Halloween Soundtrack, Vol. II: Big Kids Mix

While creating my kids Halloween mix, I first culled a ton of Halloween-appropriate stuff from our collection. It came out to be about 3.4 hours. I decided that a lot of it was a bit much for the kids, but perfect for the big kids, so i shortened it to create the following 1.6 hour list. Like yesterday's kids mix, this was just what I could find in our collection, and when I looked at the list, i realized there were a ton of things that I would have put on the list if I was allowing myself downloads. Some Ministry, Danzig, and The Cramps; stuff that I used to listen to in the olden days when music came on tapes, but which i never bought on CD. Todd also pointed out that I should have included Motley Crue's "Shout at the Devil."

The Big Kids Mix

1. Please Mr. Gravedigger - David Bowie
2. Spooky - Portastatic
3. Lullaby - The Cure
4. I Bleed - The Pixies
5. I'm a Ghost - Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
6. Hypnotise - The White Stripes
7. Necromancing - Gnarls Barkley
8. Dracula's Wedding - Andre 3000
9. I am Stretched On Your Grave - Dead Can Dance
10. Hellbound - The Breeders
11. Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
12. Scary Monsters (and Super Creatures) - David Bowie
13. Paint it Black - The Rolling Stones
14. Tombstone Blues - Bob Dylan
15. Little Ghost - The White Stripes
16. Werewolf - Cat Power
17. Moon Over Bourbon Street - Sting
18. Leslie Anne Levine - The Decemberists
19. God's Gonna Cut You Down - Johnny Cash
20. Willow Garden - Charlie Monroe
21. Bringing Mary Home - The Country Gentlemen
22. Mother's Only Sleeping - Bill Monroe
23. How to Disappear Completely - Radiohead
24. O Death - Ralph Stanley
25. I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie
26. What's He Building In There? - Tom Waits
27. Eyepennies - Sparklehorse
28. Nosferatu Man - Slint

On another note, I mentioned the song, "The Ghost of John" and a friendly net-wanderer named Stephen suggested this website that has a version of the song available for download. I went to the website, found the song (albeit not the version I remembered - it's on the flip side of the Teeny Tiny Woman album), and then proceeded to spend an hour looking at all the gems this guy has collected. He evidently collects old Halloween-themed albums. There were quite a few that I remembered from my childhood, and he also included the album covers, and the artwork is total timewarp.

My favorite download: "Sounds to Make You Shiver! Bloodcurdling! Terror! Horror!" (1974). I am pretty sure that my neighbors had this (or one of the other Sounds to Make You Shiver albums) when I lived in New York. We played it in my basement when we made a haunted house.

Wanna find that particular spooky album you remember from childhood? Take a look at The Spooky So Far, an album cover image-linked list of all the stuff he has available for download.

This website is the perfect Halloween timekiller.

Halloween Soundtrack, Vol. I

Volume I: Kids Mix
Coming up with a kid-friendly Halloween mix is not as easy as it seems. There is a fine line between Halloween-themed and downright nightmare-inducing; Halloween is not exactly full of kid-friendly themes, nor is our CD collection. If the list is really for the kids then the songs also have to be fun, too, which is quite the challenge - Kid-friendly, fun to listen to, and yet still dark enough to pass as Halloween listening fare. With the exception of Monster Mash, the rest of the song were already in our CD collection, so I didn't have to download any others. If I were going the downloading route, I most definitely would have included Thriller. Duh.

Without further ado, i give you my Halloween mix, kid-style. . . .

1. Worms (The Pogues)
2. Monster Mash (Bobby "Boris" Pickett)
3. My Doorbell (The White Stripes)
4. Strange (R.E.M.)
5. People Are Strange (Echo and the Bunnymen)
6. Superstition (Stevie Wonder)
7. Do the Vampire (Superdrag)
8. Goolie Get-Together (The Toadies*)
9. I Walked with a Zombie (R.E.M.)
10. Ghost Town (The Specials)
11. O Death (Camper Van Beethoven)

I also really looked around for a recording of the song "Ghost of John," which I learned in first grade and is the epitome of Halloween music for me, but could not find it anywhere online. It goes a little something like this:

Have you seen the ghost of John?
Long white bones and the rest all gone,
ooh, ooh, wouldn't it be chilly with no skin on?

Oh, well. Maybe i will teach the kids to sing it (along with the zombie dance that goes with it). Talk about a horror show.

As always, comments with your suggestions for the list would be more than welcome.

*I do not actually listen to the Toadies, but this song was on some Saturday morning cartoon CD someone gave me as a gift, and it seemed appropriate, so I stuck it in there.

Accomplishment

My first 5K went pretty well. My friend Andy decided to run at the last minute, so I met him and his girlfriend, Ginger, and her dog, Nugget, at the Start. It was nice to have someone else I knew in the race - he pulled away pretty quickly in the beginning, but I could see him up ahead on the long straightaway parts of the course, so that was nice.



The weather was pretty miserable; Cold and windy, with pretty strong gusts. Grant Park is really green and has tons of old trees, so there was a lot of debris on the course. They had cleared some fallen limbs, but it was still a little messy in spots. I wore shorts, but kept my long-sleeve shirt on, and ran comfortably in that. It would have been nice to have gloves, and I wish I had warmed up more, because the race went right into a big hill at the beginning and my calves are paying this morning.

Grant Park is HILLY. There was a pretty short, but really steep hill right at the beginning and at about mile 2, there was a straightaway on Cherokee Ave., which was LONG, you could see forever, and it was up and down and up and down, like waves of hills. Then, at the end, there was another long gradual hill, which kind of sucked.

My time was only 35:06, but I think it would have been better without hills, and if I felt warmer. Right at the start, I was cut off by a runaway woman and her dog, so that slowed me down. I also slowed to stretch my calves, which felt really tight, early in the run, and I also actually stopped for a few seconds to check on another runner. She was running right behind me and to my left, and was closer to the cones they set out to mark the course. Some asshole in an SUV actually swerved into the course, and hit the cone closest to her, which was kind of scary. Then, myself and a few other runners slowed down to talk to the nearest policeman we saw, to tell him what had happened. He forced the guy to pull over, so that was nice. I also think that I will do better in the future without the fear of the unknown.

I didn't come in last, so that is good, and in fact, I passed a number of people, and there is quite a thrill in that, although as slow as I was, i also felt a little bad, because the people I was passing were more like me - probably new to the whole running thing, and who wants to be passed? Quite a few of the people running with dogs passed me, too, though. (Runners went in the first flight, then runners with dogs, then the walkers and dog-walkers.)

My favorite part was getting to the end, and coming through the finish, and seeing Todd and the kids waiting, and Rollie running up to me to give me a high five. He looked really happy, and in my imagination, proud of his Mom.



Afterwards, we walked around to see the booths and there were TONS of pets in costumes, which is always entertaining. They had a jumpy castle, so Rollie jumped for a while, then we got a lollipop for him and walked back to the car. It was funny, because he was right at dog eye level, so every dog in the park stole a lick of his lollipop.



All in all, i felt really good and the sense of accomplishment in setting and meeting a goal is a nice feeling. It is also nice that so many of my friends and family were so supportive. I am lucky to have such great people around me.

Okay, enough with this sappy endorphin shit.

The Dark Day

"Go Dawgs," she said, her heart barely in it.

This is not going to be pretty. Not a bit pretty.

The Perfect Run

That is the name of my most-perfected (so far) running mix on my IPod. Total misnomer, because I am not completely happy with it, but it is the best I have come up with so far. I made it a conservative 40 minutes, because I have never run a 5K before, and who knows? I might actually be slower than normal with the hills in Grant Park. I just don't know what to expect, but would hate to run out of music at the end. Total buzzkill. So, I stuck the Chumbawamba song in there as a safety, but hope to be done before that. It all comes down to me having no idea what my "race pace" is or any of that shit, so I am winging it. And since I don't know anything about pace, don't bother yapping to me about how listening to music will ruin my pace, or throw me off or whatever. I don't get it.

All that being said, the real reason I'm putting the list on here is that I am totally burned out on all of my running lists (I have seven different lists) and so I am hoping people will comment with suggestions for other songs to add in the future.

Without further ado:

1. Save it for Later - The English Beat
2. All Star - Smash Mouth*
3. Elevation - U2
4. Dare - Gorillaz
5. Mama Said Knock You Out - LL Cool J
6. What You Waiting For? - Gwen Stefani*
7. 50Ft Queenie - PJ Harvey
8. B.O.B. - OutKast
9. Where's Your Head At - Basement Jaxx
10. Tubthumping - Chumbawamba

* I don't want to hear it.

I also must add here la piece de resistance: The Cooldown song. . . on each and every one of my running mixes, I include a cooldown song. It is always the same. It is The Geto Boys' "Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta." It never, and I mean never, fails to make me smile at the end of my run. The absurdity of me, the 30-something white soccer mom, listening to that song cracks me up.

p.s. I am feeling kind of listful lately (the opposite of listless, I suppose, which is good) and so I will probably be posting a few different playlists in the next few days.

todd, anne, rollie, tiller

todd, anne, rollie, tiller
Originally uploaded by jasonaut.

An old friend from my Athens days, Jason, and his wife, Allison, recently moved to Atlanta. I was trying to think of how I met Jason, and can't. He says that he lived in the same dorm with my then boyfriend. I don't remember that. I just remember him being a fixture in my life there, always at the same bars and parties, and during a certain period of intense heartbreak and heavy drinking, he often went with me to the Roadhouse or the GA Bar immediately after our last classes. He also drew a really purty crayon drawing of me at the hospital after he sliced through half of my index finger with a pocket knife in a tequila-induced blood pact of friendship. Ah, those were the days.

Jason also takes purty photographs and is currently working on a photography theme having to do with familiarity, friends, old Kodachrome photography, and a green lawn chair. He came over to our place on Saturday and took this picture. Todd and I really dig it, because it kind of captures us better than any other picture we've ever had taken of the four of us. And yes, Dad, that is me drinking a beer and holding the baby in a family portrait. Isn't it lovely?

I should also add that you can check out jason's other pics on Flickr, and his thoughts on Jasonaut, and some videos (funny ones of noogies, cool ones of old Elf Power and Olivia Tremor Control shows) from the old Athens days on YouTube. I have been enjoying them all the last few days.

Elmo

I may have said this before: The Sesame Street where Elmo dances on the moon is really disturbing to me. I don't like to see his furry little feet, or his unnatural gyrations. I don't like that music.

Don't even get me started on Elmo in the biker jacket or the kilt.

It is Obvious: I am Right. You are Wrong. Questions?

There is an interesting article in this morning's New York Times about the increase in recent years in independent voters, particularly in the Southwest. This was welcome news to me, as I consider myself an independent (probably most closely allied with Libertarians) and constantly feel as if I am alone on a peninsula surrounded on one side by Red and one side by Blue waters. Am I the only person in the world who doesn't think that one of the two major political parties is the road to saving the nation and the world?

When discussing politics (which I often end up doing, despite the knowledge that it inevitably makes me angry), I usually end up with the sense that the person I am arguing with does not know me at all. I guess I am not a very persuasive speaker, but I usually come away with the feeling that my Republican friends and family think I am going to single-handedly bring terrorism's lethal blow down on America by not supporting their party. Democrats (and the majority of my friends are Democrats) think I am a right-wing pigeon from outerspace. These discussions usually end in a stalemate: On one particular occasion, I ended up crying tears of frustration as two girlfriends looked on and one more politically-independent friend draped his arm around my shoulder in sympathy and consolation.

All of that being said, I found the article really interesting, most importantly because it made me feel much less alone. So many of the quotes of those interviewed mirrored my own thoughts on American politics:

"Republicans of . . . libertarian bent have chafed as their party has held ever more tightly to the morals-based agenda of its Christian evangelical wing."

"Politics has become a winner-take-all game played at the expense of ordinary citizens."

"The deepened sense of polarization in American politics is also making the independent voters’ journey harder."

"Both parties are out for themselves. . . I think you’ve got a right to do what you want and a right not to be labeled."

" . . . the major parties have simply made people angry."

"Right now, both parties are way too far apart and nobody is looking out for the good of the people.”

Hurrah! I am not alone! You see, in the last five years or so, I have had the distinct feeling that rather than me not choosing a party affiliation, it will be people's refusal to look past their own party affiliation that might bring the downfall of our country. In other words, i am right, and the rest of you are wrong. Just kidding. Well, a little. . . It seems that Democrats spend most of their time trying to bring down the evil Bush regime and the Religious Right. Republicans spin their wheels making Dems out to be Godless, homosexual, weak-on-terror degenerates who hate their own country. I would be lying if I said that the thought of the nebulous independent vote injecting fear of outcome into both major parties didn't excite me just a little. I love to watch a politician squirm.

Just for fun:
Take the World's Smallest Political Quiz. If you happen to find yourself a bit Libertarian-leaning, go ahead and take the Libertarian Purity Test, too. It is completely ridiculous, but fun.

Wreaths and Cookie Dough

Something interesting happened when Rollie started school this year; I suddenly came to the realization that I am truly a mother. For the three years before he started, I could almost imagine that these two beings were pets, or little people come to visit, and that I was still remotely cool, that I could still hang on to the life i lived before they came along. Rollie starting school changed all that.

The first time it hit me was when I went to pick Rollie up on a Friday afternoon. I left Todd and Tiller in the van (we were on our way out of town) and went inside. The classroom was mayhem, with three-year-olds running every which way, wielding blocks and wearing costumes. A little blonde boy in a yellow t-shirt ran right up to me, his eyes scanning up me until coming to my face, and then he squinted while identifying my owner.

"Rooollie!!! You're mom is here," he said, with disgusted emphasis on the word "mom."

Since then, i have had the realization over and over again. Next it was the wreath - The school is having a fall carnival for a fundraiser and all the parents are to take home a wreath and decorate it. The look of dismay must have been evident when I was handed my wreath.

"Decorate it how?" I said.

"Well, you could do a Christmas wreath, or an Easter wreath, or one woman is doing a Welcome Baby Wreath . . . There are just tons of options! Why, look at this fall wreath I just whipped up last night in a few minutes!"

I looked at the wreath. It looked like something out of a Pottery Barn catalog. As I walked out of the school, wreath in hand, it occurred to me that this is how it begins. This is how people with lives, people with CD collections, interesting friends, hobbies of their own choosing, and drinking problems, this is how they end up being my mother, who never turned in the UNICEF box that Halloween in Fairport, NY, when I was seven or so.

They gave us the UNICEF box at Brooks Hill Elementary. It was a cardboard box, about half the size of a Happy Meal box, and we were to take it around with us when we went trick-or-treating, collecting donations. All of us thought it was a total drag to have to carry the stupid box around, because of course people gave us change, not bills, so it became heavy, and who wants to be dragged down by the donations, when they could be dragged down with candy? I guess I wanted to save the world, though, because by the time I got home, my UNICEF box was full. I gave it to my Mom. The moms were supposed to count the money and then turn the boxes in the next day at school. Sure enough, the next day, Mom forgot to turn in the box. Evidently, she forgot about it so many days in a row, that I finally also forgot about it.

Years later, Mom admitted to me that she used the UNICEF funds for milk money for Lisa and I for years. I have always thought this was one of the funniest stories ever, but now I see also that it is a sad story, the story of a young mom forced to deal with stuff that she doesn't want to deal with. It was the result of schools pushing these fundraisers and charities and activities on mothers who really have no interest in them. Mom just wanted to drop the kids off at school, and then go home and watch her soaps. She wanted to have snacks with us when we came home, not compete to see who could raise the most money for UNICEF. And when procrastination presents itself, it is so easy to just give in to it. Really, Mom was so subversive; Fuck the elementary school and the do-gooders who ruined our Halloween with their Goddamn UNICEF boxes! Go Mom!

Later, though, Mom was beaten down by the system - she became a Brownie leader, she picked up other people's kids from school, she even taught as a substitute teacher. She was never particularly interested in these things, or good at them. But she was a great Mom, and we always appreciated her making the attempt at the do-gooder Mom role.

Now that I am a Mom, I appreciate why she didn't make the UNICEF attempt. I just want to be a good Mom to my kids, and I don't really see what that has to do with me being a Holly Hobby wreath-maker, or President of the fucking PTA.

I ended up making the wreath. It is a Christmas wreath, with holly and ribbon, and pine boughs. It pales in comparison to the other wreaths hanging in the school hallway, but I made it. Friday at school, all parents received a flyer informing us of the next fundraiser. How many rolls of cookie dough can I sign you up for?

Matilda: A Year in Photographs

One long year. One happy year. Did I mention it was long?

Early October 2005

You come into the world with a vengeance

November

December

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October 8th. One year old!

I'm Not Sure

. . . but I think that Matilda has her first crush. I am pretty sure she wants to make out with Elmo. It's like the Beatles coming to America when he comes on the t.v.

What's Up with Dogwood Girl, Anyway?

I guess the three people who read this thing regularly are wondering if I died, except for that one who reads it who also lives with me. I haven't died, I just haven't been able to get Blogger's publishing to work very well, and since they are free, it doesn't hold a lot of sway to tell them you are going to fire them. And since I am poor, I can't justify actually paying someone like Moveable Type, or whatever, to use their blog publishing stuffamajigs. WordPress might just be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, and all of it would involve moving my archives of old posts (a LOT of old posts) and I don't know if i'm ready to undertake that yet.

Anyway, in addition to stressing about that, and not having my blog outlet for bitching, other things that are going on with me include:

• The satisfaction that knowing that on at least one front, I am not a shitty mother. Flu shot appointments don't start at the pediatrician's office until November, not October, as I previously had thought and worried about while procrastinating for the last 18 days.
• I am over football. I am not doing it anymore. Too painful. Too depressing. Too ridiculous to have the tone of your Saturday evening and Sunday set by the activities of a bunch of dumb college kids.
• I am evidently having an affair with Todd's best friend's father. Awesome. I had no idea.

Just kidding about that last one. Kind of.

It's a Slow Day Here at My Brain

Four things about me - Things you may or
may not have known about me in no particular order.

A) Four jobs I have had in my life
1. Kroger Bagboy, er girl. And then i was a checker-outer, also, and I helped Conor and the rest of the Feldy basement delinquents scam beer by smuggling it out in Coke boxes.
2. Vet clinic - I worked in the boarding area. I cleaned shit out of cages, and other stuff. I also bathed animals. Yes, I know how to express a dog's anus. Lovely.
3. The Grill - Late-night extravaganza. I waited tables on the night, shift, before moving to the oh-so-respectable day shift. Ah.
4. Technical writer. I swear. This is what I did before going to the show. (A.ka. mommyhood.)

B) Four Movies I would watch over again and again.
1. The Goonies
2. Purple Rain
3. Sixteen Candles
4. The Breakfast Club

C) Four places I have lived:
1. Atlanta, GA
2. Fairport, NY
3. Athens, GA
4. Denver, CO

D) Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. Real World, Road Rules challenge
2. BAttlestar Galactica
3. Lost
4. Antiques Roadshow

E) Places you have been on a holiday/vacation:
1. Las Vegas
2. Italy
3. Belize
4. NYC

F) Websites visited daily
1. atlanta metblogs
2. dooce.com
3. pitchfork
4. Georgia Sports Blog

G) Four of my favorite foods:
1. sushi
2. thai
3. italian
4. mexican

Boy, that was writing at its peak. Do not be intimidated.

What is it?

About being on the rag that makes me want to concoct a dessert consisting of the following:

one heaping serving spoon of peanut butter
squirt upon squirt of honey
whipped cream
old christmas cookie sprinkles in red and green from 2002

To Matilda on Her First Birthday

Dear Matilda,
You are one today. I just put you down for the night and my cheeks are still wet with tears. I think your Daddy thought I was crazy, but that's not it. I am just sad that you are not a baby anymore. The tears caught me by surprise; I did not cry on Rollie's first birthday. Maybe it is that he is a boy, or that he has never seemed to need me as much as you do. I think, though, that it's the knowledge that you are my last baby. The last baby i will carry in my womb, the last baby i will wait for with anticipation, making lists of names, and imagining hair texture and eye and hair color, and coloring and height. I can still remember how much more active you were in utero, and I know now that it really does mirror your personality. You are the last one I gave birth to, and there is nothing that has ever made me feel more like a woman than giving birth. Your birth was a blessing to me, so very different from the fear and pain that I felt with Rollie's. Afterwards, you took to breastfeeding like a champ, and I had my moment of A Baby Story that I had felt so robbed of the first time around.

Those first few days with you were a blur, but i remember worrying about how Rollie would take to you. I need not have worried. He adores you, and is working on sharing, too. I feel like I have been more laidback about parenting you than i was with Rollie, but in other ways, I feel like I baby you more. I don't know if it is the fact that you are a girl, or your very cuddly personality, the way you are happiest being held, and preferably by me.

Like Rollie, you have been quick to develop your precise motor skills, like drinking from a cup, or pincer grasp. You have taken longer to gain mobility. You didn't get your first tooth until around Rollie's third birthday. You took to crawling at ten months, and could support your weight on your legs, but did not pull up on your own until this very morning! What a wonderful birthday gift to me to wake up in a motel room in Charlotte this morning to you standing in your crib waiting for me to pick you up. I am sure you will be doing it regularly soon, probably getting stuck standing in your crib for a few nights, and quickly moving to standing on your own and cruising and then walking. I am content to wait.

You have a funny sense of humor, and I think you have a devilish streak. You are already testing me, and are less quick to stop undesirable behavior at just a "no" than your brother way. I say "no" and you repeat the behavior to see if I really mean it. You are currently in the throw-food-and-drink-off-your-high-chair-tray-to-see-what-I-do stage. This also applies to electrical outlets, houseplants, pet food and water, and the sleeping dog. I am reminded of my grandmother Palmer's story of my three-year-old father being forbidden to ride his tricycle around the corner and out of her sight, and his propensity for doing just that as soon as the words had left her lips. There are so many times that I wish I could discuss parenthood with my grandmas Evelyn and Vivian. They would have adored you so, that they would have taken your side every time.

Rollie started school at the beginning of September. He attends three days a week from 9-12. This has become our "Girls time." I often feel some guilt at how you don't have the freedom to explore toys in the same way that Rollie did. It seems that every time you reach for something, or find it interesting, Rollie is there to quickly take it from you and play with it himself. I also worry that with all of his talking and outgoingness, that you get a little lost in the shuffle, and that I don't spend quite as much time talking and playing with you one-on-one that I did with him. I am guessing this is the natural order of things, and that it is why there are interesting books published on the effects of birth order on personality (a highly fascinating subject to me, actually), but it does not mean that I am not trying to spend more time with you, reading, talking and taking pictures of you. Our three-day-a-week girl time has been a wonderful way of assuaging that guilt, plus, you and i can go browse stores together, which is something we can never do with Rollie around. As I write this, you are sitting on the floor next to me, playing with the toys you recieved for your birthday (and Rollie co-opted not long after) and with Rollie's matchbox cars. Tee hee hee. . . wouldn't he just die if he knew?

You gave up breastfeeding one week ago today. Up until four weeks ago, you were breastfeeding three times a day, with a bottle of formula every night before bed. I have never been a purist when it comes to breastfeeding, but I think i will write more about that later, when I have had the time to let the whole experience sink in a little more and when I can look at it from a bit of a distance. I started weaning you at that four week countdown, cutting out a feeding a week: First, the mid-afternoon, then the lunchtime feeding. At that point, there were only the morning feeding and the evening bottle. The plan was that I would cut out the evening bottle, then the morning feeding last, but you had different ideas about that. Exactly one week before your birthday, last Sunday, you just decided that you were simply too busy for this breastfeeding business, and you fought and cried to get out of my arms and on with your morning. This was not the loving last moment of our nursing relationship for which I was hoping, but so be it. I let you down off the chair, and moved on to fix you breakfast.

[You just let out a humongous belch, looked at me in surprise, and then burst out laughing, so very pleased with yourself. One day soon, I will teach you to say "excuse me," like Rollie does when he burps, but for now, I am happy to let you revel in the amazing functions of your little body. You are now crawling around with one of Rollie's cars, the "benzo," I believe, in your mouth, and growling and laughing as you go.]

Once you got the hang of crawling, you realized that you could follow me everywhere. I stand up to go pee, you follow me into the bathroom, sitting back on your knees, and holding your arms up to me. I cook dinner? You are wrapped around my ankles like leg warmers. I would be lying if I didn't say that it was alternately flattering and endearing, and at the same time completely exhausting and smothering. Such is motherhood, i have found. You have fit into our lives so completely in this past year, and you have completed a puzzle i have wondered about ever since I played the board game Life with Karen and Lisa growing up. We would collect children as if they were candy, sometimes needing to use more than one car just to fit them all in, and sometimes we would have a baby name book at hand, and bother with naming them all, and always, throughout my life, I have wondered who my children would be and what their names would be. I could not have imagined the joy and the pain of loving two little people so much. You are the final pink peg in my car. You are my Matilda, Tiller, Tiller baDiller, Phyllis Diller. I love you, baby. Happy birthday.

Tiller's Birthday

We had Tiller's birthday a week early due to family obligations (guilt) the weekend of her birthday. It was all family, and she was lucky to have everyone except the great-grandparents able to make it. We had a lovely time and stuffed ourselves on pizza and cake. MMM.

Pizza makes Rollie happy














Tiller with her new pony backpack. Very useful for someone who can't walk yet.














Tiller with cabbage patch kid, Alanis.














Trick or treating? I don't know.


















The whole clan.













Every girl needs a Gap jean jacket.














Birthday girl feeds Daddy cake.














One lucky granddaughter with two Papaws.

Some People Deserve to Die

Not long ago, I posted on Atlanta Metblogs about my feelings on the death penalty. As expected, I was pretty much ripped to shreds for my belief that people should pay with their life for certain violent crimes. One commenter made a point that our justice system shouldn't be in the business of vengeance. At the time, I thought he was crazy, that it wasn't about vengeance, that it was about putting out of commission a threat to society, much like we put down a rabid dog that has bitten someone.

After the events of this morning, with the shooting in the Amish school, I really think that maybe the guy is partially right. Maybe the death penalty is also about vengeance. And you know what? I am okay with that.

I am really glad that the gunman took his own life. Good riddance. But I sympathize with anyone who loses a loved one in the manner that people lost loved ones today, precious innocent children like the ones sleeping upstairs in my house this minute, and who is denied the satisfaction of seeing the perpetrator die a horrible, slow painful-beyond-belief death.

Call me vengeful. Call me whatever you want. The world is better off without people like that man, and I don't think it is wrong to want him wiped off the face of the earth like the worthless waste of oxygen he is.