Of late, I’ve been crippled with fear of posting to my blog. The topic that came right to mind was the outrageously good football season that we were having, but when it comes to football fandom, I hold superstitions, and that ridiculous part of my brain doesn’t allow me to deviate from whatever routine I was able to establish when the wins were coming.

So I watched every game without a stitch of underwear on. I went all season without washing my hat. (Note to self: don’t buy any more white hats.) And I didn’t praise our team in writing.

Of course, what was to be the best season in my lifetime, possibly the best season in school history disappeared.

Read On...

I’ve got a story from our travels in Russia that I think more properly belongs here in my (poor, neglected) blog than it does over in the adoption journal going on in the family-oriented section of my website.

We spent yesterday walking around Yaroslavl, and we found a crowded open-air market. Lots of hats, sweaters, stuff like that. It was cold outside, but the market was still crowded with people bundled up and going through the packed little stalls.

One stall had a mannequin, in the female shape, and that mannequin was wearing a sweater. But apparently, the sweater wasn’t enough to keep the mannequin warm, because her swollen breasts were adorned with prominent nipples.

I didn’t take a photo. I would have had to stop and pull my camera out from the inside of my coat, and, well, it would have just been too weird.

Who would make a mannequin with nipples?

Read On...

Yesterday morning, I was behind a car at a stop light, and there was a little black dog with his head sticking out of the passenger side window. And I shit you not, the dog was wearing goggles. I tried several times to get a cell phone picture, but the dog kept turning away as the picture took, and then Mrs. theskinnyonbenny phoned. I got three shots of the back of the damn dog’s head.

	I swear that this dog is wearing goggles.

Read On...

I’m just a little bit tired of hearing/reading that the SEC is down this year. Don’t we have three teams in the top 10, including two teams that are clearly better than everyone except each other? Isn’t the current national champion trying to hang on to fourth place in their division? Oregon is certainly in the top tier of teams, and they got clobbered by LSU. Alabama handled Penn State with similar ease. Just because Georgia and Florida are down doesn’t mean that the conference is down.

V goes to one of the only schools around that sends Kindergarteners home with homework. One of the things we do each night is to work through sheets of reading words. One night recently, he was sounding out the word “pit.”

“Puh – Ih – Tuh”

Read On...

Wrong number this morning.

“May I speak to Mary?”

“I’m sorry. You have the wrong number.”

“Oh, I’m so terribly sorry. I hope I didn’t wake you.” It was 8:00 AM on a weekday.

Read On...

Perhaps you heard (or maybe you caught it two posts ago) that we were recently in Russia. You can probably guess what we were doing, but unlike 2007, when we did something similar, we’ve been asked not to publicly share stories, details, or pictures.

Still, our friends know what they know, and it would be nice to be able to post some news when there’s news to post. So Ive added some info pages here, but I put them behind a password wall. If you’re a legit friend, let me know that your interested (text, email, whatever), and I’ll be happy to share.

Hopefully, in a few months everything will be done and will have gone smoothly. If that’s the case, I’ll get rid of the password wall.

Read On...

The story of our trip has to revolve around Balls Alley. The spot where we stayed in Nassau had a road that runs from West to East, right along the coast. If you want to get from West to East, you take a parallel road a bit farther inland. Every quarter mile or so, there are roads perpendicular to the coast that let you go between the two directional streets.

Balls Alley looks like it’s one of these pass through roads. But it isn’t. Early in the week, Mrs. theskinnyonbenny, Brent, and I turned down Balls Alley to make the jump. but instead of going through, it got more and more narrow, and finally, it ended in a jumble of shacks and wrecked cars.

Read On...

Wrong number this morning.

“May I speak to Mary?”

“I’m sorry. You have the wrong number.”

“Oh, I’m so terribly sorry. I hope I didn’t wake you.” It was 8:00 AM on a weekday.

Read On...