Over a year, and I'm posting something about cookies...

So, a year goes by, and I'm posting only cookies.

• Bowl on left: monster cookies
• Bowls in the middle: peanut butter sandwich cookies (top) and filling (bottom)
• Bowls on right: chewy sugar cookies (top) and coating (bottom)

Since my family thinks that I'm not posting on my blog anymore (and who can blame them?), I feel safe to say that these cookies are going home to them for Christmas. It's late and I'm tired. I may fall asleep before these are done baking, though...

33-bead Chotki

This is finally completed. I began this as a 50-bead Chotki to find out that I didn't cut enough yarn for it. I reduced it down to 33 beads, and then lost it. I found it a couple days ago, and completed it just now.

Wish me blessings on the 300-bead. :)

Back on Facebook...

...again. Since games are on Facebook, on Google Plus, and on Chrome (which is my browser of choice), it seems like a silly thing to drop Facebook for games. I won't be accepting anyone's invitations to games, so no one give me a poor lost puppy, a round of .44 slugs, a recipe of all things delicious, or train shipments for my city. I intend to use it for networking. If this doesn't happen, it's because I'm a weak man, and games are going to do me in.

Linux Mint

So I changed from Windows Vista to Linux Mint. It's a fascinating change. Linux has become even more user friendly since I used it last, and when you tweak it, it becomes even more so. My latest installation is Cairo-Dock, which is very fluid and works rather like the Mac dock. Talk about convenient. I'm a fan. :)

Peaches

On Sunday, Christine and I went to a peach orchard and picked two pecks of peaches.  They are delicious!  I'm eating about 15 peaches a day, just to keep ahead of them going completely bad.  I didn't quite realize how much a peck is...

I was almost bored today...

...but without Facebook, I rediscovered something: BOOKS.

I picked up Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and began reading through the collection of Sherlock Holmes mysteries.  So far, so good.  I only got about 30 pages into it.  :)

It is funny how easily the concept of the hero going on cocaine trips enters into the story, as though it's something that everyone should do.  This is obviously not something intended for those who would believe that it's OK to use the stuff.

No more facebook

I'm done.  I'm off Facebook.  I'll blog instead if I want to share stuff.

I hope that my resolution stays.  I'm still on LinkedIn, but that's got a different focus.

Newest discovery!

Google Chrome's latest app: Angry Birds!!!

Funny how this also fits into the "biggest time waster" category, too...

Thoughts about driving

As I was driving in to my first site today, a thought crossed my mind after I let a guy into my lane.

"Why did I do that?"

I'm a jerk, to be honest. I don't like people pulling in front of me, especially people whom I don't know. I'll let anyone I know pull in front of me, but if I don't know the person, forget it!

Next question: "Why am I like that?"

It's one of my pet peeves! What if the person is slow? What if the person is drunk? What if I'm in a really big hurry and just can't wait 15 seconds to allow a person to merge in front of me?

"So? You're a good driver. Letting one person in front of you is not going to kill you. If anything, you'll be avoiding upsetting them. Calm down. You'll get to where you're going."

Touche.

As I continued to ponder in this way, it occurred to me that I do very often let people in front of me, but usually only one, especially in a merging situation. If more than one attempts to get in, then I get really riled up.

At this point, the voice in my head was silent. I think I was smothering it, because I didn't want to hear it say: "What's the difference between letting in one person or letting in two? Or four? You're being a gentleman. Don't kill that."

I still haven't heard it say anything.

Feeling posh

Dinner this evening: Quinoa, fennel and radish salad, Italian rice sautéed with onions, and Kombucha Botanic No7 (kombucha, hibiscus, orange peel, chamomile, fresh-pressed ginger) to drink.

Does any of this sound tasty? Truthfully, it all is. But I would never think that I'd be so close to driving a Smart Car unless it was a Smart Forfun2.

Although, speaking of Smart Cars, this one is cool, too.

Stories from Texas: AJ & Anya in WalMart

NOTE:

I began this post in July of 2009. I just noticed today that I never finished it. You may notice a change in writing styles.

BEGIN STORY:

As I was working one day, AJ and Anya came scampering up to me, their faces all lit up with the predicted enjoyment of their large rubber ball. They were going outside to bounce it, and they begged me, "Uncle Anthony, come watch how high we can bounce this!" Well, it was the middle of the afternoon, so I was working, but since I'd been telling them "No," and "Later," all day, I figured that I needed to say, "Yes," this time. I couldn't let them get discouraged or to think that I didn't want to associate with them, so I agreed.

We went outside, and AJ said, "Watch how high I can bounce this!" He then slammed the ball onto the deck with as much force as a 7-year-old could muster, which amounted to about 10 feet in the air. He shouted, "WOW! I've never seen anything bounce so high!" So Anya had to get in the action, "Let me try!" AJ handed her the ball after a minor confrontation, the subject of which had to do with AJ's turn not being over yet, but within about 45 seconds, AJ had bounced it once more, thus ending his turn, so Anya showed me how high she could bounce it. She also achieved about 10 feet, and tried again, as AJ had. So I got my turn and bounced it about 15 feet, which was met with, "WOW! I've never seen anything bounce so high!"

This is a bit of a prequel to the fact that my sister's kids have stock phrases which they use quite often, and which are very exclusive and universal. So, back to the story.

I got a second bounce, and this time the ball flew off the deck. The giggles and the "wow!" chorus ensued as expected, and the ball landed in Mom's tall flowerbed, just off the deck. The problem is that some of the stalks of the floweres wre broken. One such large specimen pierced the ball and popped it, and that ended all the fun. In light of the fact that I had ruined their toy, I promised them that I would get them a new one to replace the one I broke.

Hey, it's an effort to teach them integrity. Give me a break, I'm still learning it myself!

Well, they ran through a few different solutions to fix the ball: tape, string, glue. None of them worked, so they took me up on my offer for a new ball.

That Saturday, I had to go to WalMart to pick up food and such, and AJ and Anya wanted to go, too. My usual routine is that if they are good, I'll give them a quarter to get a treat from the quarter machines up front. A small handful of M&M's goes a LONG way to appeasing a youngster's patience with boring old shopping, and the promise of it makes them really helpful in the store. If you give it to them before the trip starts, they'll only want a second treat as they leave, but if you give them the treat after the fact, they are really helpful in the store in anticipation of the thank you gift later.

Anyway, I just realized that I'm one of the few non-parents who are actually reading this. All of a sudden, it seems that I'm discovering things that everyone else already knows...

Anyway, so we went into the WalMart and began shopping. It was a short list: bread, cheese, milk, eggs, and small candy bars for energy throughout the day. Mom needs it: she deals with 5 little ones most days!

Well, at the end of it all, when we left, I paid for everything on my card. I then realized my mistake: I couldn't get quarters to give the kids! My promise went up in smoke before my eyes. I told AJ and Anya about my mistake. AJ is very forgiving; he immediately piped up with a smile and, "That's OK, Uncle Anthony." You could tell he was disappointed, but he wasn't going to let it ruin his day. Anya was much more visibly disappointed, but she followed her brother's lead in accepting my apology and forgiving the broken promise.

Well, we went outside, and as I was loading up the groceries into the car, I remembered the incident with the ball. I thus loaded the groceries in the car and took the kids back inside to replace the ball. WalMart didn't have the right size or type of ball, so I said that I would get them something else. Both kids ran all over the toy section scanning for stuff they wanted. AJ picked up a MASSIVE jar of bubble soap which came with a fantastically large wand. Anya looked and looked and finally found a large toy doll house that she fell in love with. No, that's too expensive (about $50). We kept looking, and the next thing she saw was a large stuffed dog which was also expensive, but it was a higher quality than your average stuffed animal (about $30). She was now torn between a doll house and a stuffed animal, trying to make up her mind.

This was the scene, and it's much better acted in person, but it will have to do. Sadly, I don't remember the exact words, but this is a good paraphrase.

ANYA:
(drops to her knees, almost in childlike awe of the doll house)
Oh, Uncle Anthony, it's PERFECT! I love it!

ANTHONY:
(stands behind her)
No, Anya, I can't buy you a dollhouse. Do you know what your mother would do to me if you came back with that?

ANYA:
But it's so beautiful!
(leans in closer to admire the picture of the model little girl playing with it and having a grand time)
And it's so nice!
(looks back at me, stars in her eyes)
Please?

ANTHONY:
Anya, I can't buy that for you.

ANYA:
(looks at the house again, stars and maybe a tear in her eyes)
But it's JUST what I've ALways WANted!

ANTHONY:
Anya, I still can't buy it for you. It's too big for your room!

ANYA:
(still ogling the dollhouse)
No, it's not! It can go right in my room!

ANTHONY:
(gets tired of this conversation)
Anya, I can't buy it because it's too expensive. I can't afford to buy it for you, so please choose something else.

ANYA:
(looks wistfully at the stuffed animal)
Well, I guess that this will do.

ANTHONY:
Anya, that is also too large for your room. Your mother would kill me if I got you something that big!

ANYA:
(looks at the stuffed animal, stars and maybe a tear in her eyes)
But it's JUST what I've ALways WANted!

ANTHONY:
Anya, I'm sorry, but we can't get that.

ANYA:
(looks back at the dollhouse)
Well, if I can't have the stuffed animal, can I have this dollhouse?

ANTHONY:
(rolls eyes and tries to repress a smile)
No, Anya, we can't do either the dollhouse or the stuffed animal. Please look for something different.

AJ:
(having watched the majority of this scene, he comes into the conversation to help ANYA get something awesome)
Anya, why don't you get one of these?
(points at a smaller doll, that was about $10)

ANYA:
No, I don't think so. I don't like them.

AJ:
(points at a tiny stuffed animal in a tiny purse, about $5)
What about this? This is really CUTE!

ANYA:
(looks back at the bigger stuffed animal)
No, I don't like it at all.

AJ:
(gets excited about the smal stuffed animal)
But look! It's so cool! You can carry it around with you, and you can even put things inside it!
(demonstrates by putting his finger into the purse)

ANYA:
(gets excited)
Wow! That's neato!
(looks at ANTHONY)
Can I get this?

ANTHONY:
(playing hard to please, but rejoicing internally)
Well, I don't know. Don't you think you'll lose it?

ANYA:
(defensively)
No, I promise I won't! Please, can I get it?

ANTHONY:
Welllllll, OK. As long as you promise.

ANYA:
I DO promise!

And that was that. We walked up to the register and I paid with cash. I still wanted to give the kids quarters, so when I got my change back, and I had two quarters, I gave them each one. AJ went to the gumball machine and got himself a nice juicy gumball and began blowing bubbles. Anya, thoughtful as always, paced the machines, looking for the perfect money-spending gift. Her choices were limited: demonic tattoos, gumballs, and a tiny handful of M&M's. She then saw something else: little troll dolls with jewels on them. Her eyes lit up.

ANYA:
I want THAT!

ANTHONY:
But you only have one quarter and it costs two!

ANYA:
(looks at the sparkly troll dolls again, stars and maybe a tear in her eyes)
But it's JUST what I've ALways WANted!

ANTHONY:
I'm sorry, dear, but you'll just have to wait. Maybe you can get one later when you get another quarter. If you keep the quarter you have now, you'll only need to earn one more, and then you can get one!

ANYA:
(sticking the quarter into her dress pocket)
I'll keep it here!

ANTHONY:
(notices that the pocket is very loose and the quarter would fall out of it's own weight)
Do you have anyplace else to keep the quarter?

AJ:
But Anya, you can stick it into your new purse with your puppy!

ANYA:
(sticks it into the new purse with the stuffed animal)
I'll do that! I won't lose it there!

ANTHONY:
Are you sure, Anya?

ANYA:
Yes!

And then we went home.

She came back to me the next day, saying that she had lost her quarter. I didn't give her a new one, but I did say that I was sorry to hear that, and that perhaps she should keep her money in a better place next time.

One more blog

Yeah, so I've decided something. I need to get in shape. And I need to do it now. This involves uprooting a lot of bad habits that I have allowed to settle into myself.

Why am I telling you this? Because I need YOU (yes, you, all my poor readers whom I love but never write for anymore) to keep my honest with myself! I need the encouragement to got into the gym and work my butt off. I need the motivation to tell me to put down the quick 'n' easy processed food and pick up the natural food.

Will you help me? Please? It won't be easy for me, and I've been working at it alone for a long time with no results. But, the ancient philosophers (I believe Plato stated it, and Socrates confirmed it) have stated that the best way to achieve the perfect balance within a human being is to strive for a balance of mind and body. I am trying to train my mind, but the body has gone by the wayside. No more.

Will you help me? Will you help an overweight generally strong but weak-minded and weak-willed individual achieve another of his personal goals?

If you REALLY want to get involved, ask for my phone number. I'll gladly give it to you. You can then call me for a status update.

If you would help me, I would be much more motivated to stay on track. There is no benefit to you, except perhaps maybe I can do this same thing for you.

The new progress blog will be started once I get my act together, but expect to see it soon.

God Bless!

Life has changed as we know it.

I'm married. The knot was tied on October 2, 2010, to a beatiful young lady named Christine C., whom I have written about before. I'll let you find her in this blog. Why should I have all the fun, right?

Oh, and we took a 10-day honeymoon in Savannah, GA.

Anyway, so after our wedding, we attended the wedding of John E. (aka, Jay) and Breana H. (both about whom have also written). Their wedding was in NH, on October 9, 2010. I was the goon in a tuxedo: a goonsman, as it were. The rest of the men in tuxedos were gentlemen.

After that, we went to St. Louis and sang at the wedding of Emma F. (whom I have also written about here) and Andy K. (whom I have never mentioned before now, but is such an awesome dude that I feel powerful bad saying those words). I got the honor of DJ'ing the wedding reception. This wedding occurred on October 16, 2010.

My honeymoon started on Thursday, October 21, in the evening, when Christine and I flew to GA. We landed in Altanta, visitied with her family until Saturday, drove to Savannah, and stayed there until Monday morning, November 1. We did a lot of sight-seeing, and Christine took lots of pictures. Savannah is a beautiful city, and pictures don't do it justice, but you'll get a hint of the granduer when we post them.

If we ever get around to posting them... :-D

I'm a wine snob

Darn it all. I've become a wine snob. I went to the Bistrot du Coin yesterday with some of the guys from work. I tried 3 of their 5 white wines (one was a rose), and I did not care for any of them. I was expected much better from a French bistro, especially since the French are known for their wines.

But the sad thing about all of this is that I've become a snob about it if I don't care for the wine. Seriously, that's bad. I couldn't simply enjoy a glass of wine that was not what I expected. I was expecting a better Chardonnay or Rosé, but I was so sold on what I expected that I couldn't appreciate the differences.

Again, this is BAD. Next time, no snobbishness!

A mouse in the house

So that was fun! We had a mouse in the house yesterday! I was sitting upstairs working late at night in Eric's office (I've practically confiscated it), when I saw what looked like a large piece of lint drift across the floor.

"My, that's a large piece of lint," I thought to myself.

Turning to see this wonder, I noticed that it was not your average piece of lint. It was much thicker, and looked somehow fuller.

And it was looking at me.

In a flash, I realized that this was no ordinary, household piece of lint. It was an ordinary household mouse.

Now, I like rodents. I think they're cute. So when I saw him, I had a flash of fascination with seeing a third mammal occupying space within the two-mammal abode. Then when I blinked, he bolted.

He bolted so fast that I was honestly startled. I didn't react immediately: in fact, it took me a second to realize that I was startled, and I only realized it when I felt the cool-water-dumped-on-your-head chemical that usually follows a startled/all functions on high alert/adrenaline chemical.

Does anyone else have that feeling, or am I just wierd?

Anyway, so I sat staring at the empty floor space, trying to figure out what just happened, when my mind came back to me in a rush. There was a mouse in the house, and no matter how much I liked him, he had to go.

"Eric!" I hollered.

"What?" he responded.

"........There's a mouse in the house." I hesitated to say it, because I was still fascinated by the Mus musculus.

".....What?" He then turned to his cell phone. "Hold on, baby, I'll call you back."

He came walking into the office. "What?"

"There's a mouse in the house."

He broke into a smile. "Really?"

"Yeah, he just ran under the desk." I started to trace his path with my eyes, and moved a box. Turns out, he was hiding right behind it, so he bolted again. Giggles followed as the chase was on. Eric grabbed a shoebox, and since I was the one wearing shoes, I also was the one to come close to him. He was a fast little guy; he zipped around the box and hopped over my foot as deftly as if he was born to do just this.

He probably had been born to do just this.

Eric got a shoebox. When he came back in with the box, I took my eyes off the mouse, and he darted off, except this time, I didn't see where he went. We figured that he went straight into the closet. Sure enough, that is exactly where he went. We pulled stuff out and managed to corner the little rascal, but he zipped out and around again. We cornered him again and trapped him, but couldn't get him into the box, so Eric got some gloves, and I reached over and picked him up and put him into the box.

In the shoebox, he started jumping around, and was pretty close to jumping out. We decided to move him from the shoebox to a bigger box where he couldn't hop out as easily. Eric took the picture on his iPhone and I put him outside, in the woods right behind the house.

Not 20 minutes later, another mouse came sauntering up the stairs to the living room where Eric was. There was a moment of hesitation, and then I heard, "Smitha!"

"What?"

"We've got another mouse in the house!"

This time, he ran behind the entertainment system, which is fortunately open. I grabbed the gloves and the box, and we ran around the entertainment system to the opposite corner of the living/dining room, where we trapped him. He cleverly ran underneath a small bookshelf (which Eric and I had to move twice to get him). We finally managed to snag him again, and put him in the box. We speculated that he was the same mouse, because he looked identical. Eric marked his tail with a black marker, so we'd know if he came back.

This time, I took him to the other side of the townhouse complex and let him go. I've not seen him since.

Quick prayer request for Christine

Anyone who knows my wonderful girlfriend also know that she is a workaholic to a fault. With that said, she twisted out both of her knees terribly in shovelling snow a couple days ago. They now pop with practically every move, they are swollen, and her motions are all very stiff and cause her a good deal of discomfort, if not just straight-up pain.

On this past Saturday, after the first 20+ inches of snow that fell, there was a 48-hour lull in the storm. At about 2PM, Tony, her landlord, was out shovelling snow on his tractor with a front-end loader on it. I went outside at about 4PM, which is when I noticed that the snow had stopped and that people were already digging themselves out. I borrowed Tony's snow shovel, and cleared out around Christine's car and shovelled out paths from both doors to her car. Tony's plan was to get the tractor out to the street: in so doing he would clear out the driveway. From there, he could widen it out to get the vehicles out.

At about 5:30, Christine felt guilty for doing her own work indoors while the two of us were outside working, so she grabbed the only shovel left, a spade. We shovelled the path to Tony's house and around his truck, to make room for the tractor to move the majority of the snow without hitting the truck. Christine used the snow shovel that I had while I took breathers, but overall, she ended up using a spade most of the time, so she was at a serious disadvantage. Her whole body was sore, but in particular, her knees were really bothering her. Tony suggested that she stop, because he noticed that she was limping -- I was being my usual unobservant self, so I didn't notice until much later. However, she felt guilty for stopping, because she hadn't shovelled as much or as long as we had (at least, I think that was her rationale). She also felt bad since Tony's wife Veronica wasn't there to help him (Veronica was stuck at her office, snowed in), and thus Christine had to work extra hard to make up for her not being there.

At the end of it all, she hobbled inside in serious amounts of pain in both her legs and her back. A few days later, her knees are still really bothering her, but her back is better. Her knees are actually swollen -- I think she overexerted herself and just pulled something, but she might have actually done some serious damage.

The only benefit to all this is that now I know where she is. If she moves, her position is given away by the sound of cracking knees. Thus she can never sneak up on me.

If that last paragraph sounded morbid, I apologize. I was simply trying to find the humor in this post: there's not much to work with, and I hope that Christine doesn't kill me for posting this.

Breakfast

I promise, I didn't drink the rum! It was just there! I was dead at the time!

(The link is for fun. Don't ask me how it tastes.)

Google logo today

Fourth of July, Texas style

On Saturday morning, I woke up at 6:30 and went to Mass with Mom, but I was so tired after Mass that I just had to stay up and play Starcraft. The kids came over at about noon or so and they were all cranky. Mary wanted to be the boss (again), Timmy wanted someone to hold him and Mikey wanted some attention too, since Mary and Timmy were crying. Mom put all three down for naps, so AJ and Anya were the only two up, but even they crashed after a little bit. We decided that it would be better to leave around 3PM, and since I had foolishly played away my nap time, I decided that a power nap was better than none at all, so I laid down on the couch -- just in time for AJ and Anya and Mary to all get up and show me all the fireworks that Jimmy had brought over. I got about 5 minutes of skim sleep -- it may have been 2%, but it certainly wasn't whole, and therefore not real.

So we stopped at Sonic on the way out the door and picked up a Route 44 mango soda drink for me and a couple small slushies for AJ and Anya (I'm yawning thinking about this). The drive took an hour and a half, but the kids swear it was longer. I got AJ interested in directions. I told him we were going north on 75, so if we turned left when we exited onto highway 380, then we weren't going north anymore. He was really clever and announced that we were now going west. Anya was also awake, so Mom was pointing out this and that and the kids were oohing and aahing, but the fireworks hadn't even started yet. It was only cornfields and livestock. AJ decided that he was going to live in the country when he grows up.

When we arrived at Emma's family's house, we walked down to where the party was. Sarah had just cut her foot wide open and so Mrs. F was driving her back to get stitches, so everything was pretty well normal. Emma and Mr. F were cleaning up and setting up decorations. I helped for a few minutes, and then the kids discovered the outside toys: slides and tire swings and whatnot. Excitement ensued as they pleaded with Mom, "Grandma please push us on the swings!", "Grandma, watch me slide down the slide!", and other such requests, so she did for a while. I chased Michael around, especially when he discovered the lake. He wanted to run and explore but mean old Uncle Anthony and Grandma wouldn't let him play in the water, so he figured out other methods of getting dirty: cow patties.

Soon enough, AJ and Anya had found that the tire swings weren't much fun when Grandma was watching Mikey and Mary on the slide, so they cajoled (read: begged) their uncle into pushing them. This is where Anthony is the sucker of the Smitha family. "You want me to push you? OK." So, excitedly, they chose their tire swings and I pushed them for a while. AJ wanted the regular tire swing, so he climbed in with a bit of help, and Anya wanted one of the horse tire swings, so I picked her up and put her on it. I was watching the tree branches carefully, so I pushed them slowly at first, but that soon disintegrated into "FASTER!" and "HIGHER!". Caution was thrown to the wind (as far as they were concerned) and they were soon going about 70 degrees from their starting points from the axis of the branch. They were having a blast. Then AJ saw that Anya was having a blast on her horse swing, so he wanted to get on the other one. With a bit of help, he climbed right up, but this was the weakest of the branches (or so it looked), so I couldn't push him as high.

After about 20 minutes on the swings, Mary wanted to get on the now-vacant tire swing. She was just barely big enough to sit in the tire and grab hold on top, so I pushed her gently and she was enjoying herself immensely. So at this point, I had all three of the eldest going on their respective swings, with AJ getting the short end of the stick, because he was a bit too heavy to be pushed high. I was push Anya high, then push Mary gently, then push AJ as high as I dared, and then run back to Anya, because her trajectory had diminished. I was getting quite the run around, because these swing were about 30 feet apart, so my heart rate and breathing rate were almost at treadmill levels. My sweat and smell levels were past the unpleasant stage, I'm sure.

There were more guests around, including the McD family from St. Louis (Mr. and Mrs. McD, Allison, Lindi, Micah and Will), so I managed to talk to them for a little while. AJ started playing with several of the other boys. One of them saw me running between Anya and Mary and offered to help, so he took over pushing Anya. She said, "My uncle is better than you are." Ouch. That's some thanks. So he took over pushed Mary very gently, and I pushed Anya again. Eventually, the swinging ended, but not for long. Mary wanted to ride on the horse swing when Anya got off, so I pushed her there. She felt much more safe that way, as did I. After a few minutes of this, Anya came back and wanted more horse swing time, so she and Mary rode together. It was a little cramped, so Anya got off again, and Mary just wanted to keep swinging. I'll give her credit: she knows English well enough to know that I was trying to get her to stop, so she answered all of my "Do you want to get off/Do you want to stay on" questions very adeptly.

Dinner was chicken and corn on the cob and potato salad and pasta salad and all sorts of yummy stuff. Michael got his hands on some chicken that we got for him, and devoured it just in time for me to get a plate. But when I sat down to eat, after a bite or so, he was through and took off. So I ran after him. We explored the area next to the lake and around the lake, and in the tall grass, and all that stuff, and he wasn't interested in food until dessert rolled around. Emma was nice enough to keep the dogs away from my food (maybe they licked it a little) but when I got to it, I had just enough time to grab a couple bites and then run after Michael again. He had his dessert and was wired to go again. This time, Mom took over pretty quickly, and she eventually put him on the bench between Mr. F and me. It didn't take him long to figure out a means of escape, but he did so again, only to be reigned in my Mom for more food. This time he discovered corn on the cob, and went through a couple pieces of it.

By this point, fireworks were beginning to be set off. This was just the crackers and other noisemakers, so all the kids were exploring. AJ and Anya loved beign up close. Mary thought she did until she heard one of the explosions at 10 feet away. "GRAMMA!" came the cry and she came stumbling back, tears in her eyes, arms outstretched for the protective embrace. The people around all laughed at the pitiful sight, and I giggled as well. So Mom, who had been holding Mikey, gave him to me and picked up Mary.

I should say that we also brought Timmy. He was in estrogen heaven -- all the girls held him at some point, so he was totally happy up until he wanted food. Then the fireworks scared him, so Mom took him and Mary back to the house.

I held Mikey and Emma sat down next to me, and we lead the National Anthem and "America the Beautiful". After that, she started the soprano lien to If Ye Love Me, so I asked her to start again and I joined her with the bass line. Mrs. McD liked it. After that, there was a lot of oohing and aahing at the fireworks show. Lindi came and sat down next to us as well, and we had a small conversation about how hot I was. OK, so you saw through that one -- we talked about what a bad uncle I was.

After wrapping everything up, we drove back to the house and Mom and I and the kids left around 10PM. When we got onto 380, we stopped at a Sonic -- Mom wanted a tea and I wanted something to keep me going, so I ordered a Route 44 Coke. When that stopped working, Mary started fussing. No reason, she was just tired. But it got me going, and all of a sudden, I was becoming the Anthony you don't like. I told Mom that it makes absolutely no sense to me why anyone, baby or not, wouldn't have the sense to go to sleep when exhausted. Mom then told me that it never happened with me and Elizabeth because we were never out so late to let it happen, and she always put us to bed at a decent hour. That shed rays of hopefulness upon my future, because if she could do it, so can I.

A little over half-way back, Mary was just crying for Gramma -- don't know why, but instead of fussing, she was full-blown crying. We stopped the van to give her a blanket (Liz's shawl), and that settled her down for all of about 30 seconds, just enough time to let Timmy wake up. Then he joined the chorus, so I was getting mad at her, because she woke up Timmy. But I managed to keep it more-or-less under wraps, until Mikey heard the choirs of "angels" singing and added the tenor line. So, Mom managed to give Timmy his bottle and he settled down. Hearing the boy soprano quit whining, the tenor decided that he didn't want to sing with just the alto, so he left off, and Mary decided that he solo wasn't loud enough, and voiced her disapproval that Grandma was taking care of anyone else but not her. I love that little girl, but she can be soooo trying on my patience.

When we made it home, all the kids swore up and down that they weren't tired and the 3-part dissonant harmony we heard in the car turned into a 5-part Britten opera, but not even 2 minutes after AJ, Anya, Mary and Mikey's heads hit their respective pillows did the dirge end. I had begun the process of feeding Timmy, but he didn't want his bottle, so I just held him and he threw his head around, attempting to get comfortable, and smashing up my head (and comfort) in the process. Mom then discovered that the formula in his bottle had gone bad -- which would be why he didn't care for it. So she fixed him a new bottle and he chowed with the greatest eaters of history. Then he also went to bed and all choirs were silent for 8 hours.

I think that's the first time that Mom has gotten a full night's sleep in some time when all 5 kids are here.

Home in TX: Day 3 of the 28.5 day stay.

So I'm at home in TX for several days -- OK, a full month. Anyway life is really busy. Here's a excerpt from an e-mail that I typed up describing the kids here. Maybe it'll be funny in a few years.

You may think I'm counting down the days. In a sense, yes. But in a sense, no. This is a good experience for me. Spending a month dealing with 5 kids all under 8 and all related to me is a good experience. It's not the most fun I've ever had, but it looks like it will become a lot more fun.

If I had to predict what these kids will be when they are grown up, here's what I'd say:

AJ will be some form of show off. Whether that means an actor, entertainer, lawyer, salesman, or some form of public speaker, I'm still trying to figure it out. He's very melodramatic and tells all sorts of stories with greeeeeeat big loooooooooooooooooooooong vowels and opennnnnnnnnnnnn connnnnnnnnnnsonents to reeeeeeeeally enhaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnce the story, all the while being JUST so exCITed (using the wrong inflection at times) AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnd being soooooooooo so so so soooooooooooooooo eager to tell you EVerythinggggggggggggg. Oh, and he's glad to be the oldest, too. He's in charge.

Anya will be the real leader. She's strong and determined, and she knows what she wants. AJ has asserted his authority so much that she's becoming a little bit of a follower, but she knows her place in the chain of command. She's not as dramatic as AJ (but she can be), but she can also be every bit as stubborn. She is a fantastic reader (better than AJ, I think), and she could very easily be the genius in the family. She will be the intellectual who will probably invent new methods of learning, all the while maintaining a business as an artist on the side.

Mary is little Miss Independence, now that she's got her braces on and she can walk flat-footed. She tried to run but it's more of a plod, but it's OK, because she's cute as anything. When she falls down (which she does often enough), she will cry and scream and demand attention (very much unlike Michael), and when you pick her up again, she usually runs off again. She is very protective of her things and if she thinks that someone shouldn't be playing with something, she'll take it away from them and hide it, much to their dismay. But she also expects no retaliation, so when they take away her toys, the hurricane of tears and the mother of all fits breaks loose upon the world. If you've heard random screams in VA, that's Mary. She's cute and she knows it and she's a flirt and she's spoiled rotten (or really tries to be, and thus only pulls of "brat" pretty well, and I don't mean the ind you throw on the grill that's made of piggy). She'll grow up to be a heartbreaker, and possibly a model as well.

Michael will be the powerhouse. He'll go for the sports. He bulls through everything and everyone -- unintentionally for now, because he's just so happy to see them that he runs right at them. He's also quite the chunk, so when he runs at you, he could probably knock you over. He's at least a solid 25 pounds and he's faster (and heavier) than Mary -- I think he's as heavy as Kenny, and would give him a run for his money for strength. Jimmy, Liz's husband and these kids' father, plays really rough with him, and Mikey loves every second of it and comes back for more. He loves being outside. He's a Daddy's boy bar-none. He's also a flirt, bar-none. He makes eyes at all the girls, and not just the pretty girls: all of them. They, in turn, eat it up, and flirt right back with him. Then when he sees that his charms have taken hold of them, he giggles and runs away, thus instituting a game of tag. Mom (and Liz and AJ) all refer to him as the Energizer Bunny on steriods (or the Energize Bunny times 10 or some form of extreme Energizer Bunny), and it's true. He just keeps going and going and going...

Timothy is the stoic one of the group. Granted, he's only 2 months old. But when I mean stoic, I really do mean stoic. He just looks at you with this face (well, there is no stoic google face expression, so this will have to do ), except he is trying to look down his nose at you. Again, though, he's only 2 months old, so he's still working on the whole neck-muscle/head-control thing, so it could be due to the fact that his head just kinda flops backwards, like Anthony Scrivener's did when he was a baby. He has a rather large double chin and looks like the kind of face you'd expect to see in the role of, "This court is now in session: Honorable Timothy Freiberg presiding". Well, he's stoic until he feels neglected. Then he has this mournful, "I'm so alone, and no one loves me..." kind of pitiful, pathetic cry. He usually breaks this out just to keep poor Mom (my Mom, his Grandmother) up until all hours of the night patting his bottom and holding him and telling him it's all right, etc.

Any questions class?