Simian Farmer

Cold feet on the basement floor

It's just an introspectively quiet night at home on a Saturday.

The boy was put to bed almost an hour ago and the dog was just barking at god-knows-what out in front of the house.  I walked upstairs, looked at him sternly and he wagged his tail.  Like I can actually expect him to understand that his little brother is sleeping in his crib and he should keep the barking restricted to outside or something.

Amy returned from Lethbridge this afternoon with a digital camera chalk full of pictures of our soon-to-be new puppy.  She's very cute.  (Pics to be posted on Monday when I get them uploaded.)  Her's name's going to be 'Farley'.  This was my suggestion to my wife a number of months ago when the serious idea of getting another dog cropped up.  It's my wife's maiden name and seemed like a decent one to assign to a pooch of either sex.  (Yes, I realise that it seems a little odd to assign one's wife's name to a dog; and that it could be construed as something less than flattering.  Thankfully this is not the case and my darling hazel-eyed-beauty was relatively flattered.  So are the in-laws.  Score!)

The aforementioned beauty is still out tonight.  As soon as she got back from being south overnight, she quickly changed, had some lunch and was out the door for her second evening at a part-time job.

We went to a 'SaladMaster' cookware dinner demonstration a couple weekends ago.  We were, and are, in absolutely no position to make that sort of investment in cookware, but my wife's effervescent personality attracted the attention of the fella doing the demo, she went for an interview a couple days later, and now she's assisting at these things.  You go girl!

Now I'm thinking that I'll spend the rest of the evening, though it's almost 10 PM, curled up in the living room 'Comfy Chair' with the sixth and final Lymond book.  Damn fine series to be reading; it just pains me somewhat that it's taken me almost a year and a half now to get to the end of a six-book series.  That would have been a month's endeavour five or six years ago.  There is a stack of eight books on my bedside night stand, glaring at me every time I go to sleep.  It's like they're saying, HEY!  See this dust on my dust-jacket?  It's not supposed to be literal, pal.  Get crackin'!  That's just the one on top.  I can't hear the ones underneath because their voices are muffled.  I guess that makes them the Charlie Brown books.

Reading and squash.  Those are the two things, extracurricular sorts of things, that I sorely miss from when I had more TIME.  Apparently it really does keep slippin', slippin', slippin'... into the future.

Where in the world are you?

Wanna let me know where, exactly, you're from when you come here?

Check out the interactive map that you can 'pin' your location on down there on the right hand sidebar.  The one that says 'Place your pin, Bravenet guest maps'.

Go on, let me know where you're from.  You know you want to.

Crazy wife

So there we were on Monday; beautiful, sunny, warm, a forecast high of twenty two degrees.  We had just spent the weekend turning our yard and various parts of our abode into something a little more presentable for spring weather.  I was cutting and hauling tree branches into the back of my truck.  Amy was scouring and re-painting our kitchen pantry.  Birds were singing and love was in the air.

Today, Friday, it is overcast with a forecast high temperature hovering tauntingly just below the freezing mark.  There are snow flurries across the land and the wind penetrates my light spring jacket like Uma Thurman's Hattori Hansu sword did the Crazy 88's in Kill Bill.  (Just watched the DVD again last night.)

Now, having just gotten back to work from a trip home (alas, NOT for a 'nooner'), my wife is in my truck and on the highway, bound for Lethbridge to view some puppies.  She'll be driving through this crap most of the way there, but has left early enough to arrive with plenty of daylight to spare.

She'll go see some dogs, take some pictures, have dinner with her folks, go to bed, and then getupandshowerandcomestraighthome.  She's planning to be home before noon tomorrow.  That's basically a twenty-two hour trip, of which half is spent on the highway.  Silly girl.

Baba Roxy (my stepmum) is watching the squirt in the meantime.

I tell you, if the weather is anything like this NEXT Saturday, I'm going to scream.  There are at least, at LEAST, thirty people expected for the birthday party.

At least!!

Hypocritical oaf

With the post just below this one at the forefront of my mind, I still insist on sharing a couple Star Wars related items.

Item the First:
For the past 28 years, nearly as long as I've graced this planet with my own presence, George Lucas has provided a cinematic and cultural phenomenon for us to marvel over.  Or ignorantly mock.  Many fans would like to 'thank the maker', as it were, for his creative genius and gift to all mankind.

Now you can.  Just go over to ThankYouGeorge dot com.  Register and send him your thanks.  Their aim is to receive upwards of 1,000,000 signatures to thank the plaid man.  I've done my part.  I even added one of their cool link buttons to the bottom of the right-hand sidebar.  Click and go.  You feel compelled to do so.

Item the Second:
Also on a Star Wars note, it seems the the Dark Lord of the Sith has started up his own blog.  Everybody's doing it these days!  Go visit, it's freakin' hilarious.

The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster.

Superficiality

Dear Internet,

I have brought it to my own attention that there has been something of a dearth of poignant posting here of late.  As soon as I made myself aware of this, I reeled, aghast.

Star Wars and random linking and funny stuff and getting stung on the tip of my thumb are all well and good, but it doesn't get down to the core of the Simian, as it were.

I keep a document saved on my computer where I jot down the ideas I'd like to expound upon a little further in this here space.  I've got six solid ideas written down there, clamouring to be cloaked in verbosity.  I intend for them to start emerging into the light of day, as gladiators into the Colosseum, properly accoutred, in the near future.

To some degree, I plead an excessive amount of time spent working; I took my laptop home last night and spent a couple hours on it after the boy was put to bed.  I'm still averaging over 50 hours a week, so endeavour to incorporate some writing when and where I can: not nearly as much as I'd like.

Perhaps I'll start with telling you, internet, about the time I was bear-hugging my company's CEO in the men's bathroom at work.  That was an interesting experience.

So, sorry internet, I'll get better at shedding the chaff and getting more to the core of the matter.

I've also had a really cool Email discussion with a friend of mine in Ottawa regarding a religious post I made a short while back.  Hopefully, he'll let me publish the bulk of that; it was really a cool discussion that didn't get us any farther at the end than where we had started at the beginning.  Typical of religious discussions.

Respectfully,
Simon

PS - if you really want to get some hits on your site these days, just inundate a couple posts with 'Pope Palpatine'.  More than 80% of my hits the past week or so have come from being googled on that.

American Gods

Lynn just reminded me of one of my favourite quotes from a very good book I read last year:

Religions are, by definition, metaphors, after all: God is a dream, a hope, a woman, an ironist, a father, a city, a house of many rooms, a watchmaker who left his prize chronometer in the desert, someone who loves you - even, perhaps, against all evidence, a celestial being whose only interest is to make sure your football team, army, business, or marriage, thrives, prospers, and triumphs over all opposition.

Religions are places to stand and look and act, vantage points from which to view the world.

~Neil Gaiman, American Gods

What kind of Jedi are you?

Via TV Guide, take this personality test you must.

My own results come back to me as expected...

We can combine forces to bring order to the industry

Darth Vader makes a movie pitch to ad execs. 

"Never underestimate the power of the Orange side."

Funny stuff.

The MAN of the house

There is little I will not do to defend my home and loved ones from the unwelcome invasion of outside forces; no matter how seemingly small and unobtrusive.

I was about to close the living room drapes last night when I noticed, on the tie-back of one of them, a diminutive fuzzy shape, noticably shaded in black and yellow.  It was a very fearsome bumble-bee!!

Simon: Hey look, Hon, there's a bee in the house.

Amy: Where!

S: Over there on the drapes.  *Walks away towards the kitchen.*

A: What are you going to do?

S: I'm gonna get a kleenex and squish it.

A: Awwww, no sweetie; put the poor thing outside!

S: **sigh**  Sure thing, Hon.

*Grabs facial tissue, forms hollow 'capture cavity', and returns to the bee's roost.  Snatches bee from off the drapes in the inescapable, yet very humane, Tissue Trap (patent pending).*

BEE:  WTF?!?!  I was just sitting here, minding my own beeswax, getting ready to snooze, even, when some great lunk up and disturbs me, hauls me bodily into some freakin' sac without so much as a by-your-leave and expects me to be all docile about it?  You're not getting me without a fight, Mister!

S: OWWWW!!!!

A: You're serious?!  It stung you?  Through the kleenex?

S: *Inimical glare*  Can you hear that?  *Holds angrily buzzing bee up to wife's ear in aforementioned inescapable Tissue Trap.  Gives bee a good shakin'.*

I then bravely flung the tissue out the back door and watched for the bee to, uh, buzz off.  I disposed of the Tissue Trap and returned to living room where my thumb proceeded to throb amazingly painfully for the next fifteen minutes.

There is now a tiny red dot on the tip of my thumb as all the physical proof of last night's fearsome encounter.  I almost wish I HAD squished it.  Almost.

...and there is apparently very little about which I will not post here, no matter how mundane...

Boxers

My wife sent me the pictures of the new litter of boxer puppies that we'll be selecting from.  The proud mom you see here is Laci.  I think this is before she lost three of them.  And then the one we get will look a little like the second picture.  Only a fair bit bigger since it's still eight weeks away.

You can see the orange ring around the tail that they use in order to dock them.

I'm kinda nervous.