LuLu's 9th Birthday Party!

You know, it didn't dawn on me she was turning nine until I wrote the headline for this post. NINE. For some reason that's hitting me like a ton of bricks. I can't picture my LuLu being nine years old. I just can't.



Anyhow, if I can put aside my mid-life crisis for a moment: today, the day before her actual birthday, we held her her party at Cool Waters, a local water park operated by the Milwaukee County Parks.





It was a beautiful day for it. Temperatures in the mid '70's, a sunny sky, just a hint of a mild breeze, and the lush Wisconsin foliage on full display. It was the kind of day that reminds you why it's good to be alive.

We met the other party goers outside the main entrance and were led around through a side door and then through the park to our reserved area in a picnic area beneath a pavilion. It was a long enough walk that I joked with the hostess that this must be a new version of an ol' PT Barnum trick - making us pay for the privilege of being led out immediately through an exit!





We were the only group using that area and we soon had to select our menu choices for later in the day - one meal, one drink, one dessert per person. I was impressed. After that we suntan-lotioned up and headed out for a swim.



The kids soon divided up around the park. YaYa and the oldest child of our friend Chris hit the lap area;



 Lu and her friends the 3ft deep water



 Smiley (the only other male at the gig) spending time on the slides, in the 3ft water, and in the wading area;





 and Lump/Ginger hung out with her 4yr old buddy Tempe or Mommy or Daddy.











Here's Faith and Sydney:



I took the second turn with Ginger, and chased her around the shallow water playing "shark" or "monster", and took her by both hands and 'jet skied' her across the water. She had a blast. I also caught up to Smiley, who was busy practicing his swimming technique, and saw that YaYa had passed her swim test and was allowed in deep water. Alas, LuLu did not, and was encouraged by the life guards to "practice more".

Around 4:30 all the kids randomly showed up at the picnic area, and so I fast tracked the dessert order. They all took a few minutes to enjoy a frozen treat - some of which were as big as their heads!







Then it was back to swimming for 30 minutes before they were all corralled again for dinner.













After that it was time to open presents.



 First up, a pair of flower hair clips YaYa made for her:



Then our two big gifts to her (we had bought her a t-shirt, beach towel/bag, and bikini prior to the party). The big one (but one that was unfortunately - cockily - expected and so not a generator of the anticipated reaction: Justin Bieber concert tickets.



Then, a box of 40 Archie Comics Digests/Double Digests I bought off of Craigslist. She is a good reader, but a disinterested one, but she tears up her Betty and Veronica!





From her friends she got a Justin Bieber tshirt



sandals



a bracelet





Color Blanks, which are cube headed figures you can decorate on your own.



a memo board



a handmade card



and a Justice gift card



After some more swimming, it was time to blow out the cake and  pass out the party favors. Lisa had gotten here a kick-but cake from a Piggly-Wiggly in Timbuktu, and she loved it!





The wind was a bit too strong at that moment and kept blowing out the candles, so it was the fastest version of "Happy Birthday" you'll ever hear!





As for the favors: for weeks Lu had been discussing them, and wound up having us buy pink and/or lime green wicker baskets filled with candy and trinkets, and her personal selection - a hulu dancer bobblehead.





But, in a tragic twist of fate the box with them inside tumbled off the picnic table, mixing it all together. So the ladies sat down and reorganized it at the eleventh hour.



They were a hit. Then we all had our picture taken together by the staff



LuLu was given a special keepsake beach towel to take home



and all that was left was a long ride home.



Happy 9th Birthday LuLu! Your Mom and Dad love you very very very much!

Richard Dawson

Richard Dawson, host of Family Feud and beloved icon of the wonderful Match Game, has passed away at age 79. Say hello to CNR, Brett Somers and Gene Rayburn for me. RIP sir, RIP.

Ulysses S Grant

A LuLu Montage

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

We also started watching "Cave of Forgotten Dreams", a documentary about Chauvet Cave in France, site of the earliest known cave drawings (circa 32,000 years old). Sadly the documentary offers none of the wonder and skill so abundant in the prehistoric artists. It was dull, dull, dull, and I turned it off after only half an hour. Grade: (due to largely to ruining such a momentous historical find) F

Two Hearted Shark Attack

We watched "Two Headed Shark Attack" on Netflix tonight, and yes, it is as bad as the title implies. Two things I learned: first, that Carmen Electra is a truly awful actress. Second, that besides her hot bod Brooke Hogan is, amazingly, just the opposite of Carmen -she's got some decent acting chops. I kid you not. She's certainly the only cast member whose performance didn't make us laugh. Grade: C-

The Author Visits His Barber

Quote of the Day

Whenever I think, "That person's clothes make him look like a circus clown," I tell myself, "Shut up, Tim. Maybe he IS a circus clown." - Tim Gunn

Junie B

A Celebrity Spotting

Today I had the pleasure of speaking to Kip Elliott, the CFO of the Minnesota Twins.

Quote of the Day

Quote of the day: Junie's class was singing a song at Mass today, and she was super excited. She found her Easter dress and matching socks all on her own and had Lisa put French braids in her hair. After school Lisa asked the older girls how LK did standing in front of the whole church. "She did great," one of them said. Then she paused and reconsidered. "Well, she did great - until she started picking her nose."

Read this so you can find out what's readable at your local bookstore. Seriously, I know what I'm talking about. I do have my own blog, you know.

There's something about John Sandford's writing style I'm too dense to define. I think its the way he delivers a strong, character driven plot in short stacatto bursts. Those 'bursts' divide scenes into separate and  unique actions, like the panels on a comic page. Sometimes they relate to the subject at hand only perfunctory, but sometimes they're so intertwined you wonder why or how they were separated in the first place.

Or something like that.

Here's all you need to know: it works. And in Stolen Prey, a Lucas Davenport mystery surrounding the brutal murder of an entire family by a drug cartel, it works very well. Sandford deserves to be mentioned among the mythic elite of the genre, alongside names like Ross McDonald, Rex Stout, and Hammett.

Grade: A+

Book #38 of the year

The Third Gate is a forthcoming thriller by Lincoln Child, an author best known for his collaborations with Douglas Preston. The titular gate refers to the opening to the third and secret chamber of the tomb of Egypt's first pharaoh, discovered below the rot and stench of miles of swampland. Unfortunately, the curse on this tomb might be a wee bit more effective than the one's this archaeological crew is used to dismissing. Thankfully though a ghost hunter, er, enigmaologist is there to lend a hand.

Like too many thrillers the novel features scads of space devoted to the characters telling you details of the history/machinery/terminology in use, a practice I think is both lazy and prone to dating a story (ten years from now, when you pick this up second hand at a yard sale, the medical procedures will make this read like the equivalent of Nehru jackets and shag carpeting).

Still, I enjoyed it for what it is - a quick, harmless, but entertaining book. And I'll remember it forever as the book I was reading as I waited with Smiley to have his abscessed tooth pulled.

Grade: B

Book #39 of the year

As a brief break from book reviews let me mention that we watched One for the Money, the Katherine Heigl movie based on the popular book series by Janet Evanovich. Lisa liked it more than I did, which isn't saying much, although she did comment more than once on Heigl's strained (and inconsistent) Jersey accent. Hey, I know the books are super popular, but I didn't dig this as a novel and I sure didn't love it as a film. What a sub-par effort, and the soundtrack - yowsas! Ridiculous music playing at just the wrong time. How Heigl keeps her name in lights while creating dud after dud is beyond me.

Grade: C-

Harry Lipkin, Private Eye is another forthcoming novel I read, this time by Barry Fantoni (release date July 10th of this year). The titular character is an 87 year old Jewish private eye still licensed and practicing in Florida. He takes the case of an elderly widow who suspects her staff of stealing personal mementos from her home. Sounds exciting, doesn't it?

Let's not mince words. The style was fine if not impressive, but the book read heavily like something  constructed by design. Sure, sure, it's good, even necessary, to map out a book length work, but I got the impression he set a goal for himself   - "8 pages in chapter four buckaroo" and then stuck to it, whether that meant the scene was padded or shortchanged. It all felt forced.

Worse yet, I think the main character came off as subtly racist, especially when it came to the Asian butler. Yes, an older man will carry more baggage than one from a younger generation, but then it should come across as a fault, not a source of humor.

As for the mystery . . . if you didn't see that ending coming, shoot yourself now.

I'd give this book a D, but who am I to judge? At least he got published.

Grade: C--

Book # 40 of the year

Memorial Day 2012

It was another good day today - I kind of like having two days off in a row once in awhile. In the early afternoon we got a lot of cleaning and projects done around the house, like putting in the window A/C units. (sadly, one project involved  getting rid of my dishwasher; more on that later). The older I get, the less enjoyable a day is unless I can finish the day saying something got done. 


In the evening Schroeder and our mutual friend JJ came over with her daughter and we had a massive grill-out, followed by a movie for the grown-ups.

Dinner barely concluded before we had a freak storm. It was clear skies one minute, Wizard of Oz the next, then right back to clear skies. I saw a tree limb succumb to the wind across the street, but somehow missed a 15 second power outage that messed with my TV.

Anyway, I still found time to give Smiley a haircut today, and did it outside to minimize the mess inside the house. He and I had a rough day today, with us both rubbing each other the wrong way and saying some things we didn't mean. But you know what he left on my pillow before dinner? A sign, rolled up and tied with a blue bow, that said "I Love You". I got very choked up, I really did, and he made it all the worse by saying he did it so I'd have something of his to post on my cubicle wall. I love you little man!

Oh, by the way:  for desert LuLu baked a cake. And by that, I mean she measured out the ingredients, mixed it, poured it into the pan and baked it without a single moment of adult help or supervision. Well done LuLu!

Here's a parody of The Hunger Games that YaYa and her friend posted on YouTube:



Well, two of them:



It was a good day in a good life. Knock on wood.

LuLu the Baker

For desert today LuLu baked a cake. And by that, I mean she measured out the ingredients, mixed it, poured it into the pan and baked it without a single moment of adult help or supervision. Well done LuLu!

A Freak Storm

Freak storm eh? Clear one minute, then looming clouds and insane wind, followed by five minutes of rain and then back to clear. I watched the wind knock down a tree limb across the street and one on my side of the block, but somehow missed the 15 second power outage that screwed with my TV.

The Skin I Live In

This evening we watched the foreign language film "The Skin I Live in" starring Antonio Banderas. He plays a Spanish surgeon intent on developing human skin impervious to fire in the wake of his wife's fiery car crash. But this is no saint; locked in a room of his mansion is a woman he uses as a guinea pig, a woman who holds even darker secrets of the Doctor close to her vest. It's a well written, well acted film about the dark places of the human heart, but as a heads up: while this is a gore-free zone, there are still whole chunks of this film that are devoted to some sick, twisted sh*t. A little long, I'd grade this one a solid B+

A Quote for the Ages

I should note here, in the dead of night, that YaYa is very much his Daddy's son, whether he likes it or not. On Friday Lisa took him to a festival and he HATED the rides. It wasn't *just* fear, he openly questioned the sanity of anyone who chose to pay for the privilege of being frightened, which, if you ask me, is a darn good point. On the tilt a whirl he freaked and ruined the ride for Lisa, but it produced a line for the ages. I assure you, it was spoken in all seriousness: "Stop it [the ride]! You my mutha, stop it! Take me to da emergency room, I havin' a heart attack!"

Contraband

Tonight I watched "Contraband" starring Mark Wahlberg. Yes, it was an action film centered around smuggling, blah blah (not that that's a bad thing, but I know the premise immediately turned Lisa off - and good. I'd hate to spend my life with a woman who has anything but a grudging tolerance for boy movies). But this is a smart, mostly blood free film (excluding one Panamanian shoot-out not involving the main characters) that has a protagonist worth watching. I greatly enjoyed it. Rent it. Grade: A

How I Spent my Day Off

Had a great day off. Forced the kids to clean the living room and watched part of the Indy 500 with them. Later the grown-ups napped before we took Lu window shopping for her bedroom re-do. Then we picked up tacos for the kids and parked at Billy Mitchell airport to watch the planes. While Lis went over to her friend Nancy's for a bit I got to enjoy a post-bedtime quiet house and watch the last 100 laps of the CocaCola 600. (No, I don't like NASCAR or Indy, but it was sports and the only other alternative was watching golf. Blech.) This was followed by an evening drive, a Redbox movie and some "Don't Forget the Lyrics" on Netflix.

Very late last night I also watched "Nazis at the Center of the Earth" starring Dominique Swain and Jake Busey. It is as tasteless and poorly done as you imagine, with UFO's and cyborg soldiers and prisoners being skinned alive - and even worse, at times you're forced to watch Swain try to act. BUT the Hitler scenes rocked. Grade: C

Reality of Love

The movie to break my string of lousy rentals: 'Reality of Love' starring Bradley Cooper and Jason Priestly. Cooper plays the best friend and manager of fading star Jason Priestly, who in a last ditch effort to save his acting career stars in a Bacheloresque reality show to find his 'true love'. But is the girl of his dream in love with him, or has she fallen for Cooper off-camera? It's a cute little movie made for ABC Family, and I thought the ending showed a fair bit of 'awwww'. Grade: B