Some days you’re the mallet, some days you’re the Muppaphone:

When taking a two year old boy to see Toy Story 3 at the earliest showing, make sure he has had both a nap and his lunch prior to going.

Failure to follow this guideline will have you paying $25 for tickets and cokes in exchange for seeing 30 minutes of ads and previews, followed by 20 minutes of the movie.

It looked really good.  I’ll have to buy it on DVD when it comes out so I can see how it ends.

Tall, willowy blond cooking pork chops in TV:  Just sprinkle 1/4 tablespoon of canola oil on each chop so that the spices will adhere.

Irish Woman:  Where’s your bacon grease, sister?  What about melted butter?  Ah, hell, she’s never cooked with butter, she’s wearing velour!  She’s wearing hot pink velour to cook in, I can’t take her seriously!  And no bourbon on her pork chops.  How unsanitary!  Pork should always be served with a blessing. It’s unholy to cook pork without bourbon!

As a married man, I decided to not inquire as to the connection between cooking with animal fat and the wearing of velour. Some things men are not meant to know.  As to the bourbon, I tend to agree.

Viva Raiders!

I’m sitting here listening to the salutes of fireworks my neighbors are firing off in righteous opposition to the law.  I couldn’t be prouder.

After eating my fill of hot dogs, chocolate cake, and vanilla ice cream, washed down with good old American Coca-Cola, I thought it would be a good idea to remind myself of why this day is significant:

The Unanimous Declaration
of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
 
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Remember, we’re all in this together.  Our experiment began 234 years ago today, and will continue as long as we are willing to exercise and defend the rights that are important to cause the men who signed this document to risk everything they had, including their necks.

Irish Woman’s pond fish have been fruitful and multiply.

Here’s one of the schools of minnows:

There are at least two other schools like this in the smaller pond.  There are orange goldfish, black goldfish, and mixed black and gold goldfish.

Great, 60 more mouths to feed.

We went berry picking this weekend.  It’s towards the end of the season for blueberries, but we were able to get 4 to 5 pounds in about an hour of picking.

We made sure to pay a few dollars extra when we checked out.  BooBoo had been foraging while Irish Woman and I picked.  Hopefully he doesn’t blow up and turn blue before all is said and done.

We had homemade blueberry muffins for breakfast this morning, and the rest will either be made into pie filling or put through the food dryer.  Nothing better than fresh blueberries with breakfast.

While meandering through my day today, I saw a few things that I’d like to point out:

To the people who planted pot in a farmer’s cornfield in Southern Indiana:  If you’re going to plant weed in a cornfield, do it more than a couple of rows back, and try to plant it after the corn is tall enough to hide it.  Two rows from a road and a foot taller than the corn is not very covert.

To the motorcycle dude who cut me off:  Yes, I know you’re a bad mamajama.  You’ve got a straight pipe hog that makes more noise than a Huey helicopter.  You’ve got a “Live to Ride, Ride to Live” bumper sticker on said hog.  But wearing a confederate flag bandana, black leather jacket, and blue jeans with your CAMOUFLAGE CROCS shoes does not say “biker rebel” to me.  And if I hadn’t stood on my brakes and missed your rear tire by less than a foot when you wove across two lanes of traffic to get to your exit, I would have had a flat tire and a bent fender.  You, on the other hand, would have had to be scraped off of the pavement.  Learn to drive your bike and put on a helmet.

To the group of vintage VW Beetle owners who drove en-masse down the freeway today, you guys are my heroes for keeping so many of those things going for all these years.  Also, thank you for not doing your VeeWee parade on a day that Girlie Bear was in the truck with me.  She would have pounded on my arm for each and every one of you, and I can’t take bruising like that at my age.

I know I don’t fit the pigeon-holed model of what you define as “normal”.  I am tall, broad in the shoulders, long in the leg, and I have big feet. Not big as in “average in men is a 10, so a 12 is big”.  Big as in “how many cows will it take to make these boots?” big.

I wear a 15.  It’s bigger than average, but not so big that I have to get shoes custom made because Nike, Adidas, and Rockport don’t make my size.  I have successfully found shoes in my size at retail stores in the past, but have fallen into a habit of buying them on-line because the brick and mortar crew normally only stock one or two pairs of size 15 anything.  It always seems to be oxfords when I need sneakers, sneakers when I need boots, and sandals when I need dress shoes.

Today, I noticed that my canvas tennis shoes were starting to look pretty ratty, and decided to start the process of finding a pair of shoes to run around in.  I’m not looking to hike the Pyrenees, run the Derby Festival Marathon, or dress for dinner with the president.  I wanted a pair of cloth sneakers that I could wear daily throughout the summer while doing such things as walking the zoo, going to the store, and playing in the yard.

In the first store I went to, exactly one pair of shoes was found that was size 15, and these were black patent leather Nike basketball shoes with shiny chrome accents.  Pass.  I asked a salesman if they had any larger pairs of shoes in the back, but the music was so obnoxiously loud he thought I was looking for the Converse tennis shoes and pointed me at the stack of size 8 to 12 shoes I’d already gone through.

The second store was much quieter, but after combing the  store and finding precisely zero pairs of shoes in my size, I again asked a saleslady for assistance.  The look of disdain for even bothering her for my mutant sized shoes told me I was out of luck.  Surprise, surprise, they didn’t have anything either.

I then went to a sporting goods store to look at Vibram Five Fingers shoes.  I’ve seen a few people wear them, and I’ve been told they’re great, comfortable kick around shoes.  Yes, they’re a little more than I was budgeting for at $80-$85 a pair, but I figured I’d try them this summer.  If I didn’t like them, I could continue “Quest for Shoes”.   I picked up the example shoe on the sales floor, and asked the nice man in the salmon pink button down shirt and khaki green cargo shorts if they carried my size.  He snorted through his nose ring when he sized me on the special Vibram sizing guide.  Apparently I’m a 48-49 size, which is at the very edge of human as far as that company is concerned.  He checked the back but reported that he had “nothing even close to that huge” in stock.  He offered to check to see if a larger pair could be ordered for me.

I returned home wearing my ratty old Chuck Taylor Converse tennis shoes.  After two hours of searching for a pair of shoes with no luck and having my human-ness questioned by three separate sales people, I’m a little dis-enchanted with the whole “support local businesses” thing.  

Guys, I’m a consumer. I have money I want to give you for your products.  I’m even willing to pay quite a bit of money for a pair of quality shoes that I like.  By not stocking my size in anything a grown-up would want to wear, or not at all, you take away your opportunity to take my money from me.  By giving me attitude when I ask for your help in your store,  you discourage me from bringing my money and the rest of my family to your establishments when they need shoes.

I’m going back to the on-line stores exclusively.  Yes, it’s preferable to hold a pair of shoes in your hands and try them on before buying them, but I know what kinds of shoes fit my feet well, and I’ll just keep buying those kinds.  If the local small business people don’t want to stock for my needs and give me grief when I try to get their help in giving them my money, then they can go piss up a rope.

DaddyBear, trying to dress an uncooperative BooBoo:  Boy are you grumpy in the morning!  You got that from your mama.  Your daddy is a happy guy in the morning.  If you didn’t look just like me I’d think you hadn’t sprung from my loins.
Irish Woman, half jokingly:  Nothing has sprung from your loins.