rub food into his hair at dinnertime. As soon as he reaches the full mark, up go the arms and his filthy fingers immediately start conditioning his scalp. Eli is amazingly loud, unless he is being amazingly evil, then he opts to go all clandestine on us.

Scary pig of Corruptability is watching you.

I have the clumsiest elbows in the morning. Last Saturday I sent everything in the shower caddy flying. This of course startled me. After composing myself and rinsing my peepers, I surveyed the damage. I had knocked both razors down, causing one to shed its head. Apparently it went down the drain. I haven't shaved myself since. I'm in mourning over the loss of my overpriced little bit of blade. Those things are like $8 a five pack, and I haven't even gotten much use out of that one. I seem to be unable to get over my loss and go click a new one onto the handle. Perhaps Cami could read this and take pity on me and stick one on there for me. I'm afraid I'll never groom again. Boy do I ever have big problems, life is challenging.

Another piss test at work today. I is impo'tant. It may be just me, but I think handling warm tubes of urine is kinda icky. Even if it is my own. I've never heard of a single employee failing one of these, yet we each get tested about once or twice a year, randomly. You think you could just you know, breathalyze anyone acting cheerful. In Germany they have a two beer limit on controller lunches, this seems very sensible to me. But sensible is not the in thing at work right now. Punishment is very fashionable. And not Paris Hilton style punishment. No, more like nazi in a lab coat with rubber coated pliers punishment.

I'm finished with this whole 'lawn' thing now. Done. It can go do whatever it wants. Me and Mower just don't see eye to eye. I think I hate him. Even from birth, that machine has been a POS. Heck, it was throwing belts the day it was delivered. I have literally spent more time trying to fix it than I have spent actually driving it. Winter will come, then we'll see who has the last laugh. Get away from me, Mower. Note to wife...do not think that you may adopt this attitude to the washin' machine, that's different somehow.

Land of misfit toys, rotten boys.

Today was a long one. Them kids are out of control. They were acting like other peoples brats, in public, which I cannot abide. Crazy behavior. Screaming. Chasing. Flinging themselves all over the furniture, the new showroom furniture, the clean, not broken, fancy, pricey, much too good for children furniture. No amount of knock it offs, stop that, or keep an eye on your brother would fix it. It's those freaking frostys at Wendys, they apparently are chock full of retard inducing chemicals, colorings, preservatives, and/or sludge something or another that makes otherwise healthy undeveloped humans into psychotic little insane heart attack inducing midgets of death. I am quite sure nobody found them the least bit cute today. At least be cute you monsters! Could you at least swing that for your dear old, nearly dead, crabby man-dad who carts you all the hell over southern Indiana for seemingly no good reason?

And a note to me wifey-poo...

I will shut your store down cold if you ever use knitting needles on me like that again. No stabbing the husband! I can threaten whoever I want, it's my lame blog, so my lame rules. I don't appreciate being tenderized while still alive. My password is secret, I won't tell. Find some other chump to intimidate with your pointy pointies. I could take up a hobby too you know, one that includes sharp objects, like lawnmower blade sharpening, then we'll see who can be menacing. Shing, shing, shing... oh no, Boris is turning metal thingees into dangerous weapons used to neatly trim grass, which he may employ to get stuff from his unsuspecting spouse, like foot rubs or something else even more horrible. So watch out girl, or else I may go all hobbyist on your ass. (That's not my real hair btw, it's Cami's.)

My alarm clock went off at four a.m. yesterday (my Saturday), I rose to turn it off and I couldn't find it. The lights were out on the display, but I managed to fumble the thing into silence and stumbled downstairs to flip on the coffeemaker. After about two groggy minutes of routine it occurred to me that it was my day off and what the hell was I doing? My point is this, later in the morning, I discovered that the clock was unplugged. But it still woke me up, get it? I find this sort of thing freaky. Like the time I gutted one of Maddie's obnoxious noisemaker toys after it had worn down its batteries. Months of overly loud mind garbage poured out of this thing and thankfully it had finally silenced itself. However, Madeleine wanted it fixed, so I popped it open and... nothing. It was empty inside, no batteries. I have never felt right since. Haunted ghost toys from hell will do that to ya. Beware.

Joe Camel, smoking monkeys go on strike.

This shops gotta open soon. I am buried in the trimmings of the harrier creatures of the planet, there is nowhere left to sit in this room, we are running out of laundry baskets and the cat has been eyeing up all these damn yarnballs with an evil glint in her eye. I've been hemorrhaging dollars like we haven't seen since we built his dump we live in. All of this needs to transform itself into a neat little English yarn and fabrique shoppe with pictures of the queen and Aga baked thingees with aromatic coffee and crap like that. A peaceful place for the people to come and knit and kibitz and drop a bit o' cash for stash. Soon Dorothy, soon (I've had it with these flying monkeys).

This is my 'lovely bride' Cami of CamillaKnits fame, or Clementines Dry Goods fame or some other type of fame I don't know about fame. She is about to be bit by that large smelly creature lurking behind her. Cami has always had a big heart for animals, having grown up in the farmlands of Iowa with sheep and Four H and guns and dogs and work and dirt and cowboy boots and horses and a million other things I am blissfully unaware of. She cannot physically resist an animal, even though she is allergic to the lot of them, she will nonetheless grind that said animals furry parts into her lips while gritting her teeth in pleasure. weirdo. She has slowly gone crazy over the last twelve years and now is opening a store to cater to her crazy needs. Cami is a straight talking tough SOB who doesn't put up with beige. She possesses the uncanny ability to summarize things or people into short, bumperstickery, overall judgemental statements that are a wonder to behold. Did I mention that she can kick your ass? She now has a bionic, titanium jaw, as she apparently has burned up her old one. I don't exactly get why she thinks I'm a big deal, but I'll take it. She balances me out nicely.

The above photo was taken at the Racine zoo. This was once my favorite zoo in the whole world because it was free and the monkeys all smoked anything you threw at them. Those smoking monkeys were the coolest thing ever. I love second hand smoke. Just today at my service appointment, I went over to butter up an elderly lady outside who was puffing away. What would the world be without all the addicts? Just us lame 'all things in moderation' people, who I firmly believe are dull as doorknobs. We need the overdosers to make our dabbling enjoyable. Thems crazy people make the world go round, always pushing the limits so I don't have to. Secondhand smoke is free and readily available, so enjoy it while you can.

Brats and hotdogs. Guestlist and menu.

Happy 6th birthday Joe. Your slacker parents are now mucking up the second consecutive b-day of the summer season. It is so sad to be so lame. I hate that some special days just don't seem that special to me. I hope we can satisfy the little guy with a few featured tidbits of stuff he likes to do. It's uninspiring to use shopping therapy as the big birthday hurrah. Life needs more meaning and I am a bad parent to not provide it for the snot faced children. May today be a good memory for you, Joey poopytoes (his mafia name), in spite of our weak stick performance.

At last, the weekend. Yes, after sixteen years of loyalty to my employer, I've attained the lofty privilege of having Monday/Tuesdays off. Therefore Friday is my hump day and Sunday is my yahoo it's through day. It's all cats sleeping with dogs backwards but for us homeschoolers it works. Vacations, shopping, travel, dining; we're out of sync with the masses. We may as well wear our skivvies over our bloomers so as to indicate how opposite we are. I've been so not in the crowd for so long, I've developed a primal fear of human herd behaviors. Please just leave me alone, whilst I slowly morph into something Amish with a beard thingee.

Final brat profile: the firstborn. She reads voraciously, is smart and fun, bakes, knits, sews, screams at her siblings and can be moody as a wild cat. Basically a tiny version of dear old Mom. Even as a baby she devoured books, literally ate them. We couldn't keep anything in any of the bookcases without her turning the area into a hazard to bipeds. She was a climber too. We had to put the chairs on the kitchen table because we couldn't stop her from scaling them. Soon she was pulling the chairs down onto herself, so up on the counters they went. Eventually we were keeping them on top of the refrigerator. It's a good look, I'm surprised it never caught on. Her and the baby get along really well, which isn't surprising seeing how he is essentially a Maddie 2.0(now with nuts!)

The brownest eyes ever.

This is child number two. He is a quiet sort who is always building things. I believe he is the originator of the sidebar incident, as he has a fear of toilet noise. This stems from an incident whence the flusher went defective and became stuck in whoosh mode. I made a temporary repair by removing the lid and balancing a screwdriver precariously into some on/off valve thingee. This sufficed until Mitch needed to relieve himself later that evening. He flipped the lid up, knocked the stick loose and scared the crap out of himself. Flushaphobia is birthed unto the world.

My cursed car has a freakin' warning light on again. I believe the repairman explained it as a warning that I had just bought gas, which is true, so I guess it's working properly. Just in case, they're going to replace the transmission shifter power bar slapper stick. This should remedy the situation, unless I decide to buy gas again. Thank goodness cars are so reasonably priced, or else I might of become upset.

Sleepy Boris can barely type. Going so slowly now, making Cami so impatient. She keeps reaching over me to open her own tabs and start typing while hunched over in my face. I too tired to notice. So sleepy. Must not stop typing, must not droop so, must not type with face...

Computer safety 101

I sometimes feel horribly guilty when I call home from 'work' to check in on my 'wife' to see how things are hanging back at the 'house'. We typically will exchange our pleasantries and give each other some tidbit of news and then there comes the inevitable lull in the sparkling conversation. Queue the insanity. Yesterday it was an indoor screaming contest amongst the eldest four whilst the baby attempted to engage himself in a fragile resting period. It can be difficult to enjoy the give and take of verbal phone twister when one participant has to constantly interrupt herself so as to get it on with the rioting inmates. Makes me sad inside.

Some helpful advise to my fellow Cudahyian commentator; be prepared. Place an absorptive child's paper diaper or perhaps a sanitary pad across your keyboard to collect any sudden social errors that may occur during perusal of the lasagne-ator. This is for your own safety as I don't believe most major hospitals are properly equipped to handle caffeinated electrocutionings. Also, to keep oneself ready to fly out the door at a moments notice, wear a bib.

Child number three is a lovely little girl, all sweet looking and stuff, with the vocabulary of a long distance semi-truck operator. Talented is she, drawering and illustrationering seem to have arrived naturally in her clumsy self. Her stick figures emote like I have never seen before, she nails the expressions and body language every time. It is entertaining to leaf through her sketch books, as she depicts such a strange variety of thingees. I detect some raw God given abilities,which will hopefully develop into a lucrative career of supporting her slightly aged parental units. You go girl. Wipe that crap off your nose.

Dogs are not official Children.

You, hidden reader who is afreard of me, show yourself, stop hiding, I am not dangerous in spite of appearances. I write this, because it has expanded my mind and stretched my soul in new holistic crime fighting goodnessy ways. I am complete because of this blog, it finishes my sentences and is my soul mate, it orders Chinese take out and enjoys long walks in the rain with me, we watch old movies together and it even changes the oil in my car. Without this four day old blog I think I would die a thousand deaths.

This is my fifth child Jemima. Jemimah? Jemiiiiimaah! I don't know how to spell it though I can scream it well. She is a browndog who usually has brown mud on her snout thingee, which she will always wipe on my new pants when I leave the haus to go to the soul sucking work hole of early death. She eats trees. She scares delivery people, but not the UPS guy, who has won her over with tiny bone shaped snacks. That guy rocks; postal service...not so much. She is four.

We have been considering replacing her with an actual child. This would make our offspring's birth order G-B-G-B-G-B with a two year interval between each brat. This seems a bit much to undertake just to fill in a spot in the lineup with something more human. So it stays G-B-G-B-D-B and the boys get the advantage.

Road stripe spray on sunburn Poisoning.

I am so weirdly tired. I can not put my finger on why. It's not alcohol or lack of sleep. Must of been the pool party today, all of that sunshine can make a cave dweller like me feel ill. Lifeguard duties were performed. Five for five on the kids surviving to swim another day. No in pool mistakes by the little guy, I am shocked. Came home all wiped out from standing in water for three hours. It just doesn't seem like that should be exhausting but I sleepy.

The oldest three took me on a tour to see their secret fortress hidden in the woods. It is accessed via the beginnings of a ravine, sloping down and down with the earth rising up on either side of you steeply to maybe thirty feet. Below your paws you have some sort of rock lining your path with trickling water and lizardy stuff. Mossy fallen logs to crawl over etc. lots of fun. The actual structure of their hideaway is just a dozen or so branches stacked one on another in a high up adjoining ravine. Very Narnian. I felt like a deer.

Cami is ashamed of my spelling inadequacies. Two bad for her. Here is our fiftieth wedding anniversary picture. Aren't we delicious? I am the one on the right. Cami is looking through my ear at the telly which is playing a golf game in the other room. I disapprove. Your earhole thingee is not to be used as a peephole.

Are they gonna be smaller or Bigger?

Does one really need a boob job if this is the first question you are asked? Just wondering... I would figure that going under the knife voluntarily would be most appropriate for those who are more obvious in what direction to alter what God gave you. Whatever, inflate away.

This is number four. He is friendly. Very friendly. You may not want to encourage him unless you have the patience of Job. Females beware, lately he has been judging the waist sizes of his mom's acquaintances via direct physical contact. He takes a very careful measurement. Comments are included for free, just in case you wanted to hear how fat you are or are not. He can, and has been, brutal.

That is not his normal facial expression. His Botox injections have backfired horribly. The Docs say it will return to its usual level of deformity in a few months. Till then we just keep the shades pulled, stay inside and do math. He is getting a real talent for cyphering. ( I tease in proportion to public asininity level. Joe won hands down today. No contest. Complete horses hindquarters. I especially love the limp body drag thingee when you hold his hand/wrist/ulna in a lame attempt to control his ADHD. Fun. )

Melted popsicle mess by the Onions.

The children are in charge and they are not pleasant to work for. One must not question their authority , lest they smite thee with their powerful screechy lungs of auditory death. What kind of a blog am I building? I just don't care anymore. Happy triple-stack father's day. Kindly insert the appendage of your choice in this conveniently situated industrial wood chipper

This is the 'busy one' or 'smart one' or 'child of Satan' depending on ones level of responsibility for his never ending onslaught of destruction and/or mayhem. Cute. At least he has the elusive ability to operate the johnny-crapper. This is more than I can say for four other as of yet unnamed yahoos who happen to look a lot like me. This ones gonna rule the world one day, and let me tell you something, he's a one sucky overlord.

Please don't feel that your comment would not be appreciated, it would be OKay to read some adult thingees vrs. only hearing the insane babbling of children who are determined to express mail me to an early termination. mucho appreciated...