RelentlesslyOptimistic

Map of the most common last names in Europe

via www.bookofjoe.com

"My Family" stickers

via www.soberinanightclub.com

Recycling: Pervert!

I love the smile on the Anthrax guy's face.

via www.smbc-comics.com

I promise not to do this to my grandchildren

via www.smbc-comics.com

Family Christmas Picture

For the front of the family Christmas card.

via fuckyeahdementia.com

Happy Mother's Day: Shit My Kids Ruined

The mom who submitted this heard from the other room: “Big trouble….this is BIG TROUBLE”

As I read this blog I couldn't help remembering:

• Age 2-ish, my brother and I draw a BIG birthday cake on the sheet with crayons while we're supposed to be napping
• We played a game of throwing stuffed animals from our room into the toilet (we were apparently pretty decent shots)
• The TV set that got painted with brown shoe polish
• The lid to the inherited cookie jar that got broken in the night (it was full of Fig Newtons! Am I made of stone?)
• Age 7, I learned that light bulbs will melt crayons, and that melting crayons on light bulbs will eventually make them shatter
• Age 8, the sponge, the knife, the stitches
• Age 11, the go kart we made out of what had been a perfectly good bench
• The (once again perfectly good) plastic wading pool that we used to move the playhouse
• The 3 ft X 3 ft (at least) hole (it was going to be a tunnel under the street) in the yard of a rental house.

That was all before any of us became teenagers, and doesn't count the near-misses, broken windows or the many trips to the Emergency Room.

Thanks Mother, for letting us live (or keeping us alive in spite of ourselves)! I don't even remember being punished for those transgressions (except for a lack of cookies for a while). Love you!

PS: I should have saved this cartoon for today.

via shitmykidsruined.tumblr.com

This makes those "science experiments" and painting with shoe polish seem tame now, right?

via xkcd.com

Happy Father’s Day!

Via Criggo

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day! You raised us right, too, though we're more normal than the folks in this picture. Right, Mother? Right? Hello?

Via PostSecret

Happy Mother's Day (sorry, Mom)

Via For Your Entertainment

Waiting

Ingmar is arrestingly beautiful. Our other dog is attractive, but it’s Ingmar people regularly stop us to ask about on our walks. She’s tall, and more slender than most boxers, with the typical muscular shoulders, alert stance and expressive face of the breed. What sets her apart, I think, is a beautiful brown brindle coat with stripes of glossy black. As she’s aged the black fur is what’s turning white, and her face is taking on a ghostly, ethereal look.

We used to joke that when she died we were going to have her stuffed because her coat was just too beautiful to waste. Those jokes haunt me now as we wait for her to die. A week ago the vet found a large tumor in her pelvis. It turns out to be both inoperable and of a type that won’t respond to chemo.

As recently as Thursday she seemed mostly fine, trotting on her walk, excited to meet people. On Friday she stopped eating, and by Saturday afternoon she didn’t want to move from the makeshift bed we’ve created in my office so we can sit with her through the day. Now she’s still upstairs in her usual bed, and I wonder if she will get up.

Update: Ingmar had a great day Sunday, and died Monday about 8:30 AM. Thanks for all the support and love from her friends.

This one's for you, Dad: Bagpipes from PVC

From Hack-A-Day
How to make a set of highland pipes from PVC pipe

A while back I built up a few sets of full-sized highland bagpipes (fully operational & actually quite nice sounding) out of pvc plumbing pipe, clear flexible plastic tubing, & naugahyde upholstery vinyl --- for total cost of about $5 (less reeds).

Family Night

Somehow the rest of the family got the idea that Alex and I don't like each other, just because we don't see each other very often when we live in the same town. We're both just workaholics, though it appears that we're both in the process of changing that.

Alex is taking Fridays off (I work from home on Fridays), and so he stopped by last week and stayed for a couple hours chatting. The next night he, Liz and Abi, Terry and Jen, and our friends M&K joined us for an impromptu late Terry's BD, early Spring (it's been warm), and just fun times party. I grilled lots of meat, and some veggies. There's veggies left still, but there were only 2 burgers and 1 rib left the next day.

You can see the other photos from that evening here, and you can also click on my favorites and see some of the pics Rebecca's been taking lately (feel free to set up your own flickr account (Terry and Jen - wedding pictures!), and post your own photos, so that everyone else in the family can see them. Who knows, I may even eventually post the picture(s) of me in a tux--since that was probably the only time I'll ever wear one, they'll be rare (and I'll restrict access on those!).

I have more photos from that evening, but I'm waiting for Ree's help in removing the red-eye. I have a great free photo viewer that has a red-eye tool that just puts big gray dots over people's eyes, so it doesn't help (it's great in other ways - that's the only part of it I don't like).

Happy Birthday Terry!

I had a dream last night that you were six, and we were in your room, looking at your stuff, and I was going to get you some latest electronic Star Wars toy variation, big enough that the Millennium Falcon model could dock at it, and we were going to have to move your bookshelf out of your room to fit it in.

Of course I waited until the absolute last minute, until my only choices were a belated card through the mail or an online greeting card. What I found in online greeting cards convinced me not to go that route.

The Toaster Greeting Card site has some general cards, but no birthday ones.
Awesome Greeting Cards, on a page anti-marketed as "the oldest of our several birthday card collections" described (without graphics) a list of cards that started with:

Swingin', Swimmin' Day Features one fish wishing another a swingin', swimmin' good day. Add the words "Happy Birthday" as the Main Greeting for this versatile card. (Works equally well for birthdays, fishing season, anniversaries, Father's Day or as a friendship card. Also listed in Cards for an Awesome Dad and in All Occasion Cards.)

The card didn't live up to the expectations created by the description, although I'll admit that the thought of having one card for every occasion imaginable (Happy Fishing Season?) was attractive.

I found this entertaining photo at the Tacky Postcard site, which I thought I could use to tell you not to party too hearty, but seeing as how it's a Monday, it seemed unlikely to be relevant enough to be funny.

So I decided a blog entry would be best, just to tell you that I love you, and have always been proud of you, and am frequently impressed by the person you've become.
Happy Birthday!

Love, me.

Blue Nile is coming back!

Kansas City Ethiopian food lovers are in for a treat: Blue Nile will reopen in early March in Cascone's former space in the City Market, according to today's Kansas City Star.

Blue Nile opened on the southern border of the Crossroads District before that area took off, and then moved to the 39th Street restaurant district as that neighborhood was really hitting its stride. They closed three years ago, and the completely unverified rumor I heard was that they were making so little money that they opened a franchise convenience store somewhere.

There are at least two other Ethiopian restaurants in the KC area; I've only been to Adis Ababa near Blue Nile's old location. We had dinner there again with friends two weeks ago; it's good, but as we walked home after our meal we talked about how we wished Blue Nile were still open. There are few restaurants that over the years become a part of your home and community; Blue Nile was one of them. The food was fabulous, and it was always more like visiting a family you knew for dinner than a commercial transaction.

To Daniel and Selamawit Fikru: Welcome back! We've missed you!

Interesting aside: While looking for a picture to go with this article, I learned that there are Blue Nile restaurants in Seattle (with beautiful pics of the falls on the Nile in Ethiopia, and breakfast!), Portland, Detroit, Minneapolis, Columbus, Ohio, and that the Blue Nile restaurant in Asmara, Eritrea on the border of Ethiopia is a Pizzeria.