neopolitans

So we went to Florida last week for a vacation rendezvous with our BFF Anne. Beautiful Naples, sunny and 75---which describes both the weather and the general disposition and median age of city residents.

Despite slathering on the sunscreen, we got good and neopolitanned.

Cabana boy.

Sand.

King-sized crib.

Canoe power.

Living the high(rise) life.


Cabana boy, part deux.

Winged beastie at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.

Schwilligs at sunset.

evolution of glee

Images courtesy of Grandpa Foto.

fogelberg is dead; long live loggins

At last, clarity and closure is in sight for everyone who was dragged into the Soft Rock Mortality Debate of Ought-Eight. For those of you who missed the angsty spectacle, I was absolutely sure and prepared to swear on a stack of Bread albums that Kenny Loggins died in 2007. It turns out I arrived at this burning erroneous conviction by not paying strict attention during one of those Grammy award show in memoriam montages.

The soft-rock icon I had in mind is Dan Fogelberg, who died of prostate cancer in December 2007. He must have been the one who was Grammorialized. Distracted by the crunch of potato chips during the Grammys, I half-heard "Fogelberg," which was immediately misfiled in my memory banks as "Loggins"---an amateurish but understandable conflation, I think---by the brain's equivalent of a nebbish, disgruntled, cardigan-wearing file clerk overflowing with bitter resentment at being forced to plod daily through endless, fluorescent-lit mental pathways choked with cognitive clutter in futile hope of finding an archivally accurate home for useless pieces of information that will never ever need to be retrieved. Armed with this dangerous misinformation, I proceeded to spread it around with solemn certainty, which must have put poor Kenny into the danger zone. He was probably struggling to keep his head above ground the whole time. Whatever personal struggles with mortality he may have faced, his career seems to be resuscitating nicely with the release of a new album in 2007. What a relief.

My sincere apologies to everyone involved.

area boy stars in reality show

Exciting news, everyone. Our grand plan to pimp out the boy as a child actor in order to bankroll his *college education* has taken its first tentative steps. We just got the call from his sleazy agent. His future is assured, as is our position as his crazy, controlling, gold-digging parents.

He'll be starring in an edgy new reality series called "Crib of Love." Check out the trailer, and watch for it soon on the Schwillig Network.

flight of the bumbleboy

schwilligco announces new handheld

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA - Minnesota-based personal electronics firm SchwilligCo unveiled the Huckleberry, a new addition to their industry-leading handheld device line, at a press conference on Saturday. With its fully-integrated monotasking functionality, pacification plug-ins, No-Tooth connectivity, and coo/cry notifications, the Huckleberry is touted as a significant advance in personal inefficiency technology.

Photo courtesy of SchwilligCo

According to SchwilligCo CEO and spokesmodel Kelly Billig, "We're extremely pleased and excited about this product launch. We think the Huckleberry's simplicity and ease of interactivity will revolutionize the way people work. We're all overloaded, overscheduled, oversaturated, and multi-tasking as fast as we can. The Huckleberry shows us another way. Plus, it's super cute!"

The Huckleberry is immediately available in limited numbers at licensed SchwilligCo dealers.

SchwilligCo is expected to phase out the current Tula, Dusty, and Flea device lines in the next year.

where the wild things are

(chocolate) chip off the old block

The home/work baton was passed last week, not without a few tears. But let's not dwell on that sad fact. Suffice it to say Papa is now home full time, while Mama sallies forth into the workplace to bring home the bacon.

In an attempt to set the bar impossibly high and blow our homemaking wad right away, we decided on Day 2 of the New Order to make chocolate chip cookies. A double batch, no less, which was a gutsy call considering the baker's shady reputation as a kitchen improviser. And in fact, the recipe was thrown into chaos by the addition of an untried Secret Ingredient at the eleventh hour. Luckily, it all turned out fine in the end (i.e. the cookies were edible).

Kitchen-confidential note to all you M. Stewart wannabes out there: No kitchen professional worth his salt would be caught dead these days without his very own front-loading strap-on sous chef. Handy! And cute!

in like a lamb

area weimaraner conquers matterhorn; jubilant crowds roar in approval

ventral reservation

When tummy time goes bad.

smoke alarm: an unconventional love story

Where there's smoke, there's fire. And passion. And obsession. And squealing.

speaking of tongues

Well. It seems that Mister Smartycheeks has suddenly discovered his tongue. Oooh, and what a slippery organ of joy it is. This is the sort of out-of-control behavior that happens when your mother sticks out her tongue at you in a SHAMELESS DISPLAY OF SASSINESS. Mimicry, people. Copycatting. And that starts with C and that rhymes with T and that stands for tongue.

For more damning evidence, we present Exhibit B. The first half of the film is all fun and games. But, like in any good Godzilla flick, the monster makes a spectacular appearance before the end.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Finn wants everyone to be his Valentine (especially Grandpa Norm and Grandma Mary in Arizona). Here's his special v-day outfit, replete with spit-up stains:


Also yesterday his BabyLegs legwarmers arrived in the mail. Finn the flashdancer is grooving in his skull and crossbones pair:

gleeful in bearsuit, or dogsuit, or whatever eared creature it's supposed to be

that was then. this is now.

Growth

The boy is growing at a terrific rate. Every morning we wake to plumper, more kissable cheeks.

and the belly...it's getting impressive.

ice ice baby

There's no shoein' like snowshoein'.

crabby elf

Hark, the crabby elf bellows. If you listen carefully, you can hear one of his parents sadistically laughing---yes, LAUGHING---at his distress.

Elf in repose, after the blustering storm has passed.

we're still here. how are you?

For today's installment, we offer the following excerpt from my parents' 2007 holiday letter. A perfectly lovely piece of writing from one of my favorite authors. Enjoy. And how are you? How's the family?

An essay by the English author E.M. Forster in a book entitled I Believe expresses his abiding faith in friendship. To convey the feeling of kinship among the friends he admired most, he employed the metaphor of single lights scattered on a dark beach, "reassuring one another, signaling into the night, 'Well, at all events, I'm still here. How are you?'" Our messages back and forth to each other at Christmas are like those lights, blinking out the same message over the years: We're still here. How are you?