Entertainment

Bella and I have started a new book: The Princess Bride by William Goldman. This was a read-aloud book in my home growing up - the four of us would sit by the fire and read the story aloud, with great drama and flair: As we kids got older we would take turns reading a few pages too. I don't know if we did it twice or five times, but certain things just became part of our language growing up - "Inconceivable!!!" "I am not left handed either!" "As you wish!" "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to DIE!"

Right now I'm doing the reading, and it has been fun for me to act out the parts - I've got my spanish accent for Inigo, my Wally Shawn nasal voice for Vizzini, my big Andre voice for Fezzik. Now in our house, we pretty much stopped the story every time right after the Man in Black defeats Vizzini. Part of the reason I think was that even after the rescue, Westley is none too kind to Buttercup, and there's a lengthy Morgenstern interlude in there too... sort of grinds to a halt. But we powered through the other night and we're right in the middle of the Fire Swamp now.

Bella LOVES this book, and she is guffawing at the funny bits - Bella has developed a hearty laugh that I go out of my way to provoke - it just fills my heart with happiness to hear it.

In other MEDIA news: I finally got caught up on my Marvel movies: Thor and Captain America. I loved both movies - very different movies to be sure, but very enjoyable. Neither were encouraging deep deep thought, and both were refreshingly light. There wasn't a moment of either one that I would have been upset if the kids had walked in during. Not something I'd say about Dark Knight.

And that's about it for the media update! More postings as they happen.

Conversations before sleep

Isaac: 98...99...100... want to know what comes after 100? One hundred and ONE! 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109... what comes after 109?
Me: One hundred TEN.
Isaac: ONE HUNDRED TEN! Then what?
Me: What comes after Ten? Eleven. So after One hundred TEN, come One Hundred ELEVEN.
Isaac: NO WAY!!!! THAT IS CRAZY! I'm going spend ALL DAY tomorrow counting. I'm going to count to ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN tomorrow. Should I start NOW?
Me: No, let's get our rest. Time to go to sleep now, Isaac.

2 minutes of silence.

Isaac: Daddy? How many babies can be in a mommy's tummy?
Me: Usually 1, sometimes 2, and very rarely 3 or more, up to 6 or 8. But that's very rare.
Isaac: It would be pretty bad for a mom to have too many babies right? You know how many would be REALLY bad for a mommy? A MILLION. They would bury her. They would reach all the way up into space, and the ones at the top would say "mommy mommy!" and then they'd die because you can't breathe in space. You can breathe on earth, though.
Me: Yes. A million would be too many for one mommy. Go to sleep now Isaac.

5 minutes of silence.

Isaac: DADDY: Want me to tell you about all the scariest types of bats there are in the world?

TIME TO GO TO SLEEP ISAAC!!!!!

Generally - Utter Madness

Hola amigos, been a long time since I rapped at ya.  Here's the short version - work is rewarding but not particularly hectic.  Home life is good.

The evenings have been stretching longer for the past month - from longer reading sessions at night with Bella, to Isaac demanding later bedtimes, to a lot more homework coming home with Bella.  By the time all is settled, I'm looking at the clock and realizing it's already TEN.  What?  WHAT?

Fortunately, work is very achievable right now - for the past 4 weeks I've only had one client, and that client won't pay for more than 40 hours a week, and I'm not working more than that.  So it's been good.  Starting next week, I add a Philly client back into the mix - I'm helping them pick a system for Cardiac Cath Lab, and there will be 5-6 trips in the next few months, but only 1-2 nights at a shot.  Plus, I do love Philly.

With a little extra time on my hands, I've been trying to use up my bank of sessions with personal trainers I bought last year, but never used (thank you Cleveland).  I am feeling strong these days, able to lift furniture without stress.  Which will come in handy as we attempt to nuke our basement this weekend.  The combination of poor potty training for both a puppy and a little boy across the past 6 months has rendered our basement approximately 50% dried pee.  A few weeks back we had a scotch tasting down there, and "mildly like pee" was a prominent tasting note.

So I pulled the TV out, set up the living room for living, and we're going to yank out EVERYTHING down there, and do a s**t-canning to beat all.  This is what I've been training for, people.  It's going to HAPPEN.

Bella is loving her guitar lessons, and her teacher took me aside and said "this is an instrument that really speaks to her".  I pulled up a fake piano on my iPad during her practice two nights back and we played a two part round of twinkle twinkle little star - it was her idea to do the round... and she just BEAMED.  It made me want to move the keyboard downstairs and play duets with her every night.  I might just have to do that.

We finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this week, and she was just over the moon.  She loved the denouement at the end, and wanted to memorize the kids names.  She thought "Scorpius" was the best name EVER.

Saturday is circus day, and Isaac is so excited about going to class... and I'm so excited about the possibility of finally going to Cecil's deli for an Attazoy afterwards - this year his class is from 10-11, and so it's perfect for post-lesson lunch.  Attazoy.  ATTAZOY!!!  (it's a roast beef sammich on a kaiser.  No biggie, people).

Isaac is finding things HILARIOUS:  Pamela used the term "Ridonkulous" as an intensifier for "Ridiculous"and it had him in tears.  Also, somehow I was idly threatening the kids with "sending them to Juvie (aka Juvenile Detention)" and he was unable to speak for minutes as he pondered "Juvie".  Bella on the other hand wanted to know how on earth kids could do crimes requiring being sent to Juvie?  Being a kid is great, and you don't need anything because parents take care of you, so why would you steal or hurt people?  It was such an innocent moment.  I really didn't know how to answer.  I may have pointed at a dog on the sidewalk and shouted "LOOK!!!!".

I read a great book called "The Postmortal" - the concept is that the cure for aging is discovered in 2019.  It follows a guy who gets the cure at age 30, checks in every 20 years, and shows how the world is and how he's getting along.  I have to say that up to now, I'd always had this idea that sometime around 2050 I would upload my brain into some sort of matrix and continue to walk around either virtually or in an android body.  Reading that book made me want to just make the most of the time I have and not reach out for too much more.  And yes, I know it was fiction, but it made some great points.  I do recommend the book highly.

And finally, I sat down and watched Thor this week, and was so happy to have a great mindless superhero movie.  It just delivered and delivered and delivered.  I thought that the stylistic touches were very Jack Kirby, and the man playing Thor was simply incredible.  Happy media.

Ok, I'll do better about updating.  This every three weeks thing is just ridonkulous.