You may not know this, but OurDad has been known to teach Environmental Science at the Old CC. He's very concerned about the environment we live in. In fact he's so into it he celebrated Earth Day this year by waiting until after Earth Day to spread fertilizer with herbicide all over the lawn we play on!
To OurDad's credit he usually forgoes the herbicides and pesticides and just over loads the lawn with nitrogen based fertilizer, but with the big move he seems to be fixing things around the house, throwing out anything he thinks can fit into the local landfill and trying to make the lawn look extra good with no regard to the environment. Good luck being a stand in for Al Gore now. All so someone else can enjoy our Michigan home.
Who cares about the environment when there's a house to be sold.
OurDad's not exactly this guy, but I could see him singing this way if the mood stuck. I happen to like toilet paper so I'm hoping not.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Not sure what's up
Finally we get to use the computer. Sorry we havn't posted in a couple days. I'm not sure what's going on, but OurDad and GreatMom have both been hogging the computer. I'm not sure what they are up too. Even poetry seems to have taken a back seat this week. And just when I was starting to get into this Poetry Month thing.
Last Friday OurDad took us to a poetry contest he helped judge. The BoyChild played his Gameboy, and tried to pretend he was not paying attention. I sat right up front with OurDad. Some of them were good, and OurDad didn't even act goofy. He was all serious Judging poetry. It was strange.
I even started a poem about OurDad's pancakes. OurDad makes the best pancakes in the whole world.
Anyway The BoyChild and I are on spring break this week, and OurDad and GreatMom just decided we'd run to St. Louis for a couple days to see Grandma and Grandma and Grandpa and Grandpa.
Last Friday OurDad took us to a poetry contest he helped judge. The BoyChild played his Gameboy, and tried to pretend he was not paying attention. I sat right up front with OurDad. Some of them were good, and OurDad didn't even act goofy. He was all serious Judging poetry. It was strange.
I even started a poem about OurDad's pancakes. OurDad makes the best pancakes in the whole world.
Anyway The BoyChild and I are on spring break this week, and OurDad and GreatMom just decided we'd run to St. Louis for a couple days to see Grandma and Grandma and Grandpa and Grandpa.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Easter = Sex?
Will someone please tell OurDad Easter is not about sex-- so we can start our Easter Egg Hunt.
We got up nice and early for our Egg Hunt and OurDad got all mad. "So if I put a few hard boiled eggs on the bus you'd never be late for school again, right?"
We tried bargaining for the plastic ones with chocolates inside when OurDad asked, "What do eggs have have to do with Jesus anyway?"
We didn't know. We just wanted to start our Egg Hunt, but he wouldn't get out of bed, and we can't start with out him.
"If you can tell me what eggs have to do with Jesus, I'll get up." We didn't know, and he knew we didn't know. We'd been set up again-trapped, and if we wanted an Egg Hunt we'd have to endure another of OurDad's lectures. There was no point delaying the inevitable so we asked, "Gee dad what do eggs have to do with Jesus?"
"I'm so glad you asked," he said, and we braced for the worst. "Nothing! What is an egg?"
The GirlGhild answered, "A baby chicken."
"Right, if it's a chicken's egg," he corrected. "So an egg, a baby bird, is a fertility symbol."
I was happy to leave it at that and start our Egg Hunt, but the GirlChild had to ask, "What's fertility?" Now I was ready to go back to bed. I almost hit her, and I should have.
"Fertility, it's about making babies so Easter is about sex," he said.
"No it's not," we said in unison as my stomach began to churn. Making babies eeew gross.
Oh you don't think so eeh? So what's a bunny got to do with Jesus?" He'd done it again.
"We don't care! Can't we just find the eggs?" we begged.
It's another fertility symbol--bunnies make lots of babies that means they have lots of sex." Gross making babies and sex, eeeew. I started to break out into a sweat. I couldn't make him stop. I was getting sick even before I got to gorge on chocolates. He was ruining Easter, just so he could stay in bed.
Of course it was 6 am.
That's Our Dad...
We got up nice and early for our Egg Hunt and OurDad got all mad. "So if I put a few hard boiled eggs on the bus you'd never be late for school again, right?"
We tried bargaining for the plastic ones with chocolates inside when OurDad asked, "What do eggs have have to do with Jesus anyway?"
We didn't know. We just wanted to start our Egg Hunt, but he wouldn't get out of bed, and we can't start with out him.
"If you can tell me what eggs have to do with Jesus, I'll get up." We didn't know, and he knew we didn't know. We'd been set up again-trapped, and if we wanted an Egg Hunt we'd have to endure another of OurDad's lectures. There was no point delaying the inevitable so we asked, "Gee dad what do eggs have to do with Jesus?"
"I'm so glad you asked," he said, and we braced for the worst. "Nothing! What is an egg?"
The GirlGhild answered, "A baby chicken."
"Right, if it's a chicken's egg," he corrected. "So an egg, a baby bird, is a fertility symbol."
I was happy to leave it at that and start our Egg Hunt, but the GirlChild had to ask, "What's fertility?" Now I was ready to go back to bed. I almost hit her, and I should have.
"Fertility, it's about making babies so Easter is about sex," he said.
"No it's not," we said in unison as my stomach began to churn. Making babies eeew gross.
Oh you don't think so eeh? So what's a bunny got to do with Jesus?" He'd done it again.
"We don't care! Can't we just find the eggs?" we begged.
It's another fertility symbol--bunnies make lots of babies that means they have lots of sex." Gross making babies and sex, eeeew. I started to break out into a sweat. I couldn't make him stop. I was getting sick even before I got to gorge on chocolates. He was ruining Easter, just so he could stay in bed.
Of course it was 6 am.
That's Our Dad...
Friday, April 06, 2007
More like Jack Frost
OurDad told us about his favorite spring poem the other day. I think I'm starting to get this poetry stuff now. This is just so fitting for our current freezing Easter weather.
Nothing Gold Can Stay
No kidding-- nothing gold can stay-- not when it's frozen! I think OurDad's got the poet's first name wrong. This must be the Jack Frost anthem! Crazy!
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
-- Robert Frost
No kidding-- nothing gold can stay-- not when it's frozen! I think OurDad's got the poet's first name wrong. This must be the Jack Frost anthem! Crazy!
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Probably not the place to start.
Ok even OurDad says this one's a bit too much. I think you'd need two Ph D's to understand T.S Eliot's The Waste Land. Really OurDad's got one and he doesn't get this poem either.
If you ask me it's all wrong from the start. April is the cruelest month? I thought maybe this Eliot guy was from the southern hemisphere where the seasons are all reversed, but OurDad told us that he's from our old home town, St. Louis, but that he moved to England. What a turncoat! The snow is gone, Easter is coming, it's warm again, and most important the Cardinals are back for opening day in April. What kind of St. Louisan doesn't like April and the return of our beloved Cardinal baseball.
OurDad tried to explain something about irony, but I think the guy's off his rocker.
The poem's about a thousand lines long, but you can see where it's going right away so I just copied the first few lines. Oh and I took out all the crazy Latin and Greek at the beginning too. Crazy, just crazy.
If you ask me it's all wrong from the start. April is the cruelest month? I thought maybe this Eliot guy was from the southern hemisphere where the seasons are all reversed, but OurDad told us that he's from our old home town, St. Louis, but that he moved to England. What a turncoat! The snow is gone, Easter is coming, it's warm again, and most important the Cardinals are back for opening day in April. What kind of St. Louisan doesn't like April and the return of our beloved Cardinal baseball.
OurDad tried to explain something about irony, but I think the guy's off his rocker.
The poem's about a thousand lines long, but you can see where it's going right away so I just copied the first few lines. Oh and I took out all the crazy Latin and Greek at the beginning too. Crazy, just crazy.
The Waste Land APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding | |
| Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing | |
| Memory and desire, stirring | |
| Dull roots with spring rain. | |
| Winter kept us warm, covering | 5 |
| Earth in forgetful snow, feeding | |
| A little life with dried tubers. |
Sunday, April 01, 2007
What Kind of Sick Joke is This?!
OurDad just told us it's National Poetry Month! Even in Canada!
A whole month?!
Do you know how long a month is? Can you even remember what you were doing 4 weeks ago? I'll bet it wasn't poetry.
April is the cruelest month...
A whole month?!
Do you know how long a month is? Can you even remember what you were doing 4 weeks ago? I'll bet it wasn't poetry.
April is the cruelest month...
In an Ideal World They'd Pay Us for This
Yesterday OurDad was trying to tell us about this Philip Roth book he's reading. Usually we just remind him were ten and eight, and some times he stops, but something in yesterday's trip to lit land with OurDad caught my attention---Money.
So this book is set in Prague, Czechoslovakia during some war that was only fought during the winter. It's a totalitarian state where half the country is paid the spy on the other half. Next thing we know OurDad is off on some rant about the President and phone records and the FBI and the Attorney General and 1984 bla, bla, bla... The book is called The Prague Orgy and he thinks the President's domestic spying is obscene. I was giving him a couple minutes to get it out of his system when it dawned on me that maybe this spying thing could work here in the good old US of A.
This meant I'd have to ask OurDad about the book to learn just how this getting paid to spy on people worked, thus risking an hour long dissertation. If I could just make it sound like I was interested in Prague and this totalitarian stuff and not current events it might not be so bad.
"So dad how could people get paid to spy on each other--in the book?", I asked. It worked he was so happy that I'd actually asked a question about literature that he forgot all about Present Bush.
My ears are still a bit sore, but I think it was worth it. It boiled down to this. There were two writer friends. One was a good writer and the other "couldn't describe a shoelace." Well the state government was interested in what the good writer was doing, because people listen to good writers. So the government asked the bad writer to file reports on the good writer, but it was a disaster. The state couldn't make sense of the bad writer's reports. Worse yet the state thought he was faking it to protect his friend. The bad writer went to his friend for help, and the good writer agreed to write the reports on himself! Everyone was happy; the friends split the money and the government got excellent reports, but this too was a problem when the state wanted to promote the bad writer to spy on more important people and to train new recruits because his reports were so fantastic.
This spying bit basically ends with the good writer having to teach the bad writer how to write to keep the government from discovering the whole scam. Eventually the good writer broke off the whole thing by telling the bad writer, "How can you ever become a great writer if you are such a bad spy?"
Hey I think this Philip Roth guy is comparing writers to spies-- More like peeping Toms knowing the books he writes.
Anyway this whole spying thing sounds better than groveling for an allowance.
The GirlChild and I do hereby pledge to provide any and all information on OurDad to the satisfaction any state government willing to pay us the sum of one million dollars.
President Bush if you are reading this we'll be expecting a wire transfer soon.
A Swiss bank account and I'll never have to clean my room again.
So this book is set in Prague, Czechoslovakia during some war that was only fought during the winter. It's a totalitarian state where half the country is paid the spy on the other half. Next thing we know OurDad is off on some rant about the President and phone records and the FBI and the Attorney General and 1984 bla, bla, bla... The book is called The Prague Orgy and he thinks the President's domestic spying is obscene. I was giving him a couple minutes to get it out of his system when it dawned on me that maybe this spying thing could work here in the good old US of A.
This meant I'd have to ask OurDad about the book to learn just how this getting paid to spy on people worked, thus risking an hour long dissertation. If I could just make it sound like I was interested in Prague and this totalitarian stuff and not current events it might not be so bad.
"So dad how could people get paid to spy on each other--in the book?", I asked. It worked he was so happy that I'd actually asked a question about literature that he forgot all about Present Bush.
My ears are still a bit sore, but I think it was worth it. It boiled down to this. There were two writer friends. One was a good writer and the other "couldn't describe a shoelace." Well the state government was interested in what the good writer was doing, because people listen to good writers. So the government asked the bad writer to file reports on the good writer, but it was a disaster. The state couldn't make sense of the bad writer's reports. Worse yet the state thought he was faking it to protect his friend. The bad writer went to his friend for help, and the good writer agreed to write the reports on himself! Everyone was happy; the friends split the money and the government got excellent reports, but this too was a problem when the state wanted to promote the bad writer to spy on more important people and to train new recruits because his reports were so fantastic.
This spying bit basically ends with the good writer having to teach the bad writer how to write to keep the government from discovering the whole scam. Eventually the good writer broke off the whole thing by telling the bad writer, "How can you ever become a great writer if you are such a bad spy?"
Hey I think this Philip Roth guy is comparing writers to spies-- More like peeping Toms knowing the books he writes.
Anyway this whole spying thing sounds better than groveling for an allowance.
The GirlChild and I do hereby pledge to provide any and all information on OurDad to the satisfaction any state government willing to pay us the sum of one million dollars.
President Bush if you are reading this we'll be expecting a wire transfer soon.
A Swiss bank account and I'll never have to clean my room again.
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