FeeFiFoto Blog

Today We Celebrate Vivaldi, Rockne and Robin

Today is Holy Experiment Day, as well as the birthday of Knute Rockne and Antonio Vivaldi.

Here's a picture of Knute Rockne, who played football at Notre Dame!

And here's a quote!

"It isn't necessary to see a good tackle. You can hear it."

Ouch!

And here's a picture of Antonio Vivaldi, who played the violin in Italy!

And here's a quote!

...

Hold on -- there aren't really any engaging Vivaldi quotes, so here's some music!

And finally, here's a picture of Robin, who had a Holy _______ statement for Batman in any situation so he probably said "Holy Experiment Batman!" at one point!

And here's a video of an entire TV season's worth of Robin Holy Whatever quotes!

Whew!

 

Sorry We Weren't In Touch Last Weekend. We Were Swamped.

My son announced he was joining the school yearbook. Trying not to show my delight out of fear of scaring him away, I mentally congratulated myself: Yay!  Yearbook is safer than wrestling or running, and the uniform is way more affordable.

After the first meeting he declared that he'd signed up to photograph cross country meets and the first was somewhere less than 1100 miles away and he had to get there right after school tomorrow, and I'm like: Okay, Bud, let's have a little talk about after school activities. It appears that, at least until you can drive, it'll be mainly my responsibility to get you to and from your extra-curriculars, so let's set some ground rules, shall we? How about some advance notice when an event is coming up; for example, instead of announcing that the meet is this afternoon and you need me to drive you nearly half the length of the Oregon Trail by 4 pm, can you let me know at least a day in advance? How's that work for you, Pal?

Grudgingly he agreed that, since I control the car keys, I might be making some sense, so Saturday morning we got up early and headed out with ample time to make it to the first race of the weekend.

As soon as we arrived at the park and parked in one of the park parking lots, Robey bolted with the camera, leaving Cupcake to carry the case because he's a good delegator that way. Cupcake and I and Miss Puppy set out for the field at a more leisurely pace. After circumnavigating a significant portion of park acreage trying to find the designated field, then tracing the drenched and muddy perimeter of the field in search of the white tent marking home base for Robey's school, we found: a couple of trainers, a few students, some parents -- but no Robespierre.

Just as it was dawning on me that I might have lost my kid, who probably didn’t have his cell phone because that would be too logical, my phone rang with a vaguely familiar caller id. It was Robey, calling from the zoo, and I was like: Robespierre, my darling, how in H.E.Double Toothpicks did you end up at the zoo?!

  

So Cupcake and I and Miss Puppy got back in the car and picked up Robey, who was waiting sheepishly outside the zoo, and we drove back to the meet, this time parking in a more suitable lot, and everything was pleasant and perfect from then on.

Game over, right? Happily ever after, right?

You don’t know us very well, do you?

While Robey was snapping photos of muddy high school students, Cupcake entertained herself by schlucking back and forth across an out-of-use ball field. She’d trudge to the middle, leaving gigantic, goopy footprints in the mud, and then slog back to the edge, where I’d pretend not to know her; then she’d start all over again.

Eventually Cupcake called out that she was stuck and I told her she was funny and then pretended not to know her some more.

She repeated that she was stuck and I told her to stop kidding around.

Then she pulled her foot out of her shoe and the shoe stayed where it was and I wasn’t laughing any more.

 

So, here’s where things stood:

• Cupcake is stuck in the mud thirty yards away
• She can’t gain leverage to bend down and dislodge her shoe
• If she abandons the shoe, she’ll have to wade through mud up to her eyeballs to get to the edge of the field, at which point I’ll have to shoot her, not to mention that she’ll be sacrificing approximately half of a pair of fairly new sneakers
• I’m standing on the edge of the muddy field, holding the leash of a dog who is, to say the least, excitable and unpredictable
• I could abandon Cupcake as an example to those foolish enough to consider following her lead, but then I’d be stuck with all of her clothes and an unused bedroom

Heaving a sigh of resignation, I plodded through the mud, praying for the mercy of the slapstick gods.

Miss Puppy and I slipped and slid out to the center of the field. Cupcake pulled her foot out of the mud-logged shoe, balancing on the other foot while leaning on my back. I bent over and pulled the loop on the heel of her shoe and… nothing happened. I mean, nothing. That sneaker was sunk in the mud like it was rooted there. Meanwhile, any moment some Labradoodle was sure to catch Miss Puppy’s attention and she’d be dragging us through the mud like a couple of stuntmen.

At times we looked like this: 

 

Cirque

For a moment we looked like this:

de

And there was a moment when we looked like this:

Soleil

I pulled some more. I put my hand inside that shoe and yanked and wiggled it. Finally, with a huge sucking sound, the shoe splorked free of the nasty red glop, Cupcake slid her foot back inside it, and the three of us scrambled back to the edge of the field.

In the end, one of us looked like this:

Who won the races? Who cares?  What is it with me and mud?

My Mistake -- We Do Have Bananas

Really, Honey, no one will notice that the "bananas" hanging on the plant next to our driveway are fake.  You can barely see the strings.

Thought From Someone At A Loss To Produce Coherent Thoughts

• Seriously, why do TV baseball announcers feel compelled to talk 100% of the time?  The worst part, aside from the stultifying boringness of everything they say, is that they rarely describe what's actually going on.  So what are they talking about Every. Single. Minute?

• Bar Mitzvah planning is continuing apace, and now that the invitations are out I can safely reveal the Top Secret details for which I took a vow of silence nearly a year ago:

1. We're having a New Orleans-style Jazz brunch, complete with Bananas Foster and beignets*; the shrimp remoulade*, however, will be displaced by smoked salmon because eww, we're not kosher but still -- eww -- shrimp at a Bar Mitzvah?  Noooo.
   
2. The invitations to the kids' dance party were silk screened in fluorescent green paint on black tee shirts and mailed to each guest, with RSVP information on attached laminated lime green cards.  This approach presumably cuts down the amount of glowing plastic rubbish we'll have to supply to guests at the actual dance party.
3. The celebratory video is still under construction, with estimated completion date some time before June 12, 2010.

• Shouldn't the phrase "Years of Age" have been abolished after Jane Austen died?

• Speaking of Jane Austen, Cupcake and I are reading Pride and Prejudice together and I am utterly thrilled to be sharing one of my favorite books with one of my favorite readers.

• Cupcake is attending a summer school program at a boarding school in Boston for three weeks after her month at camp has ended.  She'll take classes and seminars, go on field trips, and live in the dorms like a Hogwarts student.  I might be a little bit jealous.

• Today is my father's birthday.

* Spellcheck wanted dragnets, remonstrate or remodel

Did I Ever Tell You I Went To College In New Orleans?

 

Here's where I found this photo.  

More About Michael Vick

I can't say it any better than John Woestendiek, so just click over to ohmidog! for the entire story.  Here's the bait:

 

Do you think Michael Vick has proven remorse?

Watching Baseball

Robespierre (watching a baseball game):  "Aw.  Carpenter was throwing a perfect game and now it's ruined."

Me:  "What a shame.  What's the inning?"

Robespierre:  "Second."

Me:  "..."

I May Not Be The Soccer Mom, But I'm Okay With Being The Running Mom

Or, to put it more precisely, the Mom of a Runner.

Last year I described my deplorable lack of enthusiasm at watching my kids participate in sporting events.  You can't really blame me.  I was never a star at anything that could remotely be described as a sport, unless you count 1970s-sitcom-theme-song-memorization, in which I would have been a medal winner.  I'll never forget one gym class when I was in seventh grade, on a day when we had a substitute teacher.  We did whatever activity we were doing at the time and at the end of the class the teacher gathered everyone into a circle, pointed at me and commanded: "You.  Do what you were doing before."  So I did whatever it was, and then she turned to the class and warned: "Did everyone see what she just did?  Don't anybody do that."  Consequently, although this was by no means the only incident (merely the most memorable and insulting), I hate exercise, and will do it only under the most perfect of circumstances.

 

In addition, I don't care if my kids are good at it, although I encourage them to do something to keep themselves healthy.  Robespierre has tried basketball, soccer, baseball, wrestling, cross country and Tae Kwon Doe, with varying levels of success but a reliably high level of enthusiasm.  Cupcake has tried a similar selection of sports, frequently exhibiting a less stellar level of enthusiasm.

But this spring she discovered running, through a national program called "Girls on the Run," which is:

"a non-profit prevention program that encourages preteen girls to develop self-respect and healthy lifestyles through running. Our curricula address all aspects of girls' development - their physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual well-being"

Most of the girls in her school, grades 1 through 6, participated this spring, training twice a week with a group of teachers, moms and running buddies, culminating in a 5K run about three weeks ago.  Not only did she complete the run, but she liked it, and then expressed interest in doing another.  Saturday she did it again -- a 5K run sponsored by our city's indisputably spectacular science center.  She completed the run with a big smile on her face, and expressed interest in doing more.

I'd suspected she'd enjoy running, since it's the kind of activity where you mostly compete against yourself.  There's no concern about who gets more passes, or who makes more baskets or goals.  At nine years old, as long as you do better than, or come close to, your previous time, you're in a good place.

Maybe I'll even consider running with her.

Nah.

Did I Ever Tell You About The Time I Went To The Super Bowl?

Seriously, I had two tickets on the 50 yard line. 

Ten rows from the roof of the Superdome.

I went to college in New Orleans and my freshman year the Super Bowl (mis)matched the Dallas Cowboys (boo Dallas!) and the Denver Broncos (who had an adorable little pony mascot but not much else going for them, but, in any case, yay anyone other than Dallas!)  My friend's father worked for one of the sporting equipment manufacturers and he had handfuls of tickets to give away.  Back then the face value of Super Bowl tickets was... wait for it... $30.  Yes that's three zero, not three zero zero or three zero zero zero or anything else -- just 3 dot 0 dot.  Not only that, the halftime show in a big year might include Up With People (yeehah); the year I attended the halftime show featured the Canine Frisbee Throwing Championships.

So here I am ten rows from the top of the 70,000 seat Superdome, near the ceiling, where the aisles are narrow and the steps are steep.  And there's a vendor guy holding a vendor tray trying to make his way up the steps to reach a customer and there's a bunch of people in his way and the vendor guy is saying: "Excuse me... excuse me..." and nobody's listening or moving out of his way.  So after a few fruitless attempts to make his way through the scrum he begins shouting: "Watch out for the lady with the baby!  Watch out for the lady with the baby!"

And a lady sitting behind me exclaims with disgust: "Imagine that!  Bringing a baby to the Super Bowl!  Imagine that!"

Who Knew Cross Country Was A Contact Sport?

The dangers inherent in cross country running

 

Photo lifted from BabyPoobarellah

Robespierre signed up for the cross country team this year, his first year of middle school.  His other choice for the fall would have been soccer but I thought he might enjoy a more individual sport, and he agreed.  His decision was also influenced by the exchange student Curley's family hosted a couple years ago, a German boy, lanky as a giraffe, who is a champion long distance runner at home and who won all kinds of races while he was here, despite the occasional stress fracture and wrong turn.

I bought Robey a pair of high tech running shoes.  He attended practices and looked forward to his first meet all summer.  Last week Cleo and I raced out to Yuhupitsville (a Yiddish word for "The Boonies") to catch his first race.  We got there just in time to see the boys lining up; Robey was so pumped that he blew us kisses, evidently forgetting that he's not related to us in public.

The two mile course snaked around the perimeter of a park.  Never having attended a cross country meet before, Cleo and I had no idea if we were supposed to follow the runners or stay where we were, nor when we might expect to see them again.

Before too long the first boys had completed the first circuit; we waited and when we'd begun to wonder if maybe Robey'd given up or taken a wrong turn he came around a curve and I prepared my camera to get a triumphant shot of his first race, when I noticed that he was crying, hard.

Poor guy'd been stung by bees, along with about half the other runners.  The kids were attacked by those vicious yellow jackets, the ones that nest in the ground, lurk around your soda can at picnics, and sting you repeatedly without dying.  Ever accidentally sliced yourself with a razor blade?  That's how much it hurts to be stung by one of those nasty little monsters.

Fortunately Robey suffered no adverse reaction to the stings, which he first described as four but eventually escalated to 11.  He milked the situation for as much as he could get, however, requesting gifts, massages and a special dinner.  Who could blame him, really?  The brave young man finished the race.

His next race is today.  I wonder how hard it would be to run two miles carrying a fly swatter?

Tackle It Tuesday: Herculean Task

You may recall that Robespierre recently tested for and earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Doe, and that I hired a photographer and a videographer to record the event so that for the first time since he started testing three years ago my father and I could watch the test in full view instead of full viewfinder, which is nowhere near as satisfying.  I finally got the disks with the pictures on Friday.  Three disks, to be precise.  Three disks holding more than twelve hundred photo files.  Twelve Hundred.  That's a lot.  It's way more than a hundred, say, or even five hundred.  It's very possibly even more than a thousand.

Now, these are not all photos of Robey, although he certainly dominates, which is a thrill for me since every week I search the school newsletter in vain for photos of my kids, finding instead the same faces of Not-My-Kids time after time.  Many of these pictures are of the seventeen other Black Belt candidates.  I took everyone's email address and promised to make all the photos available online so other relatives could be freed from behind their cameras also.  I planned to post the photos on FeeFiFoto and share the albums, so that anyone could view them online and order prints or personalized photo gifts.  Cool idea, right?

Of course, the devil is always in the details.  Do you know how long it takes to upload 1200+ photo files to a web site?  Do you?  Well, I don't either, because they're still loading.  I'm up to 400, loading on my very old and overloaded laptop, while I get to play with the new one.  We're getting there.  Once they've all uploaded I'll finally be able to look at them and design a Photo Book commemorating Robey's accomplishment.

Remember, I'm doing another Slip-And-Fall Story Giveaway.  This time, in honor of the season, tell me your favorite Christmas, Hanukkah or Other Winter Holiday Slip-And-Fall story, and win a personalized photo mouse pad from FeeFiFoto.  And, as long as I've got one running, I think I'll run the other simultaneously: same Fame contest, same rules.  Both contests will end on December 15th at midnight.  Good luck!

Tackle It Tuesday: Bragfest

I have to brag on what Robespierre did this weekend.  My sweet ten-year-old boy earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Doe on Saturday, in a test that lasted from 1:30 to 5:30 pm.  In the three years he's been taking TKD classes he's whizzed up the ladder at the fastest possible pace, advancing to the next belt level almost as soon as he's taken the minimum number of classes for that belt.  He has a natural ability to see the move once and repeat it almost perfectly, and he showed his talent (which he most assuredly did not get from me) as he tested with 17 other candidates.

I don't have any pictures yet from the event.  Usually I film his tests, contending in frustration with the interference of audience members walking in front of my lens.  Since the day Cleo dropped and broke my camera during one of the karate tests I don't even try to take pictures; I depend on my dad to take care of those.  Thus we both spend the entire time behind cameras instead of enjoying Robey's performance.

This time I got smart: I hired a photographer and a videographer.  Once the videographer finishes editing six hours of tape into about 45 minutes, he'll sell copies to other parents, which will help defray some of my cost.  And once the photographer uploads the pictures into an album on FeeFiFoto, I'll invite the other parents and participants to visit the site, where they'll be able to purchase prints and gift items with their photos on them.

I'm so proud of my boy!