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adventures / family / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off on Road wearier
23
Dec 15

Road wearier

Woke up yesterday in north Alabama. Drove home to the plains yesterday. Re-set the luggage, slept in my own bed. Woke up this morning and drove to the A-T-L. Hopped a plane and … well, there’s a video:

Had dinner tonight in Connecticut. It was Chinese. Here’s my fortune:

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. Think about it.

adventures / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on Moving around again
22
Dec 15

Moving around again

Lunchtime on the highway. You know, I spend a lot of time on the interstate, and this one in particular. There are four of these on this road covering the entire north-south span of the state. And it is impressive how often I’m near one of them around lunch or dinner.

I’m not sure who was more excited, the hoomans, the cat or the crab toy.

Tonight, laundry, repacking and, tomorrow, more traveling.

family / Monday / music / photo — Comments Off on Making the rounds
21
Dec 15

Making the rounds

We are back in north Alabama. We are at one of my mother’s places. Her grandfather built this house by hand a half-century ago as a side business. She’s done and had a lot of things redone. I’ve sanded generations of paint off the door frames. It is cozy and old and I’ve no idea how many people have rented it over the years. I think about that every time I’m here. Just something about this light fixture in the bathroom.

From what I’ve read that’s a pre-1960s light fixture. Maybe it is the original. Bathrooms back then didn’t always have outlets in the bathroom. And so if you needed to use electricity in the bathroom you’d reach to this guy over the sink.

Who were those people that were doing that reaching? What were their dreams and problems when they were here? What has become of them? When did they switch to electric razors and start using hair dryers? Where did they spend their holidays?

There’s a new place in the works. My folks have picked out their post-retirement home. We drove over to see it this weekend. The previous owners are moving out. They’re probably at that “I wish it was over and do we really need the last of this stuff or can we just burn it in the yard and save time?” stage. The sellers seemed to like lawn art:

I got this card game as a present. You get a random shuffle and your goal is to try to make a headline. Basically it is Mad Libs.

There’s an easy point system, or you could simplify things further and just vote on who has the best hand. The kids we played with, 12 and 17, were surprisingly good at the game considering how few headlines they probably see.

Anyway, it is called Man Bites Dog and it is a benign, family-friendly game. Much less emotional than Monopoly.

While visiting the other side of my family my grandmother brought out the instruments. These belonged to my grandfather.

I think she likes to hear me play them, she likes to hear us make music, she says. Or maybe she just likes watching us make jokes about them.

photo — Comments Off on The digital card
17
Dec 15

The digital card

All of the cards are in the mail. On the off chance that we forgot anyone, Allie wanted to send you a special note.

food / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on I’m now pricing old Star Wars toys
15
Dec 15

I’m now pricing old Star Wars toys

Went out for lunch today:

We did not eat the Rhode Island Red. He lives at the restaurant, though, which is kind of weird, I’ll grant you. The front is a nursery and out the back is a fresh fruits and vegetables store. Attached to that is the restaurant and we get veggie crepe wraps and stuffed squash there. Stuffed squash is good stuff.

The service is spotty. It is staffed by a bunch of students and sometimes they’re great but other times you just get the cute “Oops” smile. Not much you can do but stare at that and think I hope that takes you far in life.

And sometimes you think you didn’t want a veggie crepe, but maybe some fried chicken sounds nice …

We did some shopping today. We’re doing one of the Santa games for the holidays with my family this year. It is the polite Santa game, because it is a family environment and there are kids and there’s a price limit and you can steal presents and so on.

We have to find two things under $10. It took some doing, but we did it. (And some of those people read this, so I’m not spoiling that again this year.)

We saw some other cool stuff though. And I’m going to show some of those things to you. And when you see these things, remember how smart George Lucas was about the original Star Wars. The movie was the movie, but the vision was in the merchandising. He got sweet deals because no one back then believed that toys and shirts would be a revenue stream. That was Lucas’ real genius.

Now, with Lucas having sold to Disney for a song, and the Mouseketeers putting their muscle into merchandising, they’ve proven George Lucas an absolute piker.

We didn’t buy any of those things. I object on philosophical grounds. Darth Vader is a feared and despised bad guy throughout the galaxy. He is not the face that should be toasting your bread.

We did, however, pick up a little present for ourselves. Cool little nightlight:

And two presents for under $10 for the family Christmas game. Still no fried chicken, though.

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