Let’s go bowling!
My So Called Life
That’s weird, right?
At work, we have only a urinal and a stall in the bathroom. When I entered the bathroom, the stall was occupied. No problem, I only needed the urinal. So I was there, and the person sitting in the stall was breathing deep and regular, not quite a snore, but almost. In and out, in and out, the whole time I was in there. No other sounds or motions across the divide. I know sometimes people go real quiet in there when someone comes in, hoping that somehow they’ll remain unnoticed, but I don’t think that’s what it was in this case. The breathing was too heavy, too regular. Finally, I was finished and flushed. At that point, the guy in the stall had a big yawn and then proceeded to start moving around, ultimately flushing.
I guarantee I woke him up with my flush.
That’s weird, right? I mean, I guess there’s two possibilities: either he snuck in there to hide and catch a little shut-eye, or he was so tired that when he sat down he just fell asleep. I guess in either case, I’m glad the guy got some sleep, if he needed it that badly.
I was tempted to go into the conference room across the hall and pretend to take a phone call to see who came out, but then I decided that was weird and didn’t. So I’ll never know who my sleepy friend was (unless of course he makes this a habit).
Chicago Food Swap
Sara participated in the Chicago Food Swap. You can read a recap here. The basic idea is, you show up with homemade food, everyone else shows up with homemade food, and you swap. You can basically bring anything, but the more desirable your trade is, the more you can dictate what you are going to get in return. So there is some incentive to come up with something interesting, or unique.
For her swap, Sara brought:
- 6 half-pints of honey apple butter
- 4 half-pints homemade ketchup
- 2 pints of tomatoes from the garden
And in return she received this:
For those of you who can’t make out the labels, that is:
- full sized Spinach Gruyere quiche
- ~2 cups hot nuts
- half-pint pickled fennel
- half-pint cranberry sauce
- half-pint tomato jalapeno peach jam
- half-pint pear ginger jam
- half-pint autumn apple-cran jam
- half-pint whole cranberry jam
- half-pint ginger spice syrup
- pint sweet potato bisque w/ brown butter croutons
- s’mores kit w/ homemade marshmallows and homemade graham crackers
- small loaf of savory monkey bread w/ bacon, caramelized onions & Gruyere
In other words, a pretty good haul!
The apple butter was a big hit (a whole quiche for a half-pint of apple butter??), which was kind of nice to hear. It’s fantastic to take something we have a lot of already, and trade it for a lot of interesting things that we can try. I think Sara is already making plans for what she wants to bring to the next one.
So far I can vouch for the quiche, soup, monkey bread, hot nuts, cranberry sauce, and the s’mores kit. You can guess which one the kids were most excited about.
I was actually surprised at how excited Evie was about the whole thing. She was dancing around excited, unable to wait as Sara pulled each new treasure from the box. This is a girl who does *not* like to try new things!
(I suppose I should say, she does not like to try new non-dessert things.)
Cinderella
The other day I took the kids to see the Chicago Kids Company perform Cinderella.
When Evie was little, we went to several productions by the Chicago Kids Company; Alice in Wonderland, which she enjoyed, and Pinocchio, which she did not. Seeing the people in costume really freaked her out, and after the Pinocchio disaster, we decided we needed a little break from plays.
However, being as she’s a little older, and a little bit into Cinderella, we decided to give it another go. For Oliver’s part, we suspected he wouldn’t be quite as nervous as she was, and anyway Cinderella didn’t have anybody in costumes.
It was a big hit.
Both kids were very excited. Evie had the most genuine smiles that I’ve seen out of her in quite awhile. Oliver was just sort of staring at everything open mouthed in wonder. For the record, Evie’s favorite part was the fairy godmother shaking her butt at the audience, and Ollie’s was yelling, “Cin-der-ell-a!”
The Chicago Kids Company definitely knows their target audience. They engage the kids and make it a lot more interactive. The Prince even came into the crowd to have girls try on the glass slipper to see if it fit (Evie wanted to do it, but lost her nerve). When it was over, Oliver gave the Fairy Godmother a big hug out in the lobby, and Evie got the picture she really wanted:
We will definitely go back to see another play!
What I’m Doing
What I’m Listening To
The Sound of the Life of the Mind by Ben Folds Five.
You might expect that when a band has their first release in about 13 years, it might take them a minute to get their feet under them. Apparently, not so for Ben Folds Five. I don’t mean to say that they picked up where they left off exactly, but if you drew a line from Ben Folds Five to Whatever and Ever Amen to The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, and then extrapolated that line out, The Sound of the Life of the Mind would absolutely fall on that line. The album makes sense, and doesn’t rely on nostalgia. It’s just legitimately good music for people who used to like Ben Folds Five-style music.
Everything that made Ben Folds Five is present; they’re still the ironic nerd rockers they always were. Only Ben Folds Five could do a rock song describing the academic life as “rocking like a mother” (Rosa Parks and DNA, Joan of Arc and JFK), and then title their entire album after that song. Only Ben Folds could work a “don’t tase me bro” reference into a song, and the old Ben Folds Five irreverence is there too (If you can’t draw a crowd, draw d!c&s on the wall). All the old harmonies are there (listen to the first 30 seconds of “Michael Praytor, 5 Years Later”, and you’ll have no doubt which band you’re listening to).
Before listening to this album, I couldn’t have told you exactly how the “Ben Folds Five” sound differed from the Ben Folds solo-artist sound. But listening to it, there definitely is something different. Make no mistake, Mr. Folds has always been the one driving the truck as it were, but even though he used all the same tricks on his solo albums (harmonies, drum/bass backup, storytelling lyrics), it was different. The solo albums were definitely solo albums, and all of the non-Ben Folds, backup stuff really was just backup. You could have removed most of it without fundamentally changing the songs. Robert and Darren bring the bass and drums forward; without them the songs would be hollow.
“Do it Anyway” is a good first single, and showcases the fun side of the band, but for my money the best tracks are “Erase Me” and “The Sound of the Life of the Mind”.
And hey, if nothing else, they have Fraggles:
What I’m Watching
Written by a Kid on the Geek and Sundry youtube channel
When I last talked about Geek and Sundry, Written by a Kid had not yet premiered yet. Now it has, however, and it is awesome.
The premise is that they have a kid tell a story, and then they have someone direct the story however they see fit. Some of them are live action, some of the are animated, all of them are awesome. The best part is that the directors take the story very seriously, with real actors and special effects as if this were some big budget Hollywood script, while at the same time directing something that makes absolutely no sense (such as the elite police “squat” team coming it to take out the monster). The kids are adorable, the stories are great, and the production value is through the roof. Take a quick stroll through Goth Boy, Scary Smash, Fire City, or Kendall the Knight to see what I mean.
While you’re over at Geek and Sundry, check out some of the other great shows. TableTop continues to be one of my favorites. For a sampler, check out the Fiasco episodes Setup, Part 1 and Part 2.
What I’m Reading
The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss
OMG you guys. Seriously.
Okay, I know that I’m a little late to the game, since these are super-well known (Wise Man’s Fear was a #1 New York Times Bestseller) but wow are these good. If you’re looking for the next big fantasy series, this is the one (er…the next big thing that’s already half way done, since it is a trilogy with 2 out of 3 books already out).
And when I say the next big fantasy series, I mean that literally (662 and 994 pages respectively). But I’m not joking to say that 1656 weren’t enough. Unfortunately, Mr. Rothfuss seems to be on the George R.R. Martin plan of book writing (making us wait forever and a day for the next gigantic, amazing book), so I think it will be awhile before we get book 3.
Hmm, what to say, what to say. If you’re into magic, and music, and plucky street kids, legends and how they are made, fairies and fighting and romantic interests, inn keepers, demons, and exotic foreign lands populated with secret ninja training, and (of course) a school for kids who do magic, then read these books. If you want to be swept up in an epic story with fantastic writing, then read these books. If you’re into fantasy, or not traditionally into fantasy but looking for a good intro into fantasy, read these books. I can’t imagine you wouldn’t like them.
Then come back here and we can discuss them. Highly recommended.
Shane Halbach 