Cerebrate Good Times

Do you ever find yourself automatically saying, "Ow!" when you bump into something, even when it doesn't hurt? I've been noticing lately that I do*, and it bugs me. (something about whales) *Actually, I've been saying "Owie!" which is even worse.

I often drive past a Mexican seafood restaurant, which I suppose is a fun idea. What puzzles me, however, is why they chose to paint a giant whale on the side of the building. Am I the only one who thinks that's not the ideal image of seafood? I'm pretty sure eating whale is illegal in this country. What do you think of when you think of seafood? Should they have painted a giant crab or lobster on the building?

Apparently, I need more realistic goals in life. Theoretically, you could eat a whale "one bite at a time," right? Well, it looks like your entire food consumption throughout your life only be (at most) a quarter of a blue whale's mass. You could probably make it through a humpback whale, but it just wouldn't be the same. Go big or go home.

Sorry for two family-related posts in a row, but I need to record something Sam said last night. We were at Costco and decided to get some ice cream on the way out. With the smell of various foods in the air at the counter, Sam said, "It smells like barbecue in the garbage." Fortunately, I don't think any of the employees heard.

Any questions? Yes, you in the back. Not yet old enough to fight I'm coming for you!

Remember last year's ranting about the pine cones? Well, I decided to count them this time. It has been 13 days since I mowed the lawn, and I just picked up 504 pine cones. And that's just the grass, not the landscaped area directly under the tree.

This morning it occurred to me that the world is like a pineapple. When getting a pineapple ready to eat, you obviously cut off the skin (peel?). But you usually end up with little bits of the skin left. If you cut enough of the skin off to remove all those last little bits, your pineapple is a lot smaller that it would be otherwise. Similarly, you can avoid a lot of the terrible things in the world, but you can only do so much without shutting yourself away completely, in which case you also miss a lot of valuable experiences. And those unpleasant things you have to deal with just make the rest of the life-pineapple that much better.

Kites (Sam's grandpa bought several fancy kites, but none of them would fly. We bought a $2 one at K-Mart, and it works great.) Hot dogs (Honestly, I prefer the $.88 packages over the expensive all-beef ones.) Cereal (Some kinds, like Malt-O-Meal's cinnamon toasters, are better than their expensive counterparts.) What am I forgetting?

Nobody, that's who.

We were just accosted by the worst salesmen ever. The first one apparently tried to open our door, and immediately upon my answering he launched into an overly friendly condescending spiel about how he wants to demonstrate his carpet cleaning. When I told him no politely, he continued to ask me what is the most trafficked carpet area in the house. While he was ignoring my attempts to be civil, a second salesman walked up to the door and asked what the first guy was selling. Apparently he has something against magazine salesmen and kicks them out of his neighborhood when the come around, because "they're all thieves." As I refused to let the first one in the house, the second one insisted that he wouldn't take more than a moment. When I insisted that it was an extremely bad time (which is the truth) he second man asserted that he had no choice but to come by on Saturdays because nobody was home during the week. He also pointed out that they are paid on commission, tryi...

Last night Sam swallowed one of these: We were surprised because he's never done that before. But hey, sometimes you just get a hankering for a small piece of glass. And in a day or two we'll have a souvenir and an embarrassing story for his future dates.

Never eating the little dried anchovies that they serve as a side dish in Korea Memorizing the theme song to Duck Tales Keeping the stray kittens we found when I was a kid Being a nerd in school Skipping my own college graduation ceremony Tasting pineapple for the first time Buying that three-piece suit for $40 Knowing nothing about American Idol What about you?