Kewl Zoo

Yesterday, S set aside the afternoon to have lunch with some of her old Pi Phi buddies at a shore side restaurant at Lake Hefner.

After dropping her off, I took the bundled up girls to the Oklahoma City Zoo. We're fortunate enough to have a relatively good sized and well staffed natural-enviro zoo. They've done away with the concrete jungle habitats and steel-barred cages of zoos of old, and have spent mucho dinero on building/maintaining green and lush living environments for the captive beasties.

The cool temps (upper 40's - low 50's) made for some spectacular varmint viewing. Slight drizzle didn't hurt in keeping the crowds away as well, as there were maybe 20 cars in the visitors lot.

We shared the playground, the pathways, the seal viewing seating area, and the Canopy Cafe with very few other families. Mostly weekend Dad's, attempting to balance discipline with offspring bonding. More than a few of them seemed sad beneath their half-hearted smiles of forced indentured weekend servitude to their kids. I even caught one Dad looking through a Bass Pro Shops circular while his sons led him to the elephant paddock.

C tried out her new MPEG-4 video camera (birthday present via an Amazon.com gift cert. courtesy of her Uncle B in So Cal) and was delighted that all the animals came out for her latest foray into documentary filmmaking. Even the brown bears were out, play fighting with each other, doing their best to make a 6-year old with a new video camera happy.

The big cats emerged from their leafy forested habitats in force to celebrate the cool weather.

We found ourselves inches from a huge pacing leopard, his eyes never leaving the tasty morsel my 2 1/2 would have been to him.

The sumatran tigers were bouncy and playful -- as bouncy and playful as feline mankillers can get.

An ocelot entertained us as he stalked a cardinal that happened into his habitat. Being cooped up must have dulled his speed, since his master pounce missed the red bird by a few inches. Had he been in the wild, and had he been hungry, I'm sure that cardinal would be nuggets by now.

While watching a diver vacuum up the seal poop that was littering the bottom of the aquatic habitat, C commented that whale poop must be as big as PK was. That seemed to freak out PK -- her little brain trying to imagine looking eye-to-eye with a piece of dung.

Someone for everyone

Recent wedding announcement in our small town paper. Gander at the happy couple, but don't try to read the text. I scanned it small to save you the tediousness of the written word.



There was one paragraph that caught my eye however..."The bride's three-tiered cake was decorated with fresh autumn flowers."Strange that the bride's cake only warranted one short line of text. Yet the bridegroom's cake..."... was decorated with a miniature John Deere combine, tractor and grain cart that were replicas of those used in his harvesting business."Ahh. I see. Priorities, people, priorities. Seems however, that the tractor cake wasn't enough for the bridegroom. Read on."Also featured was a three-layer doughnut tree which held a variety of different doughnuts."Party on Mr. and Mrs. Brian Benson!

Having more in common with a 10-year old

Sitting at C's tumbling class, I noticed the brother of one of C's tumbling mates was reading the latest Harry Potter novel.

He looked up and I asked him what part he was up to.

What followed was a one hour discussion of the book so far, the series, the upcoming film (opening tonight at midnight), and all things Harry Potter.

It was a most enjoyable conversation, since my daugthers aren't old enough to read, my wife doesn't have time to read, and even if she did, the HP books would not be at the top of her reading wish list.

Several parents were seated nearby, including this bright young lads mother and father, who had either found interest in our conversation, or were just suspiciously monitoring the situation of a strange man talking to their impressionable son.

I told them the story of meeting a fella by the name of "Tom Riddle" the other day. My reaction to him, was of course, one of amusement as I completely expected him to immediately come back with a comment regarding his famously villianous name.
Quite the opposite. This Tom Riddle wasn't aware of the infamy of his literary namesake in the wizarding world of JK Rowling. He had never read the HP books, seen the films, or shown any interest in it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the young boys jaw dropped and he loudly uttered, "no waaaaaay....Tom Riddle?" I smiled and nodded in agreement, enjoying the proper reaction that any HP fan would display, having heard the name, "Tom Riddle."

His parents and several other adults in close proximity reacted to the young lads loud reaction.

I surmised that none of them knew the infamy of the name, Tom Riddle, either.

10-year olds of the world unite (including my 44-year old brother and 70-year old mother). And if you're reading this and don't shudder (or smile, depending on how much evil fills your heart) at the mere mention of the name, Tom Riddle aka Him whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken, then rest easy knowing those of us who do know the name, will keep the rest of you safe and free from his influence.

The Red Balloon

My wife and I got to witness the first time our 2 1/2 year-old daughter lost a balloon to the ugly gods of helium and gravity.

She's had balloons before and I was sure she had grasped the concept of it floating away if she let it go. The way she held onto the purple ribbon with a firm grip was a clue, as was her fixed stare on the floating orb dangling on the end of it.

It must have been that momentary lapse in attention when she was getting out of the car that the balloon seized the opportunity to "slip the surly bonds of the earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings."

Her reaction was classic and true to form for a 2 1/2 year-old.

First she screamed, "Oh, get it, get it, get it, get it, get it!" (picture the balloon getting further away as each two-word phrase emits from her scared 2 1/2 year-old voice).

Once she realized that there wasn't anyway TO "get it," she immediately kicked into the rationalization monologue of "that's okay, we can get another one," repeated about a dozen times.

The next and final phase saw the sheer and utter sadness that only a toddler can muster, emerge from her downturned mouth, crocodile-tear filled eyes, and quietly empty hands.

Then she cried.

And S hugged her, providing the level of comfort only a mommy could provide on such a somber occasion.
And I kicked into "bad cop" mode, reiterating why the balloon flew away, and how it was a good lesson to learn (okay, let's call it insensitive-jerk mode -- there, happy?)

And C? Well, she handed over her balloon, secured in her hands from lessons long learned, to her little sister and told her to take hers since she was done playing with it.

Insert awwws and oooohs here.

Yep, we must be doing something right with these girls.

PTO Net newbies

PTO meeting last night.
Lesson learned: Don't suggest something unless you're prepared to take charge of the very thing you are suggeting.

Since parental participation in actual PTO functions seems to be higher than the number of parents who can/do attend the monthly meetings, I innocently suggested that the PTO could create and maintain a website to help those who were absent but interested, stay in the loop.

You know, a simple site with a calendar of events, contact info, meeting minutes, maybe some pictures from past events.

I haven't faced so many blank stares since I told my friends back home that I was moving to Oklahoma.
Crickets chirped. A cool breeze filtered the air. An infant cried in the distance.

Finally, someone spoke up with an intelligent and appropriate question...

"How do we do that?"

Guess I just volunteed to create a website. Sigh.

The irony of it all was that the PTO meeting was being held, as always, in the school's computer lab. Row upon row of windoze boxes. Sigh.

To wrap this post up with semi-related panache, I received this lovely popup ad the other day and it has become my favorite. Mac users will see the humor. Windoze users may convulse at the site of the word, "Registry."

Seedy underbelly

I'm not a poker player.
I don't even play one on tv.

But last night S and I were invited to a Texas Hold 'em poker night at a friend's house here in town.

Other than some quarter machines in Vegas. neither S nor I have ever played real, cards-in-your-hand, chips-on-the-table poker. But I knew the basics of Texas Hold 'em (does anyone play any other type of poker anymore?) so after 30 minutes of passing on what little knowledge of the game I had to her, we rustled up a pea and cashew salad for the potluck table, left the kiddies with her folks, got a $20 from the seaweed jar for our "buy-in" and headed east to the poker "barn" on the outskirts of town.

The poker was fine. The food was good. It's the company that rocked the most.

We both came away from the evening minus $20, and 1/2 a bowl of pea salad, but also with an utter sense of being a stranger in a strange land.

Our poker partners, most of which grew up in our small town, revealed sordid information about people, places, events, buildings, and organizations that it would have taken us years of comprehensive Columbo-esque sleuthing to find out on our own.

Affairs. Criminal activity. Religious fervor. Punishment.
What's buried under that building?
Who's their real father?
When did she become a 36C?
Where can you get the best onion-fried burger?
Why are there none of THOSE kinds of people here?
How did they get away with what they did?

Anyone remember the tv drama-dy Picket Fences?

Later that night, as I pumiced S's feet while she bathed, she dryly commented, "we are so naive."

Indeed. We hardened city folk, me with a lifetime of "suburbic-living" a short 5 miles outside the downtown West Coast capital of the United States (okay, that's not true, but if you're from LA, you must think it's true), came to the realization that we knew nothing about the small town we now live in.

But at least now we know, that we know nothing.

A skunkie came a calling...

Had some warm evenings of late, strange for early November in Oklahoma to be in the 70's after the sun goes down.
Yet it enabled me to spend some peaceful late nights sitting by an open window with my laptop, enjoying the fresh fall breeze.

The other night, I heard the familiar sound of what I thought was a neighborhood cat rooting around in the brushy area beneath our kitchen window.

I profess no great love for cats, especially ones that use my flower beds as their litter box. I stood up to get a good look at this particular night pooper and readied my best scary voice to send it scampering away in the dark.

What at first appeared to be a familiar black and white feline, to my great surprise, turned out to be a full grown skunk.

Pepe Le Pew was in the hizzous.

He/She/It rooted around for awhile, not at all interested in the homo sapien male that was getting ready to tear apart both sash cords as he slammed down a window at the first sign of aggressive skunk behavior. It left without incident.

Later that night, I heard ol' Pepe get into a tussle with one of the many alley cats that frequent our environs. From the darkness emerged the unmistakeable sound of a skunk assuming it's best defensive position with the cat paying the price. The malodorous melee took place at the far end of our neighbors yard, yet I'll be keeping the windows closed around the house for awhile.

Good thing the temps turned cold yesterday.

Wonder if cats like bathing in tomato juice?

Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?

The Dr. Pepper bottling plant is somewhere down in Texas. Can that possibly have any bearing on why Dr. Pepper consumption in Oklahoma (and the surrounding states) is so much higher than the national average?

7-11's carry Dr. Pepper flavored Slurpees.
Every fast food restaurant I've frequented has Dr. Pepper on tap.
Southwest Airlines offers both diet and regular Dr. Pepper in their complimentary in-flight beverage service.

From a press release I found here
Per capita consumption is at 456 annual servings of Dr Pepper for every person in the territory served by The Dr Pepper/Seven Up Bottling Company of Elk City, Oklahoma,"

"In comparison, other areas of the country are under-developed in Dr Pepper consumption, such as in the Northeast, upper Midwest, Northern California and Florida."

"There is no reason for Dr Pepper consumption in these areas not to be at least at the national average,"

"When we achieve that goal, Dr Pepper will be well on its way to the billion cases annually set as a goal by the end of 2009. We doubled volume in the last decade, and I see no reason why we should not do that again by the end of the first decade of the 21st century,"So, pucker up all you Northeasterners, Midwesterners, Northern Californians and Floridians -- soon, you will be a Pepper too.

Costume that cracked me up

Napoleon Dynamite has seemed to have made a lasting impression on the good people of my newly adopted state.

I've seen "Vote for Pedro" shirts on the backs of people in places where you'd least expect to find them. Not to mention Kip's "I'm training to be a cage fighter" t-shirts and bumper stickers.

Is this phenomenon taking place in other parts of the country, or it it's popularity isolated here in Native America?

I must know.

Will had a Mac

Always knew that one of America's most celebrated writers, typed all this stories on a Mac. Looks to be a 1st gen. 15" G4 Powerbook. I found this pic here. Claremore is another small town a little ways north of Tulsa.

Hours are 6-8 p.m.

My small town has announced that Halloween Trick-or-Treating will be on Monday (the 31st) and that trick-or-treating hours will be from 6 to 8 p.m.

Did I miss something here?

From what S tells me, many towns in OK not only dictate what DAY trick-or-treating takes place on, but what TIME the kiddies can solicit free treats via knocks and doorbells.

Now, for the last four SoCal Halloween celebratrions, we had some record breaking, 300+ handfuls of candy nights. Ankle-biters and their tag-along mini-Snickers mooching parents (c'mon, folks, at least put on a costume for a free treat), would start showing up just after the old 9-5 day ended - not even dark yet.

On our street, kids were being bused in from surrounding neighborhoods. One night, a fella with a 15-passenger van parked in front of our house, dumped his load of kiddies, and sat in his land yacht while his charges pillaged and looted our block. Later, when the van, now full with kids and candy, refused to start, I went out and gave them a jump.

We'd finally shut off the pumpkin lights and locked up the candy corn chute between 10 and 10:30 p.m. -- well after the last lurkers came a'knockin.

I am of the mentality that I will never run out of candy and will welcome any and all trick/treater's until they decide their plastic pumpkins have enough provisions to last through the next 11 months. Has to do with some personal scarring suffered as a tot in my own trick-or-treating days.

As a result, I am slightly irritated that a town can limit the hours of this long standing tradition of spooks, goblins, and dental decay. I understand the reasoning behind the limits and safety procedures, and times today are much different than when I was a cantalope-sheeted ghost (Mom wouldn't let me use one of her good white sheets, besides, as Mom put it, "it was dark and who would notice?" Um, just everyone with a porch light, Mom.)

I'll be manning the candy bowl next Monday, while S and my in-laws take the girls on their limited hour run around the neighborhood. Our porch light will shine brightly, as will our oversized, plasticized plug-in pumpkins.

I may even leave our light on a few extra minutes past 8 p.m. Just to see what happens.

Danger is my middle name.

Oh, the horror!

Yesterday, the girls and I took the two block trek out to the local county health dept. office for our free flu shots, courtesy of the state of Oklahoma.

I went first while PK napped on my shoulder. NP

PK was still snoozing for her shot, so no problem there -- or so I thought.

She woke up momentarily upon insertion of the pointy object, and probably would have gone right back to sleep, had it not been for the pre-innoculation-blood-curdling-hair-raising screams emanating from the deepest bowels of C's nightmare-on-elm-street inner pained self.

I had to get another nurse to hold the now wailing PK, while I picked up and held onto C during her shot.

Held? More like anaconda-gripped, tightest-burrito-you've-ever-eaten wrapped up to contain her kicking legs, flailing arms, head-butting head, and kung-fu grip hands.

Good thing I trimmed her nails the other day.

As most shots go, it was over before it started and we were all sucking down ice cream scoops at Braum's Dairy soon afterward.

Normally I wouldn't partake due to my lactose intolerance, but I ordered a double shot of chocolate chip cappucino to help heal the emotional scars of the experience.

Upside to this anecdote came as we were leaving the building, both girls in semi-recovery of their senses. I told C that she didn't have to get another flu shot until next year.

She muttered to herself, "..I'm gonna tear that building down before then."

She's a slugger, that one is.

Kleenex box follies

On the average, how many boxes of kleenex (tissue) do you have in your house?

1, 2, 3?

I grew up in a home that had one box of tissues in just about every room in the house.
Each bedroom had one.
Each bathroom had one.
Kitchen, one.
Living room, one.
Dining room, ditto.
Hallway, you got it, just the one.

So, now that I'm a grown-up with my own mortgaged dwelling, I'm following suit with my childhood hovel habits in trying to populate it with multiple boxes of tissue as well.

Much to the chagrin and constant ribbing of my spouse.

She thinks it's a California-thing, as she's only witnessed this one-box-per-room phenomenon in friends and family dwellings back there.

Out here in Okie-land, it appears not to be the norm.

Darn inconvenient when you want to blow your nose in the living room, but have to migrate to a central tissue-bearing point in the house for a good hooter-honking.

So long, skeeters

Mosquito tally for this summer stands as follows:

Me - 14 bites
S - approx. 7 bites
C - 4 bites
PK - 19 bites

Family total - 44 bites


That almost matches the number of sand flea bites I got from a long weekend in St. John, US VI a few years back for my cousin's wedding.

That just about equals the number of times I watched S wince as our nursing daughters chomped down on their milk maid meal ticket.

That comes close to the number of licks it took me to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop.

That equals exactly the number of times I've bit my lip when watching people buy a Windoze box over a Mac.

Butterflies are free...and plentiful

I've seen more butterflies in and around my small town in the last three months than I have my entire lifetime.

There, I said it.

You heard me, butterflies.

Let me just stay that if these insects were called anything else other than butterflies, men wouldn't feel strange about dreamily watching their elegant flight paths that act as a stimulant to compose cheesy poetry worthy of a Susan Polis Schultz Blue Mountain Card.

Right this very instant, there are what my non-entomologist eyes tell me are three monarch's slurping up nectar from a yet to be identified white-flowered bush outside my kitchen window. A menage a Danaus plexippus.

All my life back in So Cal, I don't think I've seen more than a dozen or so butterflies.
Moths, sure. Turn on a 40-watt on your porch and you can catch and torture as many as you want.
But butterfly sightings were a rare and treasured occurance. At least in the San Gabriel Valley.

However, after 3-months of the winged beauties flittering around, I find myself sadly jaded to their multitudes.

No longer feeling sorry for the stray one that gets splattered on my windshield at 65 mph, or the one who finds itself helplessly lodged underneath the tin arm of my windshield wiper.

Fact of life that beauty in the millions becomes ordinary and if you ask out 1000 super models, at least one of them is bound to say "yes."

Career Day, or lack thereof

Yesterday was Career Day at C's school.

Neither S nor I participated, so I won't be too critical of those who did. In fact, I should be thankful that some brave parents did show up and do their best to present their job choices in a positive light.

My sincerest thanks.

However, when I perused through C's book bag at the end of the day, I discovered a plethora of souvies and handouts apparently presented to the kinder waifs by the visiting Career oriented dignitaries.

From a medial professional of some type, two rubber gloves, a medicine cup, some band-aids, and a sterile mask.

We blew the gloves up into Mickey Mouse hand balloons, washed the medicine cup for future liquid children's benadryl applications, and drew a mustache on the sterile mask, which drew chuckles from the peanut gallery at home. The band-aids will go into our stash of band-aids, since the girls have determined that any "boo-boo" feels better by the magical antiseptic and pain-killing properties found in each sterile, sticky, beige strip.
Who knew?

A banker left this exciting, action packed picture for the kiddies to color to their hearts content.

I don't think we have enough gray and black crayons for C to complete this picture. Perhaps a dull brown or boring beige will suffice. Mind the criticism, at least the guy showed up and had something to hand out. Although I think some fake money (or real money) would have been a more interest-inducing hand out for this particular group of 5-year olds.


My favorite tchochkie from her day was this coloring book, from a visiting beef rancher.

I love this coloring book. It's filled with all sorts of facts on the Oklahoma beef industry and traces how we get our various beef products from farm to table. Of course, the slaughterhouse segment is glossed over (by omission), but everyone knows how humanely we kill our cows here, right?

I'm sure PETA would approve. Just look at how happy that young girl is to be appearing on the cover of the coloring book? She must be performing the ritual "cow-going-to-slaughter" dance -- note the twisted position of her left foot, and the semaphorically saluting position of her arms.

In tribute, I attempted chicken fried steak for dinner last night. With sausage gravy, bacon fried green beans, and chocolate pudding for dessert.

Squirrel Nut Zippers (the candy, not the band).

Every year, on our wedding anniversary, my wife and I pull the name of a state from this glass Ball jar, to determine where we'll be for our next anniversary.

It's a tradition that has guided us to visit many states in our wonderful country, that neither of us would ever dream or dare of visiting.

Last year, on the observation deck of the Sears Tower in Chicago, Illinois. we pulled Massachusetts.

Which is where my wife and I just returned from a few days ago, after an extended trip away from our small town.

Some observations relevant to my small town blog.

Massachusetts is covered in trees. When we spotted a road sign indicating "Gas Food Lodging" we had to trust it's validity, since the trees surrounding the highways and exits afforded no view of any road side establishments.

We logged over 800 miles on our Jeep-for-hire, in search of fall colors. Sadly, the bulk of the leaves hadn't yet turned, and the rainy weather dulled our retinas to the colored leaves that were staunchly hanging onto the branches.

Massachusetts has a severe lack of roadkill. Which is amazing since the entire state is covered in trees. Trees, to me, means abundant wildlife. Abundant wildlife, to me, means roadkill. And yet, our pristine 4x4 ran over not a single dead dog, cat, coyote, deer, opossum, raccoon, armadillo or other nocturnal marsupial. These yankee varmits could teach our local population a thing or two about the rules of the road.

Rotary(s) (aka roundabouts) intersections are cool. I loved them when driving in England and Scotland. I love the one in Santa Monica, and I loved the ones we spun around in on Massachusetts' intersections. I enjoy driving round and round and round. It affords me time to decide which is the exact exit I need to take, gives me the thrill of NASCAR (left turns only), and provides me the entertainment of watching S get car sick.

Okay, that last one is neither fun nor funny.

Dunkin' Donuts are as common as all-night taco stands in East LA. They seem to have perfected the art of drive-through donut consumerism. Bless them and the donut wagon they rode in on.

Massachusettese is not a pretty accent. Say what you will about LA flop slang, and Okie twang, but when some fella is telling you about his hunting trip and he says, "when I staart'd the caar an the daags staart'd baarkin'," you start to appreciate the sections of the country that have no accent -- if they indeed exist."Everybody says words different,' said Ivy. 'Arkansas folks says 'em different, and Oklahomy folks says 'em different. And we seen a lady from Massachusetts, an' she said 'em different of all. Couldn't hardly make out what she was sayin'!"

-- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, 1939
And finally, what do Squirrel Nut Zippers have to do with our trip to Mass? Revere, Mass is the home of Necco, the New England Confectionery Company, makers of the legendary Necco Wafers and the ever popular, Squirrel Nut Zippers (of which I am chewing on now).

Gimme a second, these suckers are chewy.

For those interested, for next year's anniversary, as the great Ray Charles sang it so beautifully, "...Georgia's on my mind."

Teacher with a good grip

C's teacher and I have a lot in common. She milks cows in the mornings before going to school and I pour milk onto the girls cereal in the morning.

Will things like that ever cease to amaze me?

All things Apple

Mac users
Mac users are scarce here in my small town, but I managed to find one.

Standing on a street corner waiting to cross the street, of all places.

He was searching his 1st gen iPod for a particular song and was carrying a notebook on which was stuck the trademark frosty Apple sticker you get when you purchase a new Apple computer.

A definite user.
Me - (pointing to his Apple decal)...so, how do you like your new G5?
MacGeek - (grinning) I wish.
Me - Yeah, me too.
MacGeek - Dual 2.7 G5's...awesome.
Me - You seen the new Nanos?
MacGeek - Only online. Bet they don't make it here for a few months.
Me - When's the Apple Store opening up at Penn?*
MacGeek - Supposed to be by Christmas.Turns out he's studying web programming (likes Perl, hates Java, can't seem to grok CSS's just yet). He was a Windoze user until a prof at Tuttle turned him onto the Unix/Mac operating system on his iBook.
Then he got his iPod on eBay.
Then he got an Apple loan for his iBook (where he got his decal).
Hasn't looked back since. Yet another switcher.

Also gratifying to hear that there are some safe and sane tech profs at the vocational school level that aren't blindly preaching the benefits of what I consider to be the lowest common denominator of operating systems, windoze.

We mac geeked out for awhile, then I started to get that old feeling of Steve Jobs worship, so I had to leave.

Steve Jobs is not a God. Steve Jobs is not a God. Steve Jobs is not a God.
.mac account
Just had to renew my .mac membership for $108 and some change. Worth every penny of it, but I only mention making the payment since a co-worker at my old employer would get it comped for me -- u da man, Seth, baby.

Not much I miss about the old cube farm (other than the people, the work, lunches with the nerd herd, comped .mac account, new Mac's every other year or so to work on, friendly competition between us and the Windoze engineers, my Herman Miller Aeron chair, etc.).

*Working for Apple
I got a call a few weeks back from Apple-Cupertino about a resume I had sent in last March. When I was still in my job-hunting phase of our move to OK, I was thrilled to see that an actual Apple Store would be opening at a nearby mall.

Intrigued, but not at all interested, I called the Apple person back, we spoke.
A different Apple person called back, we spoke some more.
The first Apple person called back and wanted to set up a face-to-face.
I told them I wasn't interested at this time.
They said they'd only keep my resume for 6 months. I said fine and asked when the store would open.
Holiday Season 2005.

Sweet.

Stairway to Heaven

Spotted this abouut 20 miles south of our small town. Historical marker identifies it as the former site of a Mennonite enclave.



You can almost hear Page's telecaster and JP Jones recorder in the distance.

Hey, get your car washed today...

Car washes are not a luxury item here in my small town. You can find multi-stall do-it-yourself car wash joints in just about every town with running water.

This land isn't called Red Earth Country just to pay homage to it's original residents. Oklahoma's trademark dirt is red, sticky, and refuses to stay on the ground. Dry, wet, windy, humid -- no matter what the environmental conditions, Oklahoma's top soil WILL end up on your vehicle.

CLK to F-150 -- sano your ride for $.75

Why do the varmints cross the road? I've blogged this before.
Here, here and here.

From completely intact bug carcasses, to road kill remnants stubbornly sticking to the ribs of your aging sexy import. Dead or near dead impromptu hitchikers can add severe poundage to the GVW of your ride.

Grand Am to Grand Prix - expunge the carrion for $.75

One thing I noticed at our local car wash was an extra setting on the select-o- dial labeled "Engine Cleaning and Degreaser."

Steam clean your Tonawanda built big block V-8 for $.75

This engine cleaning setting was outlawed in California about the time I was in high school, looking to steam clean the grease off the chrome laden small block in my hot rod Nova.

EPA didn't like the thought of millions of gallons of soapy motor grease running out into the Santa Monica bay.

No such restrictions here (least not for the time being). Wonder where all the millions of gallons of soapy motor grease runs out to here in my small town?

Funny tasting well water for $.75?

Yes, we have a reverse osmosis filtration system on our drinking water.

Who stole the IKEA catalog?

File this under, "if you can't get it here, it must be cool."

At S's office, a floorwide e-memo circulated regarding the missing IKEA catalog from the break room

Seems someone wasn't willing to share the 150 page treasure trove of Danish furniture and accessories in living color with their fellow employees. After a brief, but happy existence atop the magazine and catalog pile in the breakroom, it went missing.

And the uproar began.

Having spent the lat 18-years in LA, S was rightly confused as to why this would cause such a ruckus amongst her fellow floormates.

A co-worker in an adjoining office summed it up and made the entire incident clear as she described her recent vacation to Minnesota.

She described some of the sights, sounds, and interesting people her and her husband experienced in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. However the main destination of their trip was their two-day jaunt (yes, they spent two entire days) at an IKEA store.

They cruised the aisles of pressboard furniture and overstuffed pillows.
They marveled at the directional arrows painted on the floor.
They dined on swedish meatball plates and lingonberry juice.
They became different characters, fitting the mood and decor of the mini-decorated dioramas on the showroom floor.
They filled their yellow sack with small household items with names such as "britta" and "gorn" and "cmirt."

It was the highlight of their trip.

As you may have guessed, IKEA has not yet made it to the dusty cosmopolitan roads of Oklahoma.

There are three in Texas, but our big ugly neighbor to the south is a big a*s state -- and someones got to furnish it.

Daylight Donuts

I consider myself very fortunate to have settled my family into a small town that has a donut shop.

Yep, just the one.

Growing up in SoCal, I was accustomed to eating what I believed to be the best donuts, made by a group of people who I still believe to be the best donut makers in the states, Cambodians.

I'm not sure why, but during the 70's, when there was a large influx of refugees from the Southest Asian peninsula, Cambodians gravitated toward donut shops, when selecting businesses to open up in the LA area. After 30 years and several generations of making the fried, doughy, objects of desire, I believe they've achieved perfection in this particular culinary art.

And donut shops are as plentiful in LA, as road kill is on the highways of central Oklahoma.

So you can see why I was hopefully skeptical when I first entered our local donut chain store several months ago. Hopeful, because I knew it was the only donut joint in town. Skeptical, because I knew there was a slim to none chance that I'd find a friendly Cambodian family running the fryer in the back.

I take PK once a week for her sprinke donut after dropping C off at school in the morning. I usually get a sausage biscuit (warmed), a couple plain cakes and a small coffee. Call it an Okie power breakfast.

My small town's donut shop is a chain store, but the people that run it make it feel like a small mom&pop operation.

I was delighted to find that the donuts were made fresh every day by ladies who seem to really care about their product. The selection was limited but with enough variety to satisfy both my aging donut-intake palate for plain, cake donuts, my lovely wife's passion for buttermilk bars, and the girls innate need for chocolate covered and sprinkle covered sugar rushes.

They offered both kinds of coffee -- reg and decaf. No frilly french roast here, just real, black, hot coffee worthy of being carried in Juan Valdez's burro's backpack.

The drive-up window service is a nice touch, complete with a surplus rollover sensor that must have been rescued from a gas station of old. The familiar "ding-ding" sound that reverberates throughout the donut shop as a pick-up truck rolls over the black, rubber hose in the drive-up lane, is a welcomed sound from my childhood. Alas, another sound rendered obsolete with the extinction of full-service gas stations.

I sit amazed as PK commences to remove all the frostine and colored sprinkles (aka jimmys) from her inner-tube shaped pastry, leaving behind a bare, yet beautiful cake donut. I've also watched C methodically lick off the entire chocolate covering from a long-john in similar fashion.

I break apart and dip a cake donut into my small cup of steaming, light brown (cream and two sugars) coffee, feeling the excess dribble off my chin before coming to a violent end on my outstretched napkin.

There's a neon clock on the wall, a bulletin board filled with snapshots of family members, and a nice lady who periodically saunters by with what always seems to be a freshly made pot of coffee to refill emptied or near empty styrofoam cups.

I enjoy watching the folks who eat their donuts with a knife and fork, always taking the time to wipe clean the white plastic utensils supplied completely gratis by the shop.

The elderly couple who have met here every week for the last 40 years inform PK and I that a cold front is coming and that we should bring all of our sensitive plants indoors. They take one last loving look at the cuteness that is PK with donut trim surrounding her mouth and pile into their town cars in the parking lot.

Cambodian donuts they may not be. But as far as donut shops go, I'm comfortably at home.

"Well, I'll be..."

Our small town is fortunate enough to have our own dump.

Actually, it's just a long ramp that takes you to the top of a dumpster, that gets hauled away on a set schedule or whenever it gets full.

To dump your load, you must be a resident off my small town. Acceptable proof of residency is a utility bill.

Easy enough.

Last week I took a load consisting of a broken limb from the recent storms, the remnants of our tile kitchen counter top, a few bags of grass shavings, and a trash can full of wood shavings.

I drove the loaded El Camino up the ramp and started unloading everything non-organic, since there are piles located elsewhere in the dump for those items.

A 60-something fella I've never seen or met before, comes walking up to me. He's about 5 foot nothing, 200 and something, coke bottle glasses, red bandana tied round his balding but thankfully comb-over free pate, stained t-shirt (no holes), and rustic blue jeans. And he has three eyebrows.
Picture Boss Hogg on a rough day spent out at Cooter's garage.
BH - Whatcha got?
Me - Just some stuff to dump.He raises an eyebrow. Uh oh, me thinks trouble is brewing.BH - You got something to show me?
Me - Oh, okay. Here.I pull out my Oklahoma driver's license and show it to him. He peruses the laminated card which allows me to operate a motor vehicle in this state and hands it back to me.
BH - That means nothing to me. I need to see a utility bill that shows you live here.
Me - Well, my address is right there on my driver's license.
He pauses long enough for me to think several things, the last of which is what I'm gonna make for dinner that night. Finally he raises his second eyebrow and says,
BH - Well, I'll be.I try my best not to show any emotion at all, but my brain is racing to remember the following dialogue for this blog entry.Me -I've been here loads of times before. Showed the young fella my license and my power bill back in April and never thought twice about bringing a bill out every time I'm out here.
Still looking at my license. He looks up at me and raises his third and final eyebrow. I sense a confrontation.
Me -...however, since your the new boss around here, I'll be sure to bring my power bill out the next time, and I'll be sure to stop in and check out my load with you.
He smiles, extends his hand out.
BH - My names Hank, pleased to meet you.
Me - Likewise (shaking his hand)
BH - Just saying, I don't know you, never seen you around here, and I've been here for 3-weeks now.
Me -Well, you probably won't see many Asian fellas driving a classic red and white El Camino hot rod around here, neither.
BH - I reckon'
Me - Okay, well, sorry to make a mess of things, and I'll be sure to bring out my bill next time I'm out here.
BH - I'd appreciate that very much.
The idling El Camino beckons me to get behind the wheel. I get in and am careful not to spin the wheels as I drive away.

Don't want him to think I"m some disrespectful punk kid

PTO

The other night, I attended my first ever PTO (Parent-Teacher Organization) meeting.

In addition to wanting to become actively invovled in C's education, I wanted to see if I could get to know some other folk in our small town and start to build some friendly relations.

I also wanted to bring up the whole - encouraging obesity with stickers - policy at C's school re: finishing their school lunches.

S prepped me with her encouraging words and coached me on not only what I was going to say, but how I was going to say it -- saying it without the accusatory "you" language and suggesting alternatives to what we felt was an improper policy.

You may recall from a previous post that C came home from school one day and asked if she could take her lunch tomorrow instead of eating the school lunch.

When asked why, she responded that she wanted to get a sticker.

Seems the school rewards any student who finishess their lunch with a sticker. And since the lunches are too much for C to finish, she never gets a sticker.

She figured that if she brought her own, smaller lunch, with portions she could finish, then she could get a sticker and not have to keep eating.

Now, we've always taught our daughters to listen to their bodies, to eat what their bodies are telling them to eat, and to stop eating when they get full. Never clean your plate unless you really want to and definitely not because someone is telling you to - or bribing you with stickers.

This reward system that the school is pushing appears (at least to us) to be encouraging behavior that leads to obesity -- which we all know is a huge (no pun intended) problem in our country.

We addressed the issue by re-stressing to C the importance of listening to her body and that she didn't have to finish her lunch.

Back to the PTO meeting. The agenda was light and breezy and I was tempted to say my peace, but the numerous members that appeared to be dealing with the obesity battle (losing or totally giving up) stifled any desire I had to bring up the subject.

Maybe some other time. In the meantime, we also stocking up on stickers for C to play with and enjoy when she gets home from school.

Lyrical looniness

The next Kindergardener you run into, ask them if they know the words to a showtune.

Any showtune.

C has been in her Kindergarden class for a little over 3 weeks and last night she sang the entire main theme song from "Oklahoma."

What, you were expecting "West Side Story?"

I remember the first time my then-girlfrend/now-wife brought me to visit her Oklahoma hometown over 18 years ago. Her parents had bought us tickets to see a local college's stage production of the classic Rogers and Hammerstein's musical extravaganza.

I sat in awe as my "not-yet-totally-jaded-and-corrupted-by-Los Angeles future wife," seemed to know every single word to every single song in the show. I was enamored by her Okie innocence, and since she has one of the lovliest voices in the entire history of human voices, I remember listening to her more than any others.

Then, at the finale, when the main theme bursts from the orchestra pit, and the actors are running forward on the stage, hands locked and smiles wide - the entire audience got to their feet and sang the final stanza with all the pride and joy of a Mother giving birth to twins.
"You're looking fine, Oklahoma,
Oklahoma,
O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A,
Oklahooooooooo-ma!"
Wonder how many 5-year olds in California can spell "California?"

Bass Pro rocks!

Bass Pro Shops are amazing.

Now, I'm not an outdoor/sportsman/huntiing kinda guy, but even I can appreciate a great big air conditioned supermart of outdoor sports gadgets, clothes, toys, food, etc.

Downtown OKC is fortunate enough to have such a store and we frequent it, not so much to purchase camp stoves and ammo, but to take in the sights of all the non-PETA approved stuffed animal carcasses, the wonderfully realistic displays, acres and acres of merchandise, and the huge indoor lake habitat aquarium, completely stocked with fish that can be found in Oklahoma's lakes and rivers.

Because we're within the 100 mile radius of this Bass Pro store, we periodically receive the large Bass Pro newspaper sales flyer.

I need some explanation of this item.


Why would I spend so much for a rock? Do I take this hunting with me? Do I use it to deliver the killing blow to the helpless animal that I've bagged, to put it out of it's misery?
Sure, chuckle at my ignorance, but you've got to see some humor in my curiosity?

Oklahoma is a small town

During this time of the year, the entire state of Oklahoma becomes one giant small town. However, these small townsfolk find their loyalties split in two, due to the popularity of one sport and the two major colleges within the pan-shaped borders.

That's right, it's football season. and the majority of Okie's bleed either Sooner red or OSU orange.

Even the AOR rock station that I listen to is playing a mixed track that consists of the Sooner Boomer fight song, the OSU fight song, finishing with a rousing chorus off Roger's and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma."

C'mon, sing with me. Everyone knows at least one line of lyrics in THAT song.

And now, you too will be humming it all day long.

You're welcome.

The season of laundry

I spend a lot of time doing laundry.
Working wife - professional outfits (thankfully, not a lot of dry cleaning), working-on-the-house-weekend outfits, morning-walk outfits, and miscellaneous just-plain-living outfits.

C - school outfits, play outfits, really-hard-play oufits, I'm-5 1/2-and-I-like-to-change-my-clothes-every-hour oufits.

PK - I'm-2 1/2-with-the-God-given-right-to-smear-whatever-I-want-onto-my-clothes outfits.

Me - Working-on-the-house-grungy outfits, mowing-edging-the-lawn-extra-grungy outifts, working-on-the-Elky-or-in-the-garage-extra-extra-grungy outfits and miscellaneous just-plain-living outfits.
With temps in the mid-upper 90's and humidity to rival Florida moments after a summer hurricane, I can soak a t-shirt in a just a few minutes of outside activity -- taking out the trash, chasing away a cat that's pooping in our yard or flicking some locusts shells off of our house.

Still, as bad as it is, I can't help thinking of past residences of our 100-year old house, that had to suffer through these furnace-like conditions with no central air, no central plumbing, no ice maker, and no Sonic slushes to see them through it.

Cooler fall temps are rumored to be just a few short weeks away, as the big OKC Fair hits town mid-September. Folks tell me it always seems to rain on the Fair, bringing brisk and welcomed autumnal temps to the state.

I was always glad to bid summer a fond farewell in So Cal, but saying sayonara to summer and all the sweat soaked laundry that goes with it has become a consuming obsession with me here in central Oklahoma.

What laundry challenges will the next season bring me?

A 5-year old figures it out

We bought the school lunches for C for the first semester. Just to see how it goes. The prices were reasonable (even by OK standards), we got to sample the menu selections (see blog posting Open House), and her being new in town/school, we didn't want her to be only brown bagger in her class. At least for now.

She's been enjoying the well-rounded, government approved, surprisingly low on fried foods, but seemingly carb-heavy school lunches.

Get ready to drool...

Today's meal was:
Mini Corn Dogs
Macaroni & Cheese
Green Peas
PearsAfterschool C asked me if she could bring lunch tomorrow. I asked why.
She told me that any kid who finishes their lunch gets a sticker, and that she hasn't gotten a sticker because the lunch is too big and she can never finish it off. So, if she brought a lunch that she could finish, she'd gobble it down, and get the sticker.

Hmm. Rewarding a kid for cleaning off their plate. Sounded to me and S a little like obesity training circa 1950 or so.

Are there really anymore starving kids in China who would love to have my lima beans?

However, I couldn't argue with her logic and desire to acquire the overeaters anonymous reward sticker.

I promised to make her a lunch later this week that she could eat in it's entirety. She had already decided on the contents:a diagonally cut pb and j on whole grain bread
a string cheese stick
juce box
orange wedges. Tomorrow however, I'll fork over a special SpongeBob Squarepants sticker that I've been keeping for myself. It was destined to adorn one of my peechee folders, but such are the sacrifices of parenthood.

Kill a mouse, save a tree

S found what she deduced to be a relatively fresh mouse poop in the attic, so off to the store I went to buy some critter catchers.

Package of 4 for a buck and two bits plus tax and I was in hunter/killer mode.

A spoonful of peanut butter for bait, and my mouse neck snapping playground was open for business.

Found this written on the back of a mouse trap wrapper. Made me chuckle to think that the mouse trap manufacturers were trying to appease the tree huggers. Guess they thought better of trying to appease PETA.


-click on pic to enlarge-

Stay tuned for the run down on my pest poach.

Road Kill #1

It was a quick turn of events.

I believe it was an armadillo.
Medium sized. Wandering across the highway in a driving rainstorm. Horizontal rain. Low visibility.

It didn't see me coming either.
It didn't turn it's head to look at me.
It didn't show me it's fixated eyes, big as saucers, staring into my halogens.
It just kept it's focus on getting to the other side of the road,

It was a fateful crossing.

I wasn't about to try to swerve around it. The slick roads made that decision for me.
I wasn't about to try out the ABS brakes -- yet another decision made for me by Mr. slippery-when-wet roadway.
I wasn't about make the slight correction necessary to align the critter with a tire, humanely killing it with a momentary squish.

It was a quick decision.

I was just going to try to aim straight for it and hope that the armored-vehicle-on-four-legs would be low profile enough to fit beneath the lowest point of our car -- the oil pan....or so I thought.

As I crossed the threshold and the critter momentarily disappeared from my view, I held my breath.

It was a quick breath.

No thundering thud. No fleshly munch. No exoskeleton crunch. Had the silvery sloth relative cleared our 4-bangers 4-quart pan?

I was in mid-starting-to-breath-my-sigh-of-relief when I heard and felt what must have been the critter making contact with what WAS actually the lowest point of our car -- the rear axle.

It was quick death.

The rain streaked rear window afforded little view of the carnage that I had left behind. As before, the near flooded two-lane forced me to keep my eyes focused straight ahead.

I would have to look for the carcass another day.

The next time I'm forced to watch The Lion King DVD for the umpteeth time with my daughters, I'll be sure to sing "The Circle of Life" with just a bit more feeling.

Bad Company in concert...well, sorta

Big date this weekend.

S and I are going here.

By linking to this site, am I in no way, shape or form endorsing the performance of this fella, nor am I endorsing the continued patronage of any lead-singer-from-a-now-extinct-and-not-all-that-popular-when-they-were-popular-from-the-70's band.

Okay, I think they may have had one top-40 hit in the 80's as well. Props for cracking the charts in the post-disco era.

The swap meet should be fun too.

Geeking out on dino bonez

Okay, I'll admit it. I was a dino geek as a kid.

I fondly remember the days when paleontology was an obsession with me and I would live for the day when King Kong would rerun on tv so I could catch a glimpse of the stop-frame animated dinosaurs battling the big ape for a piece of Fay Wray.

It got so bad that my 2nd grade teacher suggested that I bring in something other than a plastic dinosaur for show-and-tell, since I had already gone though my vast collection of brightly colored hard plastic thunder lizard's several times over.

Last week I took the girls on a 70 minute drive down to Norman, OK to check out the dino bones at the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History.

Seeing as how C's current ambitions in life are to be a "bone-digger" or "snorkeler," a big part of me digs the fact that she's digging the same kinds of things that I dug as a kid.

The museum is compact but filled with enough eye candy for the kids (adult kids like me as well), and information for the literati who enjoy reading backlit factoids on all things natural and historical.

The ancient man exhibit was a bit too realistic for my 2 1/2 year old, but the rest of the museum fit her nicely.

We all had some rainbow Push-Ups at the adjoining cafe afterward (a first for the girls), and both of them napped on the drive home.

A great stay-at-home-Dad day.

Open house

Went to C's new school for the Open House/Meet the Teacher event.

Our small town has one public elementary school, grades Pre-K to 4th.

There are two Pre-K (AM and PM sessions), five Kindergarden, five 1st grade, four second, third and fourth grade classes. I noticed that each class has an average of 16 - 18 students and looked pretty evenly divided according to gender.

Highlight was meeting her first real school teacher (sturdy looking woman), checking out the classroom (such tiny chairs) and sampling the dizzying array of culinary delights from food vendors competing for the school breakfast and lunch program.

I was astounded how many vendors showed up and the decent quality of samples we were offered. My grade school lunch menu never had lasagna with meat sauce, vegetarian enchiladas, and your choice of chicken, turkey, or all beef corn dogs.

We snarfed for an hour before realizing we were no longer hungry (it was dinner time) and only needed that final visit to the Hostess table for a Ding Dong to satisfy our "craving-something-sweet" palate.

Weird being back in a school.
Even weirder being back in a school that my kid is going to.
Weirder yet was seeing one of these in the hallway...



Tell me that doesn't bring back memories of grade school.

Pencils with your schools name engraved in gold lettering on the shaft...priceless.

Well, maybe not priceless. More like $.25.

Of course I bought one..I have just as much school spirit as the next stay-at-home-Dad.

Unhooking a fish

My father-in-law exclaimed that when he and my mother-in-law take C out on the lake and stumble upon a school of surfacing bass, he spends all of his time unhooking fish from everyone elses line, and never gets his own pole into the lake.

This past weekend, C's curiosity and growing need for tactile experiences overcame her fear of touching "icky, alive, things."

At 5 1/2, my daughter will now fearlessly reach up and grasp a freshly caught lake bass, in all it's flip-flopping, wet and wriggling wonder, hold it tight, and even give it a gentle stroke as she quietly reassures it with her innocent cooing voice.

A nearby adult still has to unhook the squirming scaled creatures as we don't want C going near the hooked lures. However, I imagine she'll be reaching into the gaping mouths of the suffocating beasts with her adolescent digits and extracting sonic rooster tails in no time at all.

Back to School

It's been 29 years since I was last enrolled as an elementary school student.

Those of us who were semi-prepared, usually had a pencil or two (pre-sharpened), a peechee folder, maybe some three-ring paper, and an eraser that didn't make too huge a bulge in your pocket. A goody comb in your back pocket (black was the popular color, but I had to have a red one), some change for lunch or a quick snack at the local Trader Joe's after school, and you were set.

Things seemed to have changed a bit.

C starts kindergarden at our small town's public elementary school this week and she apparently has a list of required school supplies she is expected to bring on her first day of class. REQUIRED!

WalMart has a rotating display with separate supply lists for each grade from all of the surrounding area schools. You simply find your child's school and grade, pick up the corresponding sheet of paper and go happily skipping down the school supply aisle, shopping cart at the ready -- yes, we needed a shopping cart and not just one of those plastic carry baskets.

Our small town newspaper was extra heavy this weekend as they printed the school lists for all the grades and surrounding school systems as well. This was good reading, let me tell you. Some of my favorite required items included:

• 7th & 8th grade / Multi-subject notebook for notes and cumulative knowledge -- cumulative knowledge...is that what they're calling public education these days?

• 8th grade / Wide line notebook paper -- I think I was using the narrow line paper way back in 4th grade cuz it was cooler to write smaller..or so I remember.

• 2nd grade on / No. 2 pencils - now really, why were No. 2 pencils singled out as the be-all, end-all of pencils?

• All grades / Two reams white copy paper - wow, two reams worth. That's some heavy lifting on day one of school.

• 3rd grade / Pink Pearl Eraser - anyone know what this is...anyone?

• All grades / antibacterial wet wipes - ahh, I love the smell of antibaterial wet wipes in the morning...
School supply accumulation has reached red (severe) terror alert status as local radio stations and desperate communities are having round-the-clock school supply donate-a-thons in parking lots across the state.

I imagine most, if not all of the public schools in this country are subjecting their students to similar requirements before the bells ring in the next few months -- and may have been for quite some time.

It's just been awhile since I've been exposed to the world of public education. What other adventures lie ahead for this stay-at-home Dad are yet to be seen. PTA? School fundraisers? PeeWee sports leagues? BAKE SALES?

Fattening of small town tax coffers

S got a ticket for excessive speed yesterday in a small town just north of our small town. I'm talking, really small town - population about 350.

She was allegedly doing 51 in a 35 zone, according to the Police Chief's radar.

Yep, she was pulled over by none other than the Chief of Police, in a white, unmarked, Chevy Suburban. He was wearing a white polo shirt, painfully stretched over his two-kegger belly, not a badge, uniform, or gun belt in sight.

S was gunned at a section of the main drag where the speed limit is still 35, however a sign no more than 50 yards ahead reads 55 mph.

Since no 45 mph section is posted between the two speed zones, drivers must apparently not exceed 35 mph, until the very moment they pass the 55 mph sign. Since S was attempting to get up to speed before she reached the 55 mph zone, she was pegged as an offender.

Tickets are a part of life and I've received my share of them -- all of which, I might add, I deserved to get.

However the bail amount of S's ticket - a whopping $215.00, seems excessive considering the offense. Small town councils and the state legislature determine the fines, however it's well known that the only way small towns can keep their doors open is to overcharge any and all lawbreakers that pass through their fiefdoms.

The last speeding ticket I received in So Cal, was for doing 50 in a 35 residential zone. Fine was $91, plus $25 for traffic school. However, Pasadena is a far cry from small town rural Oklahoma, and my ticket fees were only covering the admin costs of processing the paperwork associated with the ticket, and not buying bullets and Sonic slushies for the local Chief of Police.

The COP (chief of police) told S that she could appear in front of the judge (probably his brother or uncle) and appeal to not have the ticket show up on her driving record. Since S hasn't received a ticket in over 18 years (and never one for excessive speed), she may go in front of the judge, pay her fine, and get it off her record. OK does accept traffic school certificates as well, so she may just do an online quickie and be done with it.

BTW, the fine for 1 -15 mph over the speed limit would have been $115. She was clocked at 16 mph over the speed limit -- adding another $100 to the COP's slushie fund. How convenient....?

Oh and here's another traffic fine related display of the wisdom and hypocrisy of Oklahoma's red majority voters and lawmakers -- the state mandated fine for not having a child restrained in an approved car seat...$35.

Thirty-five dollars!

Sure, Oklahoman's are pro-life, but after the fetus is born, their lives are only worth $35 once their chaw chewing parents take them home from the hospital in their rusted out Ford F150's.

Ignorance is bliss.

Now that's handy

We have a cute, little, barely-more-than-a-TG&Y WalMart store in our small town. It's old, the aisles are narrow, the employees are all local, and it's been more than handy to have on more than one occasion.

In an effort to fulfill it's corporate mandate of being a true one-stop shop, WalMart Supercenters were introduced to America, the nearest one to us being a good 45 minute drive away. Ours, like many others, has a mini-McDonald's built right into the main entry foyer -- smelling those golden fries both coming and going.

I was in line at a WalMart Supercenter the other day and noticed that you can order and pay for McDonald's food items right there in the checkout line.

There's a mini-menu board, just below the lighted checkstand number indicator, complete with pictures of Value meals, Happy Meals, drinks and desserts.

Scan your groceries, order some food, take your ticket to the mini-McD's and you've contributed to two large, great American corporations with a single swipe of your ATM/Check card.

Lost and Found

7 months ago I lost my wedding ring.

Forgetting your wife's birthday, overlooking your wedding anniversary, telling your wife those pants make her look fat -- all pale in comparison to losing one's wedding ring.

Back in January, I was helping my Father-in-law raise the house (we had some foundation issues and the house had settled on one side) using two 20-ton railroad jacks. Rooting around under the house, digging through 100+ year old dirt, shoring up timbers and welding support beams into place, I was sure that the ring slipped the slippery slope off my finger, and was lost down in the bowels of our cellar.

This afternoon, C was walking the side lawn, looking for flowers to feed her newly "captured" pet butterfly, when she saw the ring sitting in a puddle of dried mud on a patch of lawn.

A patch of lawn that I have mowed dozens of times in the last 7 months.
A patch of lawn that I have weeded dozens of times in the last 7 months.
A patch of lawn that I have walked over, ran on, drove by, and looked down upon, dozens of times in the last 7 months.

Near as I can figure, the torrential rainstorm that we had the other night sent rivers of water down our roof. The cascading waterfall must have stirred up the ground directly below the eaves just enough to unearth the ring from it's hiding place below the surface.

How did the ring end up in this particular spot?

As I remember, we had set up the chop saw in this area as we were cutting lumber for support beams in the cellar. I must have pulled my gloves off to cut a board, dislodging the ring from my finger and depositing it on the hallowed ground below.

Mystery solved, ring found, dog house now officially vacant.

And S, I never, ever, ever said those pants made you look fat.

Freak late summer t-storm

Thought we'd wait out this sudden thunderstorm that erupted over our town a few hours ago, by swimming at the community pool.

Got the girls ready, got my trunks on, loaded them up and made the 4 block drive over in the rain.

The sign on the pool facility stated, Pool closed due to bad weather.

Bad weather.

The pool is indoors.

Does the "getting out of the pool during a lightning storm" rule still apply to indoor pools? Should we stay out of our bathtubs as well?

Mattress toting hucksters

S has always had a sore spot for John Steinbeck's portrayal of Okies as "mattress toting hucksters" in his novel, The Grapes of Wrath. While I believe his portrayal of the Joad family to be far from anything negative, I can see how many Oklahoman's may have grown up being sensitive to the issue.

The #1 cause of accidents and death on Oklahoma's highways is due to loose items falling from moving vehicles.

Tools and hay bales from farm trucks, tack and manure from horse trailers, beer cans from drunk teenagers ridiing in the back of their pick-em-up-trucks.

Then there are these people...



I blame NASCAR for the mental giants who packed this vehicle. They watch Dale Jr's crew hold his beat up Chevy together with Duct Tape to finish a race, and they figure "if it's good enough for Dale Jr's car, it must be good enough for my car and all my worldly belongings."

Darwin Awards being handed out here, on the highways of Oklahoma.

Come and git' 'em!

Fighting the urge

On the outskirts of our small town is a beautiful corn field. I'm talking, Field of Dreams beautiful.

The stalks are currently taller than I am and you can almost smell the golden ears of sweet maize as you drive by. The prairie wind catches the entire field and the stalks sway in balletic unison, beckoning innocent passers-by to stop and sample the 7000-year old crop.

No one is around. I stop to "admire the view." Easy pickin's, so to speak.

But I fight the urge to commit vegetable vandalism and get on my way.

Just a few miles away from the corn field is an expansive melon patch, that spreads out in all directions. The fruit is at it's vine ripened peak this time of the year. Watermelons, cantalopes and honeydews blanket the red soil, tempting pickers with their sweet juice and fleshy goodness.

No one is around. Same deal as the corn. Easy, easy pickin's. But I again fight the urge to commit botany burglary and leave the melons in peace.

Recently, multitudes of Pickup trucks are popping up all over town with their beds full of luscious melons and bushels of sweet corn. Home spun cardboard signs testifying to their ripeness and inexpensive prices.

I stop at a black pickup, pick out a melon or two and pay for them, my conscious free of guilt and my mind unemcumbered by the thoughts of vegetable thievery.

I stop at a red pickup, fill a grocery sack full of field fresh corn and hand over some small bills. As I'm leaving I overhear the owner of the pickup telling an acquaintance where he got his corn from.

Yep, the same field I had been admiring.

Come to think of it, the melons I bought look awfully familiar as well.

What is the penalty for buying pilfered produce from the back of a pickup truck on a county road?

Leave her alone, already!

Posted in this weekends local paper.



Gossip and lies are what drives the rumor mill in small towns. Guess Tammie has had enough and was willing to shell out the $16 for 3 column inches to declare her independence from the perceived inaccuracies being spread about her.

Unfortunately, now I want to find out what the gossip is all about.

Censorship only succeeds in bringing attention to the very issue the censorship is being attempted upon.

Gun Show for Toddlers

Took in a car show at the OKC fairgrounds today with PK. Didn't take C, since she is at the age where looking at old muscle cars and hot rods bore her. Sigh.

The car show was held inside two large air-conditioned buildings -- which I appreciated very much as the outside temps rose to the mid-90's. PK loves car shows, enjoys the brightly painted metal and fiberglass, and even tugs at my hand to go over and see any car that is rumbling in idle.

After an hour or so, we were getting ready to head home, when I was told by the Security Guard at the exit, that I could get free admission to the Gun Show in an adjacent building, since I had bought a ticket to the car show.

Well, free is free, and since it had been 30 or so years since I had been to a gun show, I thought, what better place to take my 2.5 year old daughter.

One person that we followed into the foyer (we weren't even IN the gun show building yet) had a rifle slung over his shoulder as casually as if it were a backpack. I thought to myself, is he a Seller or a returning buyer -- or perhaps he's a disgruntled buyer about to "return" his purchase with extreme prejudice?
Hmm.

The geriatric security guard put my mind at ease as he carefully checked my hand for the required car show stamp.
HE was unarmed.
Check.

Several feet down the first aisle, a man was showing his pre-pubescent son how to dissasemble a semi-automatic handgun of some sort. The wife/mother stood nearby, fondling a Sonic drink in one hand while eyeing my daughter with a raised eyebrow.
Family values.

Next aisle over, I had to maneuver the stroller around and past a group of fellas having concession stand beers from flimsy plastic cups. They were discussing a recent hunting trip they had taken and from the sounds of it, were on their umpteenth gun show sponsored brewski.
Drink your Bud and show me the exit doors, please.

We left with no regrets of not having cruised up the down the remaining aisles of rifles, handguns, ammo, stocks, grips, hunting gear, camping gear, instructional videos, knives, and other gun related hardware.

Back at my car, I noticed that a brand new red GTO was parked to my right and a '69 yellow/black Z-28 Camaro was parked to my left.

I asked PK which one she liked better. She took a moment and said, "I want Daddy's car."

She's only 2 and a half...give her a break.

Meep-meep

Today while I was out back in the garage, using a sabre saw to cut some L-shaped pieces of plywood to fix our side storm door (don't ask), I noticed a medium sized, bird-like creature with a long tail, spindly legs, and crested head piece darting down my driveway.

It stopped to look at me momentarily, then darted off down the alley.

"I'll be darned," muttered my father-in-law, who was cutting trim pieces on the radial arm saw to finish off the kitchen cabinets he was building for us.

"That is one lost roadrunner."

Indeed, a roadrunner braved the 4-lane highway in front of my house, crossed in midday traffic and ran down my driveway.

And not a Wile E. Coyote in site.

Super Genius.

Why did the turkeys cross the road?

To freak ME out, that's why.

Two, count them, one, two, full grown, full blown, brown plummaged female turkeys (what is a female turkey called...a hen?), were attempting to cross the road in front of me.

The two wild turkeys were clipping along at a good rate as they approached the roadside.

I was doing 65 mph down a two-lane highway out in the countryside just west of town.

These two wild turkeys were fast buggers, and were entering my lane before my brain could process the fact that there were actually two wild turkeys crossing the country road in front of me.

I didn't brake. The only thing that was anti-lock in my old Chevy were my bowels, which I was currently in danger of "anti-locking" all over myself.

Besides, I was, after all in a 4000 lb. solidly built American muscle car/truck from the early 70's. What could happen?

Umm, hitting a 30 lb. fleshy/feathered object at 65 mph...I could die, that's what could happen.

I didn't swerve. Impulsive steering at high speeds in these old beasts don't reveal Indy car reaction times, so attempting a dodge maneuver wasn't at the top of my quickly shrinking list of turkey avoidance procedures.

Instead, I did what any red-blooded American male with a high-horsepower classic muscle car would do.
I floored it -- hoping that I might outrun the future Thanksgiving day feasts on four feet.

The g-forces were instant and exhilerating as my Edelbrock carb greedily enjoyed every bit of the 650 cfm alloted to it, sucking dino juice and air into it's bowels, to be turned into instant horsepower for my aging Bowtie beast.

With aplogies to Clement C. Moore...I glanced to my right for I knew the birds were near,
when what do my wandering eyes did appear,
but two turkeys flying over (yes over) my rear!
The turkeys used their little brains and decided they didn't want to tangle with a 4000 lb. moving object. Instead, I was treated to a prime rear view mirror seat of their flights of fancy, up and over the tailgate of my car.

If only I could be as graceful as a turkey.

Bet if they were male turkeys, they would have most definitely played "chicken" with me and have "gone for it."

Acres and acres of free parking

I just realized that it had been some time since I looked for a parking space.

That includes curb parking in front of local businesses, lot parking at a mall or shopping center, ATM parking at my bank, angled curb parking at our doctor's office, street parking in front of my house - or anyone else's house, come to think of it.

I used to take pride and actually find some joy and self-worth in being able to cruise a parking lot and through no other skills than my will to succeed, find an open spot, or someone just leaving.

Sad to say, I actually kinda miss that.

Guess I just have to find something else to replace that mad-rush feeling and espresso ego boost.

I don't know, maybe I just need to kill more flies.

On a related note, we all know how great it feels to finally get to the front of a long line -- one which you've been standing in long enough to appreciate the invention of the padded shoe sole.

Now wait...I'm not talking about the relief you feel when you are actually "up to bat." No sir, I'm talking about being NEXT up to bat. First in line, baby. Ready to git and go, doggie. Numero Uno, top of the heap, king of the hill, A numba 1.
You've made it through the roughest part of the line and now stand at the threshold of completing your mission. There's a genuine rush that develops from the sense of accomplishment you feel for doggedly sticking it out.

Not to mention the sense of self-worth you experience in knowing all those behind you are envying your position of power, demonstrated by the straightened posture, jutted out chest, chin up position your body assumes while being admired by all those inferior folk behind you.

Sigh.

I haven't stood in a long line since I moved here.

Not at the bank, not at the post office, not at the WalMart, not at the movie theatre. One people, maybe two deep on a bad day. Lines that short don't even give you a chance to gather your thoughts, let alone have your money ready, or ponder the front pages of the Weekly World News and National Enquirer.

Okay, I was 3 cars back at a Sonic Drive-Up window, but it was 102 degrees at 10 in the morning, and everyone in town was getting a cherry-limeade slush that day.

Lines and parking. Parking and lines. No matter what order you put them in, they CAN be missed.

Low water pressure

Our small town is fortunate enough to have an excellent swimming facility.

Completed several years ago, the aquatic center features an 8 lane, 25-meter lap pool, a corkscrew water slide into a separate 4-foot deep pool, a separate diving pool with both low and high diving boards, and a 25-meter long wading pool complete with beach-type shoreline and a 15-foot mushroom water fountain centerpiece.


The locker rooms are clean, the showers are hot and staff are small town Oklahoma friendly. Open year round, we've been enjoying the facility very much and very often.

With the exception of two days last week, that is.

One day we were turned away due to a baby ruth incident that caused them to shut down the pool to introduce what I can only imagine to be industrial strength E coli killing chemicals. They didn't drain the pool, however.

This type of accident seems to be more common than us public pool patrons would care to know about since the staff didn't seem all that concerned and were following what appeared to be a well-practiced set of procedures for chemical application.

The next day (no kidding), they closed the pool again due to some 10-year old doofus kid attempting a back flip off the side of the diving pool. He split his head open and the resulting flow of blood from his still-growing skull polluted the water beyond salvageability.

They had to drain, bleach, and refill the pool, retreat and reshock the water before allowing people back in some 24-hours after treatment. 10-year olds suck.

On a side note, the day they refilled the pool, we had low water pressure at our house. Here in my small town we have two water towers - one old and one new.

Wonder what would happen if everyone in town flushed at the same time?

On a personal note, Rest In Peace, Scotty.

Watermelon seeds

It's watermelon season here in my small town, as I'm sure it is in many points north, south, east and west of us.

I was preparing our latest watermelon for consumption the way my mother always did -- cutting it into little bite-sized chunks, removing as many seeds as possible.
Labor intensive, yes. Tastes better, perhaps. Easier to consume in mass quantities, absolutely.

The girls, however, at this stage in their young lives, prefer to eat it "hippo-style." Right off the "bone." Just slice a piece off and hand it down, man.

This can get messy, however, and at this stage in my old "doing-laundry-every-day" life, I prefer they eat it with a napkin on their lap, and a fork in hand.

While de-seeding the slices of ruby red melon, C noticed the abundance of both black and white seeds. I commented how one can safely eat them, but it's probably better not too (holding back the temptation to retell the "watermelon plant growing out of your stomach tale" from my youth).

She then told me, "the black and white seeds are the same, just like black and white people."

Innocent, until corrupted by the outside world.

Noodling

Here in Oklahoma, we have fishermen who like to catch catfish using nothing more than their bare hands.

Dogging, stumping, graveling, hogging, tickling -- the practice goes by many names.

Here in Oklahoma, they call it noodling.

Wikipedia has a pretty good description.
"To begin, a noodler goes underwater to depths ranging from only a few feet to up to twenty feet. Placing his hand inside a discovered catfish hole, a noodler uses his arm as bait to entice the fish. If all goes as planned, the catfish will swim forward and latch onto the fisherman's hand and arm."
According to Wikipedia, the origin of the term noodling, is the word noodle, which is slang for a foolish person.

Seems about right to me.

P.S. - I don't think these Thai fellas caught their catfish with their bare hands, do you?

Bowling

Took C for her first every foray into the universe of the recreational bowler.

She has a hard foam rubber bowling set at home that she loves to play with and wanted to try the real deal.

I found a cool old 24-lane alley on old Route 66 that was still in business to take her to.

Here is her scorecard:



Not too shabby, I think. But I was never a bowler. Didn't have things like gutter bumpers and 4-legged chrome rail rollers when I was a kid bowler. For the second and third games she pushed the rail roller aside and "toilet bowled."

Her scores reflect this, but she felt better knowing it was just her and the gutter bumpers making the points.

Favorite comment that she made that day was, "if only I could have three balls instead of two, I could get them all down."

How many bowlers have thought the exact same thing? Plenty, I think.

I'll have mine with soy sauce, please

My small town is fortunate enough to have a combo KFC/Taco Bell.

I consider this the PB&J of fast food franchises. They do okay separately, but together they create a taste sensation.

Anyhow, spotted this sign for Tuesday's special.


I can't and won't comment since I eat a lot of stuff that S tells me smells like an aquarium.

Besides, that's a lot of culinary joy for a buck ninety-nine.

Roadkill of another kind

Driving home tonight from dinner with the in-laws, I noticed that the light showers the weather prognosticators had been predicting was actually commencing.

What keyed me into this was the familiar sound of raindrops hitting my car. Or were they?

Imagine my horror when after a second or two, I realized the sound my "cityfied senses" mistakenly perceived to be droplets of water from above, turned out to be swarms of bugs splattering against every inch of my poor defenseless cars turtle wax shine.

The onslaught of biblical proportions lasted several horrid miles, wherein my windshield wipers became nothing more than bulldozers of bug blood and guts.

Tomorrow, in the peaceful morning daylight, I'll survey the Sodom and Gomorrah that is my front grill, and may post a picture of it, if it can sneak by with an NC-17 rating. I doubt it will.

Which is why every small town in Oklahoma has a self-service car wash. Where, for only $.75 you can jet spray the carcasses of millions (yes, millions...may even be billions) of insectoidal creatures off of your cars violated finish.

Can't go home again?

Today were entertaining visitors from So Cal. We met them while C attended a progressive/bohemian cooperative nursery school in the Glassel Park area.

Hubby and wifey are both from Oklahoma. Kids are all born and bred Los Angelenos. Oldest in 9, youngest is 3.

They tried to move back here last year. Rented a house and everything.

He's a freelance artist. She's a freelance writer. Young, progressive, liberal, semi-hippie.

They lasted one month.

Inspired by our grand excursion eastward, away from the bustling hustle of the big city, they requested a visit to our small town abode to discuss how we did it, how were doing it, and how we going to keep doing it.

Wonder how our lifestyle will hold up under the scrutiny?

Fly hunting

Back in So Cal, we had flies.

But not like here.

I moved our trash cans far away from the house, and try to keep our trash cans inside emptied as often as possible. The windows are double-paned, so no getting in there, and I am ever vigilent when anyone leaves the house via front or side door.

Still, the little buggers make it inside the hallowed grounds of the inner sanctum of my home. May be getting in through one of many little cracks and holes that populate our 100-year old home.

Yesterday I killed 5 of them.

5.

I think I may have killed 5 flies in an entire year back in So Cal.

Daily total here.

After much experience, I've decided that my previous technique of waiting for the fly to land and get settled, while I take my time to set up the perfectly aimed killing swat is not effective on my small town's fly population.

Basically, I've seen more success in just whacking away whever the winged menaces come close to landing. They don't seem to wait around very long and are quick decision makers on where their next landig point wil be.

So, when killing flies here, you snooze, you lose. Swat with abandon.

I won't complain too loud however, since my friend in Chandler, AZ is having issues with scorpions.

A proud Daddy moment

Hanging out in the yard the other day, I spied C making skidmarks on our driveway with her Radio Flyer bicycle.

Skidmarks.
You remember how this works. Pedal as fast as you can, get the bike going at a good clip, jam on the foot brake and slide the rear wheel out to the side. Then step back and view your skidmark with pride.

I didn't teach her this. She either saw some other kids doing it, or figured it out herself.

Skid marks usually lead to burnouts, which are not all that easy to do on a bicycle. I'm confident she'll figure those out as well.

Color me proud.

Small town sex scandal

The small town police department where my wife grew up is being severely downsized due to a sex scandal of major proportions -- well, for a small town at least.

Seems the clerk at the local Conoco convenience store was providing "full service" to some of the officers in uniform.

The thing that seems to be upsetting most of the townsfolk is that several of the officers were married, one had a pregnant wife at home, and that they were all on-duty at the time.

The Assistant Chief is an old family acquaintance (used to be a friend, but he's become somewhat of a jerk since becoming a cop, so he's been downgraded to acquaintance), so we're anxiously awaiting to see what the Federal investigation turns up.

Dig the name of the first officer to be fired...Mayberry. Wouldn't Andy and Barney be upset beyond words? And don't even get Aunt Bee started.

Newspaper spottings

Public Notices in my small towns local paper this week...

As customary due to hot weather, Trash pickup will be one hour early.
Reasons why? Not sure, but here are my guesses:

Trash gets stinky in the heat.

Trash guys gets stinky in the heat (here in OK ,they don't insist on being called "Sanitation Engineers")

Trash guys know that cold beer tastes better in hot weather. The sooner Miller time arrives, the better.

Trash guys need an extra hour to pickup the trash, since hot weather somehow generates more trash.

Cemetery Association - NOTICE - Effective July 1, 2005
The price on cemetery plots will increase from $150 to $300 each.
For more information contact Ross Adam or Chris Cochran.
Wonder what caused them to double the prices. $5 or $10 or even $50 more I can understand. But DOUBLE!
I suggest going over to the next town to be buried. Save yourself $150

YASTM - why?

S and I had a discusson the other night, during which the issue of this blog and the time I spend on it came up.

Could 15 to 20 minutes of thinking/typing be considered a waste of time when I have two girls to raise, a house to fix up, a classic cars to restore, laundry to fold, beds to make, dishes to load into the dishwater, summer activities for the girls to plan and a career wife to look out for? Perhaps.

I view this blog as a journal of sorts. A documentation of our lives in polarioid format, that enables the sparking of my creative writing synapses and offers a peek into my thinking and frame of mind at the time

Basically, if this journal survives me, I think S and the girls will be happy I did it.

Quick, to the bat cave!

Yesterday, my family and I took a road trip out to the Alabaster Caverns State Park.

Took the guided tour (as opposed to the wild "crawing-on-your-belly" tour). My in-laws came along to hold the girls hands while S and I held hands. Caves are romantic, what can I say.

Some interesting factoids:

Alabaster Cavern is a 3/4-mile cavern formed of alabaster, a rare form of gypsum, making it the largest natural gypsum cave in the world open to the public.

Drinking the water that flows through the gypsum cavern is equivalent to drinking a double dose of exlax. They call it gyp water, it tastes terrible, but can keep you flowing and regular.

Bats only winter in this cave. They apparently summer in cooler climates. Didn't realize bats could be snowbirds.

Speaking of bats, we did get to see two of them while spelunkering around inside the cave. C was more excited than scared as she traversed the sometimes narrow, often tight, and always slippery walkways. Not having to bend and stoop over when the rest of us had to duck walk through some low lying alabaster crevice, made her journey much to her liking.

Meanwhile, her barrage of questions to the Park Ranger/Tour Guide were typical of a 5-year old, but provided audible entertainment to the few who were on the tour with us. Some questions I recall her asking follow:
Where do caves come from?
How are they made?
Do you live down here?
How come people are afaid of bats? I mean, I'm afraid of them, but that's only because they're kinda scary. Don't you think they're scary?
What is that writing on the wall?
Can I take some cave home with me?And everyones favorite C question for our twenty-something, young, robust, blonde female Park Ranger/Tour Guide: "Do you have any babies?"
Hey, not everyone can get a Park Ranger to blush.

Strange night flying creature spotted

Sitting at my laptop, gazing out into the night air (I was wireless but indoors -- sure it was night but it was still 90 degrees outside), I spotted a strange night flying creature that I haven't seen since moving to my small town 3 months ago.

It hovered low, spun around a few times, then darted off into the horizon. The sight of it so startled me, that I had to stop and watch it's balletic movements in the star-filled Oklahoma sky.

My first helicopter sighting since I moved here. Hard to believe.

They seemed to be a nightly occurance back in the San Gabriel Valley. So common, you almost didn't hear them anymore.

Have to check the local paper this week. Will probably be the top story with the headline, "Helicopter buzzes night sky; citizens alarmed."