Soda Wanna Know Where We Was At?

Jeff was recently intrigued by a video he saw on YouTube about a store called the...

He decided we needed to make a pilgrimage there.

Here's the star of the YouTube video, a genuinely nice guy named John who cheerfully stood still long enough for me to snap a photo of him with my kids:


This place carries a vast selection of hard to find sodas. Regard the highly impressed look on Jeff's face:


We were there for probably an hour, perusing the sundry types of bubbly drinks.

While there, we overheard two other people tell John that they had seen his YouTube video, so apparently we weren't the only computer potatoes there. (There's such assurance in that realization.)

When Jeff finally wheeled our cart over to the cash register, I purposely stepped away, not wanting to know what the resultant cha-ching would prove to be. (Jeff bought most of it with his own "fun money".)

The final haul:

Here it is, artfully displayed on our fridge's top shelf:


This vast array of beverages inspired us to hold "The Soda Olympics". Some of the more interesting contenders were: Cucumber, Double Cola, Rose, Sarsaparilla, Mabi (made from a tree root extract), Mango, Coffee, Curiosity Cola, Pomegranate/Raspberry, Rhubarb, Peach and Blueberry. (Yes, really.)

Here, Jeff carefully pours a mint flavored soda into the crystal goblet of each judge:


Tobias scrutinizes the delicate bouquet of an orange cream:


Pinkies out. (Now that's fancy!)


Delaney clears her palate with some popcorn:


Then, after a particularly nasty sample (the Moxie, perhaps) she clears her palate by rubbing her tongue with a napkin:


We all kept tabs on the competitors by rating them 1 to 10 on index cards:

The Olympics stretched out over many days so that we could truly appreciate each discriminatory swallow.

Tobias's favorite was the "Lenin"ade. It's bottle touts, "A party in every bottle!" and "A taste worth standing in line for!" and finally, "Drink comrade! Drink! It's this or the gulag!" We're not sure what makes this lemonade soviet-style, but it amused us, nonetheless. I searched the bottle to find where it was actually bottled, but that information was suspiciously absent. Maybe we should get the KGB involved.

When the results were all tallied, it was determined that the collective winners were:

bronze...Mint Julep

silver...Orangina

and gold...


...Ironbeer, the only beverage we bought which happened to come in a can instead of a bottle. Ironically, it was also the least expensive of the entire haul. (Don't worry, Ironbeer is non-alcoholic.)

The ultimate loser was the Bitter Lemon which tasted like a porta-potty smells...yuck!!!

He Often Makes Me Happy...

...and sometimes he makes me really happy!

(I'm talking about this guy here:

Pretty cute, huh?)

Six and a half years ago, we moved into our present home. Our last house had a broken jacuzzi when we bought it, so we were rather pleased to see that this house had a jacuzzi. Well, as soon as we put our suits on and went out back to celebrate our home purchase we discovered our tendency to buy houses with broken hot tubs.

Ho hum...

Anyway, to make a long story short, we always had something better to spend money on than a jacuzzi repair bill and eventually the whole thing started falling apart and looking super trashy.

It's not much fun having a dilapidated behemoth in your back yard when friends come over to play croquet. In fact, it's downright embarrassing, especially once the wood paneling starts to peel off and the "leather" cover splits open to reveal the lovely foam pieces within.

The neighbors said that our home's former owner had rented a crane to install the beast by lifting it over the house into the backyard, so it was not going to be an easy task to get it out.

You may have guessed where this is all going...

...yesterday, Jeff, Tobias and our friend, Jake, slayed the mortifying monster, armed with sledgehammers, Sawsalls and that good old fashioned stuff known as a male's love for destruction. (I think that if they could have involved guns, martial arts movies and beef jerky it would have been a completely satisfying day for them.)

Just look at those smiles:



Behold the power of a Sawsall:





Yep, it'll fit in the truck now:


Get Tobias to toss the remaining rubble into a few garbage bags...


...and suddenly, you've got an empty cement pad where a hideous broken hot tub used to be:



It's so satisfying to know that there's a little less evidence of our slothdom on display.

Ah, yes...it's more soothing than a soak in a hot tub...

Family Tree

It has always fascinated me that for any of us to be here today, every single one of our ancestors had to be conceived exactly when they were. This is my take on that fact:



Family Tree

An egg that burst forth from its berth
Had docked with patience till
Its personal predestined pop-
A mittelschmertzic spill-
Then met the very salmon that
Swam up the stream and won
The convoluted river race
Which millions had begun

When only once this act occurs
“A miracle!” some say
But much precision was required
For me to be today-
Each couples’ copulative act
Conveniently transpired
Exactly when it must have done
For me to have been sired--
The wonder then is magnified
Thus exponentially
That all the random jointures could
Have somehow fashioned me

The slurry of the elements
Concocted by the glands
Was the exact mélange required
Of all those “greats” and “grands”

Had just one headache been declared
By a reluctant dame
The chromosomes o’er centuries
Would not have paired the same

Each man possessed a sack of seeds
And tool with which to sow--
Each woman’s furrow fertile was
With room for fruit to grow--
Some may have loved each other well
Though others lusted just--

I breathe because they seized the day
Before they fell to dust





BTW, "mittelschmirtz" is the pain that a woman can feel at the moment of ovulation (and yes, such an odd word is obviously German).

Just a Touch of Housecleaning

Yesterday as I was dusting my bedroom, I was inspired. (No, not inspired to dust every other room in my house. *Ahem*) The following is the result:

Dust


Rays illuminate
The remnants and residue
Of kingdoms, which shift

In air, adrift on
Inhabited space, a dry
mist, till they settle

On this day's matter.
Redolent of musty Man
Is material

Unmeshed that will rise,
Then succumb to its scant weight
And sully a cloth.

Okay, that's out of my system. I wonder what I'll come up with if I go scrub the toilets...

What Would Lady Gaga Do?

Delaney delighted us all this year by carving a pumpkin all by herself! All I did was give her a couple tips like, "Cut the lid at an angle so it won't fall into the pumpkin's cavity once you're all done" and "Don't use the butcher knife for that cut; the samurai sword would work better".

(*Hee hee hee*)

I'm actually surprised that this is the first year she's done this. The child is infamous for her creative independence. (I learned years ago to not make suggestions whenever she's creating something because even if she likes the idea, she won't use it simply because it wasn't hatched in her own brain.)

Anyways, you can see that she did a fabulous job.


She said she left the stringy strands in his mouth because it looked "...cool, like he's drooling."

(Okay, my fear of her future boyfriends just went up a notch.)

"What," you may be wondering, "did this imaginative child dress herself as to traipse around the neighborhood to beg for candy?"

Why as a "balloon seller", of course!

Last year she was a "sign twirler". (You know, the people who entertain you at intersections while you sit, waiting for the light to turn green.)


I love her ideas because they are so highly visible: big signs...a dozen balloons...

Tobias, opted this year to be...Count Nippula.

What, no pictures?

No, it never really materialized...thank goodness.

His plan was to wear a black cape with no shirt on underneath and, of course, instead of going door to door to collect candy, he wanted to go door to door to dole out candy.

I assured him that no one would accept candy from a half dressed, cape wearing freak, even if he was standing next to an adorable balloon seller and his embarrassed parents were only a few feet away in whatever shadows were available.

Sorry if you find the whole Nippula thing offensive, but what else do you expect? The costumes of fourteen year olds are inherently squeamishness-inducing, right? I mean, what else would be the point of a teen donning a costume?

Wow! I wonder what Lady Gaga wore as a fourteen year old?? (Thus, this post's title.)

Now for a couple of post trick-or-treating tips to help you not eat all of your kids' collected candy:

1. Tape a picture of yourself in a bathing suit onto the bowl of candy.

2. Ask a taller person than yourself to place the bowl of candy somewhere out of your reach. The space between the top of your cabinets and the kitchen ceiling works nicely. This way, you don't just walk past the counter and dip into the bowl before thinking about what sabotage you're wreaking on your figure. You actually have to go get a chair, drag it over to where the candy is stashed, climb up on it and feel around in some cobwebs and dust for the bowl. Usually when you're about halfway across the kitchen floor, dragging a chair behind you, you begin to feel quite ridiculous and will shame-facedly return the chair to its place at the table. Voila! Less candy consumed!

Uh-oh! It looks like the bowl of Dove's Promises didn't make it up there with the trick-or-treat bowl:

Okay, if you insist.