Layton Boulevard

You'll have to excuse me, as the next few posts will be all out of order chronologically.

Today the Mrs. and I took Middle Child and Parker (YaYa was overnight at a friend's house) on a walk down Layton Boulevard.

Layton Boulevard is the name of a southern strip of S. 27th Street aka US 41, a street that bisects the city and has the longest continuous strip of businesses in Milwaukee. Why the name change for a mile or so? Ask someone else, I don't know.

What I do know is that Layton Boulevard features some of the most amazing single-family houses in Milwaukee. A shame really, as they're located in a 'changing' neighborhood, or, if you are less charitable, an 'almost ghetto'.

I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

The basis of the walk was exercise, but I always wanted to photgraph the houses on that stretch. So bear with me as I post some of them here.

I love the arches on this next one. Note the window AC unit tho' - very few of these houses have central air.

I like the trim on this one.

 

I think this one is gorgeous. I have a fetish for dark green awnings, and I adore the brickwork.

 

These next few are of my dream house. It even features a pair of pineapples on the front steps - the logo of my employer.

Nearby are several houses designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, including one I've heard is the only creation of his to feature a garage - because he designed it for a buddy.

 

My Goofy Dance

At YaYa's request, I performed my patented dance for her picture taking experiment

Ain't I pretty?

YaYa Update

I think I mentioned UWM's College for Kids in a previous post. YaYa wrapped up her second session, a two week class entitled Musical Madness, with a performance of a children's musical, held in one of the university's theaters in front of about 50 people.

Now we'd assumed that was just a cutesy title for a musical appreciation class, but the whole gig involved prepping for the musical.

Here's what blew me away. Before the show, the kids had a chance to stand up and perform solo.

YaYa stood up and sang "Somewhere over the Rainbow" - acapella. She coulda had music, but chose instead to keep her song a surprise. :)

I wouldn't have had the ba**s to do that at age 4. Heck, I wouldn't have the guts now.

Parker and I in the audience

Oh, her big line from the actual show: "It's goofy dance time!"

Afterwards I kept a promise to return to Downers Woods and see 'Eeyore's House' with her.

YaYa displays an interesting combination of talents and interests. She LOVES performing, be it singing, dancing, or doing that radio commercial for my work. But she also loves science and bugs, creepy crawlers and science in general.

Maybe she'll be the Bill Nye The Science Guy for the 2030's.

Oh, here's a SPECTACULAR drawing she did on a dry erase board. When I first saw it I assumed my wife had done it in 'kid style', not our four year old daughter. But nope, it's all her:

Company Picnic

Sometime in July - the 10th I think - my company held its annual picnic. Despite working there since '98, this is the first one I attended. The kids had a blast with a jumping castle and a cotton candy machine, and I greatly enjoyed three games of volleyball.

YaYa and LadyBear

Parker took the opportunity to lie down on a blanket when he got tired and hump his hips to his heart's content - an everyday occurrence that looks a lot naughtier than it is :)

It ain't always roses. .

I wrote this two or three weeks ago and didn't get a chance to post it

 

Well, it's been a sh**ty summer, and as you know it started early, with May approaching a mythically lousy standard that I hope is never duplicated.

 

Then, after a reasonably decent June, my Grandma and my wife's Grandpa died within two weeks of one another in July. The funeral for my in-law was fraught with family drama, and my wife had to bear the local brunt of a misplaced argument related to the events.

 

To boot, on Sunday the 23rd she and Middle Child were T-Boned at an unmarked intersection. No one was hurt, thank God, but it totaled our van and we spent a lousy two weeks in a rental until we received word that the other driver's insurance took 100% liability.

 

We replaced the van with a Plymouth Voyager. It's the first time I've owned anything but a Ford, and I feel like a dirty rotten traitor :)

 

At work I'm ready to scream as the stress behind the scenes continues to build . . and I've had to let a few people go lately to boot. . .

 

At home, while the kids are great 85% of the time, the remaining 15% of the day - mainly at nap and bedtime - they're devils.

 

1. Middle Child has a natural potty mouth. Now no doubt she's learned the verbiage from us, but it flows so smoothly off her tongue you'd think she was a sailor. And that girl can fight for a 3 yr old  - I saw her take down YaYa and jump on top of her faster than Hulk Hogan in the day.

 

2. YaYa is the most stubborn, strong-willed kid EVER, especially if it's something her Mom wants and she doesn't. She also has the God-given ability to manipulate and/or convince others to get her way. Yikes. My wife and her butt heads a lot, and it ain't pretty.

3. Parker is still the most cheerful, happy kid I've ever known, and causes no problems, but he doesn't know what 'no' means. In the words of the Mrs. "Parker thinks 'no' is another way of saying 'go faster'" when he's grabbed something he shouldn't.

To try to stem the tide we created a detailed expectations chart. There are two Disney princesses who move up and down a staircase depending on the girls actions. It works, but we are still working out the kinks. Right now I'd say it does the job 50-60% of the time.

One perk they get on a good day is a guaranteed story at bedtime. We've literally read every book in their bookcase so often the girls are bored, so we've moved on to chapter books. The Mrs. is currently reading them The Wizard of Oz and Henry and Ribsy. The latter was the first 'book' I ever read, back in 1st grade, and remains one of my 10 favorite books of all time. It's a joy to hear the girls enjoy the story.

* * * *

One day with the rental we took the kids down to the Jelly Belly factory down near Illinois. To my regret, I forgot the camera. Parker was very good during the tedious tour, but I'm afraid there's not much more to say. On the way home my niece, who'd gone with us, lost a baby tooth courtesy of one of the jelly beans.

 

My Gripe

I don't have cable. Well, I do, but the basic basic package, which amounts to local broadcast stations, a bushel full of home shopping networks and christian stations, and Bravo.

Woo-hoo.

So I look forward to those rare Saturday afternoons when I can waste a day watching Fox's Game of the Week.

Enter my gripe:

Do I get to watch Yankees? Mets? Dodgers? Any bleeping team that doesn't call the midwest home?

Hell no.

Time after time, this is what I get: Cardinals and Cubs.

The Cubs suck, and not just because they're from Illinois. They really suck this year.

The Cardinals are good, but are bland and boring to watch, the baseball version of C-Span.

But lawsy, Fox does love 'em.

Now I'm not sure if this is just their obsession with matching the games with their 'natural' geographic audience, but give it up.

I see the bleeping NL Central all the time. If I wanted to I'd waste the day in an actual stadium and see the same thing.

Television is about escape, people.

Even MLB is annoyed. Here's a snippet of an article advertising the game on their website: "It may look like a mismatch at first, but . . "

But what? There's no point in watching a kick-ass team wup on a loser. C'mon, give me something that validates the inevitable arguement with my wife for control of the remote.

And while we're at it, enough Albert Pujos. Great player, but has anyone been sooo overrated so early in his career? You'd think the guy was the progeny of Ruth and Cobb.

Talk to me in ten years, when Albert is a few years shy of fifty (baseball fans might pick up on the joke. Doubtful, but they might) and I'll tell you if he's worth the hype.

 

 

Grandpa's Day 2006

Grandpa's Day is a more-or-less annual road trip I make with a special someone to recreate (in spirit) a trip I made with my Grandpa in 1983, two weeks before his death.

Today the whole family went to the cemetary to visit his grave and my Grandma's (whose tombstone I saw for the first time) then journeyed up to Sheboygan, some 57 miles north of Milwaukee, to look at houses.

Because of the great housing prices and quality of living there, we just wanted to get a feel for the city and view some of the houses we've seen for sale online, to see if they were worth our time at all.

Well, they were - it's a great small city of ~50,000.

I wish I could say the kids were great, but they weren't. They were whiny, noisy little complainers almost the whole time.

One house up for sale had a rummage sale going, so we took the opportunity to look around the house, and picked up a solid window air conditioner for $25. There were also two good used bookstores in town, at one of which I picked up a score of AA Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner's pen name) books for a mere $5.

Sweet.

We ended on a high note, stopping to eat at Subway. For those of you who don't know, the national chain now makes there own pizzas.

You heard me right. You would assume they suck, but on the contrary the two times I've eaten them they are downright delicious. Made to order, I love mine with lots of spinach and tomatoes, no meat.

One odd note: at the Subway I took middle child to the restroom. When I poked my head in, she was seated on the toilet licking  the handicapped rail.

I thought it best not to mention this tidbit to my fellow diners.

After getting a short nap in at home (the rest of the family slept on the way back) I took YaYa to see Superman Returns. She was ecstatic, thrilled that I had not only kept my promise (which I almost always do; God forbid she forget that I failed to get her into Narnia before it left the theater) but that we were going together.

She was an angel, quickly overcoming a few talkative moments in the first few minutes. The rest of the time she was quiet, or spoke only to ask pertinent questions (like what something in print said onscreen), and went to the restroom only once. For the last 1/2 hr of the movie she was curled up on my lap, throroughlyinto the story.

Two quotes: When Lex Luthor appeared onscreen: "He looks just like Daddy Warbucks!" and afterwards "That was a really great movie. I want to see it again - it was sooo much better than Cars"

After seeing a preview for Spiderman III she also made me promise to take her to that.

Then to wrap up the day we got a Happy Meal, complete with Polly Pocket toy, apple dippers, and milk.

Not a bad Grandpa's Day after all.

* * * * *
BTW, Superman was an excellent movie. It was beautifully filmed, ably scripted and showed off some impressive effects.

Now I've always been a DC guy, even though Marvel's Spiderman has eternally been my favorite character. Of the two DC hero's, I prefer Batman to Superman in the comics, but hands down believe the Superman movies are superior.

I believe this is because Superman is, by definiton, a superhuman character. The scriptwriters have to work all the harder to make him vulnerable, physically and emotionally, and three times out of five they've pulled it off on film.

I also like that unlike Batman, the Superman writers don't feel it necessary to kill off the villian, leaving Lex around to do battle in the future.

Kudos, btw, to the filmakers for retaining the classic Superman theme music from the Reeve's films.

It's wonderfully inspiring, and a tad nostalgic now too. Those notes brought a grin to my face, and time after time when the music gave rise to another heroic act, I dang near teared up.

That is, if, you know, I cried at that sort of sappy Americana.

:)

 

My Mother In Law's Retirement

On June 22nd my Mother-in-law threw a combined retirement/60th birthday party. As part of the party she rode a Harley for the first (and last?) time, echoing her 50th birthday where she rode a roller coaster for the first time.

As I said, I don't have ANY good pics of the day, but here's a scanned photo:

World Trade Center - the movie

My wife and I took a rare break from all the kids and saw World Trade Center.

Not exactly a relaxing evening.

I entered the theater with dread, fully expecting one of the most emotional- and disturbing - movie experiences of my life.

That didn't happen, and I left a bit disappointed.

Oh, it's a very good movie. Despite being made by Oliver Stone it eschews any controversial stance and avoids politics, and whatever the man's faults he is a powerful filmaker. It's masterfully done.

But the movie focuses only on the story of two Port Authority cops trapped beneath the WTC, and to a lesser extend their wives. They didn't see the planes hit, so you don't see that happen; they were inside the buildings, so the collapse is not shown. They don't realize the scope of the attack, or that it was an attack at all. In fact, throughout the movie they believe the report of a plane hitting Tower 2 was nothing more than a mistake.

There are some stories that are so large, so grandiose, that we can only grasp the scope of the tragedy when its broken down into manageable pieces  Titanic springs to mind. 

But we're not 90 years removed from the event . There are few days in history that have left such an indelible mark on an entire nation. It isn't New York's story, not alone at least; and giving the movie such a narrow focus limits its ability to move us.

Had it shown, as I feared, the impact of the planes, the terror of those trapped inside, the frantic escape down the stairs, the collapse - well, it would run the risk of overwhelming our emotions.

But it would be honest, and it would stand as a worthy document of that horrible day.

As it is, I think it'll be something that will be pushed aside over time, supplanted by movies that dare to acknowledge how widespread the fear and chaos and distress were on 9/11.

* * * *
In a disgusting bit of ghetto-ness, a couple brought there 18 month old, and a four year old to see WTC. Nothing like mentally scarring a child before she can even talk in sentences.

I've just about had it with movie theaters lately, and I LOVE GOING TO THE MOVIES. But I can't stand the lousy clientele that seem to favor them in the last few years.

Misc Shots from June

Here's some shots of Parker, Middle Child and moi, at my nieces birthday party in early June. No real reason for posting them, 'cept to show off.

Here's a pic from my mother-in-law's retirement party, which I mentioned in an earlier post. I don't have any decent shots from that gig at all, but I wanted to include this just ' cause Parker looked so smooth.

 

My newest 'favorite' author

A few months back I saw a paperback copy of Rex Stout's  "The Golden Spiders" at a local pizza joint. I asked to take it home and it got me hooked on Stout's overweight genius Nero Wolfe and his wisecracking sidekick Archie Goodwin.

I love the writing style, and there are some wonderful desciptions and phrases in the first person narratives. The only drawback seem to a staunch Anti-Communist slant that dates some of the novels.

 Stout, btw, didn't publish his first Wolfe novel until his late 40's.

So far I've read: 

Black Mountain, The

Death of a Dude

Before Midnight

Fer-de-Lance

If Death Ever Slept

Golden Spiders, The

Plot It Yourself

And Be A Villain

Three Doors to Death

 

Pick up any of them - you won't be dissapointed.