Me:  Sweetheart, how bad is the sunburn on my neck?
Irish Woman:  Ouch.  Somewhere between medium and medium-rare.  And does your head hurt too?
Me:  A bit.  How bad is it?
Irish Woman:  It’s not that bad.  You just look like a Viking that got a bit too close to the volcano, that’s all.

Mental note – Next time, just look in the mirror.

I’m a quarter Irish, with my Irish ancestor getting to North America during the Civil War.  Irish Woman is a pedigree, with her earliest ancestor getting here a bit earlier, and her family on both sides settled in Kentucky.  Imagine that, Irish families settling where they have pretty girls, fast horses, and strong whiskey.  I know, it’s just a coincidence.  They really came here for the climate.

Saint Patrick’s Day is the anniversary of our first date.  I tried to take her out to dinner, but we ended up over at her brother’s house for a cook-out and NCAA basketball.  Now that’s a great way to start a first date:  “Hey, how about we go over to my brother’s place?  I’d like for them to meet you.”  Luckily, it turned out OK, and we’re still boyfriend and girlfriend 11 years later.  Someday she might even make an honest man out of me.

I surprised Irish Woman on the night of our wedding by telling her we were going to Ireland for our honeymoon.  We went the following May, and had a wonderful time.  Ireland is a beautiful place, with the nicest people I’ve ever met.  It’s definitely on our list of places we’d go if living here became a bad option.

So say your prayers, drown the shamrock, and remember that there are fair, green places left in this drab world.

Glendalaugh

Seacoast south of Dublin

Glendalaugh

Glendalaugh

Bray, County Wicklow

I almost died backing up the car so she could get this shot Somewhere between Tipperary and Limerick

Pepperpot Castle, Powerscourt

Waterfall near Powerscourt, County Wicklow

And before you ask, yes, Irish Woman got all of these shots herself.  It’s just that pretty there.

Irish Woman, checking her email:  Louisville seniors want my business.
Me, half paying attention, and addled by fatigue:  Well, honey, you are getting on in years.  There’s no harm in being considered a ‘senior’.
Irish Woman:  I said Louisville singles, you jerk.  I got spam from Louisville Singles.  Do I look like a ‘senior’ to you?  You’re lucky to be alive after you said that!

Think she’ll tell a sick man to sleep in the yard?

It’s day 3 of being home sick with Boo.  I’ve read every Dr. Seuss book we have at least 3 times, I’ve indulged him in watching the Backyardigans and the Star Wars trilogy several times, and now I’m working through the good Muppet movies.

This brought me to this particular sequence, featuring the genius of Mel Brooks:

That’s some of the best acting of the 20th century right there, friends and neighbors.

By the way, this scene is the reason I say that any weapon that has a select fire capacity has “Der Svitch!”.

Boo seems to be pretty much mended, and I seem to have hit bottom of this flu last night.  I’m better than I was yesterday, and I hope to be able to go back to work tomorrow.  Irish Woman is taking tomorrow off to take Boo for his follow-up with the doctor, so even if I don’t feel up to work tomorrow, I will be able to get a bit of rest.

Go read something worth your time.

Now, excuse me while I go find something to wipe my eyes with.  Must be a side effect of the Tamiflu.

H/T to Blackfive.

It’s been a few weeks since I shut off captcha on comments here, and things seem to be going OK.

I went for a week or so with comment moderation, but shut that off after a while.  I have configured the comments now so that moderation is now only necessary on posts that are 3 or more days old.

For the vast majority of spam comments, the built-in filters that Blogger catches them and sends them down the hole.  I haven’t had to get rid of but one or two requests for help cashing a check drawn on an African bank or advertisements for dating sites that specialize in Eastern European left-handed redheads.

Thing is, I can see why everyone hates the new captcha, but to me it’s not that big a deal to post a comment on a blog that still uses them.  You see, my handwriting isn’t much better than the font Google is using for captcha, and if I can phonetically say the ‘word’ that is being presented, I can usually type it in.  Let’s face it, if you can read the hand-written Russian tax receipt given to a Finnish truck driver by a Ukrainian border guard, you can read “thouck mrabiyn” on a computer screen.

That being said, I think I’ll stay with the no-captcha policy for the time being, at least until Google notices that a lot of people have dropped that feature and corrects the issue.

What say y’all?

The Egyptian Minister for Planning and International Cooperation has publicly stated that Egypt doesn’t need the $250 million a year that the United States gives to Egypt as economic aid.  Apparently a quarter of a billion dollars is a drop in the bucket for Egypt.  If so, then congratulations are in order to the Egyptians.

Of course, we also send $1.3 billion in military aid to the Egyptians, which brings our total to around $1.5 billion a year in aid of one form or another.  For that we get……

Hmmmmmm

The Egyptians sent a contingent of troops to help us in …..

Nope, not that.

The Egyptians give us basing rights in ……

No, not that either.

Hmmmm

Wait, I’ve got it.  We give them about a billion and a half in total aid every year so they’ll keep their promise to not be belligerent towards Israel and keep a lid on Islamic terrorists and hate-mongers in their country…..

Wait, they stopped doing that last year.

OK, how about this:

Dear Egypt,

We’re so glad to hear that you’re doing so well that the yearly check from Uncle Sam is really not needed to meet your basic needs anymore.  Congratulations on maturing as a nation and country.   People have been living in the Nile valley for a few thousand years, and y’all used to rule a big chunk of Africa and the Mid-East, so it’s no surprise to us, a country that’s less than 250 years old, that you could pull yourself up by your bootstraps and provide for yourself.

We’re so proud of you that we’ve decided it’s time you learned to ride that big “I’m my own sovereign country and don’t need anyone” bike without training wheels.  Here’s what we’re going to do:  We’re going to stop sending those economic and military aid checks every year, and we’re going to stop spending money to watch you and the Israelis flip each other off in the Sinai.  That way you can look yourself in the mirror and say “If I get my ass kicked by the Israelis again, it’ll be on my own terms.  I don’t need food, tanks, or training from anyone to get my teeth knocked down my throat in the middle of my own stretch of god-forsaken desert.”

That way you can be the grown-up nation we always hoped you could be.  Don’t worry, we’ll still be here in the event that you decide you need someone to help keep the lights on, or show you how to clean up that lovely canal you got from our European cousins.  Of course, you know you can also call your Uncle China or Auntie Russia if you get in a jam.  I know they’ll be just as generous as we have been and won’t ask for anything in return.

Good luck!  And remember, part of being an adult is to not annoy the neighbors.  I’d hate to have to burn down your whole country because you can’t control your own crazies and someone does something stupid against Americans either at home or abroad.  Like the old running song says “‘Cause napalm sticks to pyramids!”.

Hugs and kisses,

The American Taxpayer

Girlie Bear just asked permission to take Mentos and Diet Coke to school for a science experiment.  I told her that if her science teacher emailed me proving that this isn’t stupid teenager tricks, then OK.  But I still think that nothing good can come from this.

I got my DaddyBear nickname when Junior was a very young boy.  We used to watch The Jungle Book* quite regularly, and at one point, Mowgli calls Baloo “Papa Bear”.  Junior was tickled by this, but in our family, “Papa” is what you call your grandfather, so I was “Daddy Bear”.  It stuck.

One of my favorite songs to sing with the kids has always been “The Bear Necessities” from Disney’s Jungle Book, and Boo always starts smiling when he hears me humming it and breaks out into his version of the lyrics.

If you watch me play rough with my kids, you’ll also notice the similarities. 

Yesterday, one of the men who wrote that song and lot of the other songs I love from my first and second childhoods died in London.

Robert B. Sherman, one half of the prolific, award-winning pair of brothers who penned instantly memorable songs for “Mary Poppins,” “The Jungle Book” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” — as well as the most-played tune on Earth, “It’s a Small World (After All)” — has died. He was 86.

Mr. Sherman, thank you for the fun that you’ve given my family, and I can promise that that fun will continue for at least one more generation. Girlie Bear has made me promise that I will play and sing as DaddyBear with her children.

*I’m a big kid, I admit it.  The first movie I ever bought on VHS was The Jungle Book.  Of course, the next one was Highlander, but you do what you gotta do.