Sunday Randomness

The school had a nice Halloween party where my son got as much candy as he did "walking the streets" for a sugar fix. They invited the parents so we could do all the taking of the movies and pictures. Okay, since you asked, here's one of Officer Boy:

 

Criminals everywhere were quaking in fear at his 'tough guy' face. Fortunately, we got this picture before the school handed out stampers along with candy goodness. After he got hold of that, he managed to stamp himself right between eyes. At least the stamp read, "Boo!"

The Boy actually enjoys giving candy more than trick or treating. He lasted about a half an hour on the walk and then helped us hand out candy. For a while at least. Then he walked over to the neighbors and helped them instead. 196 kids were served overall. Not too shabby.

The pop rocks are mine, stay away.

==========

The wife called me upstairs at one point in the week, pointed to the floor, and said, "What is that?"

I scrunched down and looked at the thin strand of something on the floor while she added, "I hope the cats don't have worms."

(The Wife has a case of extreme heebie jeebies when it comes to all things parasitic.)

I picked it up, stretched it, and said, "Yeah, these rubber band worms are horrible this time of year."

"Jerk."

(Hey, you chose to marry the smartass.)

===========

A few more captchas from this week:

In honor of most of the costumes out this Halloween:

(Slutted up Beyond All Recognition)

When your child paws a piece of prime candy for a few minutes before deciding that he or she doesn't want it:

("Ewww, I can't eat that. It's all defingly now." This also happens at birthday parties when the cake isn't guarded from 'icing probes.')

It was just odd that this one came up during a tooth fairy entry:

 

That's all I have people. Go be relaxed; it's Sunday.

 

 

Technorati Tags: sunday randomness

School Picture Day

I'm not a big fan of school pictures...or any sort of organized picture taking for that matter. Hell, I'm not even a little, teeny fan of them. I prefer candid shots. I have roughly a billion of them, so if I need a good one, it's just a quick digital flip away. The Wife however just has to have them. One or two a year. Now that The Boy is in kindergarten, we can at least forgo the whole scheduling routine. So here's how my first class picture went:

The night before, The Wife announces that The boy will participate in a bath and hair washing activity. He didn't seem to mind much. Boffo. So after dinner, she was on the phone and the boy wanted to play soccer in the house. (Hey, it was a soft, little ball, don't look at me like that. We hardly ever break anything.) I said, "Okay."

We play for a bit and I pretty much just stand there and block an occasional shot. One time (oddly enough, the last time for the night) I blocked a shot by trapping the ball. He kept running and launched a kick at it.

*Thwack*

I was wearing shoes; he was not.

"Waaaaaa, Mommy!"

"Dude, are you okay?"

He calmed down after a few minutes and we found that he had bent his nail back a bit on his toe. Ouchy, yes, but he was working on a oscar.

One band aid and one popsicle later, all seemed to be well. Then The Wife said, "Let's go take a bath so you can look good for your picture tomorrow."

"Waaa, my toe hurts too much to take a bath."

Of course, I got 'the look' at that point. Wha? Me? He's the one not taking a bath and he kicked me. I was utterly not at fault here.

I went to do dishes. When in doubt, I find that some light housework takes the heat off.

The Wife came in after a few minutes and smacked me (playfully...mostly) in the shoulder and said, "You just had to sabotage me."

"Me? I'm an innocent here. It was The Boy."

*Glower*

and back to dishes for me...

The morrow comes...

The Wife has one day a week that she works an evening so I come in an hour early and we split the day. I'm at my desk and the phone rings. Hmmm...I see it's the cell phone.

"Hello."

*whud* *whud* *whud* (that's the sound the back of the car seat makes when it's being kicked...also insert assorted screams and wails.)

"The Boy will not get out of the car to go to school."

"Be right there."

Aside: I'm lucky here. Work is roughly two minutes from work. It would be one minute, but there's this pesky 'school zone.' in the way.

Tangent: School is also five minutes from my house. That's right, I can drive to school, boot The Boy out of the car, and make it to work in under seven minutes. My life rocks.

Anyway, I get there and she had coaxed the wiener out of the car. I grabbed his school bag and we trooped to the doors. He was still all blubbery, but I'm immune to that stuff. He's a first class actor. We got inside and the reason for the outburst was, "I don't wanna get my picture taken."

So I said, "You don't have to get it taken if you don't want to." Hah! Score one against the tyranny of posed pictures!

The Wife chimed in, "That's right, you don't have to."

Game, set, and match baby.

His teacher came down and we got him into the classroom and that was that.

Later, another call from the cell.

"Hello."

"Hi daddy! I got my picture taken today!"

I sure seemed to be my cell, but who was this child on the other end? I asked, "Did you have fun?"

"Yup, I was the first in line."

What I wanted to say: "Well what the hell was all that crap this morning?!"

What I said, "Well, that's awesome buddy. I'm proud of you."

*Grumble*

This is why I hate organized pictures. They induce psychoses in women and children. I know it's some sort of plot by the Joint Photographic Experts Group. I will find a way to stop it. It's my mission.

 

Speaking of pictures:

That's right, that's me in my awesome, new, customized t-shirt from Jen at Steenky Bee. I was hand (well, mouth actually) picked by the only and only Henners. Seriously though, it's kinda the nicest one that I have. You know...since guys don't buy new ones until the old ones are pretty much unrecognizable as clothing.

 

Only a few days until Halloween if you're interested in my Halloween story : Click the linky.

 

Technorati Tags: my steenky t-shirt,the evil that is organized picture taking

It isn't my fault

Here I was thinking that my church observations were over...all played out. I had even made a sort of pact with myself that I was going to pay attention and everything.

We got to church Sunday and normally there is a girl there who sings all the churchly hymns and stuff up front. She has a fantastic voice. Our lector for the day, we'll call him Mr. Flatty, did not. He had what can only be termed as a 'god-forsaken' voice maybe even a 'touched-by-satan-himself' kind of voice. He sang anyway, the brave soul. I was awesome though. I hardly chucked through his opening string of clinkers. My wife did not admire my restraint as much though so I received the first official 'look' of the morning.

Not too bad for the first three minutes of church I thought. Then the priest walked up the aisle for mass followed by three Knights of Columbus (some Catholic club thing) in full regalia. Don't get me wrong, the feathery hats and capes are nice looking, I just don't think I could take myself seriously in this:

So they make the rounds and come to seat themselves two rows in front of me. Precisely one row in front of me is an adorable, little girls who blurts, "Are they pirates mommy?"

*snork*

That's the sound I make when I poorly contain a belly laugh. Since I was already mildly unhinged by off-key guy up front, this bout of laughter took supreme effort to subdue. Again, I was quite proud of myself. Low and behold though; I had earned a second 'look.' C'mon, that was funny, Wife. I'm quite sure Jesus would have peed himself on that one.

Flatty set off on another voyage into what was, for him, the unfamiliar territory of music. I thought I would have been able to handle it until he made the daring move of trying to add an entire third note into his list of musical achievements. Even my wife was in shock at that one so I missed getting another 'look.'

It turned out that the reason that the KoC were there was that there was a new priest that was just ordained. He joined in with Flatty in 'song' and although I never caught his name, I can only assume it was Father Tony Deaf. The duet set me over the edge but I was saved by The Boy, who needed a potty break.

When we got back the Knights standing again with their Deluxe Long John Silver hats on. I gave The Wife the 'Hey,' look that you do in church and she replied with the, 'What do you want?' eyebrow. I leaned over and said, "Yarrrr." She laughed in spite of herself and I got a pinch. Sheesh, I try to add a little levity and what reward do I get?

The noob priest got to do the sermon and it turned out he had a thick accent. Awesome. Grand. I love a good, unintelligible sermon. After he got rolling, I caught on and picked up some phrases here and there. At one point he said, "They, like you were responsible for Jesus's death."

I thought, "Dude, I was nowhere near the scene of the crime." I don't believe in the whole 'sins of the father' line of reasoning so you're not pinning that one on me...and leave my boy out of it too.

There was another duet by the Flatty and Fr. Deaf. I was laughing by the end of it since if finished on some high notes that they abused soundly. It was then that I heard a child call out loudly, "Is it time for the cookies yet?" The child was located to my right and looked suspiciously like my son.

*snork*

We got our cookies -- Jeebus flavored goodness -- and got out of there.

Am I the only one that this stuff happens to in church? Nearly every time I go there's something that I can't resist talking about. Maybe it's just Catholics. I give up, no more pacts. I'm just going to assume that God clearly wants me to blog in church.

Also: If you haven't seen it and are interested in my Halloween story gifty thing: Click the linky.

Technorati Tags: Yarrr! Catholic pirates!,learn to sing pal

Go to Sleep + an Award

Ahh, the wonders of not being able to sleep. A brief replay of my morning:

Brain: What time is it?
Eyes: 5:00
Body: Go to sleep
Brain: Want to know what song keeps running through me?
Body: No.
Brain: That song that FADKOG had on her site the other day. "This bed is on fire
With passion and love."
Body: Shut up. She's lucky she's awesome or I'd make some sort of public remark (say in a blog) about her keeping me up.
Brain: What time is it now?
Eyes: 5:05.
Body: Both of you be quiet. Eyes, no more answering brain.
Eyes: Gotcha.
Brain: We don't need sleep. We have day long access to the 'sleep substitute'...coffee. "The neighbors complain about the noises above."
Body: GO TO SLEEP. We have all sorts of computery crap to do later on.
Brain: Pfft. I can do that stuff in my sleep.
Body: Which is what you should be doing now.
Chest: What is going on?
Eyes: The cat is perched on you. Um...could somebody move the cat? His nose is like an eighth of an inch from my cornea and it's freakin' me out.
Body: Do NOT touch the cat. Then he'll know we're awake and get all playful and purrity and cute and crap.
Nose: I hate allergy season.
Body: Go to sleep nose.
Nose: I'd love to but...you know...allergies.
Body: I hate involuntary bodily functions.
Heart: Oh really? Do you?
Body: Bite me, you know what I mean.
Mr. Willikers: Heh, he said, "Bite me."
Body: I'm ignoring that.
Eyes: Hey hands, can I get some help up here.
Hands: What's up?
Eyes: Sleepy dust, the usual.
Hands: K, brt
Body: Ahh, the cat knows we're awake you buffoons. That's it. Screw you guys, I'm getting up.
Mr. Willikers: Heh, he said, "Screw."
Hands: Awesome, can we blog now?

There was about another 45 minute's worth, but you get the idea.

The Point at Which an Award is Acknowledged in a Timely Manner:

Carrie over at Confessions who gave my this award which appeals very much to writerly ol' me:

Thank you very much Carrie. She's great and is going to fill out that pirate costume in a pretty inspiring way, I'm sure. Stop over and check her blog. She even left a comment -- in plain sight (that is to say where I could see it...with ease) -- to tell me about it.

The Victims (these are all great blogs that you should be reading if you aren't already. I won't wax prosaic though since these awards things take almost as much time as memes):

1. Mrs. D. at A cup of thought, an ounce of sass, & just a dash of crazy
2. Loralee at Loralee's Looney Tunes
3. Maggie at Okay. Fine. Dammit.
4. Mr Lady at Whiskey in my Sippy Cup
5. Mike at The Newborn Identity

The rules (I actually followed them for once):

1. Name 5 other Super Scribblers.
2. If you are named you must link to the author & the name of the blog that gave you the award.
3. Then you must display the award and link to This Post, which explains The Award.
4. Finally you must visit the aforementioned post and tell your name to Mr. Linky. Then they will have a record of all the people who are Super Scribblers!
5. Post the rules on your blog.

Technorati Tags: Sleep - I remember it well,awards

Giving the Government Way

The other day I walked to my mailbox at work, and there it was; the 9 x 12 manilla envelope. That can only mean a few things here...either more work or more crap for the recycle bin. In this case it was an annual appeal for the SECA campaign. This is not to be confused with either A) Sega

or B) Seka

I know Sega is much more enjoyable and I suspect Seka would be but I have no first hand experience with her body of work, so I'm guessing there.

Anyway, SECA stands for State Employee Combined Appeal. What that boils down to is the state of PA comes to my mailbox and asks for donations to various charities and they will lovingly deduct straight from my check if I would so desire. Every year I toss it unceremoniously in the garbage can. This year however, I have a blog, so it has a few days of respite.

Why toss it? First and foremost, I am a past president of the local American Cancer Society and remain on the leadership council. That's where I volunteer my time and most of the money that I donate to charities. Secondly, when was the last time you can think of your state correctly managing anything remotely associated with money?

For a lark, I opened it up to see where the ACS was listed. Hmmm...it wasn't under 'America's charities' which would sort of belie the whole of the letter 'A' in ACS. Ahhh, there it is. Listed sporadically in separate counties...under the headings of 'PA United Ways.' So let me get this straight. You would like me to donate to a third-party who will give that money to a third-party who will finally give it to the place I already donate to so that the state of PA can rest well tonight.

I'm thinking that the ACS will probably be lucky to end up with a quarter of what they usually do in this deal.

If your charity isn't listed in the little book, evidently the state thinks they blow. Go find another one. Screw those homeless waifs and get a real charity dammit.

What will also be fun is the emails and messages in my mailbox urging things like '100% participation' and promoting our university 'through the spirit of giving.'

What I would like to see is having it promoted the way it should be. "Let's get 100% participation so those charities can get less of what you give." or "promoting our university through the spirit of wasting," would be awesome.

Hopefully, some year, people will come their senses, look in the little book for their favorite charity, and give to them directly.

Technorati Tags: wasting it by the handful