Monster Mash Note

Thanks to the NY Times Crossword Puzzle & Rex for this one.

Post Haste Posting

I've had some great ideas for posts in the past few days and every time i sit down to write them i get sidetracked or tangented for one reason or another. Anyway, in the interest of getting SOMEthing up here, i'm just going to give a shoutout to say "yo!" and let ye know the happs.

This month i have been working like crazy with my regular job at the group home, plus teaching/tutoring lots of hours of American, some German, and even less Spanish language sessions. It has been a lot of fun, but also tiring and perhaps the most amount of continuous hours I've worked in my life, or at least for a few years. Perhaps i did this amount of work and crazy things in college...but at the time i wasn't getting paid for a lot of it :o\

I'm kicking around various thoughts about the future and different projects i'd like to tackle, both abstract and concrete. I am also ready for a vacation and a break. Thankfully we're headed to NC next week to see the Jameses and some of my kin!

Big shoutouts to you fabulous family and friends who have cared about us, understood us (or tried to...), and generally helped us in these past weeks and months and years. Thank you. :o)

motohead

Here i am with a sequestered motorcycle helmet, and one of my students, whose selected facial features have been censored to protect his identity. ...actually he looks frighteningly like one T. Choate, brother of mine. Note:

-general appearance
-flat brimmed new cap w/sticker still attached
-tilted slightly to the side
-"I'm bad" attitude
-nonchalant "I don't care" lean on the hand








p.s. Dear Travis & Mystery Student: i love you both in your own special way!

family field trip to the internet

fezhead

Of course when i was eating that Middle East Feast i was wearing this:

Retractospork

This week i tried Arabian Joe's new fare: Middle East Feast. It was ok, kind of stale? It included pita bread, hummus, these Mediterranean ball thingies (i really should know what they're called), a mix of couscous, dill(?) and other herbs, & some other liquid to pour atop it all. But really, the most amazing thing was the Build-A-Spork. Observe it's space saving, multi-purpose madness:
And you can collapse it again and store it in your pocket or bag or whatever for later use! Ah, the wonders of modern invention.

boxhead

Boxes make great hats. Case in point:
They also make good playthings, especially if you are small, because they can be forts, hiding places, etc. etc. Often the packaging of a thing has more fun potential than the actual thing itself!

In unrelated news, after some assistance from my friend Kevin the Scotsman, (aka Marv from the Home Alone movies) some repairs have been made which allow me to navigate Hyrule and its sometimes tricky & confusing quests. Super NES and the Lost Levels remain on hold (World 8, last level) until i can work up the umpf to pass it!

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jokerskihead

commiejackhead

all the way home

if i had a rocking chair

if i had a porch

a house with a porch to put that rocking chair on

were it real.

were they real.

Real like that day we spent in Amsterdam

watching bikes glide by on the street below

from the window of our cheap motel

broke out of the mold

shed our shell

feeling together, being together

feeling good, like we conquered the world

that's what i'd do the livelong day:

be in the chair

kick back

watch bike and rider glide on by

by and by

home by and by

with you

where we belong

where you belong
"among the wildflowers"

along the train tracks

clickety-clack, clickety-clack

collapse your ears

blow your hair back
clickety-clack, clickety-clack


it's where we are, and maybe where we want to be. plus or minus the train noises.

Employment?

Not surprisingly, i find myself there again.

You know, there, that place where you're not sure what you're doing now is what you love and not really knowing where to go. My wondrous hats topping my noggin with sustainable fare may not show it, but i've fallen victim to it again: wanderlust. And this time it's harder.

I know this is nothing new, and many a worker in offices has felt this sentiment: a desire to get back outside.

Peggy Vincent, baby catcher and author of Baby Catcher--her fantastic 2001 novel i just devoured like dark chocolate truffles--similarly described her love of being a midwife in terms of spontaneity vs. monotony: despite the crazy on-call hours and occasional rushes to the hospital, at least she had the element of surprise, the unexpected every day. Each time she caught a baby and got caught up in the tune of each unique childbirth, she thought of all those people with cush office jobs and spreadsheets with blanks for them to fill in.

And that is somewhat how i feel, though teaching HS kids certainly has its benefits. ...but for whatever reason i have this strange desire to go organic farming, or raise goats or whatever. Just get me out of this cube! Can i bike for a living? Do i have hamstrings the size of cannons?

...i am out of writing juice.

unclesamhead:
p.s. i may or may not have gone to the polls & voted for Ralph Nader or Bob Barr while simultaneously wearing this hat and an Obama mask with that GOP candidate's action figure wedged betwixt its teeth.

pizzahead

"Yummy! Yummy! You're a pizza pie!"

"Yummy! Yummy! You toss me in the sky!"

burgerhead

Here i am hard at work staring at a computer screen:...the hat looks way better in person.

Placenta Tour!

As promised, here is the famed, incredibly intriguing, exquisite and informative PLACENTA TOUR! *not for the squeamish!*

Our little squirmy worm!

Super Mario Bros. "The Lost Levels"

are hard!  Miraculously i have made it to the eighth world, but have died about fifty seven bajillion times and had to save and come back to the game just as often.  Wish me luck as i continue to *byoing!* my way through pipes, twixt koopa paratroopas, o'er Lakitu, and 'neath Koopa till i reach the axe.  Toad is funny in this one--he keeps multiplying at the end of each world and saying his classic schtick "Thank you, Luigi!  ...but our Princess is in another castle!" Oh yes, by the bye, "I'm a-Luigi!"

Photos of our little nugget

Kirsten has been doing a much better job than i in getting photos of Sierra online. And she wrote out the birth story--so go have a look at her site!

mejor en bici

This week on my bike ride to work i saw some workers removing the word "elephant" in cursive script from the side of a building.

I also rode through a construction site by skirting around the edges whereas a car certainly would have had to take a large detour!

SJC

mejor en bici

Yesterday, September 30th, the lifetime odometer on my bike read 405 miles. This means that from the beginning of September 'til the end of September my steed and i registered 225 official miles of riding distance!

Included in this figure was a short, yet hilly ride my dad and i tackled in San Francisco from the parking space to Candlestick Park and back. We enjoyed the football game in which the 49ers beat down the Detroit Lions. I also got to hear his version of my brother's an my (and others') birth stories!

Also, on my bike ride to work yesterday, i saw a labyrinth sketched in chalk on one of residential roads along my route. What are the chances?! (probably pretty good...Kyle: my apologies again for the shoddy labyrinth i tried to draw for you...)

Will report back for the month of October.