I Heart Faces: Props

How many people can blow bubbles with their own hands? My daughter can! In fact, she's quite good at it. My special, home-made bubble solution helps!

This photo was entered into the I Heart Faces photo challenge. This week's theme: props.

Oh, the humanity!

Those of you with weak constitutions may want to look away.
The carnage is massive. 
As my father would say, "Six dead, nobody hurt."

Yes, that is the headless torso of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.  Look closely and you'll see a light saber.  Perhaps that's how the turtle became a headless torso.

My children rediscovered their Legos this week.  It's a million degrees out, with 150% humidity and we are all whiny and short-tempered.  So we started watching the Star Wars Trilogy (-ies).  Logically, we began with Return of the Jedi (Episode VI.)  That led to Attack of the Clones (Episode II, obviously ) which led to "Hey do you remember our Star Wars toys?"  Which in turn led to, "Let's get out the Lego bin."

Mind you, the Lego Bin is more like a small bathtub.  It holds 8-gallons of Legos and probably weighs at least 25 pounds.  Now, imagine with me the sound of 8 gallons of Legos being poured out onto the floor.  See Spongebob's legs, parts of Jango Fett's ship, Luke's Speeder, Indiana Jones' motorcycle, the Knight Bus from Harry Potter.  Remember the HOURS upon HOURS that you put into building these things that will NEVER again be the same. 

And then get over it, because really, what's more awesome than Lego people?

We spent more time than I care to admit sorting through the 8 gallons of Legos looking for body parts.  There was such joy when we found things like Luke's hair and Darth Vader's cape and the Emperor's head (who knew that the two K's would remember which specific head belonged to the Emporer?)  We nearly had a tragedy when we couldn't find Obi-Wan's hair.  Imagine that being lost in an 8-gallon tub of tiny little plastic pieces.
They have spent the last two days just playing with Lego guys, setting up elaborate scenes and taking pictures.    I am having one of those triumphant moments where I am grateful for my pack-rat tendencies.

And just in case you were worried that Indy's hat there might not have found the rest of his body, Keebles just came up the stairs, quite pleased with herself.  I am happy to report that Lego Indiana Jones is once again whole.

My Boys

What is it about baseball that keeps us young? That allows men to feel like boys? That creates this bond between father and son? Bryant Gumbel said, "The other sports are just sports. Baseball is a love."

I never thought that I would feel that way, but it has this quality of being something bigger, something to be revered. I love going to my son's games, learning the strategy involved, watching these 11-year-old boys turn double plays and steal second and lay down beautiful bunts. I'm afraid it is getting into my blood.

This photo was entered into the I Heart Faces photo challenge

Ink

I have issues. I am willing to admit it. For as long as I can remember, I have loved pens.
I'll backpedal and admit thatI love handwriting, but that didn't start until later in life. My mother forced my 5th grade teacher to give me a failing grade in handwriting because my writing was so atrocious. Fast forward to the 8th grade, when I had an ecentric teacher who made us practice handwriting everyday. And she marked it wrong if it didn't match hers exactly. So, although she was bizarre and intense (really intense) I credit her with improving my handwriting and helping me to love the art of forming letters.
So, why this picture? I took it for a "Collection" theme. These are bottles of fountain pen ink. Yes, you can still buy that stuff. I absolutely love writing with fountain pens. There is something about the liquid ink, the way that there are variations of depth of color in each stroke of the pen, that seem like artwork to me. I especially love it when I use certain papers and the blue lines repel the ink a little bit, giving even more variations in the pen stroke.
If I didn't know it would be completely insane, I'd have even more bottles of this stuff. Yeah, I get ink all over my hands. Sure, the liquid ink smudges easily. Yes, I have ended up with fountain pen ink on my face. But it's all worth it for the handwriting. In this day and age of email and text, we are losing the personal touch of a nice, handwritten note.
And so I treasure my bottles of old-fashioned, impractical, fountain pen ink.

Surprise!

Surprise, indeed. The entry didn't post. whoops.

Learning to get along

Chester has been part of our family for about 10 days now. The introduction of the two cats went much better than I anticipated. We took it slow, over a few days.

At first, there was much hissing (good Lord, cat breath stinks even worse when they hiss.)

Then there were suspicious looks, followed by hissing. But at least it was less hissing.

Then, we moved on to general mistrust and butt-sniffing.

Next, came some not-so-gentle whacks to the head from Einstein. He just needed to remind Chester that this was his house, not Chester's.

Finally, we got to the point, about three days ago, where they were sort-of-playing. We supervised this closely, since Einstein is approximately 7 times Chester's size. There were friendly whacks to the head, hiding and pouncing and more butt-sniffing. I decided it was all going well and left them unsupervised while I got ready for school.

I was alarmed when I heard an unusual noise from Chester. It wasn't pain, it wasn't fear, it was more a cry of indignation. And I found Einstein carrying Chester into the house from the back porch by the scruff.

This is where it stands now. They chase each other and wrestle and play. Einstein tolerates Chester attacking his tail and jumping on his back and kicking him in the face...to a point. Then Einie pins Chester down and bites his scruff. Chester meows a few "Hey! Not fair!" kind of meows and Einstein lets him go and he come right back for more.
The way I figure it, Chester probably deserves what he gets.

But, we are well on our way to friendship. Or at least tolerance.

He's He-ere!

Chester arrived yesterday and we have survived the first night. Keebles slept with him in the guest room and discovered a few things:







1. He likes to bite toes.
2. He is fearless and will jump down off of the bed.
3. He thinks the litterbox is a fun place to play
4. He can just crash and fall asleep in 0.5 seconds
5. Kitty poo smells really bad.