My son, The Awful Dynne (a noisy cloud of dust, his character description says). He was terrific, if I do say so myself. Great facial expression, great vocal projection (thank goodness for those little mics, though -- those are a boon to mankind). I think he's got the knack.

DooDad surveys his domain.

Anyone need something fun to do this weekend? Come to Gainesville, Texas, to the campus of NCTC, on Saturday at 7pm or Sunday at 2pm to watch my son Isaac in his acting debut as The Awful Dynne in The Phantom Tollbooth.

We're probably going as a family on Saturday night, if anyone wants to join us! I am really proud of him. He has enjoyed this immensely. I'm glad I took him to the audition. I think they're doing The Wizard of Oz next summer, and I am definitely going to let him audition for that one too.

Another Tiffany window in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is Autumn Landscape, done in 1923/24. It might be the most vivid, intense stained-glass window I ever saw in my life:



I mean, really. I had never seen anything like this window in my LIFE. It was quite literally breathtaking.

The autumn landscape in Central Park was also quite nice, however:



Bright little surprises lay around every bend in the path.

I really DO love New York.

Domo-kun, the fuzzy, toothy brown thing that 7-Eleven stores have recently used in an ad campaign, originated in Japan. You know how NBC uses a peacock as their "mascot"? The Japanese television network NHK uses Domo-kun as their mascot.

I am particularly fond of this little guy, for some inexplicable reason. Here's the first video short of Domo-kun, explaining his origin:

Enter the hospital: Would-be ninja impaled while trying to leap metal fence in Seattle

[The police spokesman] says the man was "overconfident in his abilities," and that alcohol likely played a role.

No kidding. Really?

Nor did I find any adjacent shrubbery. This particular room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was rather devoid of vegetation. Of course, if I'd been able to take these kuh-NIGGITS out back into Central Park, they might've just sprung to life and jousted a few joggers.

A lovely specimen Japanese maple tree (actually, this one could be a Korean maple; they always seem even more delicate than their Japanese siblings) in Central Park on my birthday, November 14, 2009.

Did you know that there are Tiffany stained-glass windows at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC?

This one's called "View of Oyster Bay" and he did it back in 1908. It's huge and it is absolutely lovely.

And on my way up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I walked through Central Park. The fall foliage is just amazing, and even on a rainy Saturday morning, that place is a treasure.

My traditional birthday cake has always been a carrot cake. So last night, after the show, we stopped at Junior's and I had a carrot-cake cheesecake.

It IS New York, after all.

How old am I? Forty-three. I am not bothered by the number; it's like weight -- it's just a number. Doesn't define me.

I'm headed out to the Metropolitan Museum of Art this morning.

Me, with my BFF, on Times Square. TIMES SQUARE. On November 13, 2009, after having spent an unbelievable couple of hours watching Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig on stage in A Steady Rain. They were amazing... they had the Chicago dialect down quite well; you'd probably never guess.

Until the show was over, of course. When the lights came back up, they were both still on stage and told us they were raising money for a particular charity... and that most shows auctioned off a piece of the stage, but since the set was rather spare for this play, they couldn't do that... so the two of them BEGAN UNBUTTONING THEIR SHIRTS to reveal their undershirts, and said they'd sign the undershirts and give them to the highest bidder.

Why am I not rich? I want to know this.

Anyway, they were speaking in their own dialects for this last part, which I enjoyed very much because we got to hear them talking as themselves. They congratulated the audience for having turned off their cell phones; they said they were delighted to realize they'd gotten through the entire show without a single phone ringing. Heck, I didn't just turn mine to vibrate, I turned it OFF. There just isn't an emergency that can't wait until I get out of the theater.

The show itself was very gritty, hard-edged and ugly... the characters were not particularly nice people, and I wouldn't take a kid to this show for anything. Very rough. But totally well-played by these two incredible actors. I was thrilled to my core to be there.

I had forgotten just how congested and FULL OF PEOPLE this place (NYC) is. I woke up this morning super-early... guess I'm excited to be here or something, go figure... and called down to the desk to ask where I might be able to go get some hairspray (couldn't carry that on the plane) and a curling iron (didn't have room for it in my bag). He said there was a pharmacy around the corner, so I put on some britches and a coat and headed out.

They're not kidding when they say this city never sleeps.

The pharmacy place was very much like a CVS or a Walgreens back home, and the prices were comparable -- which surprised me.

The hotel had some Starbuck's coffee downstairs, which I am currently partaking of while enjoying Fox & Friends. Then I'm off to enjoy this wonderful city. I really do love this place. I'll send in Tweets as I discover unusual or fun things, and I'll take lots of pictures. And tonight... tonight... tonight... I'll be ON BROADWAY enjoying gazing up at Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig on stage. Please, God, let them both be there tonight. No understudies, fellows... you can't be sick. Not allowed. Not when I've come all this way to see you both.

I guess I'm weird, but I like to drink my coffee with real cream. I can't have non-dairy creamer because it's made from corn products, so I have to have milk or half-and-half. There doesn't seem to be a coffee place anywhere that offers actual CREAM to people to put in their coffee. I don't have to have MUCH, but I just like the smoothness of it. I'm suffering through coffee with milk right now, and it'll do, but folks are just missing out by eschewing real cream. Seriously, peeps.

I'm leavin' tomorrow...

Debating whether to take my laptop or go without. Mostly it's a weight issue, but I think I will bring it along. I'm hoping to be carryon-only this trip, since it costs an arm and a leg extra to check baggage (only the most seriously stoopid thing the airlines ever instituted).

We shall see. In the meantime, I'm going to go back into the bedroom and finish packing.

When you purposefully avoid all consumption of alcohol for a time, there are consequences to be had when you resume said consumption.

I have been abstaining from all alcohol for the past several months, just to be on the safe side with regard to my gastric disturbance issues. I am not suffering from the vile piles at the present time, and I had one single-serve bottle of moscato wine left in my cupboard, and I was in the mood to try it tonight.

And now, after half a bottle, I am snockered. Half of a SINGLE-SERVE BOTTLE.

Pathetic.

Only in Italy: Sleeping With Raphael

I almost had a heart attack," said pensioner Tarcisio De Paolis, recalling his shock on discovering faithful copies of some of Raphael's most famous frescoes in his bedroom.

De Paolis came across the paintings after deciding to add a bathroom in the apartment, which partly extends into an abandoned medieval tower that was thought to have been part of a military fort in Civitavecchia, a port west of Rome.

When De Paolis began removing plaster from the wall in the apartment, "First I came across Saint Peter's sword, then his hand and arm," he said.

Bit by bit, De Paolis uncovered copies of the frescoes in Raphael's Room of Heliodorus at the Vatican Museums, thought to have been painted by a contemporary student of the Renaissance master, Ugo da Scarpi, best known for his wood carvings.

Yeah, those renovation projects can be dicey in countries where an "old house" is dated in millenia rather than in decades. I rather doubt we're going to uncover any art when we start peeling off all this ghastly ugly wallpaper in my hundred-plus-year-old house. I might, however, decide to leave some behind, just for someone else to find someday.

This elderly white Schnauzer is Tessa. She belongs to my parents, but since Pop's in the hospital, Tess has been staying with us.

Tessa is a special-needs dog. Ten years ago or so, she had a litter of adorable pups, and not long afterward became very ill and nearly died. During that illness, her brains and her eyes were damaged permanently, leaving her mostly blind and very definitely retarded.

She has a teeny bit of vision at the edge of one eye, so she spins in circles to orient herself. Her perceptions are skewed, however, so she loses her way and can't go in a straight line anywhere. To go outside, she has to be carried to the door and placed in the yard.

She isn't able to eat enough, so we supplement her diet with some moist dog food in a pouch. She loses track of this if you put it down too quickly, and Bijou would reeeeeaaaally like to get her jaws around this yummy stuff, so we have to keep a close eye while she's consuming it.

Mostly during the day, because she's elderly and infirm, she just sits curled up on her bed pad in the living room. We have long joked that she's really just a step beyond a stuffed-animal dog, and that's kinda true. She does have a little bit of her sweet and funny personality still left, though. Once in a while she'll get out of bed and walk in circles around the living room... usually this means she needs to go to the bathroom, but sometimes she does it even when she's been outside. This is my cue that she wants some snuggles and attention, so I walk over there and she stops turning circles and actually jumps up on me. Mom and I have very similar voice-boxes, so we think that I probably smell and sound close enough to Mom that I'll do in a pinch. She likes to smell your breath to find out what you just ate. She never EVER barks unless she's really quite excited, which doesn't happen often because she's an old lady dog and not much excites her nowadays.

The cat has been humorous about her; he sits in wait and tries to alarm her by sneaking up on her, which usually works. He's got a tremendous sense of humor for a kitteh; he knows she's "not all there" and takes full advantage of this fact when it suits him. Fortunately for Tessa, he's also a lazy kitteh and doesn't bother her too much.

Mom says they might be letting Pop out of the hospital this week. Keep your fingers crossed! Tessa isn't much of an imposition on us, but I know that it will be a relief for Pop and Mom to be in their own home and sleeping in their own bed.

Ballyhoo boys came back from a big deficit to whip up on the Pottsboro Cardinals last night, 41-34. Pictured above are our 2009-2010 senior footballers, who I'm hugely proud of. Y'all had a terrific season and worked hard against a lot of ugly odds (being the smallest 2A school, for one).

From xkcd.com:

The house is just gone, people. The person living IN the house, however, moves into a new one. Y'all can take my house apart when I move out, and divvy up everything that anyone might need.

Please be an organ donor.

Iowahawk, in a rare moment of semi-seriousness, has analyzed the BCS and has some suggestions for how to fix it. You'll want to give this a read if you're even a little interested in college football.

This came from Facebook, but I thought I'd re-post it here. No particular reason, I guess.


01) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
I guess so... nineteen years of marriage... does that count? [eye roll]

02) What was your dream growing up?
To be a jockey in the Kentucky Derby

03) What talent do you wish you had?
Playing the guitar well.

04) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
Hmmm... probably a raspberry Mojito

05) Favorite vegetable?
Wakame seaweed

06) What was the last book you read?
Beyond Consequences, Logic & Control (dealing with children with severe behaviors)

07) What zodiac sign are you?
Scorpio (not that I care or that it matters to me at all)

08) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
Tattoo around my left ankle that reads "Love the Lord your God with all your heart"
Two earlobe piercings on either side
Tragus pierced on my right ear
Rook pierced on my left ear

09) Worst Habit?
Laziness

10) If you saw a stranger walking down the street would you offer him/her a ride?
It wouldn't be a good idea, so no.

11) What is your favorite sport?
College Football

12) Do you have a Pessimistic or Optimistic attitude?
Generally optimistic

13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator?
If I were alone, I'd probably just sit down and start texting on my celly. If I were with someone, I guess I'd tell jokes until we got rescued. I love to laugh.

14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
Being accused of something I didn't do, and losing a lot of friends (or people I had thought were friends) because of it. There are still people who think I am guilty of what I was accused of, and it still grieves me sometimes, but I shook the dust off my feet and moved on.

15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
I have no bellybutton. That's pretty much the weirdest thing about me.

16) Do you have any pets?
A charcoal-grey teacup poodle-girl named Bijou, and a lazy kitty-boy named Dude

17) What would you do if a friend showed up at your house unexpectedly?
I'd start cooking! I love to cook.

18) Are your first impressions of people usually accurate?
I'd say so, yes.

19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
I have actually been to Clown School and learned about the craft, but I'm not fond of clowns because of too many serial killer movies and stuff. I did learn how to make balloon animals, so it wasn't a total loss.

20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
I'd make my head a little smaller. I have a huge head. Or maybe I'd refine my nose a little -- it's kinda blobby. Meh... I don't spend much time thinking about either thing, really. I pretty much just accept that I look the way I look, yanno?

21) Are you more of a bad influence or a good influence on people?
I try to cheer people up and make them feel good, but sometimes I probably encourage naughtiness too.

22) What color eyes do you have?
Brown. Medium golden brown. Not super-dark, not light, and not mixed with green or blue at all either. Just brown.

23) Ever been arrested?
Ugh, no. And the only way it would ever happen would be if they made chocolate illegal.

24) Bottle or can soda?
I don't drink soda, generally, because it has corn syrup in it and I'm allergic to corn products. The sodas that are made with cane sugar usually come in glass bottles. I don't really drink them very often, either, because I try to avoid consuming that much sugar all at once. It's just not healthy for me.

25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
Level my house. [sigh] I'd *like* to get myself a camera, but practicality would win out.

27) What's your favorite place to hang out?
Anywhere with my BFF Cindy.

28) Do you believe in ghosts?
Not in the way they're usually understood. I do believe that there are unseen things going on that we have no concept of, but I'm not going to claim to know definitively how that works or what they're like.

29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
Blog... sleep... paint... play the piano

30) Do you swear too much?
Yes, I probably do.

31) Do you have a pet peeve?
Liars.

32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
Scattered

33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
Sure. There's not enough of it in my world.

34) Favorite and least favorite food?
Favorite - Japanese
Least favorite - Italian

35) Plans for this evening?
Load the dishwasher... watch a DVRd episode of Iron Chef, maybe... clean the kitchen... take a shower... yeah, I'm super-interesting and I lead a fascinating life. [eye roll #2] Hey, give me a break. I spent most of the day trying to deal with a mentally-ill teenager. I need some boring down-time.

The visit with the pediatric psychiatrist was a profitable one, really. She's a good doctor with a level head.

She prescribed a new sleep med and an increase in the dose of one of her current mood-stabilizer meds. And she recommended we go ahead and begin the process of applying for a spot at a residential treatment facility, since they have waiting lists.

Here we go. Oddly, I feel a little bit relieved this afternoon. We won't be doing the same old thing and expecting or hoping for better results. She's not going back to school in her current classes; she will go into the behavior-disorder classroom full time and do her classes online. She will have very limited - read "NO" - contact with the current crop of friends, mainly because she just can't handle it. And as soon as a spot opens up in one of the treatment facilities, she'll go live there long-term. Dunno how soon that will be. Or if we'll be able to afford it... or whether we can afford NOT to.

She's in absolute self-destruct mode at the moment around here. We got an emergency appointment with the pediatric psychiatrist tomorrow. Something's gotta give, 'cuz we're just not going to be able to live like this any longer.

Either they give her meds that really work, or she goes to live in a residential treatment facility long-term.

And for anyone who thinks I just need to do more disciplining or more punishing or more whatever...

Would you recommend someone receive counseling or punishment to treat their crooked teeth? Or their juvenile diabetes?

It's the same thing. I promise you. Mental illness is a bitch, and it's having puppies right now. She needs serious, long-term drug treatment, even when she doesn't seem like she's having a problem. This is permanent, and this has nothing to do with HOW she was raised, whether she got spanked enough, or whether we do or don't give her things. She is just as disabled as her sister Alice, and because she can often talk a good game, she can convince you that she's not. Until it's too late and she's done something terminally stupid and self-destructive. And without going into details, I'm just going to say that she's getting waaaay too close to those outcomes.

I can't wait until it's too late.

For her sake and for the sake of the rest of the family. I have two other little lives to contend with and protect. What's optimum for her may not be so healthy for the other two. I would certainly prefer that she continue to live at home; I don't know that that's possible anymore.

Just pray for me, k? I don't really want advice from anyone here; I've sifted through all the advice I can handle right now. Wisdom from God to do what He wants -- that's what I need right now.

That, and I could really use a shot of supernatural agape-love for a kid who is increasingly hard to love.

Louisiana Justice of the Peace Resigns

This story was just ridiculous from the get-go. Why was this person in any position of authority anymore?

I won't say that I don't believe that idiots like this don't exist. I know they do. I know a few of them. I will say, however, that attitudes like this man's are ridiculous and stupid and misinformed, and the more marginalized they are, the fewer of them there will be until they finally die away without reproducing any more of themselves.

And as for that, the whole idea of marriage between two human beings as "interracial" is also ridiculous. We're not separate species.

Well, except for Barney Frank and Henry Waxman. I ain't any kin to those freakazoids.

The kids and I drove to downtown Dallas after church today to visit Pop in the hospital. He's looking pretty good, although his abdomen is still severely distended because of the internal swelling that the Graft VS. Host Disease has wrought on his innards. His tremor is much improved, though.

We sat with him in the Family Visiting Room, where we watched the Cowboys game on the tee-vee. We do have our priorities, you know.

They're giving him TPN (which means that all his nutrition is coming intravenously) because of his severely inflamed GI tract, plus all his meds are going through the IV as well. He gets pretty tired out, but seems in good spirits. The kids and I were really glad to get to see him; it's been a long, LOOONG time since we've gotten to see him because somebody's been germy every weekend.

The kids also enjoy the drive down to Baylor because we go through downtown Dallas, which is a huge culture change from our usual rural digs. Plus, we get to go through a drive-through to eat -- and that's a major treat. We got McDonald's this time, one of our very favorites.

Keep praying for Pop, would you? He's just got to beat this. GVHD is such a PITA.

Seen over at Letters From Kamp Krusty.

Rick started his job at the Winstar Casino tonight. This is a huge answer to prayer; he doesn't have to deal with any gamblers, he just has to help keep track of the people who turn loose of more than two grand in one visit -- this helps keep drug-money launderers from doing too much bidness there. Obviously they're still going to do what they do, but at least this way they are prevented from doing too much of it at once.

Y'all pray that he is able to manage the all-night-long thing, at least for ninety days when he can then put in for a different time slot or job.

Our finances are still dire, but this will begin making inroads and helping us begin to catch up.

A branch of my little fig tree in the backyard. It's a happy little fig tree, considering it gets absolutely no extra attention from me. I didn't get any of its fruit this year; I believe the skwerls stole all of them before I could pick any. Maybe next year.

Okay, sorry. The canna puns have got to go away. I promise, this is the last one. Until I think of a stupider one, and then all bets are off.


In the meantime, enjoy the rich green striations on this canna leaf.

I have found a new favorite snack: Dried Shredded Squid.

Yeah, I know. That sounds really, really weird. I guess from a USA standpoint, it may be. But if you like beef jerky or turkey jerky, this is just "jerky" made from shredded squid. It's got a few seasonings (salt, sugar, MSG -- how can you go wrong with that combo?), but other than that, it's very simple. They also make a hot-n-spicy kind, but I decided to just try the basic one first.

I ordered it from AsianFoodGrocer along with my soba and furikake, just as a lark to give it a try. I am now hooked on this stuff. If you like calamari, shrimp, etc., and you also like beef jerky, you will probably like dried shredded squid. You can also find it on Amazon.

Canna You Believe It?

The cannas in the backyard are still gamely blooming, even though it's getting nippier and nippier all the time. I love the hot orangey-red color of these particular cannas; the person who planted them chose wisely.

It was a spectacularly beautiful day today, just the right kind of day to take nice photos like this one.