Okay, so what's his deal? He's got a bit of a craggy detective à la Colombo thing going on, but then what the heck is he wearing? Is that some sort of pilgrim rain gear? (I drew it so presumably I ought to know, but I have no clue.)

The Funniest Cat Name I've Heard in a While

Bumpy

Because he's blind... and he bumps into stuff. (Sorry, I thought it was funny. Does that make me evil?)

Okay, what's their deal?

Clippity Cloppity

What technical, ethical, and legal obstacles must be overcome before we can shod our children horse-style? May I suggest that we resolve them promptly?*

* Sadly, they don't exist, but if they did, I'd pay good money for the services of a shoe-nanny: Just come in the morning, convince my children to don a practical and matching pair of shoes in a timely fashion; then come back later and convince them, upon taking off their shoes, to place them in the shoe bin (not on the stairs or the kitchen table or in the toaster or wherever they usually seem to wind up.).

Why It's No Fun Playing "20 Questions" With a Platonic Idealist*

"Animal, vegetable, or mineral?"
"None of the above."
"What do you mean, 'None of the above'?"
"I mean 'None of the above.'"
"It's got to be one of the above. It's got to be something real."
"It is real, and it's none of the above."
"That's impossible."
"It most certainly is possible."
"... I give up. What is it?"
"The number six."
"It can't be the number six. It's got to be something that exists."
"The number six does exist."
"Never mind. It can't be a number, okay?"
"Okay."
"Have you got something that's not a number?"
"Yes."
"Animal, vegetable, or mineral?"
"None of the above."
"Ergh! No numbers!"
"It's not a number."
"I give up..."
"It's the concept of virtue."
"..."
"Shall we play again?"
"It's got to be something physical!"
"I understand. I'm ready."
"Animal... vegetable... or mineral...?"
"None of the above."
"Bwgrh!"
"A perfect vacuum."**

Har! (Yes, I realize this post is profoundly nerdy and hopelessly oblique and almost certainly only funny to me, but oh well, you get what you pay for.)

* Wick E. Pedia says...

** I suppose one might argue that a perfect vacuum is not a physical thing but is the absence of all physical things, but I'll contend that it is "something physical" in the sense that it's defined exclusively by physical properties. Whatever. My head is starting to hurt.

Funeral tribute: "MA DEAR"

The aftermath

Red sky at night

Comic? Certainly. Ironic? I think not. (Are five-year-olds even capable of irony? I doubt it. I imagine in-depth ironological investigations would indicate that irony is a higher-order concept, the capacity for which doesn't develop until sometime around adolescence. But what do I know?)

"In West Philadelphia Born and Raised..."

The other morning at breakfast, out of nowhere, June absentmindedly launched into a pitch-perfect correctly phrased and intoned recitation of the theme song from "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air":

"In West Philadelphia born and raised,
On the playground was where I spent most of my days.
Chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool,
And all shootin' some b-ball outside of the school..."

It was just about one of the funniest things I've ever heard, and Sarah and I both nearly snorted our coffee out our noses in surprise and laughter.* (Fortunately, we were able to restrain the impulse, because I suspect snorting hot coffee through the nose is an unpleasant experience.) Oh, Lord.

* In addition to being very amused, we were also very confused. To our knowledge, June had never seen a "Fresh Prince" rerun, but June explained that they'd been learning it from a young assistant teacher at school as they waited in line each day for the cafeteria. Glad they're getting a well-rounded education.

Les Brusiers, Circle Bar, Friday the 13th

So we're like, hey, Circle Bar, we're feeling kind of spooky, so can you give us some spooky shows, and they're like, okay, how about Halloween, and we're like, yeah, okay, that's pretty spooky, we'll take it, but have you got any other spooky shows, and they're like, how about Friday the 13th, and we're like, excellent, that's totally spooky, we'll take that too, and they're like, cool, and we're like, cool, and it was pretty cool.

See you there. Cool.

Hurrication

Hurricane warnings and school closures—huh. We're plenty to used to hurricanes or the threat of them disrupting the flow of daily life around here, but that's usually a summer/early fall kind of thing. Sure, Ida's been steadily marching across the Gulf for a couple of days now, giving us ample warning; sure, there are technically three weeks left in hurricane season; but seriously?*

But at present, Ida's looking like a scattered wayward sort of affair, so we'll sit back, hope/plan for the best, enjoy the lagniappe stay-home day, and have ourselves a little hurricane feast (which Sarah started contemplating the moment we got the news this morning, and which she had fully planned out by 7:45 a.m.). Mmm, hurricane feast...

* Plus, we've all been so busy ironing our Saints jerseys and pondering what mysterious reallignment of the universe's energies could have graced us with an 8-0 season start, who's had time to think about anything else?

"To: Miss Toothfairy"

Ah, the minds of children: mysterious and endlessly entertaining. Louise recently lost a front tooth, and we put it in an envelope to go under her pillow. Louise decided to decorate the envelope—like such:


The front of the envelope "To: Miss Toothfairy from: Louise Olivier Date: 11-3-09". (The middle figure is obviously the tooth fairy triumphantly holding a tooth. I'm not quite sure what the deal is with the two giant disembodied heads on the horizon.)


And the back, with a label, "Tooth stuff" (presumably for ease of filing; I imagine the tooth fairy has a very large "Tooth Stuff" section in her file cabinet), and a sort of crest/seal containing the statement, "My tooth is very small" (which it was).

Hilarious.