I've mentioned here before that I have kids, and it's appropriate since there is very little out there that's more fun than a 5 year old and 3 year old. Provided, of course, that they're on their good behavior.
When that happens, the entertainment is endless. Last night, my wife and I were puttering around our place, tidying up, doing dishes, and other sundry fun chores, and we had the TV on for background noise. It was showing some documentary about a ballroom dance program at an urban elementary school; I don't know the details because I wasn't paying much attention to it. But my kids were entranced. The show had music, and dancing, and young children, and it had my kids' attention.
Pretty soon, they were trying to ballroom dance around the family room. My older daughter was leading, and the younger was following with enthusiam to make up for her lack of rhythm and balance. It was adorable. I made sure to get the digital camera, and send pictures to the grandparents. I already had an email back this morning, from my Mom, that she had the nicest surprise in her inbox at work today...
The funny part, to me, is that about half the housework never did get done. We both had to stop, to watch the kids dance and laugh and sing. When we put them to bed, we told them how proud we were of them, and how much we loved watching them dance. It's definitely something we want to encourage. It's a sense of uninhibited fun that neither of us has, but that can only serve the kids well in their lives.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Spare Change
As a kid, I liked collecting all sorts of funny things: interesting leaves, funny looking pebbles, every brand of bottle top I could find, whatever. These days, I've pretty much outgrown that. My wife still gets on me about never throwing things away, but for the most part, I try to focus on what's important. I do have a coin collection, though.
I'll be the first to admit that it's not a valuable collection. There's nothing there that's worth more than the face value, and face values are mostly pretty small. It's just a collection of odd coins that I've come across over the years.
I started with Bicentennial quarters. You remember those. They're the ones with the drummer on the back, and "1776-1976" stamped where the date should be on the front.
I also have some half-dollars. Two are actually special; they're from the mid 60s, and from the look of the edge, they may actually be silver half-dollars. The third is a Bicentennial coin, with Independence Hall on the back.
The Post Office stamp machines give dollar coins in the change, and from those I have some Susan Bs from each year they were issued for circulation: 1979, 1980, an 1999.
My favorite coins are the foreign coins. I have a Honduran 20 centavo that someone gave me in change once, thinking it was a dime, and a Spanish 10 peseta that I got the same way. I also have a Russian 5 ruble coin, a Polish 1 zloty coin, and a 20 eurocent coin.
I think the only ones of any value, though, are the pennies. I have eight or ten wheat pennies, from the 20s, 30s, and 40s, as well as a 1904 Indian head penny. I even have a Canadian Centennial penny.
And that's about it. I'll admit, it's a pretty childish collection. But then, I take a certain childish pleasure in keeping what are, here in the Midwest, some pretty unusual coins. Besides, they look cool.
I'll be the first to admit that it's not a valuable collection. There's nothing there that's worth more than the face value, and face values are mostly pretty small. It's just a collection of odd coins that I've come across over the years.
I started with Bicentennial quarters. You remember those. They're the ones with the drummer on the back, and "1776-1976" stamped where the date should be on the front.
I also have some half-dollars. Two are actually special; they're from the mid 60s, and from the look of the edge, they may actually be silver half-dollars. The third is a Bicentennial coin, with Independence Hall on the back.
The Post Office stamp machines give dollar coins in the change, and from those I have some Susan Bs from each year they were issued for circulation: 1979, 1980, an 1999.
My favorite coins are the foreign coins. I have a Honduran 20 centavo that someone gave me in change once, thinking it was a dime, and a Spanish 10 peseta that I got the same way. I also have a Russian 5 ruble coin, a Polish 1 zloty coin, and a 20 eurocent coin.
I think the only ones of any value, though, are the pennies. I have eight or ten wheat pennies, from the 20s, 30s, and 40s, as well as a 1904 Indian head penny. I even have a Canadian Centennial penny.
And that's about it. I'll admit, it's a pretty childish collection. But then, I take a certain childish pleasure in keeping what are, here in the Midwest, some pretty unusual coins. Besides, they look cool.
Monday, January 12, 2009
I Started Something
Back in college, I used to write. Mostly bad poetry, but also some very good short stories. About 10 years ago, I even started a novel. I guess everyone says that, sometime: "I'll write a novel one day," or, "I'll make a movie." It's that Andy Warhol 15 mintues dream that we all have.
So anyway, mine was to write a novel. I started it, and like most people who start novels, I never finished it. I never really got beyond writing a few scenes, actually.
But I never throw anything away, and more to the point, I never delete a file, so I found the disks the other day. They were stacked up on top of my desk hutch, and covered with too much dust. I brushed them off, and warmed up my old laptop which I haven't used in a while because it's too slow but had to use for this because my desktop hasn't got a floppy drive.
On the second disk, I found the dozen or so short stories that I wrote in college. I started reading them, editing them, and generally enjoying them. I felt ten years younger.
I don't think I'll do anything with them, but it was fun to relive an old hobby for a while. Who knows, maybe I will finish it one day, now that I've found it....
So anyway, mine was to write a novel. I started it, and like most people who start novels, I never finished it. I never really got beyond writing a few scenes, actually.
But I never throw anything away, and more to the point, I never delete a file, so I found the disks the other day. They were stacked up on top of my desk hutch, and covered with too much dust. I brushed them off, and warmed up my old laptop which I haven't used in a while because it's too slow but had to use for this because my desktop hasn't got a floppy drive.
On the second disk, I found the dozen or so short stories that I wrote in college. I started reading them, editing them, and generally enjoying them. I felt ten years younger.
I don't think I'll do anything with them, but it was fun to relive an old hobby for a while. Who knows, maybe I will finish it one day, now that I've found it....
Sunday, January 4, 2009
I Found the Time,,,
...to curl up with a good book. I don't often get a chance for that, but it's something I love to do. It was one I hadn't read before, and it definitely wasn't happy, but I also couldn't put it down. Since those are things I look for in a book (especially the first and last), I was in reading heaven.
The book was Nevil Shute's On the Beach, about the world post-atomic apocalypse. It was written in 1957, and parts of it are definitely dated, but the story itself has held up well.
It set in Melbourne, Australia, at the beginning of 1963, just about a year and half after the nuclear holocaust has wiped out the northern hemisphere. The war wasn't planned, grew out of a local conflict in the Middle East, and some of the bombing was done by accident, because no one knew exactly what was going on. In many ways, it would fit right into the modern world. We learn these details later in the book, as the characters talk about them amongst themselves, trying to make sense of what has happened, and what will happen.
What will happen is this: the wind pattern is following a normal shift, and carrying the radioactive dust and fallout into the southern hemisphere. There is no way to stop it, and no way to survive it. Everyone in the book will die, of radiation sickness, by the end of August. It's Australia, so that makes it the last winter, and the last springtime, and then goodbye. Radiation sickenss is a nasty way to go, so the Australian government made cyanide suicide pills available through pharmacies. None of this is hidden in the book; Shute doesn't play us that way. Rather, he writes about people's reactions, desires, and eccentricities in the face of absolute doom.
And in that sense, the book grips you. You read of the American submarine captain, who has convinced himself that come September, he'll go back home to his wife and kids in Mystic, Connecticut, and the Aussie girl who falls for him, and the Mary, the young wife who won't face what's happening, and her pragmatic husband, Peter, the naval officer who wants to be productive more than anything else, and John Osborne, the scientist who buys a racing Ferrari and gets out on the motor circuit... These people are like us. They have desires and hopes and dreasms, about home or the garden, or winning the Grand Prix, and suddenly they have to face the loss of those dreams, and everything else.
So what do poeple do? I won't tell everything. I will tell you that I couldn't put the book down, and I actually cried at the end. And that's a good read, to me.
The book was Nevil Shute's On the Beach, about the world post-atomic apocalypse. It was written in 1957, and parts of it are definitely dated, but the story itself has held up well.
It set in Melbourne, Australia, at the beginning of 1963, just about a year and half after the nuclear holocaust has wiped out the northern hemisphere. The war wasn't planned, grew out of a local conflict in the Middle East, and some of the bombing was done by accident, because no one knew exactly what was going on. In many ways, it would fit right into the modern world. We learn these details later in the book, as the characters talk about them amongst themselves, trying to make sense of what has happened, and what will happen.
What will happen is this: the wind pattern is following a normal shift, and carrying the radioactive dust and fallout into the southern hemisphere. There is no way to stop it, and no way to survive it. Everyone in the book will die, of radiation sickness, by the end of August. It's Australia, so that makes it the last winter, and the last springtime, and then goodbye. Radiation sickenss is a nasty way to go, so the Australian government made cyanide suicide pills available through pharmacies. None of this is hidden in the book; Shute doesn't play us that way. Rather, he writes about people's reactions, desires, and eccentricities in the face of absolute doom.
And in that sense, the book grips you. You read of the American submarine captain, who has convinced himself that come September, he'll go back home to his wife and kids in Mystic, Connecticut, and the Aussie girl who falls for him, and the Mary, the young wife who won't face what's happening, and her pragmatic husband, Peter, the naval officer who wants to be productive more than anything else, and John Osborne, the scientist who buys a racing Ferrari and gets out on the motor circuit... These people are like us. They have desires and hopes and dreasms, about home or the garden, or winning the Grand Prix, and suddenly they have to face the loss of those dreams, and everything else.
So what do poeple do? I won't tell everything. I will tell you that I couldn't put the book down, and I actually cried at the end. And that's a good read, to me.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Zoos
Last week, I took my older daughter (she's almost 5) to the zoo. That was an experience.
She's old enough now to start learning a bit about the animals, instead of just ooh-ing and ahh-ing at them, so as we walked through the zoo, bundled up in our coats, I told her some interesting facts about the animals we saw, and she told me what she knew about them.
"Daddy, a zebra can run very, very fast."
"An elephant nose is a trunk, so an elephant eats with his nose."
"If a snake bites you, you'll get blood, and it will hurt."
And of course, she had questions:
"Daddy, what is that baby camel doing?"
"It's nursing. Its mother is giving it milk."
"You mean like Mommy gave me milk, and gave my little sister milk?"
I was pretty impressed that she realized that it was the same thing, and I told her so. She's a smart cookie, that kid. As we started down the path, we heard a rooster crowing, but couldn't find it. Eventually we realized that it was up in a tree. Neither of us had ever seen a chicken in a tree before, so we sat on a bench and watched it for a while, until it flew down to get something to eat. Neither of us had ever seen a chicken fly before, either, but we have a pet bird at home, so my daughter knew all about flying birds. She told me how the chicken used its feathers to fly down. I'm just glad she didn't ask why it was in the tree in the first place.
All in all, it was a pretty great day.
She's old enough now to start learning a bit about the animals, instead of just ooh-ing and ahh-ing at them, so as we walked through the zoo, bundled up in our coats, I told her some interesting facts about the animals we saw, and she told me what she knew about them.
"Daddy, a zebra can run very, very fast."
"An elephant nose is a trunk, so an elephant eats with his nose."
"If a snake bites you, you'll get blood, and it will hurt."
And of course, she had questions:
"Daddy, what is that baby camel doing?"
"It's nursing. Its mother is giving it milk."
"You mean like Mommy gave me milk, and gave my little sister milk?"
I was pretty impressed that she realized that it was the same thing, and I told her so. She's a smart cookie, that kid. As we started down the path, we heard a rooster crowing, but couldn't find it. Eventually we realized that it was up in a tree. Neither of us had ever seen a chicken in a tree before, so we sat on a bench and watched it for a while, until it flew down to get something to eat. Neither of us had ever seen a chicken fly before, either, but we have a pet bird at home, so my daughter knew all about flying birds. She told me how the chicken used its feathers to fly down. I'm just glad she didn't ask why it was in the tree in the first place.
All in all, it was a pretty great day.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Birthdays at the Office
Last week, we had the quarterly birthday celebration at work, and went out for lunch. I didn't know this, but our supervisor called ahead to the restaurant and arranged a cake, with candles and a singing waiter, to be delivered to our table. Apparently, that's just what they do, 4 times a year, to acknowledge the birthdays. It's good for office morale, especially for the relatively new guy like me, who's birthday is coming up in a few months.
It was a fun lunch, and the best part was, it came out of petty cash. We went to a Mongolian-style barbecue, took over 3 tables, and absolutely didn't talk shop. We told all the dirty jokes that we can't tell at the office, we talked about our vacation plans, we talked about our kids, and we came up with the weirdest possible combinations of ingredients to take to the grill.
That last was pretty good, actually. I don't know if you're familiar with Mongolian barbecue, but the way it works is this:
There are tables full of ingredients. One table for meat, poultry, and fish ingredients, one table for vegetable ingredients, and one table for spices and sauces. You pick up a bowl, fill it up with whatever you want, add the spices and sauces you want, and take it to the grill.
The grill is about 7 feet across, with 5 or 6 grillers, who take people's bowls on a first-come, first-served basis. They dump everything on the grill, and use long wooden sticks to stir and mix it. When it's done cooking, it goes back in the bowl and you go eat. There are dishes of tortillas at the tables.
Definately a good meal, and definitely party food. And if you don't like it, there's no one to blame but yourself.
One last note: I have no idea how much is genuinely Mongolian, or even if Mongolians like to barbecue. But it was a good birthday celebration.
It was a fun lunch, and the best part was, it came out of petty cash. We went to a Mongolian-style barbecue, took over 3 tables, and absolutely didn't talk shop. We told all the dirty jokes that we can't tell at the office, we talked about our vacation plans, we talked about our kids, and we came up with the weirdest possible combinations of ingredients to take to the grill.
That last was pretty good, actually. I don't know if you're familiar with Mongolian barbecue, but the way it works is this:
There are tables full of ingredients. One table for meat, poultry, and fish ingredients, one table for vegetable ingredients, and one table for spices and sauces. You pick up a bowl, fill it up with whatever you want, add the spices and sauces you want, and take it to the grill.
The grill is about 7 feet across, with 5 or 6 grillers, who take people's bowls on a first-come, first-served basis. They dump everything on the grill, and use long wooden sticks to stir and mix it. When it's done cooking, it goes back in the bowl and you go eat. There are dishes of tortillas at the tables.
Definately a good meal, and definitely party food. And if you don't like it, there's no one to blame but yourself.
One last note: I have no idea how much is genuinely Mongolian, or even if Mongolians like to barbecue. But it was a good birthday celebration.
Monday, October 6, 2008
What do You do for Fun?
So. I've been spending some time with this blog, just talking about what's fun, what do I do for fun, why I find it fun, what sort of things I'd change to make them more fun, and quite a bit about my kids, who are still little, and therefor a lot of fun to spend time with.
But enough about me for a day. What do you all do for fun? Comments are welcome, and I'd love to get a bit of a discussion going about what's fun and what's not, but mainly, I'd like to get some ideas. Sometimes, it seems that trying to enjoy life is like running your head into the brick wall of the DMV beauracracy; if you do it long enough, and with enough persistence, you'll eventually make some progress.
So what makes it so hard to enjoy life? Is it the ratrace of work? The never ending mountain of laundry in the back room? Or the fact that no matter how much overtime you put in, there're always more bills to pay and not enough money to pay them? How do you get around all of that? How do you escape?
I spend a lot of time with my kids, or with my friends. I try to make time with my wife as good as possible. I try to never lose sight of what's important, and to never forget about what's not important. It's not secret, that, but it does make life a little better.
So what do you do?
But enough about me for a day. What do you all do for fun? Comments are welcome, and I'd love to get a bit of a discussion going about what's fun and what's not, but mainly, I'd like to get some ideas. Sometimes, it seems that trying to enjoy life is like running your head into the brick wall of the DMV beauracracy; if you do it long enough, and with enough persistence, you'll eventually make some progress.
So what makes it so hard to enjoy life? Is it the ratrace of work? The never ending mountain of laundry in the back room? Or the fact that no matter how much overtime you put in, there're always more bills to pay and not enough money to pay them? How do you get around all of that? How do you escape?
I spend a lot of time with my kids, or with my friends. I try to make time with my wife as good as possible. I try to never lose sight of what's important, and to never forget about what's not important. It's not secret, that, but it does make life a little better.
So what do you do?
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