Year-end post gone horribly wrong.

First, I don't know why it says I'm from Montana, Afghanistan over there to the right. I didn't do that. If Montana was in Afghanistan it would be much more difficult to get drunk on Christmas with Granny and Grampy. Or have Christmas. Or have Granny and Grampy. They bounced up our street in their Jeep on Christmas Eve Eve and we've been enjoying them daily, much like I enjoy Sees chocolate suckers and magazines in my Christmas stocking. Aren't Jeeps bouncy? Are they bouncy in Afghanistan? I think not! But I'm not sure. Let's just say no. Jeeps are not bouncy in Afghanistan. And toilets probably don't swirl in the opposite direction (a la Australia), but just shoot straight down the whole so you don't get to admire the fruits of your labor at all. Like in airport bathrooms. All the bathrooms in Afghanistan are probably like airport bathrooms, complete with really annoying automatic appliances where the water isn't hot enough and the dryers don't dry your hands so your forced to wipe them on your pants. Or robes. I guess in Afghanistan you'd wipe them on your robes. Jeeps don't bounce and your robes are always wet.

Madeleine's birthday was on the 21st at a bowling alley. It was great until The Toothless Invasion of '07 happened at about 7:00. The Invasion brought their own Santa and our urchins were strongly discouraged from fraternizing with him. That's right. We were asked to keep our kids away from Santa. So we pulled out the hole card: "Don't worry you guys. That's not the real Santa. That lady has been naughty and The Real Santa won't come to her house." Oh yeah.

Here's the birthday present in action:


Also, for Stella, here are my spaz and mellow mixes of '07.
Mellow:
Father, Son - Peter Gabriel
Messages - Xavier Rudd
After the Gold Rush - Neil Young
Throw Me a Rope - KT Tunstall
Harvest Moon - Neil Young
Teach Your Children - CSNY
If You Could Read My Mind - Johnny Cash
Superman's Song - Crash Test Dummies
Trouble - Ray LaMontagne
Cheapest Kind - Greg Brown
Danny's Song - Loggins & Messina
Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Brother Is
Chaiyya Chaiyya - Sukhwinder Singh
My Morning Scene - Jonah Smith
Save Me - Aimee Mann

Spaz
Rehab - Amy Winehouse
Short Skirt/Long Jacket - Cake
Change - Blind Melon
Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well - Mike Doughty
Gold Digger - Kanye
Bohemian Like You - The Dandy Warhols
Can I Get A... - Jay Z
End of the Line - Traveling Wilburys
San Franciscan Nights - The Animals
Angel From Montgomery - Bonnie Raitt and John Prine
Irreplaceable - Beyonce
Going Up the Country - Canned Heat
Gin and Juice - The Gourds
Crank That - Soulja Boy

Did you eat a lot of nuts over the holidays? I did. I can say, definitively, that I would enjoy Macadamia nuts much more if they were half their size. Brazil nuts suck and walnuts are like pecans on steroids. All bloated and agro and shit. Pecans are Lance Armstrong and walnuts are Floyd Landis. Allegedly. Hey, Happy Holidays!

Much Ado about Birthdays

I just won something on ebay. It was just like those commercials and there was a lot of shouting and arm-waving and cheers and champagne crashing on the helms of boats and black fists raised at Hitler and so forth. It were rocks. I won some rocks.



Jim built a climbing wall in the backyard this weekend (foreplay for Missoulians) for Madeleine's birthday. Please quit with the eyerolling. It's unbecoming. Yes. We built our daughter who hates climbing and heights a climbing wall to mock her. Ha ha ha you little shit! Climb THIS!

No. That's not it. She likes it now. Apparently she climbs up to the top of the climbing wall in PE every Monday and Thursday (except Thursdays in which the week is shortened wherein PE will be replaced with a long after-lunch recess and all of the parents look at their watches at 2:05 and go Oh Shit! it's early-out! and then we rush to pick up our kids with their little brothers and sisters half-dressed and missing a mitten and complaining that they have to pee. Which is why on those Thursdays a lot of little brothers and sisters pee behind the sandbox in a corner of the playground.) AND she jumps off the wall backwards while doing macrame and humming the Hungarian National Anthem. Which is to say, she seems to have overcome her fear. In PE.

When the ebay rocks come, we'll see how she does at home. Also, apparently, we'll see how she likes getting rocks for her birthday. And I already know I will be mocked for this at family dinners for the rest of my life. Much in the way my mom is mocked for allowing the tooth fairy to give my brother a banana. Under his pillow.

The Information Superhighway sometimes turns into an unmarked road through the Idaho panhandle.

"you dont argue with people who are athiest, or strung out on drugs, right??? why or why not??? because they are not of the majority.. they are screwed up upstairs.. as too are racists..."

As stated in a recent online discussion about why Will Smith inadvertently gave away the ending of "I Am Legend." Racists, druggies and atheists. Avoid discussions with these people at ALL COSTS.

This is why I love the internet by the way. I miss the DMV conversations during the years I'm away.