Adventures of Captainwow

Well, if you haven't been there lately, Captainwow's Photo Album has been updated...

We haven't heard much from our little mascot, he's been so busy with his new friends. He likes Sam really well too. In fact he's been having so much fun he hasn't even noticed that he had a chance to go to Turkey and I forgot to send him.

Isn't It Monday?

Well, we did it. We took Sam on his first long adventure. With construction, bad weather, Chicago traffic and poor Sam getting fed up with his car seat, we still feel it went really well! He was a good sport, and I hope hope hope he stays that easy to travel with! haha. Something tells me that's unlikely, but I still hope. We had a good time being family, and it was great for Sam and Grandma to hang out.

Grandma even babysat for an afternoon so we could go see a movie. We went and saw the Prairie Home Companion movie! We really enjoyed it. I nearly wet my pants a few times laughing. I grew up listening to Prairie Home Companion and am used to that dry style of humor. At one time (and maybe still) I knew the words to the (has your family tried them) Powder Milk Biscuit jingle, and there were a couple of monologues I knew almost by heart too. There was one about a Minnesota winter where a guy was up on his roof for some odd reasonthat I don't remember, and also because the snow was over the doors. He fell off the roof but he landed by their new clothes dryer vent so he stayed nice and warm in his little impromptu igloo and pondered his own life and death and came up with some profound meaning to it all - true Garrison Keillor style. That's all I remember about it, but I remember listening to it over and over again because I had taped it off the radio on my little tape recorder - remember those old top loading square ones with the big square buttons?
I had a microphone that went with it and I sat throught the radio show holding the microphone up to the radio speaker so I could tape the show. You had to push Play and Record at the same time. It must have been the crappiest sounding recording but I don't remember that about it, I just loved hearing it again and again. On the other side of the tape was probably Blondie singing The Tide is High with the station call letters being voiced over right in the middle of the song.

Close Call

I'm in the process of making a new friend. Making new friends is sometimes exciting because there's this discovery stage where you're getting to know each other and it's really groovy. We've had a few really nice talks already.

We were talking the other day and I suddenly had the urge to go BLAAAHHHHHGGGHHH and dump my whole story on her. I haven't done that to anyone in a long time, thankfully, but I had an itch to be KNOWN from scratch, all over again.

But I stopped and thought woah, where is this coming from?

After some processing I realized it's because I currently feel rather needy. And among other things, I must feel needy for that reaction that some people have where you go blah and tell them all about your journey and if they don't think you're completely nuts and run screaming sometimes instead they go OH WOW what a wonderful amazing person you are! CAN I BE YOUR FRIEND!? PLEASE??
And then they scoop you up and take care of you ---
-- that is, until they get tired of it. Or I get tired of it. No one can sustain that much intensity for very long. A relationship based mostly on that eventually rots itself out in my experience...

So, instead of rambling on, I shut my mouth and remained in the silence to see if she would talk soon, and she did. And I heard more about her, and we chatted some more and I felt so relieved that I did not go BLAAHHGHHHGGGGG all over because it was just much better this way.

Dissendat

I let Sam watch a little Teletubbies today. (Only 10 minutes, don't worry Dad!) This kid? Can watch 20 minutes of TV! Maybe more, I haven't let him go for ever. I'm not sure if this means he's a FRICKIN' GENIUS with an amazing attention span for a baby or if he carries the gene for TV-aholism.

<------Here's his TV watching face!

Speaking of SAM, so glad you brought it up.... He's started this thing where when I am taking his shirt off he lifts his head up to help me out!! ISN'T that just Precious!?!? What a helpful little guy!

In other Sam news, cuz I know you're wondering about all things Sam... yesterday he farted and then smiled... Awwww, I have trained him so well. Nice RIP, SAM!!

rant: I hate my dumb hairs for randomly falling out of my head, landing on my arm or leg and making me think there's a spider there! GAH! Dumb hairs!!

You're Kidding, Right?

How did this happen?

You Are Barney

You could have been an intellectual leader... Instead, your whole life is an homage to beer You will be remembered for: your beautiful singing voice and your burps Your life philosophy: "There's nothing like beer to give you that inflated sense of self-esteem."

The Simpsons Personality Test

Things That Make Ya Go Hmmm XII

Maybe you've heard of processional caterpillars. So this post will be old news for you. I hadn't heard of them until recently, when I read that they are called processional caterpillars because they follow each other around.

Scientists did an experiment once where they placed the caterpillars in a circle with some of their favorite munchies in the middle and they circled the food, each following the other, round and round until they starved to death.

Another interesting thing they found about these creatures is the way they determine which creepy crawler is their leader. How do they decide who leads the procession? Whichever little caterpillar doesn't find a tail, he or she is the leader! And this one is the leader for life, or until it finds another tail to follow. On it goes, with each member of the procession following along behind, not one ever becoming the wiser.

.... This sounds a lot like the way some humans become leaders! Politics, Religion, Corporations, Philosophies, Hollywood, Peer Groups..... Hmmmm.....

Oddzenenz

Tonight someone said I was looking TAN! That never happens. I usually don't tan well or even bother trying to get a tan. Even on those rare occasions I get a little tan, no one else ever notices!
She said I was TAN!! HA!

Also I got the rare opportunity to go up to someone I barely know and say "You're Gay, Aren't You?"

Of course that was her name, but still.... it was fun!

Tractor Beams and Hobbit Feet

Do y'all know that my dear Amazing Man has a blog!? Just in case you haven't been there yet, I'll give you a link: Kevmo's Blog. He's got a great style, and just in case you wanted to know even more about our lives, well there it is!

Also, I should give him credit for my last post title, "It's all fun and games until someone gets a prilosec in the eye." These words were actually spoken by him at our dinner table in answer to me when I asked him to please throw me a Prilosec.

I can't tell you how many blog titles have come about in this way. I also hear blog post titles in movie lines, Star Trek dialogue and in songs. But, you probably already knew that, unless of course you are not a geek and then you would have no idea about the Star Trek titles.

We've been watching a few of the old original Star Trek episodes on G4 (cable TV). It is so funny to watch. I remember when we thought all that equipment was SO HIGH TECH! Even when we watch The Next Generation, (I'll admit, we also catch some of those) the props don't look so amazingly futuristic anymore!

It made me think of Spirituality. How I do the best I can with the information I have. I look back at my journey and marvel at how advanced or cool or wise or spiritually evolved I once thought I was. And how 10 years from now I'll smile in amusement at what I'm thinking now. I'll shake my head and think how my ionic field deflector is so old school. I thought it was the next magic bullet to make me the best person possible. I thought it would take me to new spiritual depths (or highs) but now I know that while the ionic field deflector was a good idea in it's time, the ionic arch disperser is really the thing now. Because now I know that deflecting the field was so short sited. The Arch must be dispersed for a much better result!

It makes me have more compassion for myself on this journey. Gandalf said it in The Lord of the Rings: "Even the wisest cannot see all ends." Even when I think I've got things pretty much lined up and contained in my cosmosis, something happens to remind me that I'm just me, with my big existential hobbit feet, on an adventure that even I don't understand.

It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Gets a Prilosec In The Eye

Today Sam and I went for a long long walk. We took a movie back to Blockbuster in EastTown and on the way we saw Angry Baker Man - who of course, did not say HI.
We said Hi anyway.
We also saw a 2 of Spades laying on the cobblestones of Wealthy Street. I would have loved to take a picture but did not have a camera. We saw lots of pretty flowers and told a few people how great their yards looked. On the way home we stopped at the store and got Huggies and Blackberry Jam. Thank goodness for the great cargo bin underneath the stroller!

And I read something today I thought I'd share with you. Maybe you'd like to put this in your pipe* and smoke on it a while... "All Spiritual guides and mystics have made it clear: it is not God who does not speak, it is we who do not listen. It is said in the Qur'an that he is closer to man than his own jugular vein, but this proximity has something blinding: it requires from us that we close our eyes and open our heart. Our souls would rather fly away into seemingly transcendent lands of dreams than acknowledge the divine proximity that speaks to us in everything, including the humblest of realities. It would rather speak about what it thinks it comprehends than be silent in what comprehends it." - Patrick Laude, "A Blinding Proximity," Parabola Summer 2006: 9.

*This is a figure of speech. Do not try this at home. I say this because I don't want anyone to print this out and actually smoke it and then get mad at me when it does nothing for them. (Though, if any of you do try this at home, do tell me how it goes.)