On the short drive to school this morning the boys were planning for battle. "Will there be swords?" Mojo asked. "Yes, and shields and spears," Cookie replied. I barely listened as they went through a seemingly encyclopedic inventory of ancient armaments... until I heard Cookie say, "and I'm going to use upchucks."

We decided that there should be such a weapon called upchucks. Our cat Killer used to wield that weapon with finesse (once puked down the roller of my dot-matrix printer -- just to teach me a lesson).

Streptococcus. That's one of those words that are just so much fun to say. Sometimes I sit alone and say it slowly under my breath: streptococcus. Even more so today now that I find out Cookie has strep throat -- he's downstairs now watching Spongebob instead of being in school where he hasn't been since Thursday. And I almost had him out the door -- got him all showered and dressed this morning, made his sammich for lunch, got on the phone to return the message left from the clinic yesterday and they said it: streptococcus. (Did she say it that way or is that what I heard?) So there was no sending him to school after all -- which was just as well, since he'd sneezed a few times and sent huge gobs of gelatinous booger onto his sleeve and down the front of his white uniform shirt.

At some point Frylock must summarize the weekend festivities surrounding Don Vito's big Seven-O. I'd do it myself but I'm, you know, kind-a busy saying it: streptococcus.

Back in high school we had regimental drill every Wednesday morning. That meant wearing the green Class A uniform, thumbing through an old FM22-5, and possibly being issued a 1903A3 Springfield from the Weapons Room in B-Building basement.

Yeah, those were some gloomy mornings marching around the Commons holding a rifle at port arms under the stern glare of upperclass officers... Kind-a like in this video. Except for the guy dancing in tights. We didn't have a guy in tights.

I watched Broadway Joe dance on TV the other night and he was good -- real good. But this guy... well, you just have to bow down before genius.

Over a thousand road miles since my last post, I blog from the temporary Spumoni Central. And I must admit that it is good.



First, a peek at the coming "Vito Spumoni Central"










Next, a look at "Vinny Spumoni Central"








Next, a look at a few folks we found in the parking lot near "Spumoni Central" (and we'll definitely be working on a better name for the complex complex)















Finally, since it was St. Patrick's Day, I can prove that Declan was in the spirit

Yo! I am so glad someone finally loaded some Mustafio clips. The Internet is now complete!

Our family has more than a handful of genetic defects, not the least of which is the severe protein-clumping that occurs on and around the shopping chromosome. At a recent trip to BJ's Wholesale I decided that the $3.99 bottle of spumanti was too good a deal to pass up.

Spumanti is good stuff -- "the women go for it," said one wise... guy.

I got the bottle out of the refrigerator yesterday as the spaghetti was about done. I removed the twist-off cork (my first clue that something was amiss). I poured and tasted.

Expecting something really awful at $3.99 I was pleasantly surprised -- the taste wasn't awful. Still, it didn't have an authentic "wine" finish. It was almost completely colorless. And very sweet, though I expected that.

Anyway, I mixed it with a little red wine to add some body and sat down to eat. I was really wanting to like the stuff, and I sat there reading the label: VERDI was the name. I was curious, because the stuff did purport to be from Italy, but it didn't say what region. I perused the label more closely. That's when I saw it: "malt beverage."

Malt beverage? What, like Colt 45 the malt-liquor bull?

I was appalled. This stuff wasn't even real wine. Alane and I promptly rendered the VERDI verdict: VERDI is turdy.

It is rainy and yucky today. Got a little too used to the spring-like weather from yesterday. We got to 70 degrees, which really got the final snow-packs by the garage a-melting. But this is Ohio, so we're going back below freezing in a few days. This is a strange state. With a strange state lottery -- not only do the misfits line up for their tickets, they compete with each other to appear on the state lottery television show. No need to watch it, I am here to assure you all: every contestant is a winner in his own right. But none of that detracts from the warmth of this state's down-home glow.

Can you feel it? Are your gums bleeding yet?

Cookie's Cub Scout den piled into the local storefront of Young Chef's Academy for a "Go See" event yesterday. The objective was to be introduced to the "Food Pyramid" -- the nutritional propaganda codified by the secular humanists who despised the grand traditions of the "Four Food Groups."

Anyway, the whole thing started with a cooking class. As luck would have it, the project would be to make spaghetti and red sauce. Both Cookie and Mojo sat there, listening to the two polite young women explain everything about making tomato sauce... well, their version of it at least (but hey, they made the spaghetti from scratch, and that was pretty cool for the boys).

The fathers sat along the back of the room watching the proceedings. We always look like such a disgruntled crowd. When they put the pot of canned tomatoes onto the stove I called to Cookie: "How long is that supposed to cook before it's done?" He was almost apologetic about his answer: "Eight hours," perhaps thinking we'd have to stay at the place until 10 p.m.

Once everything was prepared the lead instructor did a review, asking the group what is the main ingredient for the spaghetti. They called out "Flour." Then she asked what is the main ingredient for sauce and I called out "Veal!"

Which earned me confused stares. But I'm old enough to be quite used to that.

I thought I woke up early this morning but then I realized I didn't.

Been waiting all winter for this: today it will be colder in NYC than here in Cleveland. It figures that I had to be there during their deep freeze most of this week -- because it's not enough that this area has been a stinkin' ice-hole since mid-January.

Anyway, I'm back now. Brewed up and drank a pot of coffee already (Oren's Daily Roast -- the Beowulf Blend is good stuff) and now making ready for the Great Chimp Awakening. They will have black-and-white cookies in their lunch-pails today, natch.

In a couple hours people will start getting into the office, heading up from the super-chilled streets; I'll be sure to IM them with reports of my relatively pleasant 47-degree weather.

Ever since I started living in the Cleveland area I noticed that my watch was running a little slow. I hoped it was just the battery because I really liked that watch. But a new battery did not fix the problem. So I dug out an old watch I had used several watches ago, another Swiss Army watch that had never given me a problem. I loaded a new battery, wore it for a few weeks... and noticed that it too ran slow.

Steve has a theory about the space-time continuum being altered by atmospheric filtering caused by all the dietary fiber radiated from the broccoli-rabe cooking process. It's a variation on string theory -- he expects a Nobel prize for it, but the best he'll get is a box of torrone and subscription to Scientific American.

Be that as it may, I decided to go to Macys last night and get myself a local timepiece -- something that would work within the peculiarities of this time zone. Got myself a nice digital jobber. Went into the mall and got some shoes too (a whole other story -- ask me later about the Big Left Foot).

Anyway, as I walked through Macys to get back to the parking lot I started to sing myself a catchy little tune:

I drive myself to Macys...

Yeah, catchy. As in, I caught it from Steve. Almost 10 years ago. It made me laugh. So I called him and sang it back to him. Very funny. Until today, when I actually had to use this watch. Every time I checked the time: music. Mastandreas have serious brain defects.

And speaking of brain damage, here's a video that features midgets and horses. It's set to the music of the Dead Kennedys but it would be good even without that.

We just had to have another blizzard before we left. The blowing and drifting is so severe we can't even find the back porch steps. For the record, I was hoping the last snow storm was to be my last snow storm ever, but I will amend it to "I hope --this-- snow storm is my last snow storm ever!"

Every day we have snow on the ground puts us one day later in our escape plans. We have now gone from leaving on Saturday afternoon to leaving on Monday or even Tuesday because we cannot get the POD moved until the driveway is melted clear for them to get the hoist in. Joe will work on that this weekend and the moving party with pizza and soda will happen on Sunday afternoon. We hope. We pray.

The ceremonial dividing up of the booze comes after the POD is loaded. We want the POD loaded, not our friends. We would like for them to take the booze home after the party since we don't want to take booze across state lines even if we could get away with it. (Each state levies it's own sin taxes on booze.)

Right now, finishing up the booze so that there is none to divide among friends looks very good. Two Darvocet and two tramadol and I can still barely walk and the hard work is yet to come. Yikes! I have gotten to be such a weenie.