The leavings of my fragile little mind

Some generic updates:

 

LuLu is in need of some speech therapy but we're having trouble co-coordinating the effort. We've now been told it'll have to wait until the next school year. Uh-uh. We'll find a way. Meanwhile, she's very proud to tell me that not only does she know who the first President was, but that she made a heck of a mask of ol' George in school. She followed with this exchange:

 

"Wat his wife's name Dad?"

 

"Martha"

 

"Oh yeah, I forgot. I didn't do her [mask] too good. But his was da best in da class."

 

Today, she's off on a Daisy field-trip to see Stars on Ice with Lisa.

 

* * * *

 

Two bits of news about Smiley: his psych evaluation has been set for next Wednesday (to judge his learning capacity and whatnot) and he's been accepted into the K3 program of a great local Montessori school for the '08-'09 school year. Now all we have to do is get him to speak and use the toilet and we're good to go. ;)

 

He had to go to work with me today when my scheduled day off was disrupted by a problem with the fire alarm system. He was very good there, and ditto on an extremely long trip to have my car's exhaust emissions tested to meet state requirements.

 

I'm not bit**ing, because I know a lot of people have bigger problems and I'm thankful I don't shovel coal for a living, but I hate never having a true, full day off. Even on the best of days I'll get a call or two (or an email) from work.

 

No big deal, but after a few years its begun to seem as if it's this nasty rip right down the middle of your day. Even if it only takes a minute, the aftertaste seems to linger all day.

 

Very fatiguing, even if it's all in my head.

 

But again, it ain't like I'm shoveling coal or cleaning up elephant dung, so big wup.

 

* * *

Oh, it took YaYa all of about a week to lose her glasses. I found them left on a windowsill after a long search, but I kept them from her to let her stew for a few more days. As if she was worried at all.

 

This week YaYa has had a busy weekend. Friday was the circus and pizza with her Godfather, then an overnight with Lu at my Mom's, followed today with a visit to a friends house (the 2nd friend in three days), and today she's going to a birthday party ata swimming pool.

 

She came home exhausted.

 

"You're tired baby?" I said.

 

"Yeah," she said. "I am. But that's ok. My friends needed to see me. I'm very popular."

 

* * *

I was pleased to hear YaYa was pretty good for her Godfather the night of the circus. There was still a little bit of the mock-shy stuff, but I'm told she was more social. Aside from both their words on it, I know she told him about a story writing contest she wants to enter, so some communication took place.

 

Her Godfather is a Mason (may the good Lord forgive his endangered soul! - I kid, I kid!) so he was able to put them in the 3rd row of the (Tripoli Shrine) Circus.

 

Aside from the pizza and the circus itself, he also bought her an elephant ride, a program, cotton candy, and a $10 lightsaber.

 

'twould be a dark day before my wallet let loose $10 for such a trinket, so she was truly in luck.

 

 

* * * *

 

I finished Stephen King's The Mist in the last week, which of course was originally a novella included in Skeleton Crew. A fine effort if you pardon his hippy necessity to blame all evil, supernatural or not, on the US Government. Like King mentioned in the introduction, the ending is very . . well, read it. It's not very satisfying, that's for sure.

 

* * * *

Someone PLEASE remind me on Tuesday to go rent Beowulf. I can't believe I missed it in the theater.

 

* * * *

 

As there is no other place to put it, I wish to state here and now that there are precious few authors walking this earth that can convey grand amounts of power, grace, beauty, and ease into a sentence like Clive Barker.

 

That is all.

 

Tags: Tripoli Shrine Circus, Clive Barker, Stephen King, The Mist, Skeleton Crew

Joe Loong would be proud

Why? Because good ol' Joe once wrote about the importance of linking to the ideas and sites you talked about, and brother this one's gonna take the cake.

Many times on BlogExplosion I've come across a blog called No Ordinary Moment. Among other blog-y posts it features the artwork of the author, and I'm quite fond of her work.

As a matter of fact, were I ever to be in the position where I could afford to throw down a spare $85 on artwork - or just have a spare $85 period - I'd probably pick up a piece she did called Fraility.

Anyhow, today her blog featured a youtube clip of The Turtles singing their signature hit "Happy Together".

Cheerful eh? Eeven if you get the sense it's all a bit tongue-in-cheek.

Quite the websurfer tonight, I searched for some additional Turtles' clips, and came across this gem. In it the much older Turtles (circa 1990, if YouTube can be trusted) discuss, in painful but humourous detail, the problems they had with their managers during their career. Think it's a simple thing? Just try following the chart they draw:

Note: Well, AOL isn't allowing me to embed right about now, so here's the url for the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JHN5HaUg28

I'll try to add it once the entry is saved, so be patient ;)

Here it is:

 

 

Yikes!

 

 

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Tags: The Turtles, Joe Loong

Book Review - The Farther Shore by Matthew Eck

The Farther Shore by Matthew Eck, Milkweed Editions, 192 pp

 

The plot of Matthew Eck’s The Farther Shore could hardly be simpler. A handful of American soldiers are abandoned in an African city torn apart by civil war, and their only hope for survival is a perilous journey through the city and all its many dangers.

Along the way there are the prerequisite staples of serious war literature; the unintentional ‘collateral damage’, in this case the mistaken killing of two children that sets off the tragic events of the novel, the native who had once spent time in America; and the author’s stubborn refusal to assign moral judgments to the actions he depicts.

On the surface, that sounds like an indictment of the novel. On the contrary; it takes a skilled hand to take the clichés of a genre and morph them into something fresh and intriguing. Eck manages to pull if off with a austere simplicity and ease that belies the fact that he is a first time novelist.

While its stark and bare-bone style is reminiscent of Harry Brown’s WWII Italy in A Walk in the Sun, Eck tells the story of a modern day conflict, albeit one never identified by year or name.

The story centers on Joshua Stantz, an Army sergeant and one of four soldiers left behind after a botched mission leaves two children dead. Among the group Josh can claim a certain detachment – by chance he never opened fire on the children – but there is no doubt he is weighed down by the same guilt and sense of impending doom that plague the rest.

“ . . my thoughts turned to times when I hadn’t done enough to save others as they . . . disappeared beneath the waves of this world. And there I was standing on the farther shore, hoping they would surface again.”

Separated from the Army and with no immediate hope for rescue the group begins a cross town odyssey to the imagined safety of a nearby city. The characters and events that spring forth along this journey both shape their future and illuminate the mistakes of their immediate past.

“We made a mess of this whole thing,” one character says. “And I’m sick with it.”

It’s left up to the readers imagination – and political inclination – to decipher whether or not the book stands as an indictment of the current occupation of Iraq.

Eck himself may not absolve the Americans of the novel of the chaos they created, but he also doesn’t canonize the violent inhabitants of the city. In one disturbing scene a couple is viscously attacked and mutilated for a act of adultery, and at one point Stantz wonders why a nation that has such high rainfall totals fails to grow enough crops to feed its own starving people.

If there is one complaint about the book, it’s that the journey Stantz and company undertake doesn’t seem all that terror inducing. Despite being hunted by most of the city they are able to travel in the open with seeming ease, covering multiple miles and rarely encountering even mild opposition.

It’s a disturbingly surreal journey, one that at times seems no more foreign, no more dangerous, than a similar walk in some parts of America.

More than once the American characters fear that their actions will ‘follow them home’.

Perhaps that’s Eck’s point - that once we become entangled in the politics and bloodshed of another land it becomes impossible to separate ourselves from the conflict, physically or spiritually.

For Stantz and the other survivors, their private war will indeed ‘follow them home’.

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Tags: book review, Matthew Eck, The Farther Shore

Nekked Babies are the Best Babies - Baby's 6 month pics; the flower petals

Here's the first slew of photos from a professional shoot at a local Target store. We usually venture to a family member's studio for our pics, but we had a great deal tossed at us by the store and took a chance with Baby's 6 month shots.

 If you don't mind my saying, they turned out great! What a beautiful kid - man my genes rock ;)

Tags: Baby 4

Why Lurkers Suck

True Conversation between me and C.:

Me: "Today's the anniversary of the day I met Lisa."

C: "I know"

Me: "How do you know?"

C: "I read it on your site this morning"

Me (surprised): "You read Slapinions?"

C: "Yeah"

Me: "How often?"

C: "I don't know. Once every other day maybe."

Me (shocked): "How come you never comment?"

C: "Why should I?"

Me: "So I don't feel like some loser  talking to himself. . .you know, so I know someone actually reads it."

C: "Well . . I just told you I read it, so . . now you know."

Happy 13th Anniversary Sinatra!

Thirteen years ago today, around three hours past midnight, my friend Erv and I were on a typical college-era, pointless, shoot the shi*,  middle of the night road trip when we wanted to stop for some food at a 24 hour Subway.

It was closed, and I found out later it was the first and only time in a decade they'd been forced to shut their doors because of staff call-ins.

So we wound up at George Webb's on 47th and Forest Home (for you non-Wisconsinites, Webb's is the hometown equivalent of a Waffle House). The waitress was spouting your typical "I love Clinton" Democrat B.S. 

Thus, I ignored her.

My only real interaction with the woman was a brief dialogue about breakfast sausage. I wanted links, they only had patties. Such is the level of debate at a coffee house at 3 a.m.

Somehow the waitress wormed her way into our conversation, and almost without realizing it, I began flirting with her. At one point we discussed music and I mentioned I loved big bands.

"I love them too," she said.

"Well, then I'm just going to have to marry you," I said.

Now as it happens just a few days before I'd been lamenting my bachelorhood - by that I mean my suffocating loneliness - with Erv and the sarcastic S.O.B. had actually had me sign a statement saying I would never meet anyone.

Keep in mind at the time, while blessed with the full and lush hair of a god, I was greatly overweight, clothed in a black sweatshirt and plain jeans, ugly sneakers, made $4.50/hr while going to school full time, and had severe plumbers crack.

[That last part never has changed. Consistency is the key to happiness my friends, the key!]

Erv mentioned this contract in passing to the waitress, and when the bill arrived so did this note:

I was floored. "What should I do?" I asked Erv.

"Leave a bigger tip," he said.

So I wrote back.

I went home, she called me and we went out . . to a different Webb's. I was still full but she hadn't eaten so she ordered breakfast. I said all of 5 words during the meal and was regretting the whole disaster.

"I don't know what's wrong with you," she said all po'd, " but when I'm done with breakfast I'll take you home and forget this ever happened."

Fine by me. Then for some reason this . . this . . Democrat across the table called my beloved Gov. Tommy Thompson a drunk.

No one goes after my Tommy.

So I began to debate her, and after a good half hour or so she asked if I wanted to go with her to get a car wash. I did, and she also stopped home to show me some books she'd just ordered from Book of The Month, hoping to impress my nerdom (it did).

We parked by a local park and talked for awhile, and I remember having to hold this little boombox because she'd bought the car without an installed radio and still hadn't found the funds to purchase one.

Honestly, my clearest memory of the talk was the way her chest pushed out as she spoke with her back to the door.

{D-D-D Diva she used to say, joking about her cup size}

That was when we had our first hug. A few hours later we went to see Higher Learning and had our first kiss.

All in all, our first date lasted 10 hours or so.

I was home for about an hour before she called me. Later that night, after a short nap, I called her and we went out again, this time spending some time at the lakefront and coming home at dawn.

A few days later I spent the night in her dorm room, listening to Billy Joel, playing Skipbo, and making out. She'd cut her hair short and dyed it red because she knew both made me crazy, and in return I'd made a failed effort to pull up the back of my pants.  

And no, sadly we didn't *ahem* just yet.

On the way home the next morning we got into a fender bender with her brand new car, and Lis was shaken up. At the time I didn't know how to drive stick so her Mom came to pick us up.

"You should see a doctor, your neck is all bruised," she said to me with concern.

Yeah, uh, not actually from the accident, but thank you :) .

That was how I met my mother-in-law.

After some bumpy patches and drama I proposed on Christmas day, on one knee at the lakefront by Sheridan park, and we were married the next October.

We still have both notes, obviously, and at least once a week Lis wears the shirt I wore that day to bed, now thin and full of holes. In 13 years she has yet to listen to a single big band tune and could not, for the life of her, tell me the difference between Glen Miller and Barney Miller.

Without question, February 22nd remains one of the most pivotal and important dates in my life, if not the most.

Love you Lis, and happy anniversary!

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Tags: Lisa, Blogplugs

Lost: Eggtown Season 4, Episode 4

*** Spoilers Ahead * *  *

Ok, there wasn't a darn thing wrong with this episode, but it was still a downer for me. Why? Because everything that was revealed, save some incidental trivia, I saw coming from the start.

I can do that with most movies and TV episodes, just turn to Lisa 10 minutes into it and say "You know Lex is really his long lost twin brother from Bulgaria, right?"

But with Lost that usually goes out the window. There's too many plot threads, too many characters, too many sleight of hand twists for me to see the road ahead.

 Except tonight.

It's established that Kate has a son. There's incidental hints on the island that she's pregnant, but it has the aura of white noise to distract the viewer. In the flashforwards you hear about her son, you discuss her son, you see how important he is to Kate, BUT . .

But the show never a) never shows him during these scenes, setting up his 'reveal' to be a shock to the viewer. Ok, well, that could mean anything. Maybe he's a Ben look-a-like, maybe he's deformed because of the islands effect on pregnancy, who knows. But then b) they never, not once, refer to him by name.

To me that was the clincher. Why not name the kid? There were other possibilities, but in my head I saw it like the star over Bethlehem: the only Caucasian child we are aware of it Aaron; therefore the writers are trying their best to disguise his identity until the end of the episode.

And at that very momentI said "Dang, I wish I was blogging live about this. No one is going to believe me afterwards."

And lo and behold, it's Aaron.

So what did we learn tonight, other than that I'm a doggone psychic?

* First, we learn that Kate successfully, miraculously really, officially escapes her criminal past after the island. We can assume that the person she had to get back to in the season 3 finale was Aaron. We know that this particular flash-forward can take place no later than, say, 2010, judging by Aaron's age.

That last point is more meaningful than you'd think. Aaron is all of perhaps three months old in the 'current' Losties timeline. I don't think it took 5 years for the criminal justice system to try Kate's case. So where did the other 4 years or so go? Could it be their rescue really isn't at hand?

UPDATE: As you can tell from the picture I misjudged his age on first viewing. He's three, maybe four at most, so it could conceivably be 2008 in the timeline.

* Jack is still in love with Kate in future/present, and she appears more than willing to reciprocate, so we can tentatively presume Sawyer and Juliet are no longer players in the game.

* What is Jack's problem with Aaron? Does he feel guilt over an (as yet unrevealed) loss of Claire, does he resent Aaron for a costly decision his existence forced on Jack, or is Aaron truly an agent of doom, as the psychic appeared to forecast before the flight, and Jack is uneasy around him?

* We learn that in the 'official' version of the crash Kate is a hero, saving the group from starvation and danger. That means that  everyone among the Six was willing to recite the lie, giving credit to the idea that the Six doesn't include anyone at odds with Kate (as John is at the moment).

* The story also mentions that eight folks survived the crash but that two later perished. What's the rationale for including two fatalities after the fact? Was some evidence left behind of two survivors (Michael and Walt?) that couldn't be explained away except by including their (temporary) survival in the tale?

* On the island Johnis still playing Colonel Kurtz and without outside direction from 'the island' he's falling apart. The whole slamming doors/throwing trays bit gets a bit old, dontcha think John? And the grenade in the mouth? Cukoo.

* As for Ben, well, he's still hard at work manipulating the world (wouldn't that tire a fella out after a few decades?) and if we are to believe Miles, he's wealthy, powerful, and at odds with someone of equal? wealth and power who wants him dead.

I like Ben tho', he's grown on me.

* In other news the Kate/Sawyer bed me/wed me saga continues.

 

Strong hints of a Kate pregnancy. As I stated earlier I dismissed them as white noise, and Kate herself says sot in the episode, but I don't quite believe her. I think her desire to escape the island at all costs, despite her status as a fugitive, is because she fears the islands well known affect on fetuses.

So in that plotline, she would eventually have to lose her own baby and be granted/take guardianship over Aaron as her own.

We'll see.

Trivia:

 -Loved Hurley's "you just scooby-dooed me didn't' you?" line

 -I noticed the episode began with a closeup of Locke's eye, a typical Lost beginning, but it was an awfully quick shot.

- The book Locke gave Ben was by Phillip K. Dick, but I didn't catch the title, I just recognized the cover style. Significance?

- I didn't notice the title or author of Sawyer's reading material. Again, significance?

As usual, a great way to spend an hour in the evening.

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Tags: Lost, blogplugs

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A Scrapbook Entry - Stonefire Pizza, Early Summer 2007

I am perilously close to finishing another book review to submit for publication, in addition to an article for an industry trade magazine. There's also a writing contest offered by the local newspaper I intend to give a go, and I'm going to redo my submission packet and try again to get my book published.

In other words, even if all of the above wind up in failure, it'll be the most serious effort to date in my quest to get published. There's an honest chance this next month might produce more rejection letters than in the last 5 years combined.

But all you need is one 'yes' . . .

Anyhow, I'm going to plop some of that stuff on here, and some posts about a philosophical discussion that recently took place, and possibly a piece of short fiction, and the election of course, etc. etc.

Diarrhea of the keyboard is what it is folks.

{oh, yeah, one thing: that 'blank' entry of awhile back was intentional. It's now the (very) rough draft of a new blogroll, and I'm linking to it on the sidebar}

But before all of that, I'd like to journey back to 2007 for another family pictorial, this time to a family trip to Stonefire Pizza in late summer. Why post it now? Lis plans on taking them there again tomorrow.

Correction, it had to be early summer: Lisa was obviously in her last trimester and Smiley looked awfully young.

I'm going to skip the creative retelling of exactly what/where the place is, and blatantly steal from their website. I figure since it's advertising (in a way) they shouldn't complain too much.

"The 37,000 square foot center seats 460 people in four differently themed dining rooms in its all-you-can eat buffet area:

• Northern Woods, a quiet dining room
• The Fan Club, sports-themed with nine television screens showing ESPN sports
• Toon City showing children’s cartoons
• Discovery Play, a dining room with children’s pretend play activities

Additionally, there are eight private birthday rooms.  Including the party rooms, there is total seating for over 620 people.  The family entertainment area occupies half of the center and features bumper cars, a Bouldering wall, a three-level interactive foam ball play Ballocity unit, four lanes of mini-bowling, a children’s Frog Hopper ride, 90 redemption and ride-simulator games and a redemption prize store. 

The all-you-can-eat buffet features an extensive selection of foods, including a salad bar, soups, 16 different pizza selections, Asian and Italian foods, a children’s buffet area, desserts and an extensive selection of drinks."

Cliffnotes version: It's a bigger, more upscale Chuck E Cheese.

I kind of got shafted on the fees on the way in. I paid for a lot of upgrades that turned out to be unnecessary, but live and learn. [it was also jam packed, setting off the worst of my 'get a head count of the kids!' paranoia, but I will go no further with that because I stand by my mantra: this isn't a medical blog ;)]

We ate in the Discovery Play room, where the kids donned aprons to play with water toys on a long table

Then they painted their faces

The food was OK but nothing to write home about (better than Chuck E Cheese, tho', and I dig Chuck E's pizza). For once Smiley seemed a bit annoyed, at least for the camera

But soon enough we were off to play again. We split up, with Lis taking the girls and Smiley and I taking up residence in a room devoted to a large set of play tunnels.

The girl on the left in the following pics is one of YaYa's best friends, and since the time of these pics the girls Mom and Lis have become quite close, and her Dad is the guy who helped me tear down my friends shed in the fall. I'd forgotten they were there that day, as we ran into them purely on accident.

Lu rode the merry-go-round

Smiley and his Pops hung out together, since he was too small for the rides

YaYa tried her hand at the bumper cars

and then both girls rode the Hopper, again and again.

There's a rock wall there, and I don't think YaYa quite met the height requirement, and I know her footwear was against the rules, but a few words to the kid in charge and she was off to the races

the family watched spellbound

Video of this exists too, but I'll spare you that :)

As the day ended and closing time neared the place cleared out and Lu set up shop in the pretend pizza shop

I really like this shot:

There was a whole room devoted just to giant Lego-type blocks, and Smiley and I spent quite awhile there, right up to closing.

at close this one poor kid was put in charge of picking and stacking all the blocks -hundreds of them - and out of sympathy the family stayed and helped for a few minutes

By the time we walked out the kids were ready for bed. It turned out to be a pretty enjoyable time!

Tags: Stonefire Pizza, YaYa, LuLu, Lisa, Smiley

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Just a Quick Photo of the Donkey Mask

On Monday YaYa came home and said she needed a Donkey mask for school, for reasons I either forget or never knew in the first place. And no, it wasn't a political project for the following days primary, since the due date was actually Wedneday.

 Lis stepped in and took over the project, which in the end ticked YaYa off, but let's be frank; the mask ROCKED :)

Tags: YaYa

Because if it was easy it'd be someone else's life - The Lion King Feb 17th '08 Pt 2

For the record, yes, 'only' between .5 and 1.9 inches of rain fell on parts of Milwaukee on Sunday, but again - the ground was both saturated and frozen, and the storm sewers were in many cases  covered by snow. Water piled up, and it piled up in depth. Here's a pic from the next day's Journal-Sentinel.

So I got home, changed my clothes, tried in vain to dry my boots, and headed out the door. Our plan was to take the van, but just in case things prove too rough, I had cash on me for the bus.

Eureka! As I crossed the threshold I remembered hand warmers I had left over from my trip to see the '05 Inauguration. I'd seen them only the day before, in the basement bathroom. I went downstairs to grab them . . and naturally, there was water in my basement.

My freshly rebuilt for $15,000 in 2007 basement.

There wasn't a lot of water, to be honest, certainly nothing 'measurable'. It looked like someone had taken a bucket of water and spilled it across the room. Most had apparently come up through the storm sewer, while in the northwest corner water had either risen through a crack in the floor or come in from the where the new walls met the original 1891 brick foundation. It was certainly an atypical situation.

Still, not good.

But I didn't have time to deal with it, not if I wanted to make the show. And what could I have done at that moment anyhow? 

I went out and joined the family in the van and, while the water had receded, the roads were still bad enough that we abandoned it at a local McDonalds and crossed the street to the bus stop.

The bus came within minutes, and it was only $5 for all of us to head downtown. (LuLu rode free).

Lu sat with me (quite the Daddy's girl lately) while Lis sat with her young protege. It was a one shot, easy-peezy ride on a clean and friendly bus, a rarity, but a pleasant one. Only one cukoo drunk, and he was on and off the bus within a minute!

Once we got downtown it was a mere one block walk to the theater (albeit across an ice sheet) and we hunkered down and had our lunch in one of the doorways before venturing inside.

A quick pickup of some booster seats, a snack of some roasted cashews, the obligatory purchase of a magnet with the show's logo (to join Annie and A Chorus Line - no idea what happened to 42nd Street's) and it was on to a rough 20 minute wait to be allowed in the theater proper.

The kids did alright for themselves, but it got rough when we faced an additional 30 minute wait in our seats. Crying, whining, YaYa cracking her head on the back of her seat, a tall woman sitting smack dab in front of LuLu . . wow.

[pointless aside: We had four of 5 seats in a balcony row on the right side of the theater (as you faced the stage - is that Stage Left or Stage right?) and we were happy to have the 5th seat as a catch-all for our belongings.

Then right before the musical began the usher brings a woman over to claim the 5th seat, the farthest from the aisle.

"Hmmm.. . Why don't you just take the aisle seat and these folks will move down a bit," the usher VOLUNTEERED to the woman.

"Howabout you don't give away the seat I PAID for?" I roared.

If the woman - who was nice, as it turns out - was cursed enough to be stuck in the corner beside four Slapinions, OFW.]

Back to the kids. They were awful in the moments leading up to the show and Lisa was already saying that she regretted taking them. I would normally have completely agreed, but I had a gut feeling things would turn out OK once the lights went down.

And they were.

Once the show started there was not another peep from YaYa, the theater vet, and while LuLu kept up a steady stream of whispered questions to me (is dat Scar? What kind of animal is dat? Is Musafa dead?) she stayed interested and calm.

Frankly, the biggest disruption came from yours truly. With five minutes before intermission my bladder had all it could take and I had to have the family get up and move into the aisle to let me pass.

The ride home was quick and smooth, with Lu again sitting beside me and getting the chance to pull the 'stop cord' (YaYa having done so on the way out) and soon enough we were home.

I mopped the basement, Lisa baked cookies for the kids, and we all had a peaceful night.

Not a bad way to spend a Sunday, all things considered.

[So how was the musical?

The show was strong and the costuming and scenery absolutely masterful. Do I think it's the greatest show ever? No. It was a bit too reliant on visuals, the additional songs were no vast improvement on the movie, and (in the touring production at least) some of the vocals were weaker than I expected.

I also think it suffers from the typical Disney plot development issues - lots of conflict build-up and characterization followed by an abrupt and simplistic resolution to the problem.

But I will say this: when Simba began to ascend the mountain to assume his reign as king I had literal shivers of pride down my back.

Overall, a heck of a show and something I'm glad Lis paid for the family to see. ]

Tags: YaYa, LuLu, Lion King