Thank You for the Birthday Wishes!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! Spent the AM w/ Smiley at the pumpkin farm fieldtrip, early afternoon napping, and Danny made beef roast w/ potatoes for dinner, yum. Kids sang happy birthday and we ate chocolate cake. Received a new blender (margaritas!), and lots of kisses and hugs. A good birthday. :) Thanks for dinner the other day too mom :)  - Lisa 

Lisa's Birthday, and another column in the Journal-Sentinel

Lisa's birthday was low key but went well. She went with Smiley on his class trip to the pumpkin farm, and then we just chilled out at home. No one offered to take the kids off our hands, killing our plans for a dinner out, so I popped a roast and potatoes in the oven. It *should* have been ready by six, but finally finished around nine. Oopsies, Chef. Because of this, the kids wound up eating frozen corn dogs and chocolate cake. In the end, not so bad an outcome, because it left the roast to be enjoyed by grown-ups later in the night.

Happy Birthday Lis!

* * *

Seven and a half hours until the dentist pulls this piece o' pain out of my jaw. Hot dog!

* * * *

A column of mine appears in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel today. The editor wrote me the following after she read my submission:

Dan, what a wonderful column! I read it start to finish in seconds because I kept wanting to read the next line and find out where you were going. It just brought a little light to my day.

As you can imagine, I was very touched by her words. Go on, buy a copy dangnabbit!

Introducing the "Nook"

Barnes & Noble is launching the "Nook" in November to compete w/ Kindle.

Hannah Montana The Movie

There wasn't much chance of avoiding Hannah Montana: The Movie, not with two (well, three) girls under age eight.

If you don't know the premise of the show, kindly go back in your time machine and return to 1997. Miley Cyrus stars as Miley Stewart, an everyday teen who just happens to don a wig and perform, unbeknownst to anyone but her best friend and family, as the world's biggest pop star, Hannah Montana.

In the movie version Miley has gotten a big head, preferring her Hannah persona to her 'real' self. She's certainly not looking forward to a visit to her family in Tennessee, but when she gets there things start to change. Her father (played by real life Dad Billy Ray Cyrus) falls in love, she develops a crush on a farmhand, and she begins to see the value in a 'normal' life.

Will she continue as Hannah, or are the days of "the best of both worlds" coming to a close?

I like the movie. Oh, I wouldn't have taken a date to see it, thank you very much. But for what it is, it's pretty decent. There's adequate emotional turmoil, beautiful scenery, some zany action, and a few good songs.

[The song that she sings in the finale, The Climb, is occasionally played on the radio, and my girls sing along at full volume]

The ending is absolute HOKUM, but whadaya want? I also missed the subplots and running gags involving Hannah's brother and Rico, the stingy child entrepreneur. Both appeared in the film, but only briefly.

I'm going to grade this for what it is, a pleasant family film aimed at girls ages 5-10.

3.0 out of 4

Happy Birthday Lisa! Happy Birthday Pop!

Today is the start of the busiest week of the year in my household. Today is my lovely wife's birthday, and my father's. In a few day it's YaYa's turn, then our wedding anniversary. Mix in the various birthday celebrations and Halloween activites and it'll be a doozy of a week - but a happy one :)

Happy Birthday! (x 2)

Paradise Landing

With the bulk of her First Communion money YaYa decided to splurge and enjoy a night at a local waterpark called Paradise Landing. It's inside the downtown Hilton and once upon a time Lisa and I took our niece and nephew there, many moons ago. I'm not sure if YaYa had been there for a party or just seen the pictures, but she was very adament about the destination.

Lisa and her Mom accompanied her overnight, and YaYa invited her friend Meadow too. The dates on the camera phone were obviously well off on that day.






I know she enjoyed spending the night in a hotel with her friend.


She had a great time and wants to return for another visit. Fine with me - as long as she pays again ;)

Because I've heard it every single day of my working life . . .

If there's a cashier that's having trouble finding the barcode on an item. . .

If there's a salesman who needs to step away and ask a manager what discount he can authorize . . .

If there's a sales clerk who isn't sure of a price because the tag is ripped off or you grabbed it out of the wrong bin . .

If there's a cashier whose scanner isn't working quickly enough, or who stops to correct an obvious error . . .

If any of these things are going on, and your brain tells your mouth to spit out some variation of:

"Huh chortle chortle. I guess it must be free then eh?"

Then . . .

.

.

.

.

.

YOU ARE A DICK.

Family Update

Howdy. My self imposed 'intermission' continues as I try to get my world clicking again, but here's an update.

* * * *

On the 12th LuLu woke up at 6 a.m. with shortness of breath and pain in her chest. I don't know how I heard her ragged cries of "Daddy, Daddy" from our room, but I give Ginger all the credit. The two share a room and once Lu woke her up, Ginger mimicked Lu's cries at an impressive volume. In the end my girl spent three hours in the E.R., getting breathing treatments and steroids to finish off her asthma attack. She spent the day home from school, but went back the next day as if nothing ever happened. Oh, btw, she also lost a front (baby) tooth yesterday (Thursday).

* * * *

Dorky quote of the day: YaYa called me into her room at bedtime and asked me to read a page from an old edition of an Encyclopedia Brown book. "Look at this. Just look at this!" I read the passage:

"Do you think it was him?" she said?

"There's no need for the second question mark Dad! It's bad editing!"


* ** *

YaYa has developed a big crush on the stepson of one of Lisa's friends. The boy is good looking and quite sweet, and its all quite innocent, but I was worried there were going to be fireworks between YaYa and LuLu. For a minute there her younger sister seemed to worm her way into the mix, quite unconsciously I think. She has a natural and easygoing way with people (especially boys), and even YaYa admits she'll ride her LuLu's coattails at times.

* * * *

Smiley's just a good boy. Plain and simple, a good and kind boy that warms your heart. He talks constantly, and only 5% of it is understandable, but there's no mistaking the love he exudes.

* * *

Ginger . . .well, she's Ginger. Twice this week she's woken up at night and smeared her poop on the walls, once so bad we actually had to scrub the paint off to remove the revolting mess. Ugh.

* ** *

Meanwhile, I am plagued by a bad tooth that needs to be pulled. If you've been with me awhile you know I'm as familiar with dental pain as Michelle Duggar is with childbirth, but this one's kicking my ass. It's not bad during the day, but the minute my head hits the pillow it's on. I get a half hour sleep here, an hour there, and then wake up in agony. It's starting to affect my day. I went to work Thursday a mixed up jumble of pain and exhaustion. At least I looked good, as always.

And yes, I have a dentist appointment scheduled, but the wait is (as always) long. But by 8:30 next Wednesday morning I should have this bugger out.

My front yard is all torn up

Why? Because Gwen Moore got an ok on a project to run a gas line from Franklin to Jones Island, with my street being smack in the way of the deal. It should be done by Nov 1st.

Holy Hill

I suppose, since the 2009/2010 school year is here, that I should finish up posts about field trips from last year. Late in the spring I accompanied YaYa and her class to a visit to Holy Hill, a minor basilica located near Hubertus, Wisconsin.



Founded in the mid 19th century and topping out at 1,350 feet (400 meters) above sea level, it's a popular destination for area Catholics, and hosts more than 300,000 visitors each year.



YaYa, like the other kids, was originally assigned two eighth grade 'handlers' to keep her in sight.



As they soon became more interested in eighth grade boys than their charge, she spent most of the trip with me.

This cross, carried (!) up the hill by the shrine's founders before the Civil War, is often the first sight you're introduced to as you work your way up inside the structure. The inscription is in German, with an English translation, reflecting the ethnic makeup of the area at the time.







We then gathered outside, in front of the church itself. At that height the wind is fierce, even on nice spring days, and you're soon impressed with both the scope of the place, and the engineering behind its construction.







After a few moments we were seated inside, but a religious group needed to use the church for prayer, so we were moved to a side chapel.













In the side chapel the priest, who is connected with our school, gave us a history of Holy Hill. The statue of the Madonna above the altar in the chapel has historic significance, but I'm sorry - I've plumb forgot what it is, although I recall the journey to the shrine was complicated.



Directly outside the chapel is something I vividly recall from my many trips to the church in my own childhood. There is a wall of canes and crutches, left behind by people who claim to have been cured at the site.



Here the priest told a story about his youth. As a seminarian in the '50's he was working in the church when a man began screaming inside the chapel. The priests all assumed it was a drunk causing trouble, and sent our priest in to deal with the man. He was the youngest and toughest of the bunch, you see, and had been assigned to deal with rouges before. But this time it was not a drunk, but a man from Chicago who claimed to have regained his lost sight in the chapel; he wept and ran out the door, never to be heard from again.

You can take from that what you will, and believe or disbelieve at your leisure. But aside from issues of faith, it encapsulates something I truly do love about my Church. At times I think the Catholic Church is like Hollywood's version of an Irish priest: full of faith, devotion, charity and love; but if you want to brawl, and can't be talked out of it, more than happy to oblige your request.

We stepped outside again for a few moments, where we snapped some portraits. Have I mentioned that wind?







From there it was down to another chapel, where we had Mass with a private school set to close its doors forever.



And then ventured out for a bag lunch. Our picnic spot was at the end of the Stations of the Cross, a good third of a mile/half a mile through hilly but beautiful terrain.





Lunch was fine, and so was The Dan.



The kids posed for group shots



and YaYa climbed a tree.



Then, seeking to get ahead of the group, we set out at a brisk pace for the church tower. We had half an hour to get back to the church, get up the hill, climb the tower, hit the gift shop, and make the bus back home. Oh boy.

Have I mentioned that whole hilly terrain tidbit? It was also hot, and by the time we reached the hill I was bushed. Totaled. But we pushed on to the tower. There is, if memory serves, 178 narrow winding stairs to the top of that spire. For the first time ever I couldn't complete the climb. It was, in retrospect, a grievous error to maintain that quick pace back to the hill. In the end I cleared triple digits on the stairs and surrendered. I sent YaYa on without me. :(



















I was embarrassed, ashamed, and knew I'd let YaYa down. I apologized for failing her; she replied that she was happy I came and was grateful for my company. She was sincere, but it won't happen again - ever. I'll make that climb next year, and the year after that. Count on it.

After that we hit the gift shop, met the bus, and drove back to school. A very nice day, with a very nice girl at my side.