Where is my left foot?

Adele in the hot tub

The assembled crowd, minus two (Rob & Gordy…are…strangely…absent)

Henry as The Jester

The Full Cast

Martha Washington hairdos for the girls

The Leap

Stacy (the photographer tonight, mostly) with Impediment & husband Rob

The second night of Passover was a casual affair at friend Karen’s house, with the two-minute Seder followed by the meal, and later a performance by the kids of the Passover Story a la The Empire Strikes Back, including a sword fight between Pharaoh and Moses. Adele narrated, Henry mugged wildly and interpretively, and Rob and Stacy’s son Ethan set the scene (loudly).

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav041708a.shtml

“”Look at this”, he says, pointing at a photo of an exquisitely carved sculpture showing an animal, half-human, half-lion. “It’s a sphinx, thousands of years before Egypt. Southeastern Turkey, northern Syria - this region saw the wedding night of our civilization.”

Susan, my loving wife, has purchased plane and concert tickets for our entire family (sans pooch) to attend…

King Crimson - Aug. 11, 2008 • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Keswick Theatre

We will stay with Susan’s second oldest half-sister Kathi and her husband Seth in Allentown, an hour or so away by car.

This will be my children’s first rock concert proper, and a fine and appropriate introduction it will be.

Some stressors continue, while others have passed.

1. I have completed a teaching assignment, teaching QuarkXpress to three very nice students over a two-day course. That I haven’t used Quark in several years did not affect my performance. Having used it for sixteen years prior to stopping seemed to help.

2. The first night of Passover at my sister-in-law’s house went better than expected, and there was no drama. However, the sister-in-law’s sister’s (my wife’s stepsister) situation is very, very serious, and until more tests are completed no treatment will start. It is known that there will be radical surgery and reconstruction, radiation, chemotherapy. She is 41, and has two daughters, 13 and 6.

3. The paranoid relatives seem to have relented. Seem to is intentional phrasing. Paranoid and deceptive are a fine combo. There will be more of both before anyone receives a check. Interestingly, I have received an email just now from the Broward Sierra Club opposing limerock mining in the EAA (Everglades Agricultural Area). Our property is far away from the Everglades, but that is the reason the land is valuable.

1. Elderly and paranoid relative refuses to participate in a land sale that would enhance coffers of her own, her offspring, and their offspring. Takes advice of other paranoid relative in this matter. Three other contiguous land-holding families collect $,$$$,$$$ while our land collects cow shit.

2. Wife’s stepsister is diagnosed with cancer. This follows wife’s other stepsister having cancer, and wife’s stepmother having, and surviving, cancer thrice. Unbelievably worrying.

3. Father’s report form annual checkup is “spots on my lungs”, is going to see a specialist. Father smoked Luckys when I was a kid, switched to Merits in the late 70’s, quite twenty years ago. Very worrying.

4. Mother awakes from nap with swollen foots, distended veins. Susan takes her to ER for 5.5 hr. visit. Gout, brought on by Corned Beef orgy. Spends the night here, is driven to pharmacy and home this a.m.

5. Giant shoe hovering in street in front of house. Previous shoe dropped on neighbor’s house, killing occupants dead. Waiting for other shoe to drop.

After a weekend spent mainly with family — the event being Susan’s nephew Adam Katzman marrying the the love of his life, the beautiful and charming Joni Mosely — we spent Sunday in pursuit of the weekend we needed, including floating around in the pool, breakfast with friends, and a trip to the book store. I walked around in a fog of mental ashes, picking up this and that but not finding anything that sparked. Susan found “helping me help myself” by Beth Lisick. She commenced to reading it last night, while I tried to work up the energy to convince her to watch Repo Man (my favorite film) with me. Soon enough Susan piped in that her new book had a quote from Repo Man, the infamous synchronistic soliloquy considering “shrimp, or plate of shrimp”. I was impressed. Then, sitting on the couch next to me a few minutes later, she said “oh my God!”, and read to me an entire paragraph (titled “Habit 2: begin with the End in Mind”) about late Grecian Formula 69 (et. al., indeed) bassist Matt Sperry. Two in a row, plucked from the shelves of a large corporate bookstore. Three, if you count the fact that the Repo Man quote is actually referring to synchronistic experiences.

Matt plays a huge part in this recording. It was a post-Grecian Formula 69 where Tom called Matt and asked him to come in and lay down some bass, and he ended up recording bowed upright for the intro. Alas, there were not enough tracks for the author of this blog’s parts, and they were forfeited, so…I’m not on it. The electric guitars are tuned to Emin7 - E G E G B D:

For This (fixed the broken link)

Susan remembered tonight, as we were sitting tonight at the rehearsal dinner for her nephew Adam’s wedding tomorrow, that this is the 20th anniversary of our first date, April 4th, 1988. On that night we also ate out, at The Bahn Thai in Tallahasee, still the best Thai food I have ever eaten.

(space where waxing eloquently would normally appear if it weren’t 1:34:53 a.m.)

XXOO,

-bs

…the horrible tale of Toxotrypana curvicauda.

First things first. There is only one reason lizards ever get this close to one another (besides fighting). Hummanuh hummanuh!

An observer from the sleeping spiny stem of a Pachypodium…

…sayeth “No papayas for you, no papayas for you.”

And from their offices in the folds of a Senecio flower, they say…

“No papayas for you, no papayas for you.”

“No papayas for you, no papayas for you.”

“No papayas for you, no papayas for you!”

“Why?” I asked. “Why, indeed, no papayas for me?”

“Why, Miss Papaya Flower? Why no papayas for me?”

“Look, and you will see…”

“Indeed, your fruit are for me a womb and nursery.”

“Try and stop me if you please, there are less of you than there are of me.”

“Your delicious fruit leaks its unripe juice from our ovarys’ stings…”

“…and will become a maggot-infested pile of mush, perfect for my children.”

“We will make more papayas.”

“Yes, we will make more, sir!”