Nattering

We took advantage of some unbelievably lovely weather and a pending homework assignment (on C’s part) today to visit Blue Licks State Park and the fabulous Pioneer Museum. Christopher has a scene-setting post. I have to tell you that the museum is A Land That Time Forgot and full of really weird things*. I took pictures of most of them.

Go see in the Ye Olde Museum Day photo album.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to snap the little old lady who was staffing the place — who gave us some extremely cursory facts about the place and was very concerned that we might miss the basement — napping peacefully in a chair in the gift shop. (Full disclosure: Yes, there was a moment when I thought she might be dead. But I swear I didn’t even think of taking a photo until I heard her breathing.) She woke up with some chagrin, spouting something about Daniel Boone at Christopher.

Oh, and if you’re into giant sloths, there’s something special for you.

*Not said lightly.

Kelly et Gavin came through last night to help us forget our sorrows over not making it to Madison next weekend. They arrived just in time for us to walk downtown and catch a bit of the annual Thriller reenactment downtown. The zombie costumes were excellent this year, but someone–perhaps the city–made a bad staging decision and instead of dancing their way up the street for four blocks after the initial performance they just performed on Main Street and in Triangle Park. Which meant that it was really hard to see much of anything. Also: new Michael Jackson this year, very Rufus Wainwright. At one point, he  streaked past me and Kelly and impressively leapt a fence.

We abandoned things for Thai food on the corner just when the giant MJ puppet, pictured left, was about to be raised. (Another questionable change this year.) We had a good view of random zombies making their way up the street in tattered wedding dresses or suits with glowing bones and I saw one girl attack a car. There were tons of little kid zombies this year too, which is a happymaking thing: cute as hell and fast-moving. Then we met up with the Ms for drinks at Mia’s. A very fun evening.

Tonight we hand out candy. At least, we wait nervously by the door prepared to hand out candy. Last year we only had a few tricksters. Anyway, as they say on the news in space, happy Halloween!

Over the weekend, I was having a polite little small talky conversation-in-passing with someone post-funeral. We started talking about seven-year-olds and what they’re like. I said something about how I’d like to be seven again for a week or two. To which the other person said, "And know then what you know now, huh?"

Now, I’ve heard this before, as have you. But it occurs to me that I have no idea what it means. I’m not sure what I know now that would help me at all at being seven (though I’m not so confident about the reverse). So, what have I missed? Is this statement just a bullshit cliche? What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you were seven?

(p.s. Our web connection is spotty at the moment — web bunny plea for help commence — so if you’re not getting a response from me, that’s why. Should be back up later, fingers and toes crossed.)

Pizza, ice cream with dark chocolate chips and the extended Veronica Mars pilot from the newly arrived Season 1 box set. If only I had the new Company novel to start later.

Life is good.

Well, besides the good news that my mom’s taking us to see Loretta Lynn later in the fall (if she does "Fist City," I’ll be in heaven — "But the man I love, when he picks up trash, he puts it in a garbage caaaaan"), my contact lenses finally came in.

In lesser news, we will not be at World Fantasy after all (unless, of course, a wealthy benefactor steps forward; anyone?) due to an unexpected and HUGE auto repair bill. This makes me very sad. (Come for Thanksgiving!)

I also got an email today about a distantly related stranger’s unfortunate accident, which I will quote from here because I’m a really bad person: He will be buried on his birthday, Friday, would have been nineteen. Tragic.  Lived in New Jersey.

So, see, it could be much, much worse than $900 for a fuel pump and some brake stuff.

Wikipedia sayeth about the nap (o, longed-for nap):

Nap or nap can refer to:

• a short sleep. See also: Power nap, Siesta
• a betting term for the best bet on a particular day.
• an acronym for the Normaal Amsterdams Peil.
• a TLA for Network access point.
• a measure of the thickness of a paint roller.
• a noun meaning day and sun in Hungarian.
• Neapolitan language (ISO 639 alpha-3)
• a sewing term for the raised surface of certain cloth, such as flannel.
• an abbreviation of "Not Applicable", which is used in banking.

And none of it makes me less sleeeeepy. But this sleepy poem at least makes me happy.

I have very complicated feelings about glasses. Not the kind you drink out of (I like those), the kind that slip down your nose.*

I got glasses in second grade. About a week before my adored teacher, Mrs. Gay, who had a huge-throaty laugh and huge pillowy breasts to match, told my parents she thought I needed to see an optometrist, I was riding in the back of my parents rainbow-colored station wagon, looking far out over the green horizon and thinking what great eyesight I had. I could see EVERYTHING.

…

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Attention: consuming any of the following material may make you a target of chicken haulers.

So, yesterday on the drive home from work, I hit town and some slight rush hour traffic with it. I’m a car behind a semi, but the car in front of me isn’t very tall and so I have a good view of the large decal blazing across the dull gray back of the flatbed semi. It says: "Ain’t No Feelin’ Like Cow Mobilin’."

Now, I did what anyone would do. I called my cow expert immediately.

Christopher (who grew up on a dairy farm) agreed it was a curious phrase. We discussed for a bit whether this message meant that it feels good to cow mobilin’ or just unique. He popped a google window and searched on the phrase. And found the most awesome thing about chickens on the intarweb EVER at Oilburners.net. Apparently, there is a longstanding feud between cow haulers and chicken haulers, which is all you need know. And I quote from the mini-essay kicking off a long thread there:

There must be a secret school somewhere that teaches the fine art of chicken hauling. I say that because of the recent influx of chicken haulers on the road today. I suspect many of them came from this secret school. They all seem to have the same characteristics. They all drive the same, they all say the same things on the CB radio, they even all have the same accent. I would even go so far as to say they speak their own language. You can usually spot them by the rubber chicken sticking out of their back door, looking as though the door closed on it, while trying to escape.

Chicken haulers are much easier to spot at night. They pass you by like the sun – a yellow, hot ball of light, glowing in all directions. If it weren’t for the fact that they’re usually going eighty miles per hour, you’d be blinded for sure. Thankfully, they pass quickly and are soon out of sight. But, just in case you blink and miss one, don’t worry; just turn your CB radio on. They are sure to be talking, non-stop, especially if there are two or more traveling together. They like to do that – travel together as one, like an American road-train. In Australia, they hook five trailers up to a tractor, but here, they travel so closely that they often look like one long vehicle.

I suggest you read the whole thing. This is two feet away from great American literature. And I don’t know why Christopher would try and disguise the origins of such a fantastic link. Unless he’s afraid of retaliation.

(Link obviously completely snitched from UnCommonwealth, soon to make the great Typepad migration.)

When Alex Trebec drops a "Git R Done" at the top of Jeopardy, the phrase has officially "jumped the shark." (Unless on your TV it actually continued into the bizarro world edition where all the questions focused on Redneck Lore.)

In happy/sad news, on the way home I heard a song unmistakably sung by Rob Dickinson, front man of the much-lamented Catherine Wheel (and possessor of the sexiest singing voice within several solar systems), and it’s off his new solo record "Fresh Wine for the Horses." Sad for the solo part, happy for a new album–the song I heard was "My Name is Love" and it was very much in line with Catherine Wheel’s sound circa Wishville.