Eyeore Express

Sunday we went to the train show. I couldn't stand to upload all of the photos to this post so they are here. I will put up captions in just a second. The Lego stuff was very cool. At first you would look and say, "oh that building is Lego." Then, "so is that one, and wait, the train too, ohhhh, the whole thing is lego."

We call it pop where I come from

Tonight after dinner I was throwing together a keg of ginger ale to put on tap, and surprisingly Ellis chose hanging out with his dad over watching Pooh. I did the measuring and Ellis did the stirring with the big long stick. He took this work very seriously:

The procedure is pretty straightforward. Mix up the sugar water, add flavors, put in keg and let the CO2 do its magic. The first taste of the room temperature uncarbonated beverage:

And, an admiring look at dad who finds so many creative ways to make a big mess:

After his taste, Ellis asked me, "Whadya think?" and then declared that he thought it was pretty good.

I hear more and more midwestern folks calling pop by its other name and think this is a sign of the blandification of America. I had a college roommate from Florida my freshman year who was an offish near-animal who never showed me the slightest speck of respect or politeness and was quite clear that he thought Ann Arbor was a backwater full of yokels who were only at school at Michigan because we were residents. Occasionally, he would feign politeness, just to have the opportunity to emphasize the yokelishness he found around him, "Trey, I am going down to get a soda, want me to bring ya a pop?" I did get a free Vernor's off of him occasionally. According to him Vernor's was also a backwater beverage and it was right next to the Pepsi button on the machine in our dorm. Since he spent most of the year so stoned that it took a couple of tries to get a Pepsi, I got all the near misses, probably a case over the eight months. Anyway, call it soda all you want, I will save the syllable, honor Faygo (the only company I know with a Blueberry flavor), and call it pop.

Two Year Olds Are Facists

The title is just an observation. Fortunately, most of them outgrow it before they have the means to do more than throw themselves on the floor and scream.

Its been a while since I have put up a kid post. That doesn't mean there haven't been stories.

Ellis really likes looking at recently taken pictures and talking about the picture. We were cruising through the pics from feeding the birds and I asked him what kind of bird this was. He proclaimed, with tremendous confidence, "Dat's a mouse tit."

Of course, I had to go and look:
Who knew they are in two groups! My insatiable curiosity led me to Wikipedia to discover the origin of the name "titmouse":

"These birds are called "chickadees" (onomatopoeic, derived from their distinctive "chick-a dee dee dee" communication or alarm call) or "titmice" in North America, and just "tits" in the rest of the English speaking world. The name titmouse is attested from the 14th century, composed of the Old English name for the bird, mase (Proto-Germanic *maison, German Meise) and tit, denoting something small. The spelling was influenced by mouse in the 16th century."

Today at pick-up Ellis saw us and raced past his teacher proclaiming, "I'm outta here." And, I better get outta here too if I am going to look up the nipple configuration of every mammal before Rachel makes me go to bed.

Peanuts, Get Your Peanuts

About a decade ago, I went with friends up to Kensington Metropark and learned that in many places around the park, the birds would eat right from your hands. Today it felt like spring, so we headed up there with my cousin's family to see if we would have any luck getting the birds to come down for a snack.

We only got two species to land, chickadees and titmice. The titmice were especially quick in and out. The raw peanuts were far more popular than the sunflower and safflower seeds in the mix. The chickadees would even spit out safflower if they got it by accident and grab a peanut. A larger sample of photos is available here.

The kids never did get into it too much, each of them only taking a try or two. Ellis liked it the most, but couldn't hold still enough without help as you see in the photos. I had hoped to get a nuthatch to land, but they were just a little bit too wary.

I might manage to get a few captions on the various photos over at Picassa tomorrow.

Seems Familiar

After dinner tonight, I headed out with Ellis to a Kroger much like this one, hoping for a sale on Ben & Jerry's and sho'nuff, jackpot. Even though we were only shopping for three pints of ice cream, Ellis spotted the carts like this one that have the car in front for the youngsters and demanded that I transport him thusly to the freezer section.

Normally these carts are threefold harder to maneuver than a regular one and two fold more likely to have a bad wheel. As luck would have it, we got good wheels and with an empty cart maneuvarability was pretty good. Being Saturday at 8 pm, the place was empty enough that we did a few aggressive maneuvers, just to see what was possible. Of course Ellis loved it and was completely off the hook, leaning into turns, making engine noises and turning the steering wheel like a wild man.

So then we come around the the corner into the freezer section and pretty much every shopper in the store, it turns out, is there for ice cream.  Several couples are  meandering down the aisle.  One couple has split up and he is in front of the popsicles yelling at her by the Haagen-Daaz. Of course, this forces us to slow down and work our way through the crowd with this stupid double-length cart. At one point, we are at a standstill, I look down and Ellis, visibly frustrated and "steering" one handed, is leaning out the window and yelling at a stranger to get out of our way. 

I must say this behavior does remind me of one of his grandmothers. I won't say which one, to protect the innocent...and the guilty.