amy what is your address

Amy,

Can you please email me your address? I need it. Thanx, Sheiler

Guess Who's Two?

Our little Lulu!!!!!!! She's modeling a Santa Barbara T-shirt from Ain't B, and saying "cheese" for the camera.

First Big Snow in Illinois

When you're tallying the positives and negatives of homeschooling, here's one for the plus column! You can have a snow day, and a school day, all on the SAME day!

Gobble, Gobble

So...we bought a camera last spring and SWORE that we'd bring it to more places so we'd take pictures everywhere. I swear, we bring the camera with us, we just never get around to taking many pictures. Or there's a lot of the same 5 minutes and then we give up. These are a few of the pictures from Turkey Day at 852.




Amy: "Well Lucy, what do we have here...Monopoly, Diet Mountain Dew, Wine, a dog, now what did you say you wanted?...."

Amy: "Oh yeah. Crackers."

They were begging for turkey. And honestly, they're the ones who put themselves in there. It's just that Joe's the one who locked the door.

Sara and her new poochie. She doesn't listen to anyone at 852, but boy is she cute!

visa lottery merry go round, part 4

Dear US State Dept.

I have a question regarding the diversity lottery for 2009, that hasn't been addressed in anything that I've read online at the US State Dept site. My partner (female) who was born in Algeria, but is living in Canada, would like to apply for a visa to live and work in the US. We are legally married in Canada, but are obviously not married in the US. I am an American citizen living in the US. There is a section in the lottery instructions that say she must state her marital status, and to provide spousal information and a photo. I feel that we are in a bind, since she would like to answer the questions truthfully and accurately, but our marriage is not recognized in the US. Can you please advise as to how she should answer the question, and whether or not she needs to provide info and a picture of me?

Thanks for your help in this matter.

What I'm bringing to Thanksgiving at 852

Mom let me borrow the big pot to bring potatoes...but Lucy has commandeered it for her own purposes. Think mom will notice?

a man I'd like to have dinner with

I love Barney Frank. He's funny, wicked smaht, fair. He puts G's in front of his L's like a certain brother I once knew (Glouie, Glouie), and sometimes he talks a might too fast. But I love this guy and wish he were in my district so that I could say that I vote for him.

Andrew Sullivan writes this about Barney's work on ending job discrimination for homos:

The Republicans - exempting 35 of them - did their best to link employment non-discrimination to marriage rights, expressing their usual spite toward those gay couples who have dared to commit to one another in law and love, by a legislative distraction. But they failed in the end. And most of us are used to the abuse by now. We do not need their affirmation to love one another. But some do still need some framework of protection in order to work without fear - especially in those states where gay couples have been targeted as public threats to the family.

I haven't always supported this legislation, and my libertarian heart is not thrilled by it. But every other minority is federally protected from discrimination in employment; it is increasingly a form of prejudice to say that gay people can be fired at will from their jobs just for being who they are.

I don't subscribe to much of Sullivan's beliefs, but everything he writes on the subject of fairness for all, is usually right on.

Happy Birthday Charlie!

Yes, it was yesterday, but it was a busy day! Happy Birthday my favorite 6 year old boy!

money for nothing and the chicks for free

In high school Lynn Yuell made a sort of trademark pink splotch dyed on her shiny golden bangs, like a married woman from India who got a little too punk. And a little too lazy to lift up her hair to anoint her forehead. She came Monday mornings to the bus stop with the splotch freshened up for the week. “I saw Frida’s video again last night.” She knew it would drive me crazy, and it did indeed drive me crazy. I had seen Culture Club, I had seen Talking Heads, I had heard Cruel to be Kind, and Angel of the Morning. I had sat through Money For Nothing and the Chicks for Free, all to catch Frida’s solo I Know There’s Something Going On. All to not catch it. I suffered through REO Speedwagon, and through Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty. For what? To have Lynn explain through chartreuse eyeshadow and blue splotch dye on her little chick hair, that she had MTV on every hour of every day and managed to catch everything I had been unable to catch.

Why oh why couldn’t I catch it? It felt as if I were busting a vein in my forehead, staring at the screen, willing for it to play. I never did homework. I never participated in anything after school. I had no life. I was the perfect candidate to view on numerous occasions Frida’s video.

And now exactly one hundred years after this event comes YouTube. Sure, they have Abba videos, but those all kind of suck. Abba was very serious about their music, but a little too literal about their videos. And Benny always lipsynched as though he were chewing marshmallows. I was never convinced that he ever sang, despite evidence that he did sing . To portray the line in Super Trouper, "feeling like a number one", Agnetha lifts up her index finger. To portray one.

“Live” performances that they did for tv had them lipsynching their own songs, when their voices were flawless, in the studio or outside. I never got that. Even when Frida put out the dreadful song written by Jon Lord from Deep Purple, the last song she's done, it’s canned, on German or Swiss tv. But with a full band backing it.

So what’s different about Frida's video from the 1980’s? It’s emotional. It shows a dramatic portrayal of the song, rather than just razzing the song, and is excellent, on her own.

How could I forget??

Yes, I admit it here folks, I literally forgot about the existence of

ABBA!

I mean the outfits, the lipgloss, the songs....too funny!

Here's some selections I chose for you, the people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hskKIsf-PAg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WauFkb4jmCI&mode=related&search=

New family member adopted at 152

Her name is Pearl.

How I feel about canned beets.

It really depends on why they were canned. If they were chronically late, incompetent, and generally bad for business and morale they should have been canned.

If they were let go because upper management wanted to make room in the organization for his wife's cousin's kid, that's a different story. I personally can't abide that brand of office politics.

Happy Birthday (on Sunday)

Happy Birthday Dave! You're a star!!

Every 9 years or so.

Every nine years or so when the White Sox are playing poorly and the Cubs are coming out of a several year hibernation in the cellar, I switch baseball allegiances. Sort of. I will Love Frank Thomas, Tadahito Iguchi, Joe Crede and the rest of the White Sox both erstwhile, inactive and otherwise to the day I die. I mean the day I Jermaine Dye. I have loved the White Sox since that fateful day in 1973 or 1974 (work with me, I was much younger and did not think I'd have to remember the exact year) that I garnered free tickets for perfect attendance at school and wen to my first White Sox game with my father. If memory serves Dick Allen hit one of his vaunted roof shots and the palehose (one of several ways of saying White Sox, when you just don't want to say White Sox every 3 words) prevailed over the Baltimore Orioles (also known as the birds when you live in Baltimore and don't want to say Orioles every 3 words). I hopped on the Southbound express of Allen, Jorge Orta, Ed Hermann (not the same one who plays the grandpa on Gilmore girls but by now he's about the same age) Beltin' Bill Melton (named that way for his hitting prowess. Amy's convinced he'a a wife beater but wife beaters generally are not given nick names.) and have not hopped off in the 3+ decades that have followed.

So what is all this then about switching allegiances? Well the truth is that the pale hose weren't my first baseball love. I was born and raised and nurtured in a Cubs family. Before 35th and Shields became my home away from home, I had a familial association with the friendly confines of Clark and Addison. I was a firm follower of Ron Santo, Don Kessinger, Jose Cardenal and other 70's Cubs. But on that fateful day of 1973 or 1974 I switched allegiance to the Sox for good. Why? Why, you ask me. Because of one incontrovertible fact. The Cubs stank and the White Sox, well they did not stink as much. Now I could bore with you statistics showing how bad in the course of my life time the Cubs have been in comparison to the Sox. But I figure if there is anyone still reading this that I am boring you without statistics so why work harder?

My parents also think I just did things to be different. That may be true for food. When you live in a family of 7 people and you have a voracious appetite, you keep things in the pantry or the refrigerator that no one else will want. I mean what good is your favorite snack being nutty bars when they have a shelf life of 3.2 seconds? But Sardines, prunes, Pork rinds who's going to eat those? Well, me.

So, every year I attempt to do the impossible, love the Sox and not hate the Cubs. My wife, Amy (maybe you've heard of her) does not even believe I like the Cubs. She hears me make fun of the players and make jokes about the teams ineptitude (such as the old standard, anyone could have a bad century) and think I can't possible like them. What she fails to grasp is that this is precisely how Cub fans act. I, unlike almost every other White Sox fan on the planet, cannot take joy out of the Cubs' futility. I ache with every Sox loss. With every Cubs loss it's more like a sigh of resignation that the team I dropped like a hot potato is no nearer to respectability then when I dumped 'em.

So this year, as in 1998, when the Cubs are playing well enough to win their division and the Sox aren't playing well enough to do division. (I mean simple division like Tadahito had 10 apples and wanted to give them out to the 5 staring pitchers. how many would he give to each one so each pitcher had the same amount. I am serious! That's why he was traded!) I start to live and die with the Cubs. Maybe this will finally be their year! After all, this is a new century.

Happy Birthday Emma!

Here's Emma after she shopped w/a gift card from Grandma & Grandpa Fish (aka Roller) Happy 8th birthday Emma!!

Cool site for recipes

http://www.thepioneerwomancooks.com/
This is an awesome site for folks like MOI who need to SEE things to "GET" them. Her photos and directions are SO easy, plus she's funny too. So far, I've made the chicken spaghetti, olive cheese bread, lasagne, and chicken sandwiches, and everything has been GREAT!!!

do you has?

I am no doubt a dog person, albeit newly minted. But there are times when I miss a good cat.

Pinkface, extraordinaire

We call him Charla-hito (After Tadahito Iguchi)

Photos, a day in the life of a Lucy

Chicken Pox

BiPolar

Found this online on a tv series on peeps with bi-polar disease. You can view some clips online (or check it out on actual tv). Thought it might be useful or interesting. But not smelly.

hey oh my gosh you just won't believe it, I bet

(Sing to the tune of: 'Mary had a little Lamb') David Roller cheats at cards cheats at cards cheats at cards. (Okay, stop singing.)

Joe got a job cleaning out a bookstore so I drove to Madison and filled a big crate full of books and took them home. Got a lotta good fiction and some baseball books. Just found out that humidity is real bad for a guitar; had to pull it up from the basement, permanent style, and put the kibosh on the capo. Talked to FiveCan the other day; says he'll be in Chicago in midseptember for almost a couple of weeks this time, en route and back to/from New York and Boston with his insane samba band. Fiver also says 'No' to Antarctica this year, and swears he'll be in the midwest for Xmas. Got another shift at the hot dog stand; now I'm gonna be rich, but quick. New shoes, here I come! Car insurance? No problem. Shirts that don't have cigarette burn holes in them? I'm there. Get my latest roll of film developed? Priceless.

Better Dreams

Because it's pretty and I like it, here's a little birthday offering for KT. Sorry for the no show for the big blow out extravaganza.

They took to my father during the period of the lion

Not that he ever reads this blog, but Happy Birthday, Pops. Belatedly.

I had a sentence about Dad put through a multiplying translator....for important study and deep contemplation.

My Favorite Funny

I LOVE the comic "Pearls Before Swine" Check out two funny strips...












This is the website where I find them

Dear Sheila

Yes, I can send you the picture. While I'm away from home *shhhh!* the stupid comment pop up window doesn't work. So I only got to read the top half of your corner gas thing. I basically got the idea that Maria doesn't like sitcoms, and your teeth are more important than sitcoms. Or something. It's all good. I'll read it when I get home. And I'll send the picture to you when I get home.
Yup.

Dear Katie

Since you apparently do not read comments from older posts - though they're still on the front page - I shall post it here front and centah.

KT -- can you please send me the full file of the pic of you, dad, joe and mike in front of the train engine?

As ever,

Not drinking Coke in a can any longer

Corner Gas

Sheila- Have you seen the Canadian tv show Corner Gas?
Danny's very social uncle works for the railroad CN and is in Canadia a lot. He was in Saskatchewan at a bar and a loud group of people was sitting at the table behind him. They asked him to join (B/c he's American and they thought that was cool), bought him a few beers and told him about the show. They also like Chicago b/c WGN will soon be airing the show. The Policewoman on the show was sitting with them. So before he left, he asked again, "What is it called again?" They told him, and then asked what hotel he was staying at. The next day he came back to his hotel room and a hotel employee had left a package in his room- 2 or 3 (I forgot) seasons of the show on dvd. Just free. Just to watch. So we watched it last night. It was pretty funny. Very sarcastic and kinda goofy. They said it's huge in Canadia and I thought you guys may have seen it. Dunno.

Lucy loves hats

It's kind of fun around here, when Lucy disappears for a while, you KNOW she's coming back with a hat on. Could be a baseball hat, a firehat, a hard hat, anything. I rarely have a camera ready.

oh danny boy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCbuRA_D3KU

I had forgotten how much I loved the Muppet Show. I'm still giggling a few days after seeing this fine rendition of Danny Boy.

pancake, anyone?

Seriously, does anyone want a pancake? Syrup not included.

take a little road trip up north...

Hey,

Just wanted to shout out to y'all to gather your cars together and take a little road trip up to our place. It's summer. We're here. Lots of tomfoolery, joefoolery, dadfoolery.

Still Panting

Though admittedly he is a bit cooler. Probably 40 pounds lighter too. But I still prefer the furry monster to the fussy monster...

Still Learning

Sorry about that last post. I spent a TON of time on it and it's still all screwed up. So it's kinda crooked, but I think you can figure out which words go to which pictures.

Here's some more pictures that have built-in comments:

and some of those pictures that need no comment...

Dad's Day

So...we went to the Illinois Railway Museum for Father's Day and got a lot of sun and had a lot of fun. Heh, that rhymed. Wasn't my intention, but I won't erase it.

Check these out:

















This one reminds me of those molds you can get made at the zoo:
















Some sight-seeing pics:































































Mike revisits his bartender days on the Santa Fe dining car. It was fun because it was the only car that was air conditioned... well, when we went. I don't know if it was air conditioned when it was up and running. I didn't ask.













And now for the fart contest: Who has the best "what the heck is that smell?" face?

Joe...

...Katie...

Or Mike?