The big hole and Mr. B. is a stinker

That was yesterday. Today they put down some cement. While discussing foundations and cement this last weekend, I learned something new about my husband. He is a stinker and he is funny and I am aware of many of the pranks he's pulled over the years. But I learned a new one: many years ago he was with my dad at a site where some cement was being poured and he tore the cover off of his copy of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, signed his own name to it and tossed it in the cement. He thinks he might be famous in a thousand years.

Bathing Peggy

Hope and I took Peggy to the vet last night because she's been chewing her paws like a crazy person and scratching herself for hours the past several days. The vet diagnosed seasonal (probably) allergies. He prescribed antibiotics for an infected scratch site, fish oil capsules for her skin, Benadryl, and an oatmeal shampoo that you lather up on her and let soak for 10 minutes.

And then she's better?

You'll need to give her the oatmeal bath daily for the next two weeks.

Exsqueeze me?

I hardly ever see to it that the kids bathe. The main reason we put them in swim lessons is so that they get a semi-regular dunk in the chlorine.

Bathe my dog every day for the next two weeks? The guy must be delusional.

(But she sits in the corner and scratches as I type. We had bath #1 this morning. It didn't kill me and she seemed to enjoy it. Okay then.)

Still alive

School starts next week and in celebration of that we have implemented Mary's discipline plan of three strikes you're out and if you're out you're all out, which (in our family) means there will be no TV/screen time that evening. We have whittled our TV viewing habits down from 16.5 hours a day to one 30-minute show per child after supper before storytime for the school year.

On Sunday the team struck out for the next two days in advance because (among other errors) somebody hit someone, someone called somebody a sucker, and someone told his mother, You are going DOWN, lady!

They are surviving nicely without their faces glued to the tube or the computer. There have been occasional cries of boredom and I'M GONNA DIE IF YOU DON'T LET ME WATCH TV! But two minutes later I find them both playing together in a corner of the living room.

We have two strikes on the board for today. Got those on Monday. I might have to call some foul balls today instead of going right to the strike. I really want them to get to keep their shows tonight. I think I miss Little Bear more than they do.

Peggy's driving lesson has been canceled

Dog driver in the news

It's a shame because I could tell that Peggy was really excited about getting her learner's permit.

Chocolate craving

Does this website make you almost faint? It does me.

Vosges

More Jackie Greene

Farewell, So Long, Goodbye

Statistics are up again

Every spike in my blog visits is directly tied to some TV channel somewhere showing the story about Gregg Valentino, The Man with the Exploding Arms. People around the world are fascinated by gigantic biceps; come here looking for information, and end up having to skim through with my tangential blatherings, and links to ridiculous, yet strangely amusing sites. Like this one:

Steve, don't eat it!

If I were you I would NOT click that.

Lunch

It was interesting eating our lunch with a jackhammer right outside the door. And only one dish has fallen out of the kitchen cupboard so far.

Fare thee well

Goodbye old deck. Goodbye old porch. We loved you and we will miss you but your demolition might just keep my children captivated for HOURS today and for that I am grateful.

Saturday pictures

Hank and Peggy, by Hope

The Cement Pond, by Hank

Peggy Makes a Friend, by Hank

Mom Vacuums 50 Pounds of Dog Hair, by Hank

Badminton Smackdown, by Moi

Exercising Peggy

Peggy's been running with me three mornings a week for three or four miles at a time but it hasn't been enough. In fact she's adapted to the mileage and yesterday pretty much pulled me with the leash around my waist for the full four miles. It made it an easy run and it crossed my mind to consider having Gary show up at mile 19-20 with Peggy so she could assist me in the last seven miles of Twin Cities Marathon. But, while you can sneak an iPod on the course, I think race officials would notice a dog. And dogs just aren't allowed in the TCM. I know. It doesn't make sense to me either.

Peggy needs more mileage and I'm not willing to run very far this month. If you watch The Dog Whisperer you see Cesar exercising a lot of his dogs while he rollerblades. That's not an option for me. I tried rollerblading once by myself and let's just say it didn't go as planned. But I do have a mountain bike. And I received encouragement from my neighbor who watched Peggy while we were out of town this summer. She took Peggy and her own dog for bike rides and said that Peggy did very well leashed to the rear frame of the bike. She felt that there was only a 50% chance of me going head over handlebars if Peggy jumped at a squirrel.

So I tried the bike this morning and what a joy! It was almost like riding a moped because Peggy pulled me for four miles. We stopped after two to get water and by the end of the ride her tongue was hanging way farther out of her mouth than it ever has before. She almost tripped over it. But she was happy. That tail was a-waggin'. And I think she'll be ready for another run tonight.

Have you seen the pancake video?

Now I know what we're having for breakfast tomorrow.

What?

I...I....I can't even think of anything to say.

Perhaps this is a sign of human de-evolution. Dogs will rise up and the next thing you know one day a big labrador retriever will be scooping people chow out of a plastic bin in the kitchen closet and dumping it in a bowl on the floor for me to eat. I mean, look at that dog's face. His eyes! He's planning something like that.

More Wings of Desire

This is actually a reenactment of Mr. Bickerson's proposal to me. The setting: Dooley's Drinkin' and Dancing, Iowa City, circa 1987. It was an "all you can drink" situation. I didn't have a red dress on and he didn't have the hat or tie. Nor were we sharing a Chardonnay. But you get the idea. It was pretty damn romantic.

No one's ever accused me of being a neatnik

But in the olden days (approx., 1978-1999 b.k. [i.e., before kids]) tomorrow's to do list would've included

• Target -- tweezer

Why? Because I would throw away the one that I just used to pull off not one but (count 'em) two, yes two, disgusting ticks off of my sweet girl, Peggy's, snout. Having a four and six year old leaves one unfazed in the face of maybe using dog-tick-pulling tweezers tomorrow morning to pluck stray uni-eyebrow hairs.

(Note: I'm thinking about awarding some kind of prize to the person who can show me, citing some Manual of Style, how in the hell the above should be punctuated. I did my best without looking anything up. And I know I ended that last one with a preposition. I don't give a crap. Sometimes blogging is hard.)

New link

I added this to the sidebar:

The Human Calculator

He was at the fair and on the radio today. Fun for fans of all things math. (Say that five times fast.)

Jackie Greene

I don't get all my music tips from the YMCA. Some of them come from the zoo:

So Hard to Find My Way

This group opened for Little Feat, who were fantastic, at the zoo last night. (Thank you, Joester, for suggesting we go!) But Jackie Greene rocked the zoo. Big time! The video link doesn't even give you a tenth of a sliver of how good this band was live. He played about 15 different guitars, 12 harmonicas, synth and keyboard. On top of that he is a fantastic singer. More evidence of that is here. (Click on the streaming songs on the right-hand side of that screen.)

Oh...I see I should pay more attention to complete albums. I've had the soundtrack for Brokeback Mountain for a long time and I just realized that one of the songs on it is a Jackie Greene song.

Speaking of German

A little clip from my favorite movie of all time:

Running music

Go for race pace run. Pretend you're Lola.

Scientology and Tom Cruise

Recent news

I feel sorry for him. Granted, I don't know the ins and outs of scientology but it sure sounds like a brainwashing cult if you ask me. There's a scientology storefront in downtown Minneapolis and many a wine-soaked post-Thai dinner walk I have teased Mr. Bickerson about going inside and taking their "personality test." Lucky for me, Mr. Bickerson doesn't think it's funny to joke about joining cults.

I hope somebody can help Tom Cruise. I hope Katie Holmes' parents can help her get out of the trap she seems to have gotten herself into. If there is, in fact, a baby, I hope somebody can help. It all sounds like a rotten, weird mess.

UPDATE: I just went ahead and took the online personality test. Here it is if you want to amuse yourself. 200 questions. I answered the first 150 to the best of my ability and then I was like SCREW THIS and randomly answered the rest of the questions to make a pleasing zig-zag pattern. You should read the questions. They are weirdly worded. The results page indicates that scientology can help make my life better.

Dread Zeppelin

Do you enjoy Elvis, Led Zeppelin, and reggae but find that you have too little time in your busy day to listen to all three? Well then. This band is the answer to that problem.

I first heard Dread Zeppelin seven years ago on Ragbrai courtesy of a guy on a recumbent bike pulling an awesome car stereo system on a Bob trailer and blasting their version of Your Time is Gonna Come at 6 a.m. Later that year Mr. Bickerson and I saw them in concert at The Cabooze. They were.....well, they were extremely weird in an Elvis-y/Led Zeppelin-y/reggae way. I really like their covers of Led Zeppelin music way better that the Led Zeppelin versions. And I think the Har Mar Superstar must be related to the lead singer.

Happy camper

She might be the youngest one there, but there she goes! She's got her brother and a good pack of friends going with her. She was planning to take her pink Hello Kitty backpack but we just couldn't fit all the gear in it. So big brother's old one will have to do.

The McPunk Brothers

Are you in the mood for some bluegrass?

Here ya go.

Thanks for the compliment?

TMI for some of the more delicate types out there (and my parents who hate it when I talk about poop):

Kid conversation of the day:

Hope: MOM, I POOPED! CAN YOU COME WIPE ME?

Me: Wow, Hope, that was a big one.

Hope: (Big smile; all full of pride) Yeah, I know, Mama. Thanks, Mom. THANKS a LOT!

Choral music excitement is building!

I received my letter in the mail for the dress fitting, information meeting for new singers, and fall choral workshop. What a relief. I had begun to imagine the awkward phone call I was going to have to make in which the choir secretary was going to have to break the news to me that a terrible mistake had been made and that they had sent me an acceptance letter when they meant to send me regrets.

(I know. I've said it before. I could use 30 minutes of psychotherapy.)

But I got the information in the mail this weekend and we're good to go! Whoo hoo. What are the chances the chorus will get to do something as fun and weird as Bohemian Rhapsody in the next two years?

The Ensemble has done it before: Bohemian Rhapsody

Is there a four-year-old in the house?

She's fierce, frisky, funny, friendly, fiery-tempered, and FOUR! Happy birthday, baby! This was you in 2002.

More music from Bodyflow

I like Keane and now I think this song is at the top of my Keane list. It's the hip opener track from Bodyflow. There are a lot of videos featuring this song on YouTube. Here's one for you Final Fantasy fans...

I did nothing today

You can tell by the number of posts today, can't you? Well, this is the last of them.

We're watching The Office and I just came up with a great game. Think of the office that you work in and match up coworkers with characters on the show. I'm having to go way back in time to do this. But it's fun!

You're welcome.

Gnarls Barkley MTV performance fakery?

Hmph!

Mr. Bickerson is questioning the authenticity of Chewy's percussion skills in the YouTube video a few posts down. He thinks Danger Mouse is doing it all on the synth. Next he'll be telling me that those hott stormtroopers aren't really playing bass and guitar.

Don't destroy the illusion, Mr. B. :-P

Bershon, anyone?

The explanation is here on Flickr

My side of the family has a gazillion of these pictures and so Gary's side must have at least a tetrazillion of them.

I shall learn to use the scanner and commence uploading...

The story is getting weirder

Crimeblog

Halliburton?

Site news:

Blog searchers continue to land here in search of more information on Greg Valentino, the body builder with the ginormous biceps. My average visits per day has jumped from ~50 to ~100 in the last two weeks. I wish I had more information on the guy for those people.

This blog has had its first visit from the domain www.halliburton.com. Is that you, Dick Cheney? You seem like the kind of guy who would like to read about a family called The Bickersons. :-)

Starbucks and bugs

Another reason to stop reading the news:

Bugs in your coffee at Starbucks

I glanced at this headline and it all came slamming back into my head. I had successfully blocked out the memory of my trip to the Starbuck's drive-through window in Edina last summer. I'll spare you the long, drawn-out version of the story -- the kind of story that makes Mr. Bickerson's eyes roll back in his head and wish I was telling him about my latest dream featuring a laundromat and a trip to the bank in my underwear.

It boils down to this:

An Iced Caramel Box Elder Bug Macchiato is not a refreshing summer indulgence.

It's a good day to not read the news

On one hand, it's satisfying to the average decent person that a 10-year old crime may be solved. I can't imagine what feelings the victim's actual family and friends must be experiencing.

On the other hand, it's SO disturbing to be reminded that people who commit those kinds of crimes get to walk around for 10 years, looking for elementary school jobs.

And if this is true

But a Colorado state official said John Karr has an extensive criminal record for sexual assaults across the South, including Tennessee.

Who is responsible for this guy having been able to walk around free after the FIRST offense?? How does THAT happen??

Easily impressed

Breakfast conversation:

Hank: So, Mom, this is a sun umbrella? And it's called a "somblello?" (Points to last night's birthday party favor parasol)

Me: Yes, it's a sun umbrella but it's called a "parasol." You're thinking of a sombrero. That's a big Mexican hat.

Hope: Mom! (Astonished tone) HOW do YOU know SO MUCH about MEXICO?!

Gnarls Barkley

I'd heard of the group before but I had no idea what or who they were. They were on Letterman tonight and now I have to scamper on over to iTunes to buy me some new music. I know now what I've been missing! If you like R&B you should check them out. This is a clip from this year's MTV Music Awards:

HALL le lu jah!

I was planning for a bit of a continuing education scramble to get all my hours in by the end of 2006 but I just found out the units are not due until the end of the second quarter in 2007! This is a pleasant surprise.

Nonfiction

Next book on my list from the library?
Mathematics: The Science of Patterns

Another beautiful wedding

Congratulations, Austin and Molly!

It was a beautiful ceremony and a fun weekend. I will post more pictures soon. And if anyone wants to hire Hank and Hope for flower girl and ring bearer duties, call me. They're ready, willing, and able. :-)

(Hard to believe that baby Austin was ring bearer in our wedding 17 years ago!)

Flying has always sucked and that's why I never fly

But I felt somewhat pacified knowing that I could always take along a comforting latte. Now it looks like I have to travel with an INFANT (Geez!) if I want to hide an iced caramel machiatto in a baby bottle. (DAMN it.)

Terrorists: YOU TOTALLY FREAKIN' SUCK THE GIANT SUCKSTER! SO GO SUCK IT! SUCKERSTERS!! (Damn it! Geez.) (And it's not funny to joke about it, but DAMN IT! I'm not flying.)

How do people find your blog?

They find mine by searching for this guy.

Yeah. I'm crazy about biceps and triceps.

YMCA music

I've mentioned this before (Gareth Gates' version of Spirit in the Sky) but Gary and I get most of our music tips from our BodyFlow class at the Y. I obviously don't watch VH1 or listen to the right radio/satellite stations because I might have heard this somewhere else before today's class.

What makes this extra cute is that both Sheryl Crow and Sting are former teachers turned pop stars. Aww.

Beautiful Sheryl Crow/Sting duet (twist track for the latest BodyFlow):

Uncle Jeff is HOW old?

We hope that dressing up in formal wear and taking our picture in the foyer by the duct tape covered dresser more than makes up for the fact that our birthday wishes to you are late.

Happy Birthday!

What's the big deal with the small cats?

A couple of months ago one of our local news stations (Fox 9! News at 9!) devoted six or seven minutes (it felt like 40) of primetime news time to a story about a small cat. Everybody was wondering how this small cat could be a fully grown adult cat. It was small. Like a kitten. But it had been around for more than two years. So it was fully grown. But small. Really small.

It was an amazing story (not).

And now I see that small cats are in the news yet again.

Cats are small. This is news?

Van Allen

But Van Allen Elementary School lives on.

There is no better way to start the day

You can thank me later. :-)

And then there's this:

27 Worst Family Feud Answers Ever

(Both links stolen directly from dooce.com, by the way.)

Reward for a lawn well-mowed

Fun stuff

Free tools to use with photos.

And now it's time to mow. Ta ta...

Mr. Bickerson

was born with a rhythm disorder as bad as this:

...and asking them to find the beat is like putting boxing gloves on a drunk and asking him to find a Polly Pocket shoe. In a barn. A dark barn....

Weren't you, honey?

Late-onset hazelnut allergy?

I enjoy hazelnuts, specifically Nutella or any kind of candy or chocolate or ice cream with hazelnuts. I've eaten plenty of hazelnuts in my day. So imagine my surprise when I busted out in an allergy attack tonight after eating a few raw hazelnuts. Itchy throat made simultaneously worse and better by eating a scratchy BLT+PB. (Thanks to my mom I can never eat a BLT without the added slathering of peanut butter -- SOOOOoooooo gooood.) I know when the itchy throat/itchy mouth symptoms start you better take the benadryl right away. A dose and a half. So I did and the benadryl is working but I'm having a hard time believing the hazelnuts did it. I guess to be safe I can cut out the raw nuts and just stick to the Nutella. I can't see that really being a problem for me...

The Starbucks People

The Starbucks People
Originally uploaded by rdevereaux.

Searching Flickr for Ragbrai pictures. (We are still in withdrawal from the ride.)

Click the picture to go to Flickr and read what the photographer had to say about these guys.

This Starbucks Coffee Van was interesting. We caught them on a windy morning and -- oh my gosh! -- the guy and his friend were having trouble brewing coffee in their makeshift setup. Filters flying, coffee cups tipping... We guessed that they belonged to a bike club that was financing its Ragbrai trip by selling coffee on the route each day. Gary says that the van certainly had Napolean Dynamite's Uncle Rico feel to it. It was good coffee, though!

Pink Floyd

Mr. B and I agree that this team is our favorite Ragbrai team simply because their shirts are so damn cute. I can't seem to find a picture of the actual shirt but picture this logo in pink.

Why bees love the zoo

A rose by any other name

If you were a three year-old and your grandma gave you a Barbie as beautiful as this one...

...you would feel compelled to name it right away and you would want to give it the most beautiful name. Wouldn't you?

You would choose which of the following?

1. Hope
2. Esperanza
3. Belle
4. Cinderella
5. Chester
   

Chester, you are the most beautiful Barbie a girl could ever have!

Brush with Ragbrai celebrity

No, not Lance. John Karras, founder of The Des Moines Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. We were riding out of Coralville/Iowa City on the last day. Let's face it: our butts were sore. Sore like they might not recover from this particular ride. We were done -- ready for the air-conditioned bus ride back to Urbandale so we could pick up the kids and get back to Minnesota where it was naturally cool. Ha. It was not cool in Minnesota. Anyway, we had seen John Karras at various points along the route. He must be in his 70's. He wears two knee/leg braces. Gary wondered if he plays the "I started this whole ride across Iowa" card for free beers along the route. I don't think so. I don't think 75% of the riders or bar owners know who he is. But there we were riding out of Coralville, up the 958th hill, and Gary said to me, "You know what the great thing is about tomorrow, don't you?" Me, "Tell me." "We don't have to get on these damn bikes!" And there was John Karras on Gary's right side, laughing his hiney off. Was his hiney as sore as ours?

Ragbrai sights and sounds

This is a good slideshow from The Des Moines Register's website. It gives you a good look at the scenes you come across every day.

Des Moines Register Slideshow

Well, there she is!

We all kinda wondered if she would make it to the finish.

This is how we start our day

It's 8:30 a.m. What's going on in your house this morning?

(If the link above doesn't work or is too slow you can try viewing the clip at Vimeo, here.)

Stream of tiredness blogging

Biking across Iowa in 100 degree heat has me totally zapped. It's all I can do, three days later, to sit on the couch with my Fresca and watch the kids race around the room like crack monkeys.

I promised Hank and Hope I would buy High School Musical upon our return from Iowa and they have already watched it twice in two days. Hank is insisting we call him "Freaky Call-Back Boy" and is irritating us all by asking, "'Sup y'all?"

Hope has been singing everything she says. Everything. Including (add your own tune), "Who wants to smell my feet? You, Hank? You, Daddy? You, Peggy? SMELL...MY.....FEET!!"

Gary and I had a lot of fun on the ride in spite of the heat but we are truly, truly sorry we missed the Girl's Gone Wild bus in Coralville 'cause I bet the girls had gone wild. We also missed the Jello Wrestling. Oh well, there's always next year...