Author: paul@digitaldendrite.com

According to Ellen, “it means we just go away and stop working because we’re too old to carry on with our jobs.”

How sweet.

OK, to begin, yes, I know I have a blog. Yes, I know that there’s no point in HAVING said blog if I don’t write in it. And yes, I have something new for all the hoardes that read this…both of you.

Two conversations last night at Katie’s big birthday dinner at the restaurant of her choice…IHOP (and BTW, I *SO* want to type that as “iHop”. Apple has spoiled any words for me that start with “i”.)

First, Ellen and Kim:

E: Oooh…can I have some of those harsh browns?
K: Um…you mean “hash browns”?
E: Oh, yeah. That.

MMmmmm…Harsh browns! Complete with shards of glass!

Second one, Katie and Kim:

Katie: Oooh…That’s a neat picture! Look, something’s moving in it!
Kim: That’s a doorway.
Katie: Ohhh.

Happy Birthday, Bug. 🙂

Today, we’re doing something amazingly local and seriously goofy–the New Jersey Festival of Ballooning. Having never been to anything like this before, we decided to go on a friday evening with the hope that the kids will make it OK into the 6:30 balloon inflation and then the 6:45 balloon ascention. However, there are a number of other “events” that should prove interesting.

First of all, these festivals are never complete unless they have “headline entertainment.” In this case, that means a concert at the end of each day, but you KNOW they’re never going to get the Rolling Stones or U2 at one of these things–not, at least, until those bands have been broken up for years and some pathetic lone member is trying to relive glory days by performing the band’s music solo with a backup band. The towering lineup of talent is as follows:

Friday night, 8 PM, Herman’s Hermits, featuring Peter Noone. Yes, that’s right, singing their one pointless hit about Mrs. Brown’s daughter, Ole’ Peter will be dragged out of mothballs to croon like the washed up flowerchild he is. The kids will see some of that, and, I’m sure, wonder what’s wrong with Mommy and Daddy when they are, invariably, unwillingly, singing along anway.

Saturday night, 8 PM, Dennis DeYoung, former lead singer of Styx, will run through the songs that I used to like…in 1975…without the rest of his former band, all of whom are probably doing the same exact thing at OTHER ballooning festivals. At least this will sound like Styx, although I’m guessing at his age, it won’t sound like anything to him.

Sunday afternoon, 3 PM. The grand finale. The Doobie Brothers! Now, I remember the Doobies being old when *I* was a kid. They must be ancient now, but at least they have some pretty good songs, if they still remember them.

In addition to the huge concert events, there are a number of smaller events going on around the same area as part of the festival. Who could say no to “The Music of Dr. Planet” or “Patriot Media Kachunga and the Alligator Show” (I have NO idea what that last one means). There’s a visit from “Jay Jay the Jet Plane” and “Belmont – A Special Kind of Magic! ” Oooh…a Special kind!

There are also “smaller” concerts, e.g., people without quite the star power of the above mentioned performers, including the “Suzanne Carrington Band” and “Brian Fitzpatrick/Jimmy Vigilante.” I just LOVE the idea of a singing vigilante. Reminds me of Alex from A Clockwork Orange. Maybe we’ll get lucky and Jimmy Vigilante will sing Beethoven’s 9th while kicking Suzanne Carrington for our enjoyment.

If this sounds like your kind of fun, by all means stop by! On a nice hot day, there’s no better place to be than the tarmac of a local airport.

See you there!

There’s a new site that I quite liked the idea of, www.lastminute-auction.com where, basically, this search bot crawls over ebay looking for things that have less than an hour to go and are priced at less than a buck. That’s a neat idea for buyers–the sellers might not be so thrilled, however, as that means they have to either a, start the price higher, b, set a reserve, or c, do what this POS scam artist is doing which is sell a crappy little MP3 player for $.98 and hope they get a bid with no reserve. Why, you might ask, would they want to sell their amazing electronic hunk of junk for less than a dollar? Well, that’s because apparently, the shipping/handling and insurance costs a total of $80.

My guess is that this is a really kick ass piece of hardware that is, unfortunately, being shipped from Mars. Hey, they have to meet expenses, right? A Martian has the right to earn a little scratch too, no?

Right on schedule. Two weeks ago, I relisten to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Excellent book. Then I jump into a relisten of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Also really good. Now I’m all ready for the new book, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Ah, yes, I’ll download it when it comes out, have something to listen to for weeks. SO looking forward to it…and then….

Audible. Ugh. They don’t carry ANY of the Harry Potter books!

Weeping. Gnashing. Uttering words that my children shouldn’t hear.

The horror. The horror.

Today is July 4th and the obvious thing to do would be take the kids to see fireworks, right? Well…perhaps if Katie was a bit older, then fireworks starting at 9:30 would be OK, but still at 4 it’s just too late for her. She might not even like them because of the noise. So, instead we did “TV Dinners” as the kids call watching a movie while eating dinner. Some picnic fare (fried chicken) and a really good movie and we were all set.

We watched a movie a friend of mine has been recommending for a long time, and one I think the kids really liked, called “Kiki’s Delivery Service”. It really was beautiful. It’s a Japanese import from the master of Anime, Hayao Miyazaki, about a young witch who starts a delivery service when she needs to essentially do her internship to be a witch. It’s really gorgeous and lush and very very sweet. We all loved it.

Of course, about 2/3 the way through it, Ellen got up and started for her Game Boy…I put a stop to that and she settled in to watch, and enjoy the rest. No idea what that was all about, but I think she just got distracted. Anyway, a definate recommendation for kids 5 or 6 and older. Katie was spellbound for most of it.

Katie came to me this afternoon and asked “How do you spell “peas”?”

I asked, “well, how do you think you spell it?”

She said, “um… P O O 8”.

Yes, that’s an EIGHT. How do you explain that there are no numbers in the spelling of a word? What could I do, I nodded and smiled…just nodded and smiled.

This past Memorial Day weekend, we had our garage sale. It was a mammoth 3-day event reminscent of a tent sale, but did fairly well. We got rid of a gool deal of useless crap and put it in the hands of others for whom it will not (yet) be considered useless crap. However, one meets some strange characters at these sales. There are a few major classes we’ve found, especially living in the area we’re in.

First, there are the pros. They sweep in based off of the ad in the paper and come to ask for specific things. Tools? Watches? Antiques? Photo equipment? Extremely valuable objects you want to sell to someone for 1/100th their price? I guess they get enough hits to make the thousands of “um…no?” responses they get worthwhile.

Second, there are the families out for a drive. Volvos. Saabs. In one case a Hummer H2. On a drive, usually from place A to place B just happening across a sale. They don’t seek it out, but will stop to buy a wetsuit. Or a mattress and boxspring. Or an armoire. Just ’cause.

Third, there are the serious “bargain hunters.” These are the people that will tell you that a Quarter is just “crazy!” and much too much to ask for a slightly-used Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet, and would I take a Dime. They will pick over 5000 pieces of clothing and pull out 6 random items 15 minutes after the sale has begun on day one and ask if they could have it for half price. They are the people I have the least patience for, and the ones that went away mostly frustrated. Buh-bye.

Finally, we have the serious oddballs. We got two or three of those. People you can spot from across the county as “um…I think they’re coming this way. Better hide.” Here was one story:

There was this one woman yesterday, built like a fireplug, who came bounding up looking like something out of “Awakenings”, asking what we had that’s Disney, because “I collect Disney”. The fact that every square inch of her body was festooned with disney memorabilia probably would have hinted to us that fact had she not mentioned it, but of course, she did. Several times. And yet, when we offered things like Finding Nemo happy meal stuff, she said, “no, only classic disney,” which she also said to Tigger slippers and some other apparently-not-classic-enough-disney. Eventually, armed with 3 random stuffed animals, only one of which was disney as far as I could tell, Tinkerbell wandered off to spread Disney goodness and light for anyone else who happened to have cheap crap that resembled a mouse or a duck on their lawns.

Oh, yes, and I’m sore as hell all over from the seemingly endless stairs between the attic and the basement. But at least we delivered the bomb.

So I’m at Ellen’s T-Ball game, as previously commented upon a sometimes amusing, usually painful experience. But this time, I brought my laptop. And my treo. And I’m posting this from the laptop, via the treo (connected with bluetooth), connected celularly to the ‘net.

It’s not fast (about 40kbps). It’s not sexy. But it’s really really cool.

**Addendum**

OK, so Ellen hit the ball, ran to first…and then to second (heedless of the person ON second), and to third, with the person on second then trailing her but past the person on third, and then all the way home. Leaving 2 people still standing on the bases and some confused, but amused coaches in her wake.

Tonight, Kim and I decided we’d settle down early to watch the Lemony Snicket movie on DVD. About 8:45 we finished dinner, kids were long in bed, and we flipped the movie. Then the fun began.

9:15, Ellen comes down. “I have a headache.” Turns out she really did feel awful, and Kim went up and laid with her for about 30 minutes. She reported the following story later this evening:

“I was lying down with Ellen and stroking her forhead and I started singing to her “On Top Of Spaghetti”, like I used to when she was a baby. About half-way through, she starts BAWLING and I said, “Honey, what’s the matter?” She says, “The poor meatball…it’s had such a hard life…”

10:15: Katie comes downstairs, crying. Kim goes up to take care of her, and then back 10 minutes later.

10:45: Katie comes down again, telling Kim that her “Twinkie” hurt.

“Your Twinkie? what’s your twinkie?” Kim asks.
“You know, this finger”, Katie responded, pointing to her middle finger.

The movie never got finished. By 11:00 we just gave up. The twinkie was just too much for us.