Ryan: I'm listening to "Caroline" by Brandi Carlile, which is why I thought of you.
Ryan: Because my nickname for you is "Brandi."
Caroline: LOL! Is it a good song? I know not of it
Ryan: It's pretty good, in a folksy sort of way. I've become a fan of Brandi Carlile's music thanks to Melissa's insistence that we play AOL Radio's "Coffeehouse Corner" station at the store. She and "Adele" get routine play on this station.
Ryan: Adele being the minstrel of choice for fat, jilted ex-girlfriends.
Caroline: Minstrel during menstrural cycles
Ryan: Menstrural? Is that when your vagina bleeds while driving a tractor?
Caroline: Always.
Kids notice EVERYTHING. Never think for a second that a two-year-old is not observing your every move and absorbing your every word, because they are. Think you're being tricky and secretive? To a two-year-old, trickiness and secrecy are merely added layers of complexity they'll quickly decipher and probably emulate.
Take today, for example. After dropping my wife off at our store, I decided to swing by Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch and. . .
You know what? First, a little background.
Last weekend, my family went to the Mall of America, and we browsed through a small store called "Pepper Palace," which carries every possible brand and gradient of hot sauce imaginable. My wife--knowing how much I love hot sauce--asked a clerk for the hottest hot sauce the store carried, and she then bought me a small bottle of "The Hottest Sauce in the Universe," which struck me as a bold claim that could very well be disputed by aliens from millions of undiscovered inhabited worlds. However, having since tried "The Hottest Sauce in the Universe," I can collectively tell all those aliens to shut up already, because "The Hottest Sauce in the Universe" is really, really, really, really, REALLY hot.
OK, so I have a bottle of "The Hottest Sauce in the Universe," and I picked up KFC for lunch. Now we're all on the same page.
When I got back home with the KFC lunch and with my two- and one-year-old in tow, I decided to spice up the KFC barbeque sauce with a few drops of "The Hottest Sauce in the Universe," and my two-year-old took a keen interest in the activity. It was at this point that my one-year-old daughter started pitching an angry fit, indicating she needed to be put down for a nap immediately.
Now, before you judge me too harshly here, you should know I made a point of putting the hot sauce-infused barbeque sauce on the kitchen counter before putting my daughter down for a nap. Presumably, the kitchen counter was out of reach--although, admittedly, very little is truly out of reach of a determined two-year-old, which is particularly true of my boy, who apparently figured out how to use kitchen drawer pull handles like a ladder.
I had just put my daughter down in her crib when I heard my two-year-old son either jump or fall off the kitchen counter while simultaneously yelling "HOT! HOT! HOT! HOT! OW! OW! OW! MOUTH! OW! MOUTH! HOT!" I came running out of my daughter's room to find my boy circling the living room coffee table, saliva running copiously from his lower lip. It didn't take much in the way of deductive reasoning to know he'd dipped a French fry in the barbeque sauce and was experiencing extreme regret.
For the next several minutes, I encouraged my boy to keep drinking water (he won't drink milk, for reasons that elude us entirely), and he gradually came down from his scoville-induced panic, and he even laughed about the whole ordeal about an hour later.
Laughter or no laughter, I'm definitely out of the running for "Father of the Year" now, and I wasn't really in contention even before this hot sauce episode.
Fatherhood is tough, man.
The Star-Tribune--a newspaper that is nothing if not eternally whining--is commemorating the 5th anniversary of the 35W bridge collapse with. . . poetry.
I know, I know. You just rolled your eyes so hard you caught a glimpse of your brain. So did I.
St. Paul poet Todd Boss crossed the Interstate 35W bridge without a thought 20 minutes before it collapsed on Aug. 1, 2007. He’s been thinking about it ever since.
Such is the life of a poet that he can spend the last five years pondering his successful traverse over a bridge. He probably received a five year grant so he could adequately concentrate on his fortunate ability to survive his locomotion from Point A to Point B.
Here at my ThunderJournal, I prefer to mock pretentious, self-important poets, so let's begin:
1.
The
sewage
enters
the
treatment
plant
and
the
plant
treats
the
sewage
etcetera
like
the
stool
of
gods…
every
corn
kernel
the
same
sewage
coming
round…
everyday
someone
sniffing
into
time
whispering
mistakenly:
stinks
here…
stinks
wow…
2.
My
cousin
called
from
across
town
the
hour
the
bridge
went
down.
Are
you
okay?
Fine,
fine,
I
said.
Good-bye,
Good-bye.
The
call
went
dead.
But
I
love
my
cousin.
So
I
held
the
line.
Man,
my
phone
bill
was
HUGE
that
month.
3.
Minnesota’s
fifth
busiest,
freighting
140,000
vehicles
daily,
“Bridge
9340”
carried
eight
lanes
of
Interstate
Highway
35W
.3
miles
along
14
spans
115
feet
above
Mississippi
River
Mile
853
till
it
fell,
injuring
145,
killing
thirteen.
This
is
how
you
turn
a
newspaper
lead
paragraph
into
a
"poem."
4.
O
set
a
man
to
watch
all
night,
watch
all
night,
watch
all
night.
Set
a
man
to
watch
all
night,
my
fair
lady.
And
if
the
man
should
fall
asleep,
fall
asleep,
fall
asleep…?
Shake
the
lazy
fucker.
4.
Twenty
minutes
was
the
spell
between
my
crossing
and
when
it
fell.
Twenty
minutes
ordering
files.
Twenty
minutes
buying
meat.
Twenty
choices,
street
to
street.
To
beat
survival’s
twenty
questions
“twenty
minutes”
doesn’t
answer
well.
So
don't
talk
to
clocks
is
what
I'm
basically
saying.
