Regular Life

Tatu, former Brazilian football player turned American soccer player and coach, owns this large home seemingly offered up by the leprechaun as the gold at the end of the rainbow. Our modest neighborhood is on the other side of the distant privacy fence; a close look reveals our roof two down on the right from the two-story job.

The weather didn’t start out quite that placid.

After Friday night (that post comes later), I was on a social high, and I looked forward to having new friends over after catching up with the old. Sir and Lady J were scheduled to escort O to our house for dinner Saturday evening.

Despite the day’s dizzying array of dazzling dinosaurs (one more pic and a video follow this narrative), Shannon said on the way home from the Heard’s Dinos Alive! that she might not feel up to having folks over for dinner. I told her I didn’t want her to push herself, and then applied what I felt was the perfect amount of peer pressure. “I was looking forward to it.”

Of course, I knew exactly why I was applying the full-court press. As we headed home, I executed my evil plan.

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(Note: To continue reading “Apartment Life Returns,” click for Part Five)

Saturday was a full day for our family. Full of the expected and the unexpected.

I got up with Ben, per usual on a weekend morning, and as we played for the next couple of hours, I was going stir crazy. I needed to do something that didn’t involve a plastic toy or a Pixar character. I contemplated loading the kid up in the minivan and driving to the Arbuckle Mountains, a 2.5-hour jaunt to southern Oklahoma. I would leave a note for the missus, of course. No doubt she would enjoy the solace and Ben and I would have a fun road trip.

I wanted us to do something as a family, so I held out until Shannon awoke. She was feeling sick, and running a low-grade fever, but she agreed going somewhere was a good idea. We knew that the Heard Museum was featuring life-size animatronic dinosaurs, the same ones we saw at the Fort Worth Zoo several months ago, and that January and the dinosaurs would say goodbye on the same day. (sounds like an all-girl rock band from “The Flintstones.”)

“Is it free?” Shannon asked.

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Sounds like we’re headed to a life-size dinosaur replica exhibit today. That sentence doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. We had a surprise visit from a friend we haven’t seen in about five years (give or take).

No time to cover that right now, so here’s Dave’s version of the Ben photo I posted on Friday.

Nice work, Dave. Thanks for sending it my way.

(Note: Readers of “Apartment Life Returns” may now read the fourth installment)

This image is the result of toying with a photo that I knew had potential when I shot it, but presented many challenges before I arrived at the above. Instead of deleting it when I saw that it wasn’t exactly what I intended, I kept it. Later in this post, I show the various versions and explain how I came to this.

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(”Apartment Life Returns,” new with more intrigue, continues for all who click here)

Binaural Tendencies

Almost a year ago, I mentioned binaural recordings in a post called “You Really Orta Hear This.” This time, feast your ears on a little slice of our lives. If you wear headphones or earbuds for this, you might swear we’re in the room with you (or even behind you, in Cassie’s case).

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(The second installment of “Apartment Life” is available here)

The mad motorcyclist continues, this time by daylight. He didn’t manage to wake Ben from his nap, but it wasn’t from lack of trying. Up and down the street he raced, a large man on a small bike, seemingly plucked from the circus.

During the ride of the asshat, Sir J came over to pick up a disassembled changing table we no longer use. “I would have taken that guy out if I’d turned onto your street two seconds earlier,” he said.

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(Note: There’s a new fiction afoot, a sequel of sorts to my well-received “Apartment Life.” More on that in a moment.)

You ever love something and hate it at the same time? That’s how I feel about this alphabet puzzle.

It’s great because Ben can learn to match shapes, name the letters, and do some freestyle design. It acts as a sort of tumbling pad, too, which is very handy when I want to break out in a handspring or a throwback demonstration of the centipede (my testicles still haven’t forgiven me for the one breakdancing move I was willing to attempt).

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Not long ago, an online friend mentioned that if he ever wanted to move to the United States, the scarcity of a certain food item would keep him from going through with it.

A lover of snack foods, I was determined to find out more. I found a website and discovered that Nestle recently made the product available in the U.S.A. Calls to regional grocers that reportedly carried it produced nothing more than comments like, “Never heard of it,” and “I’ll check our warehouse, but I don’t believe we have that one.”

I stopped by a few 7-Eleven convenience stores, rumored to be a source. I got similar answers from the clerks, but I happened to catch a manager at each. All apologized that they didn’t have it, and said to keep checking.

Wednesday night after work, I stopped at a local supermarket that carries many items not found at a typical chain. It’s located only 10 minutes from our house. On a whim, I headed straight for the candy aisle.

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I haven’t posted much lately because I’ve been getting more sleep. I wonder what percentage of bloggers could say the same?

A few highlights:

It Was a Real Bash

My wife’s family invades her uncle’s house for Christmas every year. Cars end up parked on both sides of the street, leaving little wiggle room for those trying to get somewhere. As we pulled up, I thought, I can’t believe that in the nearly 15 years I’ve been coming here, I’ve never heard of anybody’s car getting hit.

Don’t ever allow yourself to tempt fate like that.

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Ben enjoys yogurt.

We’re at my in-laws’ house, because they have a gas-powered source of heat.

Friday, all forecasts predicted icy doom and gloom for the Dallas metro area. Saturday, that started coming true for places in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Texas. There were downed power lines, tree limbs, and rooftops. Finally, at 6:15 that evening, we decided we didn’t want to risk getting marooned at our house with no heat.

In a slow-motion frenzy, we packed what we needed for two or three days and headed out.

Now, Sunday night, we’ve been watching the weather all day, even ventured out into it during Ben’s nap, and this area is just starting to get icy. As of 11:30, there have been no reports of power outages near our house, nor any here.

We’re not completely out of the woods yet, but for now I’m going to drop this subject and leave it up to Moksha Gren’s post. He and his also relocated to ride out the storm, but already had problems on Friday.