Bluebird Singing in the Dead of Night

I was more mad about Big A’s cell phone than I should have been when it went missing, so I did something I have never done in six years of the this blog in one form or another…I deleted the post.

That was a track record I was proud of, never having actually erased anything once it was posted, but it was a lesson in the fact that even if she doesn’t read the blog, other people do and my frustration over a missing cell phone was too over-the-top.

Fact is that she will have a new one soon and it will all be water under the bridge.

In fact, I am becoming pretty sure, along with P, that it was stolen, since it really did seem to just disappear. I am not saying it for sure, but Big A is sure it was in her bag or on her shelf. Good enough for order a replacement…with a wag of the finger to guard it better — which I don’t think will be an issue again, actually.

What is scarrier:

The fact Harrison Ford agreed to star in this?

Bea Arthur doing a musical number?

I remember watching it on TV when I was eight?

ANN ARBOR, Michigan (AP) — Thirteen members of a high school lacrosse team have been disciplined for dropping their pants to send a prom invitation from one player to a girl.

The lacrosse players at Huron High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan displayed the question, “Will You Go To The Prom With Me? Yes or No?” on their bottoms, which they bared during a junior varsity game last Thursday.

Officials suspended 13 players for an undetermined number of games and ordered them to perform 20 hours of community service. They also were suspended from school for one day.

The girl accepted the prom invitation.

When I was younger, shaving my head was cool. See I am scared of needles, so that ruled out an earring or a tat, so I just shaved my head. Then, I realized I was going bald, so it didn’t seem cool any more to shave my head, because nature was having its way with my genes and I was going bald anyway.

So, for the last nine months or so, I have been growing my beard out. At first I went long with the whole thing, and it was terrible, because it was red and white and kept getting ingrown hairs. But what my head couldn’t grow, my face was growing.

I kept trimming and fiddling and decided to just let the chin grow long, but shave everything else. Way too stark. Even P didn’t like it. So…I went to the 1800s model and that was to let it grow on the chin, and just trim my cheeks down, while not completely shaving my head.

Here’s the rub…my whiskers on my chin are hitting 8+ inches and I can see them out of my periphial vision. I trim and a comb and manicure, but this bothers me. But I am also too stubborn to make them much shorter because it has been a very cool project to do and I like the look.

Remember…I am basically going bald, so this is the last hair thing on my head I have with any active growth and it too months and months to get this far.

I say all this because it’s the last Monday of the month and I need to clean it all up. Do I shave it all? Do I keep the hair I have and get rid of the beard? Do I play artsy with it and go with extremes of both parts of my head.

Here’s what I’m going to do…keep the chin hair with a nice trim and shave the rest.

The very cool thing is that I have done it so long now on myself, no need to pay any money for it.

Scout has always had things she could chew on at her leisure. Actually, let me restate that: We buy her rawhides and she procedes to make such short work of them, that it almost seems pointless. I’m telling you, seeing what she can do with a rawhide makes me more scared of dogs than ever…those are some strong jaws when she gets the leverage just right.

So I bought her a real cow bone. Complete with tendons and all the marrow.

And she struggled over it. She knew there was something good there, but she carried it around and fiddle faddled with it every which way but loose at first. Her idea was to just use sheer power to snap it and get to the good stuff. Her paws were like little hands as she flipped it all around and tried to make the big crunch, all the while ignoring the fact there was great stuff on the outside. Her goal was to break it.

This went on for a while; in fact, almost an hour. She was literally dogged determined to crack it open.

I was amused when, totally flustered, she just gave up on it and went to chase bugs in the yard and bark at various things.

Then she came back in the house and sat and looked at the bone. I kid you not, it’s like she was thinking as though she was Kasparov and it was Bobby Fischer. She then proceeded to crack the code. She started using her front teeth and whittling away at it, and taking it piece by piece.

(SIDE NOTE: Now, the only reason I watched all of this while working on the computer was because the bone came with instructions to “supervise use” which is really funny because what the hell am I suppose to do if my dog takes a bone and begins choking? I wouldn’t know the first thing about Heimlech on a dog.)

Anyway, the point is that she got the idea that you just can’t bone crush the thing, and it was more rewarding to rip away what you could. There is a metaphor here that can be applied to a lot in life. I’m not saying Scout is Einstein or something, but she did study the problem compared to the rawhide and took a break, but came back with a plan to nick this thing to death.

It’s not really about biting off more than you can chew…it’s about the strategy of chewing it without taking a big bite. She wanted all the reward right off the bat and when she couldn’t get it, shegot flustered and had to think about the goal again.

Check out the whole West Coast earthquake swarm the last few days. There is this whole theory that this amount of energy is bascially doing the work of one terrible event, but there are those at the USGS that think it i a precursor to a major event.

I’m split on it. I think it’s a hell of a lot of energy happening relatively slowly, but I also think to call in a pre-cursor is kind of dumb, since most of the time “major” is what you make of it.

Most of the quakes on this map are never even felt, but it’s fun to see them when they swarm like this.

When the earth, moves, under my feet…

Here is the AP story about the dolphin who died at Sea World:

A 30-year-old dolphin at Sea World has died after colliding with another dolphin while performing aerial tricks, the Orlando, Florida, amusement park said Monday.

The incident occurred about 4:30 p.m. Saturday at the Discovery Cove area of the park, according to a statement by Sea World spokeswoman Becca Bides.

The animals were in the center of the lagoon and not near guests, she said.

The dolphin who died was named Sharky. The other dolphin, Tyler, is being watched by veterinarians but appears to be fine, Bides said.

“This is an unfortunate, random incident,” Bides said in a written statement.

“While it is not unusual to have two animals performing aerial behaviors at the same time, we are reviewing the situation to ensure even such a random incident does not occur again.”

This was a random incident. In fact, it was as though Sharky was walking down the street and a bolt of lightening came out of the blue. Could have happened to any dolphin in the world who swims. He was minding his own business until this horrible random incident.

I chortle at the thought. 

Big A has started posting things on her door to her bedroom. This is a really bad photo from the cell phone.

My favorites are “welcome to flower power” and “Help animal in need give 50″ cents.

And then there is one to me…”keep out and I mean it dad!”

She knows that she will never keep me out. She knows P will never be kept out. But her room has no TV, or computer, or phone, and if she wants to have it be a safe place that we need to respect, I get it. Pre-teen has begun. She doesn’t even like the cats in there and they know it.

In the same arena…

She had to do homeowrk today and it specifically asked her to use a calculator. She did it once with a calculator, got one wrong, and then refused to use the calculator anymore and checked all the work by hand. Fascinating. She just rebuked the technology that the homework was giving her permission to use, because it was faster to do all the math by hand for, as she said, “easy questions.”

I really wonder if there is something here for a social trend. Is this like a rebuke of the technology for the rebuking sake? She seems to do this more than I would think. I, being a nearly 40-person, would have given my ear to have a calculator and be told that I HAD to use…I would have been puzzled pink just to be told I could use it. She literally said no way to it and did the problems with pencil and paper until everything was correct.

The other thing is that she is eight and gets mney very well. She aced the decimal system part of it when it came to cents, and that surprised me. She knew how to enter “eight cents” in a calculator and she was bored by even being asked.

Does that mens she’s a genious? Of course not. No way. Does it mean I am naieve in how much she picks up about things? Absolutely. She is a freaking suction cup.

So, finally, it comes to her last surprise today…

She is bummed about the fact it would be really hard to afford driving to Kansas in May. She was like Kissenger trying to negotiate a peace settlement between P and I over whether we can do it. Her final solution? If I just stay home, we don’t have to board the dogs and they can go! Hmmmmm, what an endearing thought…

But this bares out the fact she has the itch. The photo at the top does, too, and her homework this weekend is in line…she is flower power. She just sees everything as good and a new adventure and her parents are cynical old farts that stand in the way.

It’s kinda cool.

There was a story on TV today that said kids were paying up to $10 a pill for a pain reliever that I dumped 29 of after I didn’t need them.

I knew they worked to relieve pain, but I really didn’t need them if I didn’t move, so I used one and dumped the rest when I felt better.

(For a bunch of swearing and general not being myself in pain, look here, but it adds nothing to the gist of this particular post.)

But I do have to admit that I didn’t understand it was the type of narcotic that is really, really addicting to kids and teenagers. Yeah, I see all the drug commercials on TV, but I had a generic version and it never made a connection until I was putting some fishing flies in storage, in the old bottle I had kept, and I decided to look up what was on the label and it was a WOW. I had that drug in my house in a decent quantity and I didn’t even realize it…it was more something I was just given for pain. But it had a generic name.

Hmmmmmm…so what’s the point?

Everyone should look up every bottle of everything on the internet.

Well, and just dump what you don’t need.

Suffer a little. I was reading the stuff about what I had and the fact I had 30 for two weeks blows me away for a short term injury. It was an emergency room doctor, who I like to think just made a mistake, but he pretty much triple dosed me…or at least gave me three times as many pills as I needed.

Finally, I knew I did not like this drug from the moment I took it for pain because I watched Dr. Phil. And I knew it even more when I kept watching through Oprah, and I still couldn’t muster things up to turn the station. It was like being scared straight. My God, I had no energy to switch ever?!?!?!?!

I nominate the current Reno earthquake story on CNN as being the dumbest pandering to a MAIN PAGE I MUST SCARE YOU headline I have seen all year.

I am just an amature, but I look at the earthquake site for at least five minutes everyday here.

Now zoom in on Reno here. Granted, the micros are going nuts, but that is just releasing a little energy over a period of time. It’s like a big earthquake that farts over a few days versus a blowout of the earth’s lower intestine (I am so crude, I know…it’s why I would never make a good teacher, I’m sure).

Plus, maybe they just see these little earthquakes better for some reason this time around…new monitors for example. Or maybe the Reno politicians want to make it scary (which is not a bad idea, when you live in a place that’s complacent). I don’t know.

I was actually more interested in these off the coast of Oregon because they were’t really on a fault. But it’s kind of the same concept there…I like a bunch of energy going off in nice clean strikes with really no aftershocks in the micros…or I like lots and lots of micros and a couple of little dingers that remind you you are on a fault system and do no real harm.

What gets me is the place that there might be some new energy from all of this.

The main argument here is that the “big” ones came and then the little ones…well, the big ones weren’t that big! Sorry the milk got spilled in West Reno, but it just was not much energy up against the mountains. Which is another reason I think this was dumb overkill of a story.

But the dummy thing is that I am even commenting on this because I just fiddle with it for the sake of being earthquake-thinking too much.