In the wee hours of September 3, 1973, my mom was watching Jerry Lewis and his telethon on TV and feeling a little weird. By that afternoon, I'd made my parents, uh, parents and was on my way to becoming me. There are some cool things about being born on Labor Day:
My family's financial future is secure, dear hearts! Keep reading to find out why!
I survived my 100-mile bicycle ride on Saturday.
Tacky babywear is all the rage these days, and this outfit was sent to us by Grandma (the Petite Filet's mom). It says, "Can you smell my exhaust?" and is illustrated with a little muffler with a green bubble coming out of it. In reality, this is a question a healthy, red-blooded American baby never has to ask. You can smell the Riblet's exhaust from many miles away.
Here's a list of baby-bib slogans that I'd sell if I had a store that sold such things ...
• I think I'm going to puke.
• No, you eat the mushy green substance and see how you like it.
• Which one of these idiots is my Dad?
• Thar she blows!
• Please stand back, little man at work.
• I can't take it anymore!
• What was that strange noise coming from my bottom?
• Mmmm. Dog food!
• It's better to be pissed off than pissed on.
• Freebird!
• Superfreak!
• If I'm the future, the world is in trouble.
• Kiss my grits!
• The diaper pail is full o'stank.
• Boob man.
• My bladder is full and I've got really bad aim.
• Pacify this, sucka!
• I'm not large, but I'm in charge.
The list can go on. Got any of your own to add?
This Saturday is it, folks. I'll be attempting to ride my old clunker bike (not the one pictured above, thankfully) 100 miles in one day at the Hotter Than Hell ride. I've done other rides this year, working my way up to 75 miles during one such excursion, but this one is the granddaddy of 'em all. Typically somewhere around 10,000 bikers attempt the endurance ride (the one I'm doing; it's not a race). That's a lot of wheels, pedals, spokes and sweaty people by the end of it all.
I'm hoping I can make it the entire 100 miles. The route, which starts and ends in Wichita Falls, Texas, offers some steep hills, screaming descents, oven-hot wind and the promise of at least some heat-induced misery. Last year, some idiot sat in the back of a pickup truck and misdirected riders off the official route. Some had gone 13 miles astray before locals stopped them, some offering rides back to town. Ah, the challenges.
It has also been a challenge for my family. The Petite Filet isn't real happy with the training I've had to do, or that I'll be gone a couple of days for the ride. The kids, particularly the Cutlet, have been affected. I've tried to spend as much downtime (between work, riding and sleeping) with him having fun.
I guess I can't fault her for being less than 100 percent supportive, but this was a goal I set at the beginning of the year. It was supposed to help me lose weight (which it has, but not all that I want to shed) and be a milestone goal that most semi-serious bicyclists want to achieve at some point.
She'll really be unhappy when I tell her that running a marathon is next.
Living in modern, educated, somewhat civilized Western culture involves the constant pursuit of smelling like anything but the odor naturally produced by human nature. It is the cultural space alien who embraces his or her human-ness by throwing caution (and hygiene) to the wind.
I meant to take a photo of my wife's growing loofah collection that currently resides in our shower. For some reason, she's got no fewer than six brightly colored sponges, brushes and whatnot (one has a handle) to clean herself with. She probably doesn't use more than one or two per shower, I'd guess (with kids, it's harder to shower together, which is less about getting clean and more about, well, you know). She also has several shelves full of various scrubbing, shaving and hair-care paraphernalia.
We are continuous subscribers to the Body Wash theorem, which holds that using enough of the scented liquid on oneself leaves a clean feeling coupled with a pleasant aroma. The clean feeling? Undeniable. Pleasant aroma? Debatable. Plus, how can something be named after a naturally occuring smell yet have nothing to do with it? The last time I smelled a sea breeze, it was salty with a tinge of whale pee. Not exactly the same thing that comes in a bottle of "sea breeze"-scented wash.
Most of us have used deodorant ever since our pits became potent. Have you ever just let 'em breathe? And then, maybe run a marathon or pull weeds in the flowerbed in the hot sun for hours? If not, why? Are you afraid of being rejected by your significant other? Or the family dog (we deny our pets the same license to stink many times as well)?
To cut through all this nonsense (temporarily, of course), I think we should institute National Free Range Armpit Month, Sept. 1-30. Don't let your pits by caged by The Man, because The Man doesn't want you to be who you really are! Set yourself free from the corporate gotta-smell-good line that has made us all a bunch of sheepish monkies, wandering aimlessly through the grocery store sniffing various scrubs, washes, soaps and conditioners until we find the "right" one. I tell you, they are all wrong! Up with stink! Up with people! Let's do it!*
*Tell me how it goes. I have to smell pretty all the time and cannot risk being ostracized from mainstream society. Signed, Texas "Mindless-Yet-Smellin' Good-Sheep" T-bone.
– graphic borrowed from the San Diego Natural History Museum Web site.
I read a quote recently that said people who live in big houses use 60 percent of them, and people who live in small houses use 100 percent of them.
Our house is somewhere in between, not being particularly small (1,750 square feet of living space) and not being anywhere near large. I can say we don't occupy 100 percent of our house every day, especially because the room over the garage gets hot in the summer. It's primarily a playroom for the Cutlet, most of the time merely an overflow for toys that won't fit in his room. Our guest room, which is the dog's room when we are not blessed with company, also serves as a dumping ground when it's just the fam.
That means it's probably time to declutter. We don't need a bigger house, we just need less crap. In the next few weeks, I hope we can separate the keepers from the donation and yard-sale piles. Ugh, I hate holding yard sales but our past success (an $800 take a few years ago) is almost too strong to ignore. Usually we can ditch the bulk of our load in the early hours before being able to fry eggs and boil water on the driveway.
How about you? Would you rather live in a big house or a small house? Any yard sale tips?
By the way, the photo above is of the carpet in the upstairs playroom, which is meant to resemble wood planks. It's old and a little gross, but it's just too funny to rip up.
I had my eyes checked this past Saturday, and wandered into an optical store afterward to see about getting my Rx updated in new eyeglass frames. I've worn glasses for about six years now and had only the one set of frames, having had stronger lenses put in them once. I'm at the point now where I have to have my glasses on all the time or I get whoozy and start bumping into things.
Here are some things I learned (or re-learned) during my shopping trip for new specs:
It's been long enough that I nearly forgot my log-in to post something. Work has been busy, from having to take off on Monday to take a sick Cutlet to the doctor, to having one of my employees on vacation, to having extra work foisted on us, to having one of our officemates turn in her notice ... it's been one of those weeks. Me thinks it's time to head back to the beach and then sell the car so we can't get back.
For your Friday time-wasting pleasure, here is a comparison of two TV shows that are the same, yet so different: Singing Bee vs. Don't Forget the Lyrics ...
This is just a brief sampling of some of the photos we took. For those who care, I hope they were worth waiting for. I'll probably have a few more to come later.
The Cutlet has a close encounter of the wavy kind.
