Steve, you got some sort of brain damage: your dream state jokes are as appalling as your waking state jokes. Must run in the family. I had a bad dream myself this morning. Barak Obama had come to my house. I was so disgusted I didn't even bother to get dressed -- I was hoping he'd take a hint and GTFO. But no, he decided he was going to make us coffee, so he goes in the kitchen and somehow rigs the bubble-up espresso-maker onto my electric percolator. It wasn't going to work. I wasn't quite sure how the smooth-talking commie had even found my Bialetti coffee maker (the one that has the guy on the side, his finger in the air). He explains his wife won't let him make it that way at home, and I realize he's not making us coffee, he's making himself coffee. Which figures.

And speaking of commies, the Senator from California was waving the bloody shirt today, urging a legislative violation of the Second Amendment. I won't try to rebut her because there's a guy on Youtube who does it better than I could. I don't know the dude but I think I'd like to hang with him.



Oh, and speaking of Second Amendment, Alane and I will be helping at the open house being held this weekend at the boys' Catholic school.What's that got to do with the Second Amendment? Nothing. Yet.

Forget nightmares: real life is scary enough.

Hey Steve, what if Chuck Schumer came to your place and offered to make coffee? Would you remember to hold your hand tightly over your wallet? Would you sign up to buy his timeshare?

Hootingbird.

I must share:
I had a really vivid and bizarre dream 4:30 this morning: I was with Jennie in a movie theater watching a film that starring Woody Harrelson. We're watching the opening credits, which are taking place in a medievel forest when across the screen projects the title "Kafke, King Lighten and the Inquahooties". In response, I turn to the young boy next to me and tell him "They finally left the Blowfish". He doesn't laugh, he doesn't smirk, he doesn't even smile. Agitated and a bit devastated, I turn to Jennie to repeat to her my ingenius remark....and my friggin alarm goes off. I went to work annoyed that I never got to find out what the movie was about, or that I ever got reassurance from Jennie that it was the seven year old that stunk, and not my joke. (Although we all know what her answer would have been, so its probably better) Anyway, it started my workday on a sour note...although it ultimately turned out just great.

Ive been examining the title, trying to make some analysis: most notably the Inquahooties,  it sounds quite a bit like "in cahoots", an old fashioned expression my grandmother liked to say. Kafke, obviously close to Franz Kafka, as for King Lighten...not a damn clue...or why the hell Woody Harrelson would be on my mind.

Fom the backseat:
Mojo: Give me a Skittle.
Cookie: You have to answer a question first.
Mojo: Okay.
Cookie: Mom, it was Johannes Gutenberg who invented the printing press, right?
Mom: Right.
Cookie: Okay, Mojo, who invented the printing press?
Mojo: Uhhh, Hippopotamus Hootingbird?

It was the day after Christmas and we were going to Lowes to buy paint for the boys' room. I had moved the car into the garage the previous day to keep it out of the snow. I got in, turned the key, and got only a nasty-sounding squawk. Tried again, same thing. Wait. Repeat. Squawk.

In any event, we called for a tow Naturally, the engine started just fine for the mechanic. They couldn't find anything wrong. We got it back on new year's eve (right after eating the reuben fritters).

Needless to say, we've been a little nervous about the car since. So maybe it wasn't totally unexpected that we'd get about 100 miles out toward NYC early yesterday morning only to have the engine light come on. I had been watching the fuel gauge for the prior hour -- it already seemed to be dropping more quickly than usual.

Figuring it was better to get stuck within 100 miles of home we decided to turn around and try to make it back to our driveway. And we did. But too late to swap cars and get back on the road -- not that the 12 year old Jeep is much better, but hey, that's what we're driving these days. A Jeep without a rear-view mirror. You see, when we got into that to drive to Lowes I went to adjust the mirror, and it came off in my hand.

Because that's how it's going for us these days. Oh, and don't try spray washer fluid in that car either. Not sure what's up with that.

Mojo announced, pretty much out of nowhere, that he wants to be a motivational speaker.

My response: "So, how'd you talk yourself into that?"

He didn't find that funny, so we went to the Youtubes and watched come motivational movie speech clips. Braveheart yelling "freedom" is kind-a played out since the block party. Instead, we watched Bill Murray in Meatballs, John Belushi in Animal House, and George C. Scott in Patton. To name a few.

This seems to have cured Mojo of his desire to have a career.

We stayed up late (for us) watching bad movies and finishing that bottle of champagne. Okay, that was me in that bottle; Alane didn't have much. We started the evening by finally getting to our holiday tradition of greasy fried food. This time we batter-fried big meatloaf-balls, small dill pickles, and reubens.

Yes, reubens. When we last tried that a few weeks ago my roll-ups of pastrami-swiss-kraut could not hold together under the weight of the batter -- it started unraveling in the oil. Last night I got clever: folded a small payload of pastrami and kraut, then rolled it in the slice of swiss. Nuked the roll to make the swiss melt a bit, then slid the whole plate into the refrigerator to firm it all back up. Took the batter nicely and made for a frickin awesome reubenesque fritter that I drowned in thousand island dressing and ate with my deep fried pickled.

Sorry, no photos -- except for Cookie's snapshot of the one leftover pickle.

Did a lot of painting over the holiday week -- the boys' room, the bathroom. Pretty much done with all that. Now I have the doorframes of the upstairs hallway to paint. And all that ripped up carpet and destroyed dresser to dispose of. It's all piled sadly in the garage. Looks a bit like the national economy.

And speaking of market disasters, who knew there was a Garbage Pail Kids movie released in 1987? It was spectacularly awful.