Spare Us, Lord.

Moving is one thing. Packing up all your earthly possessions, schlepping up and down the stairs carrying furniture like a pack mule. But doing it as a gimp is the pits.

 Your dad and I had to ice our injuries after just an hour of moving stuff downstairs. But he wouldn't let me photograph him because he said, "My chest hasn't seen the light of day in years," which was not an exaggeration.

Oh, and here's the forecast. Thanks, future.

Packing / Moving On.

Oh, children. It is with gladness that I announce that we are packing this home you have come to know through the power of blogging and preparing to move north, to a grand city called Chicago, after the ancient and mighty NFL team, the Chicago Bears.

You see, back in the 2012s, professional football was still legal, despite the fact that it regularly gave its players dangerous concussions which led ("inconclusively," according to primitive 2012 science) to brain damage, dementia, and space dementia*.

But anyway, we're leaving this house and moving to an apartment. In Chicago. Where, as of this extremely out-dated date in the past (to your future minds), the National Football League (which is in full swing, though not playing games during this particular season) has a well-loved team.

Oh, and these pictures are what our house looks like when it's partially packed-up.

*Actually, not space dementia. That was something invented in the best movie of all time, Armageddon.

What Unaccountably Lanky Legs You Have!

Hopefully, you children got your father's legs and general athletic capability and my physical sturdiness and love for bizarre and lonesome activities such as long-distance running. Because with those four characteristics, you would almost certainly get at least a partial scholarship to at least an in-state school, maybe for running or maybe for your minds.

Am I making any sense right now?

What I meant to say was, have you ever stepped back for a minute, ignored the fact that you've known your father your entire lives and so think he's normal looking, and noticed how absurdly lanky his legs are?

I mean, he can bridge entire living-room furniture sets.

 He can comfortably step over small cars.

 He cannot fit under standard-sized tables in pubs.

I just want to make sure you appreciate the sheer length of these things. They come up to my shoulders. Somebody get me a stepladder, okay?

You Could Eat Cereal out of It.

Children, when I clean a toilet, I don't mess around. I strip down to my blue socks, boy shorts, and tank top and get scrubbin. And I don't stop until the bowl is so clean you could eat cereal out of it.

If you were a dog, that is. And you considered toilet water to be a kind of cereal, which I admit is pretty rare. Children, let me back up here and make something perfectly clear: no matter what the circumstances, do not eat cereal out of a toilet bowl. Period. Exclamation point.

In fact, if you have any question in your mind about whether something is an appropriate vessel out of which to eat, I'm going to automatically say it's not. Okay? Just to save you the trouble of coming to ask me while I'm writing a really important poem or catching up on the sleep I lost during your first year of life.

Majestic Creatures and a Recycling Problem.

Children, if I've never mentioned to you how majestic I find the gray wolf, it's probably because I long ago mailed off the notecards featuring the gray wolf that the Sierra Club sent to me in a bid to get my attention and win my dollars.
















It didn't work.

You know why? Because all my attention was focused on the fact that we had somehow accumulated FIVE lids from laundry detergent bottles. Five. Not the bottles themselves, just the lids. Why were these colorful plastic pests littering our laundry area, you ask? Because Carbondale doesn't accept their particular flavor of plastic at the recycling facility we use.
 

So I've been hanging onto them like a chump, thinking one day either the system will change or I'll do the research necessary to recycle them. But no. I go about my lazy life and meanwhile one of nature's most majestic creatures is dwindling into near-extinction.

I feel like such a wolf-hating fraud.

What Capital Eyes You Have.

Your dad is pretty good at Scrabble--you can see it in his eyes.

Still, though, I managed to beat him this week. Don't believe me? Check out the score card! (Hint: your dad's column is labeled "husber;" mine is labeled "wiffey."

The lesson here, of course, is that it's much easier to win at Scrabble when you take the tiles out of your eyes. And when you're not playing against a BRILLIANT GENIUS.

The Case of the Ugly Dunklings.

One thing that dunklings have going for them is that they taste delicious. One thing they do not have going for them is their looks. At best, they look like slimy intestinal sacs filled with unidentifiable mushiness. Like the torsos of anemic and seriously flabby fish. Like something extracted from an ogre's nostrils.

But an ugly dish can be redeemed by being paired with a breath-takingly beautiful dish such as Mom's Uncompromisingly Delicious Bean Dip, the nickname you children will undoubtedly have given this particular dish as soon as you're able to speak.

So that's it. That's the whole lesson. Dress things up by pairing them with something nicer. It's not a metaphor about insisting on only being photographed with friends who are uglier than you so you can look prettier by comparison. Although now that you mention it, that's never really a bad idea, either.

The Curious Case of the Fancy Beer.

Your father is not usually a fancy man. But every now and then, he'll surprise me with some unexpectedly fancy behavior. This weekend, for example, he was drinking a perfectly un-fancy Schlafly pilsner. Normal, right?

But then he poured it into an absurdly fancy glass and started sipping it like a lady-man.

And I was like, huh?

 

P.S. What's that bowl of bean dippy-looking stuff in the background? What's boiling on the stove? Check back tomorrow for all the juicy details about the dinner that began in the pantry and ended in tradgedy... the Case of the Ugly Dunklings*.

*Yes, I know standard English calls this food "dumplings." But sometimes I like to switch "dump" and "dunk." It's pretty fun, kids. You should try it.

Safety First.

After 18 years of what I'll call a "pretty serious fear of bicycles" that resulted from a traumatic fall in my childhood, I have finally gotten "back in the saddle," as horse enthusiasts say.

As you can expect, this time around, I'm not taking any chances with my physical safety--after all, this is the body that I have to grow you guys in! You can't grow a baby if your uterus is all jankety from falling off your bike and not having a helmet... hang on. Does this mean I need to get a helmet for my uterus? I'll look into it, children. If you come out a little "different," we'll know why.

Here's a photo your father took of me during what I'm calling our "Safety-Glamor Photo Shoot." It's a new genre of glamor photos I'd like to make popular, so that by the time you all are riding bikes safety is glamorous and desirable in the way that smoking and curvy figures used to be. FINGERS CROSSED!