On Being Immortal

I learned a lot of stuff in college, both in and out of class, and to be honest, I've forgotten a good chunk of it. Took a class in Russian history once, and don't remember a thing. Sociology, meteorology, communication, etc., etc... bits and pieces, sure, and I can usually pull up relevant bits of info when the occasion calls for it... but most of it has long since drifted out of my head and been replaced by what I'm certain is dumber bits of information. I've held on to most of the stuff from my English classes though, even irrelevant tidbits of trivia like the fact that the TA in my Victorian Lit. class was a bartender at J. August's during the week - a bar that I never even went to... I had a creative writing class my last year there, and at one point the professor was talking about writing for a living. "There are only a handful of ways to become immortal," he said, "invent, contribute something that changes the world, or write." Of course, there are other ways that you can make an impression that will last forever. I'm sure I have emails floating around out there in cyberspace that will come back to haunt me years from now. One day there might even be a wing of the Smithsonian called "The Wing of Joe" where people will look at some of my old emails and think "eeeeew... I can't believe we named our library after him. I feel so dirty..."
What the hell was I saying? Oh yeah, changing the world... Small steps for now I think, maybe there are a lot of things I can't change about the kid's daily lives, but we can make little steps. As a wee little group we scratched a cooking show together to try and get them used to the idea of eating different things. Plus, the ten minutes you'll get to see came out of a whole afternoon of messing around and getting covered with flour... picking out vegetables... forgetting to push the off button and taping 10 minutes of Sara's chest while she cradled the camera in her arms and waited to tape the next scene... and eating some damn fine scraps.
A quick word of warning though - it's damn funny to me, even though it might not be to you, and it's ten minutes long... so get comfortable, turn your sound down a little if you are at work, and have at it. Without further ado, Cook-A-Nation...

Some Thanks, And A Bit Of Exercise

Really goofy post here. We started uploading videos yesterday from our new camera, and I thought I would share a quick few. First and foremost, a long overdue thanks to Amelita from Sam for all of the candy she sent from Australia. We're still picking through the stash, and it occurred to Sam yesterday that she might not know what a Peep is, so we thought we could give her a quick look into the majesty that is American Obesity.

Of course after you ingest ridiculous amounts of Peeps, what better way to work it off than with a spot of exercise? What we lack in exercise equipment, we make up for in dog bones and scrabble boards...

Cook-A-Nation

I don't know if your kids (or kids you know) actually eat anything, but mine don't. Not literally, of course, but their diet consists of about ten things, shuffled around from day to day so they don't have exactly the same meal twice in a row. I know that this is a very parent-y thing to say, and I hear the same thing from other parents we know... but it is especially frustrating for me since I try to eat anything that isn't bolted down or walking away. Sara and I have had a lot of conversations about how to fix it, and a couple of things have worked a little bit, but nothing we do seems to make them try new food. For a few days I was actually convinced that the kids would rather wither away and die than put something new in their mouths. Since we can't have them withering away (and thought that someone would eventually contact some child service agency) we've just been trying to wear them down.

Out of the blue, my wife had a brainstorm of sorts... "What would you think," she said to Sam and Lily, "if Dad and I took videos of you guys cooking dinner, and we posted it on the internet so you could have your own cooking show?"
... granted, it was a good idea. Wish I thought of it, as a matter of fact. The kids were totally into it, and Sam even came up with a name for the show, Cook-A-Nation. Unfortunately, I had just seen Sweeney Todd the night before and all I could think of was cooking the neighbors, but once I got the image of simmering human flesh out of my head, thought it was a good idea.

We started slowly on Sunday, just taking pictures until we get a new video camera and letting them make something we were pretty sure they would eat, but all in all it was a rousing success. Sam and I rolled out pasta and made ravioli... even though it had eggs and ricotta cheese in it, neither of which he eats. Meanwhile Sara and Lily made chocolate chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen, and aside from the fact that Sara thinks I talk to Sam like Gordon Ramsey, the meal was stellar from start to finish.

On a totally different note, you know what I can't see happening? Cutting myself on a meat slicer, and trying to Google what to do about it. You know what else? I don't really want to know what cobra shit looks like... but oddly enough, these are just two of the Google searches in the past couple of weeks that pointed their way to this blog. Although I hope both of these people were entertained, I'm a little concerned that the guy who typed in "first aid procedure for finger sliced on a meat slicer" wasted valuable time reading the blog... and the person who Googled "poop cobra"... I think you should really see someone. Seriously.