Seneca Crane

Smiley tonight as Seneca Crane from The Hunger Games movies.  He was on his way to a Halloween party with Yaya, who was costumed as fake heiress Anna Sorokin. To be honest, aside from an ingenious homemade ankle monitor, she just looked like a normal woman on her way to a party.  Which, I'm told, was the point?

Memorial Day 2025

This dog certainly feels the day was relaxed and peaceful.

It was a very chill Memorial Day for me and Lisa too. As Junie's sleepover wound down, we slept in until late in the morning.  After I had a serious but loving online convo with YaYa, Lu came home from her weekend trip to meet her boyfriend's Mom. She and her BF chatted about it with Lisa and I for awhile before they left for the night. 

Lisa and I then picked up my MIL and ran some errands. I took some window screens into the hardware store to replace them; bought some drill bits from Harbor Freight; Lisa returned and replaced sandals; we picked up a new wax warmer from Marketplace; and stopped at Culvers for a scoop of the flavor of the day. 

The MIL stayed for dinner while Smiley installed new window blinds in the dining room.  JJ stopped by to visit Lisa, and after she left we watched an episode of Dateline.

A very nice, quiet day for us all. 

Bingo with YaYa!

Friday night YaYa joined us for bingo, where I ran into Cheri, my old boss from Job Prior, who I probably haven't seen since 2005. She was there with her Mom Melissa, who used to work in our cafe, but alas Melissa didn't remember me. 

YaYa was admirably into the action, paying careful attention to her sheets and coming close to victory on a few occasions. 

"Close", of course, betrays the fact that we never did reach a successful outcome that evening. Well, we won $4.50 on pull tabs but spent more on those than we took home. Cherri and her Mom, however, both won different games. 

You'll have to forgive me for staring into space in this last picture. There are other versions where I look a little smarter, but in those my lovely companions weren't facing the camera, and I think you'd rather see their faces anyway :)

It was a fun, relaxing evening with the 2001-2003 version of Team Slap!

Blubbering to a Lee Ann Womack Song

 After a miserable appointment we had in the late afternoon, Lisa and I set out to the eastern edge of Oak Creek to pick up a work suit for LuLu. 

One the way there the radio played "I Hope You Dance," a song by Lee Ann Womack that Lisa first heard when pregnant with YaYa. It quickly became the theme song of the pregnancy, and of her hopes for our firstborn daughter. 

Listening to it, I had an idea. "YaYa and I should dance to this for the father-daughter dance at her wedding." I said. 

Or rather, that's what I tried to say. 

I got so far as the word "dance" before turning into a blubbering mess, incapable of speech, with tears streaming down my face. 

Lisa soon joined in the waterworks. 

Two blubbering parents getting emotional at the thought of their baby girl now all grown up and engaged. 

But I do hope, I really do, that I get the chance to dance with her to that song on her wedding day. 

My Third (maybe 4th? No, 3rd) Polar Bear Plunge

Let it be clearly known, that I did not decide to dunk myself in the freezing water of Lake Michigan until about forty five minutes before I did it.  Afterwards, it turned out that LuLu, in the days prior to New Years, had asked about doing it, and so I looked like a jerk when I proceeded without her. But this is not a retcon; up until midday I really didn't want to do the plunge. A lot of years I hem and haw and feel like a scrub for not completing the task, but this time, nope: I just didn't want to do it. 

And then I changed my mind. 

It was too late to participate in the official, public events (who can get up and ready and be somewhere by noon on New Years Day??), but the lake was still there, and we were about to reacquaint ourselves with one another. 

I picked a not-great day to do it, weather wise. It wasn't the worst weather Milwaukee can throw at you, but a brisk 29 degrees (F) did not make for comfort even on the walk from the car to the beach. 

I did succeed in getting Smiley to go with me and watch (and drag me out if need be). 

 But he claimed his phone was dead or at 4%, depending on the minute, and so couldn't be used to record the event. As I wanted both pics and video for different social media platforms, I needed two devices. So I called Yaya and she and Alex met us there. 

"There" not being the standard Bradford Beach, north of downtown, but the nearby South Shore, where a local , alternate version of the Polar Bear Plunge had taken place at noon. I didn't make it to the "x" on the map, instead going in at the boat launch. 

While we waited for YaYa, an elderly couple came, ignored the "don't feed the geese" sign, and dropped two big bottles of feed on the concrete. 
 

When it was time to go in the water, a shock, and not just from the bitter cold H20: Smiley had secretly decided to go in with me, and had his swim trunks on under his pants! Yay!

The water was brrrr and getting splashed didn't help any. 

Smiley went out to below hip height and declared, being a man of common sense, that he would go no further. He turned around and returned to shore. 

I continued on my own. 

I dunked myself to chin height but I did not dunk my head in, an act later criticized by Lisa, who, I might point out, has never done the plunge and if she did, would have hair on her head to keep her warmer. 

This pic is me in agony. Soaking wet, my feet pins and needles, desperately trying to get to the warmth of the car, and held hostage by the need for a final, positive pic for the post LOL 

Happy New Year!

May your 2025 be productive,  healthy,  and positive!

A Touching Gift

YaYa painted this homage to Benny and presented it to LuLu Christmas Eve. 

A Great Start to Christmas

Started Christmas Day off right with a beautiful candlelight Midnight Mass at my home parish,  accompanied by both Yaya and her fiance!!

The Stranding of the Deep Thought

When I was a very young child, a merchant ship got stuck in the mud off the shores of Milwaukee's lakefront, and remained there long enough to become a sightseeing landmark for many, including my family. That was the Photinia, and many decades later I wrote about it here on Slapinions. 

History may not repeat, but it does sometimes rhyme, and on October 13th a private boat "Deep Thought"  ran out of gas and was abandoned along the lakefront between McKinley Marina and a custard stand called Moosaburger. 

43 days later it remains in place, and has been the focus of news stories, sightseeing, and t-shirts here in Milwaukee. 

Naturally, we went to see it too. "We" in this case being YaYa and her fiancé. 

Despite my knee injury earlier in the day - or perhaps to spite it - I climbed along the rocks to get a better view. 

It's kind of sad seeing it just sit there, but majestic in its own right. It did bring back many memories of seeing the Photinia and I'm glad I got to see her before it's eventually removed. 

The USS Beloit

At 3:20 YaYa and her fiancé picked me up to go take some pictures with a stranded boat along the lake. Along the way we stopped and went to see the USS Beloit (LCS 29), a new Freedom class warship that was christened here in Milwaukee on Saturday.  We actually had tickets for the christening ceremony, but YaYa had a last minute conflict and we had to skip it. 

 

It's probably been forty years since I've been that close to a surface warship.  My Dad took my sisters and I on a tour of one that docked in Milwaukee when I was a kid, and too young to even remember what class of vessel it was that day. 

My impression of the Beloit? 

It seemed, to me, to be pretty darn big, and resembled an ironclad right out of the Civil War. 

Best of luck to the ship, and prayers for the safety of the crew.

Dinner at YaYa's

After a stressful afternoon, Yaya invited Lisa and I over to her place and fed us an early dinner.  Sloppy Joe's,  veggies,  a cucumber salad,  and brownies. 

I wouldn't mind another of those sloppy Joe's right now, actually. 

Thank you kiddo!

Junie's Last First Day of High School!

 And there she goes! Junie on last first day of high school!

So, even for Dan and I, it's the end of an era. We have had kids in school for almost 20 years.

- Lisa

correction: It HAS been a 20 year run. YaYa started school in the fall of 2004 as a 3 year old. I remember wearing a Bush re-election pin and talking about it with the crossing guard at St. Catherine's. I think I had Yaya where a "My Daddy is a Republican" button once too! - Dan

Twisters - in 4DX!

On Saturday YaYa invited me to go see a movie with her and her man, her treat. Sure, I said, what time? 

"Midnight," she said. 

Midnight? I get up at six, what kind of tomfoolery was that? 

I still went. 

Turns out the movie was just outside of Chicago, a 90 minute drive away, and was a 4dx experience. I had a vague notion about what that was like, having been through the Extraterrorestrial Alien Encounter (not a typo)  at Disney back in '96.  I remember the seat moving, and the hot breath of the alien on my neck. 

That was little league; this was the Show. 

Now things didn't start out too well, as the theater played 17 minutes of commercials before the film. 8.5 minutes of content really, as each commercial repeated once as soon as it finished. We were about to riot, but finally the theater noticed the glitch, took it to a dark screen, and then immediately fired up the movie, skipping the trailers

We'll get to the movie review in a minute, but first the 4DX: holy moley!

If the wind is blowing in the film, wind is blowing on you; if it is raining on the screen, rain falls on you; are the characters riding down a bumpy country road, taking a sharp turn, or jumping out of the way of danger? 

Then brother, you move WITH THEM. That chair was bucking back, forth, up, down, side to side, like a dang carnival ride, and there were a few times I had to brace myself to stay in the seat. It was incredible, just wicked fun!

Twisters is of course, a sequel to the 1996 classic, Twister. although to be more accurate it's the second in a series, as there are no repeating characters or plot points (beyond tornados). I did not expect much from the film, especially given what appeared to be the awful acting of the young meteorology students in the opening scene. That turned out to a red herring. The movie was a blast. The action was fierce and visually impressive - perfect for 4dx - but the plot and characterization held up too, and the acting definitely shouldn't be judged by the first scene. 

small spoiler - I especially loved that although there was romantic tension, there was no sex or even kissing between the main cast. In the context of working to stop an onslaught of tornadoes costing lives across the state, that was real-world accurate behavior definitely appreciated - very old school Hollywood! end spoiler 

For what it is, a summer action blockbuster, I grade Twisters a well deserved A+

Go see it!

btw  - I arrived home at 4am. 4!!!!

Federation Breakfast with Santa - 2003