Author: funatwork

Its long story, I went out with the boys to run some errands, and my wife went out to run some errands. We were all pretty confident that we had everything done and we all met at home. It turns out that we were 99.99% done but somehow smoked bacon didn’t get picked up during the shopping run.

What to do? We could have dinner without those lovely little bits of flavor in our meal or we could make a special trip to the store, hmm, well bacon free does have a certain appeal on this cold rainy day. Yet there is another alternative, we could send our oldest to the store around the corner.

It would literally be a first for him, here is a handful of money and a shopping list, but more than that it would be new for me. Let my boy out alone in that cold cruel world. Well, we split the difference on this one. We both went to the store, but I waited in the entryway, while he went in to do the shopping. I wasn’t sure what to expect as he didn’t know what exactly what he was buying. Gerauchert spec is just a type of smoked bacon. Well, during our walk this point came up so I did mention that perhaps he may wish to ask someone to help him out.

I was proud to hear that he did ask for assistance but I was a bit surprised when the task seemed to take forever. Before we left the store I wanted a quick peek in the bag to make sure that we did have what we came for. Yup, that package looked perfect then he pulled out a second package and a third. Yup, now we had about a pound of smoked bacon instead of the quarter pound we needed.

We went to an afternoon showing of the children’s opera which was about a vampire. The show was intended for children that were perhaps aged six or older. I am guessing for a children’s opera it was well attended as there were perhaps 100 adults and children there. In the front were five panels that were perhaps three or four feet wide and had line drawings of trees, birds and squirrels.

The show was just getting started, at this point nothing had happened and none of the characters had even made an entrance. In order to simulate nighttime they started to turn the panels around one at a time, where the other side was completely black.

By the time the fourth and final panel was turned around there was a small squeak from the front of the audience. One of the little six year old girls threw up her hands and shouted “I want to go home”. As there was no real cause for such a reaction the adults simply smiled, well all of them except for perhaps the little girl’s parents.

My wife and son were walking down the street when they walked by a parked car with someone smoking inside with the window down. We have tried to explain that smoking is not a the best personal choice. So when the situation presents itself, he feels he knows enough now to comment about it.

“Mom this man is smoking in his car. It will make it smell disgusting and then he will die soon.”

This information was correct but it was actually fairly similar to what his cousin has to say. Perhaps they have been exchanging information.

I don’t think that there is much argument that smoking is bad for you, you shouldn’t overindulge and the human brain doesn’t fully mature until sometime after age 18. Now depending on your own experiences you could probably argue these a bit but every now and then you see something to prove some or all of these issues.

I wish I could say it happened to someone else, but I am willing to man up and look a bit stupid. When I was young I lived a block away from my cousins and so it was not all that unlikely I would play with my cousin and on at least one occasion his older sister was my babysitter.

Well, in the third grade while I was being babysat by my elder cousin, her younger brother and I were fooling around. Fortunately it was summer, but we somehow got her to go outside and then we proceeded to lock her out of the house. I guess neither of us could see into the future, where her folks would probably be disciplining her brother and my folks would be disciplining me.

We thought we were being pretty thorough when we locked up, but apparently not so well as she managed to get in and once again take control. Fortunately my mature brain at this point can no longer remember what happened after that.

When I was young my friend and I were both in the same kindergarten class and it never was that important but we both had the same first name. It was fairly early in the year and for some reason our regular teacher was sick or had a training.

Chris and I had an interesting idea, we would pretend that each of us was the other. I am not sure if we fooled the substitute teacher for even an hour. We both had the tendency to answer when our whole name was given rather than just the first name.

Yup, the regular teacher was a bit disappointed, but I don’t really remember any fallout from this event. I guess being a smart alack starts young.

We took a day trip with the boys to a natural underground cave. It was interesting but to be honest it was too early to call it a day. While driving into town we saw what looked like a castle on the hill above town. It was a beautiful building but much to our surprise it turned out that part of it was a private residence while the rest was a hotel.

Outside the castle was a small field with a few horses but what was the most interesting was a small pond with a lot of ducks. What was so funny was my youngest was trying to communicate with the ducks. Looking down into the courtyard and making quacking sounds.

I doubt that they really got much of what he was saying but it was nice to see the innocence of children at work.