Elmo Loves Parties!

"Hahahaha that tickles!"

I took this disturbing photo at the grocery story the other day and I've been struggling ever since with what to say about it.

Let me see if I get this straight: You have a little kid that presumably likes Elmo. You buy your kid this pinata and proceed to hang it from a tree before releasing a throng of kids who take turns beating Elmo with a stick until his insides explode and scatter all over the lawn.

Why am I having trouble with this?

Hmmm...

Not sure if this was meant as a warning about the effects of doing drugs or if it's a command.

Sounds Just Like Home... Except For The Part About The Animals

From the News Center 22 website:

2 goats, 25 chickens seized from apartment

Updated: Tuesday, 17 Jul 2012, 1:26 PM EDT
Published : Tuesday, 17 Jul 2012, 1:26 PM EDT

NEW HAVEN. Conn. (WTNH) - Several goats and 25 chickens were seized from a Fair Haven apartment Tuesday morning.

When officials from the Livable City Initiative arrived at the first floor apartment on Rockhill Road, they say they were met by the tenant, whose feet were covered in feces.

 Inside apartment they found 25 chickens; nine chickens covered in feces in a crate, 11 outside, 1 had been quarantined and 5 were running loose. Officials also found two goats in the woman's bedroom.

Officials called the scene "repulsive."

The landlord said the family had basically been running a farm out of their apartment. They have lived their for 15 years. He says he has started the eviction process.

The tenants on the second floor told officials they could smell the animals as if they were right in front of them.

Today's Video

Time for some music from the late great Carl Wilson...

Post Script

Just a little P.S. regarding my fascinating melon post below...

As scintillating as I knew my post on melon shopping would be, I figured I could blow it right out of the water if I included a snapshot of the actual melon. Not wanting to have mounds of crap show up in the background of the photo, I had to bring the melon outside. I took it over to the partially dismantled fort along with a stand that Jake had left on the picnic table. After setting it up, I proceeded to snap several photos, slightly adjusting the melon after each shot.

Finally satisfied that I had captured the true essence of the melon, I took it off the stand. When I turned around, there was Lawnmower Man at the edge of his property, two houses over- his arms hanging lifelessly by his side like usual. Apparently he had been watching my every move.

I waved to him as I grabbed my camera and headed inside with the melon. He never responded. He never moved. He just watched me, slack-jawed with that forty-watt expression on his face as I headed back into the house.

Man, I wish I had kissed that melon before going back in.

Following the Crowd

I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to buying a melon. When I’m at the grocery store I watch other people go through the ritual, and it’s always the same. And even though I have no idea why they do what they do, I do the same thing every time too.

I walk up to the bin and scan the prey. I pick up a melon, usually the roundest one, and I tap it with my knuckles. I have no idea what this is supposed to tell me but everyone else does it. As far as I’m concerned, as long as my fingers haven't left bowling ball-like impressions in it, that’s good enough and there shouldn't be any reason to continue. But I do.

I turn the melon from side to side, supposedly examining the color, or the texture, or... something. I poke the ends and then I gently squeeze it. As I stand there squeezing it, I tilt my head to the side and squint, staring straight ahead. I try for a thoughtful expression that says I am one with the melon. Finally, I sniff it. Now, I’m pretty sure if it were rotten, I would have known it long before this, but I sniff it anyway. And when I do the only thing I can think of is, Yup, it smells like a melon.

After going through all this I put the melon down, pick up another one and do it all over again. Everyone else does the exact same thing. I have never seen anybody go up to the melon bin, pick up a melon, and leave.

What is the point? Does anyone know why they are doing this? Are we all sheep, blindly following the crowd- afraid to admit we have no idea what’s going on?

In my case, the answer is, “Yes. Absolutely”.

Admitting Defeat

I finally started taking down the fort the other day. It stayed up far longer than it needed to. No one's been in it for years and like so many things around here, if it sits around long enough, it just becomes a place to collect junk.. which it has.

I built this for the kids years ago. We have a pretty tiny yard and the kids were getting a little bigger. Our already small yard felt even smaller. Add to that the fact that our old-hand-me down swing set was getting beyond dilapidated, some might even say it was a hazard, what with all the rust and sharp metal edges (I preferred to think of it as a life lesson), it was time to do something about it.

I had just left my previous job so I used my remaining store discount and bought some lumber and hardware and swings and a slide. I spent a couple of weekends with a borrowed saw and a borrowed set of directions putting this thing together. I have no idea how I stood it up once it was done, but it stood under the shade of our neighbor's maple tree ever since.

When the three older kids were small, it got quite a bit of use. It served as an observatory over neighbors yards and bird nests. And it gave them a bit privacy from time to time- a rare commodity for a large family in a small house. It gave them a bit of control by having a place they could call their own; somewhere where they were in charge.

On a couple of occasions I brought lunch out to them so they could eat it in their spaceship or clubhouse or pirate ship... or whatever it happened to be on that particular day. Like so many things, it was like a touchstone to my past when my mom would fix me a sandwich to eat out in the park on a summer's day. Somehow that lunch tasted more special than when I had the exact same lunch in the school cafeteria.

But the kids got older and it was used less and less. As much as I tried, Sam never took much interest in it. I don't know if it had to do with the height or if it just wasn't his thing- being outside as it was. So it rarely got used in recent years.

Like I said, I left it up much longer than I needed to. A part of me felt like I was leaving the door open for someone or something to return, even though I knew better. It's a little like one of those rabbit traps you make when you're a kid- the kind where you set a carrot underneath a box that's propped up by a stick and the stick has a string around it. When the rabbet comes to eat the carrot, you pull the string and presto, you've trapped a rabbet that is now yours to keep. At least that was always the plan. It never worked for me when I was a kid.

It hasn't worked for me as an adult either.

Today's Video

Rachael shared this with me the other day, now I'm passing it along to you. Take eight minutes and thirteen seconds of your life and enjoy yourself. You deserve it.

Many Happy Returns

In the excitement of being able to use my treasured $2.00 off coupon last night, I inadvertently grabbed the wrong blend of coffee. I grabbed the Dark Roast instead of the Regular. Contrary to expectations, I'm not a Dark Roast kind off guy. Luckily I still had my receipt so I headed back to exchange it today. I figured it would be a breeze. So off I went.

When I walked into the supermarket, there was only one customer at the Courtesy Desk- some bleached out middle-aged woman digging into her purse trying to find her wallet and what turned out to be a wad of scratched off lottery tickets along with half empty packs of cigarettes that kept spilling out of her bag. No big deal, I thought. Then, my heart sank.

Who should be working the Courtesy Desk today but my old nemesis Helpful Tracy! Should I cut and run? No, dammit, be a man. I drove all the way over here. How long could this take? It wasn't like me to be a man, but I decided to take my advice.

I stood back and waited my turn. From what I could tell, the overweight, middle-aged woman seemed to be cashing in her life savings and wisely investing them in more scratch tickets. She handed Tracy the wad of old tickets so Tracy could scan each and every one of them to see if there were any winners. Naturally, it was best to study each ticket individually, front and back, before an attempting to feed it into the machine. After it was determined that the winnings from all of these tickets was an impressive $11, it was time for Blondie to crack open her wallet and augment the winnings with her savings and invest in more scratch tickets. But there were so many different kinds to choose from! Which ones should she buy??? Luckily, Helpful Tracy was there, and while Tracy was the first to admit that she didn't know anything about scratch tickets, she had an opinion on every single one of them!

I stood there, clutching my bag of coffee while this spectacle dragged on. To make the visit even more enjoyable, the customer insisted on scratching off each of the 50 or so tickets she was purchasing right there at the counter. Any "winnings" were then rapidly reinvested in more tickets. This went on until the customer's net balance reached "0".

Once Ms. Snake Eyes finally left, it was my turn. I walked up and set the now sweaty bag of coffee on the counter. "I was in here yesterday", I explained, waving my receipt in front of Tracy. "I grabbed the wrong blend. Can I swap it out for the one I wanted?" Clearly I was speaking some unknown foreign language... and what was this slip of paper I kept waving? Does it have some secret meaning? Is it in code? I explained again. And again. By the fourth time, I was happy that I managed to get both of Tracy's eyes to focus in the same direction, even if they weren't on my receipt. This was progress. We're almost home, I thought. Finally, something clicked and Tracy's face lit up. "Sure!", she said. "Just go grab another bag and bring it right back here!"

By the time I walked the 20 feet to the coffee isle and back, an elderly gentleman was now being waited on. He too was interested in some lottery tickets, but he obviously did not have the kinds of free cash to invest the way Snake Eyes did. He had all the markings of a kid trying to figure out how he was going to maximize his allowance. "How much are those over there? No, not those, the blue ones. No the ones to the left. No, the other way, to the left. Yes! Those there. How much are those? Oh really? That's kind of a lot. I'll take one of those... And those red ones, how much are those? Ok, I'll take two of those. And I'll take two of those gold ones..." On it went until his little fistful of bills were all gone. At least he had the deceny to leave with the tickets and scratch them off somewhere else. I can only assume he left so that no one would be around to hear his sobbing.

With Kenny Rogers out of the picture, it was my turn again. Time to finalize the deal. I stepped up with my new bag of coffee and set it next to my old one still on the counter. Tracy looked up at me. "Can I help you?", she said. Are you kidding me? I was just here. What is your problem? I explained it all over again to Tracy. There was a delay of several seconds when suddenly there was a spark of recognition in her eyes. "Oh yeah, right.", she said, tapping away at her register. "Now, lets see... how do I do this again?" Tap tap tap... "They get mad at me if I don't do this the right way...." Tap tap tap. She made some comment about her husband(!) that I didn't catch, not because it had nothing to do with anything, which it didn't, but rather because I was shocked that this fine specimen had been scooped up and taken out of circulation. Tap tap tap... "I never get this right..." Tap tap tap.

The next several minutes were a flurry of fingers flying over keys and coffee bags being scanned and rescanned... until finally, jackpot!  After twenty five short minutes it was mission accomplished and I was on my way out the door. This was my lucky day!

Maybe I should have gone back in and bought a lottery ticket.