Questionwork, An Interview With Elizabeth Alley

I was able to sit down for an interview recently with Elizabeth Alley, creator of the 2007 Memphis in May poster honoring Spain, and mastermind behind the blogs Sketchwork and Listwork, for the continued series Get To Know Your Blogger. We met at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, CA, for lunch, where the temperamental artist had a crustless open-face pimiento cheese sandwich, three-minute egg, kale, and one Old Fashioned after another throughout the afternoon. She ordered for me from her regular waiter, Henri, yet allowed me only half a cup of decaffeinated coffee with two Splenda, a baked Cornish game hen breast, kale, and two pieces of rye toast which she had brought with her and produced from her purse. I was told beforehand never to make eye contact with her or her plate of food. As we dined and talked, she greeted and spoke with friends, the likes of Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, Alan Alda, Dianne Wiest as well as fellow painters Tony Bennett and C. Thomas Howell, who, it turns out, was there actually painting the walls of one of the other dining rooms and had wandered in looking for the restroom. He was quickly escorted out by security. As the lunch came to an end and Henri limped over (I was told that he was missing half a hip, the victim of a land mine in Afghanistan, though I never would have asked. “French Foreign Legion?” I said, “No, he was just lost,” she answered with an apathetic, too-loud laugh) with yet another Old Fashioned, we opened our laptops facing each other like a game of Battleship and began the instant message interview.

Urf!: Are you ready?
EA: hit me!
Urf!: Here we go ... I’ve been an admirer of your work for some time now and there is one question, when I’m seeing one of your sketches or paintings for the first time, that always springs to mind, so I’d like to just go ahead and get this one out of the way: Who do you think would have won in a bare-knuckle fistfight, Katharine Hepburn or Audrey Hepburn?
EA: You'd be surprised how often people ask me that. Most people expect me to say Katharine Hepburn, because she was one tough broad and had knuckles like Brazil nuts. But Audrey - well she was scrappy.
Urf!: Do you model your own scrappiness off of Miss Hepburn?
EA: Like most short, petite women with dark hair, yes I do.
Urf!: When did you first notice you were sketching?
EA: Probably the first time I got in trouble for it in school.
Urf!: Which art school was that?
EA: It wasn't art school - it was grade school! It was the man keeping me down!
Urf!: I see. Have you ever etched a sketch?
EA: I used to have a 3-D etch-a-sketch. I made sculptures with it.
Urf!: Just like Matisse. Interesting. Is there any particular subject that interests you when you’re sketching? I know your paintings are typically taken from photographs of people like your older brother, but your sketches seem to come from every day life. Is there anything you look for to sketch?
EA: Sometimes I look at something and I wonder what it will feel like to sketch it. Or my hands just want to sketch - like Mom's hands just want to hold some cards. Sometimes I want to sketch and I look around and find something, but I can't always find something interesting - like if I'm in Germantown.
Urf!: Your mother has a gambling problem? Is she an addict?
EA: Not at all. She can stop any time she wants to.
Urf!: What do you sketch on or in? A sketchbook? Spiral notebook? Post-Its?
EA: I carry a sketchbook with me everywhere I go. It's small - a 3.5" x 5.5" Moleskine - so that I can always fit it in a purse. I have been known to sketch on the last page of my legal pad during meetings at work - shhhhh don't tell anybody.
Urf!: So you have no compunction about moles dying for your art?
EA: None whatsoever. What can I say - they work well with pencil.
Urf!: Have you ever found yourself without a sketchbook and sketched on, say, a cocktail napkin or matchbook?
EA: Pretty much daily. For instance if I'm doing something like talking - 9 times out of 10 I will grab something to draw on so that people will understand what I'm saying.
Urf!: You mentioned pencils. Wood or plastic?
EA: Plastic?
Urf!: Some pencils are made with plastic … You're Googling that, aren't you?
EA: I actually do use plastic pencils - mechanical pencils - a lot, but not really for sketching. More for making lists.
Urf!: You make lists?
EA: Boy, do I.
Urf!: We'll come back to that. What do you do for gainful employment?
EA: Direct public art.
Urf!: Is that like direct mail?
EA: Only if I'm mailing something.
Urf!: Do you have a family? Husband? Kids? Nieces or nephews?
EA: A giant one. Yes. No. Four, almost five.
Urf!: Tell me your thoughts on the Memphis art community. Is there one? Is it close-knit and supportive?
EA: There is a wonderful arts community and it is close-knit and supportive when it is not whiny and divisive - and usually it isn't. There is a lot of interesting art being made here and being shown here.
Urf!: Let's get back to blogs for a moment. What was your first reaction to Urf!?
EA: Probably "hahahahahahhahahha."
Urf!: Where did you go to kindergarten?
EA: Richland Elementary for a couple of weeks, then Shady Grove Road Elementary.
Urf!: Who is your favorite artist? Your biggest influence?
EA: I'm going to say John Singer Sargent. Usually I don't say that, but I'm going to say that this time. He could just paint like a son-of-a-bitch.
Urf!: Favorite sculptor?
EA: No such thing. Kidding! I like Giacometti. And Rodin - I went to his house! He's probably my favorite.
Urf!: Was he a gracious host?
EA: Very gracious for a dead guy.
Urf!: Who is your favorite architect?
EA: Probably somebody boxy like Mies van der Rohe, or whoever designed these.
Urf!: Who is your favorite author?
EA: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Urf!: What music do you like to listen to while you paint or sketch? Any particular artist?
EA: Depends on what I'm working on. While I was working on the Memphis in May poster I must have listened to Miles Davis's "Sketches of Spain" about a bazillion times. Right now I'm working on some paintings that I have titled "Extraordinary Machine" after a Fiona Apple song, so I'm listening to a lot of Fiona Apple. I also like to just turn on the iTunes on shuffle.
Urf!: I found a YouTube the other day of Fiona Apple and Elvis Costello doing "I Want You" live. She seemed very angry about it.
EA: awesome. she has a funny video with a comedian - it's a serious song but the comedian is very funny - i'll see if i can find it.
Urf!: When did you decide that Spain would be the Memphis In May honored country?
EA: here it is. I guess it was after I finished the six paintings that make up the poster. I just stood back and looked at them and thought, "That looks like a Memphis in May poster honoring Spain."
Urf!: Are you wearing something orange today?
EA: I am. But seriously I just like orange and happened to pick up my orange jacket. It was an accident.

Urf!: I’d like to wrap this interview up with the 10 questions made famous on "Inside The Actor's Studio," which James Lipton borrowed from the French series "Bouillon de Culture," hosted by Bernard Pivot. What is your favorite word?
EA: easy
Urf!: What is your least favorite word?
EA: infarction
Urf!: What turns you on?
EA: good grammar
Urf!: What turns you off?
EA: public spitting
Urf!: What is your favorite curse word?
EA: craptastic
Urf!: What sound or noise do you love?
EA: a lawnmower in the distance
Urf!: What sound or noise do you hate?
EA: TV whine
Urf!: What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt?
EA: professional organizer
Urf!: What profession would you least like to do?
EA: garage attendant
Urf!: If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive?
EA: "Good, you're here. Leonardo is looking forward to meeting you."

Urf!: Okay, I think we’re done here. Are there any questions you'd like to ask me?
EA: Who would YOU pick in a Hepburn on Hepburn bare-knuckle fistfight?
Urf!: Kate. No question.
EA: Sucker.

Me

It begins innocently enough. You're instant messaging with one of your most inquisitive blogger friends and the next thing you know it's turned into a formal Q&A. This is what happened just the other day between StephChockleyblog of One of Each and me. I am, by nature, a private person. There isn't much about me on Urf!, as it's mostly about The Quartet or parenting in general or the futile attempt to be funny. Talking about myself, my day-to-day, my dreams makes me feel exposed, vulnerable, naked, if you will. But I decided to allow it all to be put out there anyway. So, at the urging of Mr. Chockleyblog and Kristy, I got naked for Stephanie and she endured like a trooper. Be sure to visit One of Each to get to know your blogger.

[And stay tuned right here at Urf! for my interview with Elizabeth Alley of Sketchwork and Listwork in the ongoing series Get To Know Your Blogger.]

Too Fast Forward

Tonight, as a family, we watched It’s A Wonderful Life, except it was called Click. This is a funny and heartwarming movie about a guy who misses all the good stuff in his life thanks to Christopher Walken. When he realizes it, he’s allowed to go back and do it all over. It’s like a 107-minute video for “The Cat’s In The Cradle,” with The Fonz.

I can’t believe I’m reviewing a year-old movie, but it was actually pretty entertaining and, mixed in with the adolescent humor, simulated dog sex and science fiction, was a message. Our society is busy. Somewhere among work and school and planned activities and meetings and phone calls and E-mail, we need to just stop and watch each other. I need to watch my kids grow, learning to crawl and then walk, talk and become little people. We should stop to sit with our friends and ask them how their day was or how their kids are doing, and keep in touch with family members scattered across the country.

Adam Sandler, of all people, shows us that when we race through our lives to get to what we think is important, we miss the small things, the truly important moments that make up life itself. His days speed up into weeks and months and, before he knows it, he’s skipped entire years of his loved one’s lives until, in the end, he’s dying and he feels alone, even with his family close around him. In this last scene it’s night, dark, and rain is falling, mixing in with his tears, and what we take from this is that life is too short, whether we have a special remote control to speed things up or whether we’re simply not paying attention.

Well, we take that from this last scene, and we take the urge to find whoever put all that make-up on Kate Beckinsale’s flawless face, making her look 40 years older, and punch that SOB in his stupid throat.

Rolling

When I was a mere boy, I was promised three things in the world I would eventually inherit: flying cars, jet packs and shoes with wheels in them. Maybe I wasn’t promised that last one, but I really, really wanted something like that. Yet I never got them. Neither do I have a flying car or a jet pack. My kid, however, has the shoes with wheels in them. Heelys, they’re called. And they have become the bane of my existence.

C loves these things. So much, in fact, that they are currently his sole choice of shoe. The wheel pops out with the help of a special tool that is very easy to lose and very easy for his sister to take away from him, and lose. The fighting and screeching and whining that ensue from the tool being lost is only part of the problem. Another problem is that C is not the most … um … graceful boy. He falls down for no apparent reason on two normal shoes while standing still in the living room. So you put a pair of wheeled shoes on him and the likelihood of injury grows proportionally. Then there is the fact that they’re even worn in the house, on our hardwood floors. When he’s just walking normally, and not rolling through all 1200 sq. ft. we’re crammed into, it sounds like he’s tap dancing. It’s like living with an awkward, clumsy Mr. Bojangles. I’ve fantasized that these shoes might “accidentally” break, but C actually saved up his own money to buy them, so it seems wrong, somehow, for me to “accidentally” drive over them with the Volvo wagon. I’ve thought of simply banning them from the inside of the house, which is what the Memphis Zoo did recently. The Memphis Zoo, that wide-open space with miles of asphalt walkways, has banned shoes with wheels. The one place it actually makes sense for these kids to roll, and the first place I even saw a pair of these, has outlawed the shoes with wheels. So why can’t I?

I have to wonder, though, if part of my dislike for this conveyance isn’t jealousy. I mean, I dreamed of something like these as a kid, but never got them. And here they are. And I’m a grown man. But, as part of my relentless attention to detail and facts while writing this blog, I researched (Googled) shoes with wheels and I found that they come in adult sizes. Yes, I could have my very own pair of shoes with wheels. I could have my very own broken arm. My very own concussion. But just think of the fun and laughter as C and I race around the zoo, taunting the security that could never hope to catch us with their silly and staid 20th century shoes.

*Vonnegut*

This household lost a family member today with the passing of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I call him family because he has been every bit the influence on Kristy and me and, subsequently, The Quartet, as a mother, father or grandparent. He will be missed with an unspeakable sadness.

In my very early 20s I would sit around with friends, listening to them discuss books and authors. This was before I was a reader. I would sit in the living room Kristy and I shared with another couple, before we were married, as though I were at a tennis match. My head moved back and forth as names and characters and plots were volleyed. One topic that always caught my attention was Vonnegut, specifically the fact that he had several of the same minor characters showing up in different books. My good friend Jim explained it as though our living room area rug was the world of Kurt Vonnegut’s mind, and he was able to take a glass (here, Jim took a glass) and put it over any random spot on the rug and write about what was happening under that glass at that instant. And that intrigued me enough to borrow one of his books, I think it was Cat’s Cradle. And from that moment on I was a reader. Kurt Vonnegut taught me to read.

Much will be said upon his passing regarding his politics, but I never read his novels for their political statements. I don’t really care what his political leaning was. As far as I can tell his beliefs were rooted in his abhorrence of violence and bewilderment by the absurdity of human nature, both perfectly logical tenets to me. I simply enjoyed his stories and characters, he entertained me endlessly and still does. And this is why I read anyway.

I have a vivid memory of my mother lying on the couch crying when John Lennon was killed. Lennon’s life and career were cut short, while Vonnegut lived a long and full life, but his death has had the same effect on me. My children didn’t witness my own silent mourning when I got the news, but this evening at bedtime, instead of reading them Curious George or Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus, I read them “Harrison Bergeron” from Welcome To The Monkey House. I explained to them that one of Mommy and Daddy’s favorite writers had died today, and S, to make sense of it all, and in a way I’m sure Mr. Vonnegut would have found oddly pleasing, said, “Like Jesus on Easter?” Just like that, I told her. The story, of course, is about how beautiful life can be when people trapped in a world of mediocrity think and act for themselves. I picked the story quite by accident, but it couldn’t be more fitting to describe the man. In our world of 24-hour “entertainment news,” shock talk on the airwaves, overpaid sports stars and narcissistic weblogs, we have been privileged with the work of a man who was a true original. God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut.

Cause and Effect, Slapping, and Ibrahim

One of the earliest forms of communication I’ve had with my kids is by making silly noises with my mouth. At a certain point they’ll imitate these noises and then we’re off, discussing I-don’t-know-what, though I’m fairly certain they do. Some of this is so inane that it isn’t even dialogue, but more cause and effect, such as when I puff out one cheek with air and encourage the kid to smack it, producing a raspberry noise from my mouth. They get a big kick out of this. It teaches them that their actions have funny consequences, and how to slap me.

Interlude: When we were young, my mother’s threat to my siblings and me in times of frustration was that she was going to “slap your ugly face.” She never once slapped our ugly faces, a testament to her restraint, for there were certainly times when my ugly face deserved slapping.

Silly noises may not seem the best way to introduce toddlers to the wonder of the spoken language, but just look at your audience. It’s a baby. What’s sillier than a baby with their snaggle-toothed grin, drool, fat-rolled legs and barely-controlled limbs and bowels. They’re lucky anybody’s talking to them at all, much less making lip farts at them and allowing them to slap you. Incidentally, babies slapping you is funny, but you slapping babies is not funny at all. Not funny unless they know how to fill up a cheek with air and then release it at the point of impact. Be sure to teach your children the importance of timing in comedy.

Another way to introduce your babies to the wonder of the spoken language is through Spanish because, really, what is a foreign language other than a bunch of silly noises? Tonight, GK and I were listening to Ibrahim Ferrer sing his wonderful ballads of Cuba or, as those of us speaking English in this house heard, his silly noises. GK was mesmerized, just as I am when I hear Signor Ferrer sing, and her eyes opened wide, she tilted her head to the side as she does when she’s happy, and then she smacked me. Right on the cheek. And I stuck my tongue out and spit at her and she laughed and laughed. And there we were having a conversation, something about political persecution on communist-controlled islands, I believe, which doesn’t seem as funny when read in black-and-white.

Interlude: I was in New Orleans with Uncle Toby for my industry’s annual convention in the summer of 2005, just two weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit, when we heard that Ibrahim Ferrer had passed away. Just after that we heard his mellifluous voice over a transistor radio in a tiny little store we’d stopped in for a couple of bottles of beer. And then we had a moment of silence. Actually, I had a weekend of silence, and do you know why? Because my kids weren’t there. It turns out that once they become intrigued by the spoken word, and once they’ve mastered it, or learned some of it anyway, they never stop practicing. They just talk and talk and talk … one silly sound after another.

A very recent conversation between GK and myself:

GK: Ooh.
Me: Ooh.
GK: Ah.
Me: Ah.
GK: Eeeeee.
Me: Eeeeee
GK: Phhhhtttt
Me: HAHAHAHAHA (guess you had to be there)
GK: Mamamamama
Me: Dadadadadada
GK: Oooh.
Me: Oooh.

Wire-less

I’m currently reading Thunderstruck by Erik Larson, a book that details the development of the wireless transmission of information and data. This all took place in the late 1800s, early 1900s, by men such as Marconi, Tesla and Hertz. Here in 2007, I’m having trouble with the wireless transmission of the interweb from my desk four feet away. Thank you, Comcast, for everything you’ve done to void any progress of the last 100+ years. Idiots.

The Snore Of The Penguins

I realize this post comes late. I know that I’m behind on my pop culture and what is being declared cute and popular at any given moment by People Magazine or The Oprah, but there’s something I just don’t get and I have to get it off my chest because it’s been bugging the hell out of me for some time now. That thing is penguins. Seriously? Penguins? I can suspend belief enough to watch an animated Disney film about talking mice or cats or dogs; a Warner Brothers cartoon about homicidal coyotes, talking rabbits and singing ducks; even a Pixar movie about sociable toys or talking fish; but penguins? Birds are filthy creatures to begin with what with their pecking and their constant scratching and pooping wherever they may be standing or sitting at the moment. But penguins aren’t even like real birds with their fake little flipper wings and that stupid waddling. My kids just received Happy Feet on DVD from the Easter Bunny (cute, huggable anthropomorphic bunny), which is what brings all of this on. This is one unwatchable cartoon. And what could make a film about dancing penguins worse? Other than Robin Williams? R&B music. God help me, I hate the R&B, and I’m beginning to hate penguins, and I know that tonight’s viewing was just one of many, many viewings to come. Some time back I rented that other penguin movie, La Marche de l’empereur, thinking the kids might get a kick out of it. I had heard nothing but good about it, too, and looked forward to it. The kids stayed in the room for the first six minutes. I managed eight.

Is there something I’m missing? Are these animals actually cute and I just don’t see it, or has Disney or whoever, run out of animals and pixies and evil stepmothers and whatnot? I know this penguin picture is for the kids, and they seem to enjoy it. And I’m sure it brings a smile to Al Gore’s face and a small tear to his eye, so that’s nice for him. But I just don’t get it. All I can do is gaze in wonder at their skinny faces and pointy beaks, their stumpy, flightless wings and that inane waddle and wonder what The Saucier could do with a penguin, a few pounds of charcoal and the element of surprise.

See You On The Radio

The thought of my daughters dating, even speaking to boys other than their brothers, gives me pains in my chest that run down to my toes. I’ve known since the instant the ultrasound technician said, “Look at the size of that head!” followed by “It’s a girl!” that no man would ever be good enough to go to a movie, dinner, or walk down the aisle with S or GK. But I changed my mind this morning. I came to the realization that there is one man who, if he came to my house in his sensible and safe car to pick up one of my daughters for a night out of dinner in a well-lit restaurant, a PG-13 movie or better, returning her home by 9:30, that that man would be Charles Osgood.

His bow-tied, bespectacled persona would be invited in for a cup of tea and warm handshake as he looked around, admiring and complimenting my home and my handsome wife, and taking one of my daughters by the elbow as he escorted her out to open the door of that sensible and safe car for her. I’ll wave them away as they begin their short evening, yet enduring courtship together.

An arranged marriage? That seems awfully regressive, yet I wish Mr. Osgood (Chuck, as I’m sure I’ll be told to call him) and one of my daughters a long and happy life together with many adopted children to fill up their home. You are all cordially invited to my house, bought for me by Chuck and some of that CBS Sunday Morning money, for the inevitable engagement party.

Anger Mismanagement

Kristy and I are at the end of our rope. And at the other end of that rope is a 200-lb. tiger referred to here as S. At four-years-old, this little girl has become the axis of evil in our home. She torments her older brothers and her younger sister and cannot be persuaded not to. We’ve tried everything. Everything legal, that is.

As I’ve stated here before, it’s not always fun and games over here at Urf!. Occasionally reality creeps in and the cast gets, well, angry with each other. And right now, this past week, our house has been one giant ball of angry. JP is angry at S. S is angry with C. C is angry at S. S is also angry with JP and me. I’m angry with every kid in my house and Big Mama is angry with all of us, except GK. So, stay away from our house as we might be contagious. Everyone at Urf! needs a time-out, the problem being almost everyone shares a bedroom in our 1200 sq. ft. castle. Most of the time we share one room. We could sentence everyone to a separate room of the house but anger, and its subsequent yelling, penetrates walls.

There are things that exacerbate the tension and the anger in the house as well: C has wheels in his shoes and is dressed like a king, JP throws things when upset, S is immune to punishment, GK requires being held all day and night long, no one can get away from anyone else, there is still no doorknob on S’s door, and there is a near-constant hum of noise emanating from these kids to lend a sort of soundtrack to their perpetual movement. They do all of this on minimal sleep and food, which really defies scientific reasoning. You’d think being this angry would require rest and sustenance, but I fear they feed off of something else. Television, most likely.

I hate to point fingers, but it’s just so easy in this case. S is the nuclear reactor in the family and she’s melting down, and I’m not sure we know how to contain her. So I’m putting this question out there to parents with more experience: How do you discipline a child who is impervious to discipline, who laughs at your threats, who is not overly-sentimental to any particular toy, which we could threaten to do away with? And we’re still looking at legal options, let’s remember that. Tazering, caging, gaff-taping, that’s all in the back of my mind, but let’s just keep it civil for now (or at least E-mail me directly with any of your ideas … let’s keep it out of the public comments, and possible courts).

Perhaps this is a good place to remind you that Urf! is not, nor does it claim to be, an expert in child rearing. You should always consult your doctor or a book or a daytime talk show host before making any serious parenting decisions. Urf! does, however, seem to know a bit about shouting, door slamming, throwing things, threats and revenge, so if you have any questions on those topics, please direct them to us here, in our asylum.

My Boys

I suppose it was inevitable that all this talk about having kids would eventually lead to talk of not having any. Any more, anyway. I have a conundrum for my boys out there who I know are reading. I’ve been researching vasectomies lately, meaning I’ve gone to Wikipedia (which has some links to things that made even me blush) and was shown to a link about the No-Scalpel Vasectomy, which had my complete attention. Now, to me No Scalpel means just that: no knife cutting on the parts I hold dear. But this site states “ … a fine pair of instruments is used to create an opening in the scrotum.” But what it doesn’t tell us is what they mean by “a fine pair of instruments.” In fact, I can’t find that anywhere and that, above all else, is what I would like to know. What I need to know. Is it nail clippers? An awl? Ballpoint pen? Or is it some sort of musical instrument, a trombone perhaps? Has anyone out there had one of these? And lived to tell about it? The other problem with that piece of information is that they call it “an opening.” Not a cut, not an incision. “Opening” conjures up images of a rip or tear to me.

Kristy and I have discussed it and we feel very fortunate with our four healthy kids and see no reason to push our luck. We couldn’t afford a fifth anyway, so it would have to be raised by C, living under his bed in his room, fed whatever C could scrounge from the dinner table. So I’ve been online, looking at information, and I found that Kristy will have to go with me to sign a form saying it’s okay for me to get a vasectomy. The list of things around this house that I am not allowed to do is staggering, and growing every day, so I would hope that the one area of my life where I have total and complete control would be over my very own scrotum. But apparently not. I have to get permission from the wife. Kristy will have to give her consent for an opening to be made in my bag by an unspecified instrument, something she’s threatened to do herself many times, yet here we are about to pay to have it done by a professional found on the internet.

If any of you know what the No-Scalpel method is all about then please share. Meanwhile, we’ll be making the appointments, signing off on the carnage and asking a lot of questions. Question number one: Can I bring my own fine instrument? Question number two: Can that instrument be a scalpel?

[The picture of JP up there has nothing whatsoever to do with a vasectomy, this is just how he was dressed when I got home from work and I like the picture.]

Happy Birthday, Little Sister

Today is my little sister’s birthday and I just found out that she’s 30, which seems much too old for a little sister, especially this one. Katherine, as far as I’m concerned, will always be 10-years-old, with wild hair and chubby cheeks, looking up at me with what can only be described as wonder and awe. Unless you want to describe it as fear and disgust. It seems I had a habit of tormenting her as a child. Nothing violent, mind you, just subtle things I would do to disturb her otherwise peaceful times with her Barbie Dream House or her Care Bears. There is the distinct possibility that I am responsible for at least some of her neuroses, but I prefer to think those are someone else’s fault, though I’m not sure whose.

I remember when she was born and how exciting it was to have another little sister in the house and the first baby I would remember. I was six-years-old when she showed up and her chunkiness then was no end of amusement. She was a good kid. She moved to Florida with our parents and grew up with lots of friends on the white sand beaches of the Gulf Coast into a smart, beautiful, fun-loving young woman. She married a good man and, this year, will become a mother for the first time to her very own daughter. We’re all very excited and couldn’t be more proud of her. Katherine’s first 29 years have been exemplary, except the thing with the teeth when she was a kid … and the thumbs, of course.

I miss being around her on a regular basis, but we do stay in near-constant communication, keeping tabs on each other’s lives. She’s a wonderful aunt to The Quartet, a good daughter, and great sister to her three brothers and one sister. I look forward to her next 30, watching her family grow and seeing how she handles the next phase of her life, which I’m sure she’ll do with as much laughter, care and compulsiveness as she does everything else.

Happy birthday, Katherine. I love you.

12 Months of Urf!

Urf! is one-year-old today. March 31, 2006, I wrote the first post Urf! as an experiment to see if writing a blog was something I would want to do, something I would actually keep up with. Twelve months, 243 posts and 17,447 hits later, I can safely say, “Eh, we’ll see.”

Truly, though, it’s been a hoot, and to celebrate, I decided to take Urf! out to dinner and discuss the past year. We went for steak because Urf! looooves steak, rare, and doesn’t give a second thought to spending lots of someone else’s money. After a drink at the bar, an appetizer, more drinks, the main course and still more drinks, this is how the interview went:

Me: So, how has your first year on the internet been?
Urf!: Not bad.
Me: But not great?
Urf!: Don’t push me, man.
Me: Why don’t you tell me what your favorite post has been.
Urf!: I’m not sure it’s been any particular post, as they are all wildly entertaining, but I must say that June of last year is certainly a highlight. That was followed up by July, of course, which is also brilliant.
Me: There were only three kids when Urf! began, The Trio, but shortly after that GK came along, turning them into The Quartet. How did this affect you and your work?
Urf!: Wait, there are four?
Me: Of course.
Urf!: Oookay.
Me: So it didn’t affect the flow of the writing? The themes? The comedic bent?
Urf!: I think you’ve been reading a different blog. Comedy? You know, I’m unwittingly attached to all these other blogs - Dining With Monkeys, Sassy Molassy, S.A.M. – maybe it’s one of these you’re thinking of?
Me: No, I don’t think so. http://uurrff.blogspot.com. That’s you.
Urf!: That’s the dumbest URL I’ve ever seen.
Me: Nevertheless, it is you.
Urf!: Oookay.
Me: Which is your favorite kid?
Urf!: Eddie Corbett.
Me: Eddie Corbett? I … I don’t believe he’s written about in the blog.
Urf!: What blog? I thought we were talking about television.
Me: We weren’t talking about television.
Urf!: But you’re always talking about television. And Pop-Tarts. And farts and old music and all your friends with all their blogs shouting, “Look at me, look at me!”
Me: I think you’ve had too much to drink.
Urf!: #%@&^% you.
Me: Thank you for your time. Have a happy second year.
Urf!: You’re getting the check, right?

On the drive home after dinner, Urf! became confused, perhaps due to the amount of scotch ingested, got lost and ended up at the wrong house where it crept into bed with a 47-year-old auto mechanic named Lloyd, originally from Baton Rouge. Urf! returned home the next morning, beaten and bloodied, but welcomed by The Quartet with one Pop-Tart, two fart jokes and three hours worth of television viewing. Everyone had a good laugh. Happy Birthday, Urf!

[A heartfelt thanks to everyone who reads regularly. --RJA]

Happy Birthday, My Brother

Happy birthday to my little brother, David. He turns 14 today. Fourteen-years-old, can you believe it? Twenty-two years younger than I. I know one person who can’t believe it, our mother. If I’m dealing with a newborn at the age she was in 1993, then I’ll be dealing with that newborn during visiting hours at the asylum. But she and Steve have done a wonderful job. David is a good kid, good son and a great dancer. I hear he plays football and video games with all the gusto his age requires as well. I wish I could be with him today, but he’s way down in the swamps of south Florida, so I’ll sing Happy Birthday to him from here in my aged, gravely voice, with the accompaniment of The Quartet. That should have him, as the kids are prone to write these days, LOL.

1981

While digging around one of our closets this evening, I happened upon a treasure trove of something that defies explanation, but certainly deserves one, though I have none. I felt like a paleontologist who found a dinosaur bone where one oughtn’t be. I found cassettes. Cassettes of music from another era. The Quartet gazed on in wonder at these little plastic rectangles with their thin ribbons of sound winding throughout. I found an actual Walkman, too, which was like a piece of iLuggage to these kids of the 21st Century. And they laughed, my did they laugh at their Daddy washing the dishes, dancing around the kitchen to "The One Thing" like it was 1982 again and I'd just finished watching KITT whip some ass on a brand new show called Knight Rider.

This post isn’t for grandparents, or my parents, or anyone born before that sweet spot of 1968-1972, which would have put you of age to listen to music, to really hear what it was all about, just as it was all going into the toilet. That’s right, I’m talking about 1981 and the birth of MTV. Now some of you will argue that the 70s and Disco was when it began going downhill, and to those people I say, “Get your own blog.” And in deference to my peers, I’m going to build this post in a way that makes it easier for us to digest, in the style of our cinema of quick takes, MTV jumps and our literature of sound bites, I’m going to make a list. This is a list of the cassette tapes I found in my closet. It’s partly for you to gaze on and, possibly, laugh at, but mostly for my attorneys to have a record of in years to come as they settle my estate. The Quartet will one day fight over these and I’m going to let them because I won’t be around at that point to hear any of it. But you can all have fun with that, too. So put on your acid washed jeans and Vans, gel up your hair on one side only, and take a walk down memory lane with me. I’m not saying I’m proud of any of it, but here it is, a slice of the 1980s – early 90s for you:

(List does not include mix tapes. Oh, the mix tapes I found.)

• Matthew Sweet “Girlfriend”
• Melissa Etheridge “Brave and Crazy”
• U2 “The Unforgettable Fire”; “Wide Awake In America”
• Sinead O’Connor “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got”
• 10,000 Maniacs “The Wishing Chair”; “In My Tribe”; “Our Time In Eden”
• INXS “Shabooh Shoobah”; “Listen Like Thieves”
• Freedy Johnston “This Perfect World”
• Paul Simon “Rhythm Of The Saints”
• Arrested Development “3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days In The Life Of … “
• Live “Throwing Copper”
• The Black Crowes “Shake Your Money Maker”; “Southern Harmony And Musical Companion”
• Various Artists “Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack ‘The Big Chill’”
• Tracy Chapman “Tracy Chapman”
• Judge Crater “Hope”; “ghost dance”
• Camper Van Beethoven “Key Lime Pie”
• Edie Brickell & New Bohemians “Shooting Rubber Bands At The Stars” ; “Picture Perfect Morning”
• Lou Reed “New York”
• Indigo Girls “Indigo Girls”; “Swamp Ophelia”
• REM “Monster”
• Gin Blossoms “New Miserable Experience”
• Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet “The Juliet Letters”
• Elvis Costello "The Best Of Elvis Costello"
  
• Annie Lenox “Diva”
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers “Into The Great Wide Open”
• Tin Machine “Tin Machine”
• Two Faces “Herve’s Fantasy Box”
• Michael Penn “March”

My Very Own Trio

I ran three miles today. This may not seem like a big deal to you hardcore runners out there, and it shouldn’t be to me considering I used to run that distance four or five times a week with a longer six-miler on the weekend. But almost a year ago I had back surgery and had stopped running several months prior to that, so it’s been almost a year and a half since I’ve done any kind of running. I spent that time, instead, smoking cigars. Two weeks ago I’d finally had enough and was ready to face my fear: that running might hurt so badly that I would have to admit to myself that I could never do it again. That hasn’t been the case. Just the opposite, in fact, as I feel better than I have in a long, long time. I started up again slowly, by walking, then running a mile, then two and today was my first three, which is a milestone for me. I’ve got my eye on a couple of 5ks coming up and am thinking about the St. Jude Half Marathon at the end of this year, but it’s still way too early to talk about that.

I know this isn’t much, a three-mile run. It’s not like I’m Lance Armstrong (though I’d rather have more disk taken out than, you know, what he had to let go) or Prefontaine, but maybe, if I keep working, I can be that 80-year-old man I see coming out of the gym every morning on the way to work. Thanks to sheer determination, the 18 ibuprofen tablets I chew every day, and realizing I was going to need to do something to give me the edge against The Quartet and their energy, I’m back running … for now.

The Future's So Bright

I know I’ve mentioned this in previous posts, but I just can’t get over how much C looks like I did at his age. He and I just took a long walk together, just the two of us, which was really nice, but I just kept looking at him as though I were watching myself walking around Chickasaw Gardens. He’s a smart boy with a long life ahead of him full of choices to make and paths to decide on. It won’t be easy, but for now, at this moment, that is one good-looking kid.

What To Do?

Here's the situation: We just ate dinner and Kristy took GK to the grocery store, leaving me nominally in charge of the other three kids. Today's temperature took a noticeably downward turn producing a slight chill in the air, yet our bedroom windows are still open from the glorious spring-like weather we've been experiencing the last week or so, and I'm in bed with the covers pulled up, keeping tabs on what's happening out there in blogville. I'm very comfortable, with a belly full of food, comforter up to my chin and warm glow off the monitor of the Apple G4 keeping me company.

My dilemma comes with the statement I just heard from the living room. S said, to whom I'm not sure, "Let's get lotioned up." I know what you're thinking, I'm thinking the same thing. Now, do I get out of bed to find out what's going on, or do I trust that they're not in there getting into too much mischief? And by "mischief" I mean "any activity which will get me into trouble when Big Mama returns." I could shout at them, sure, and ask what's going on, but there is a high probability that I will be ignored or, if answered, will get only a feckless "Nothing!" Remember, I'm very comfortable where I am.

I'm leaning towards just letting them get on with the lotioning up. What's the worse that could happen? Improbably soft skin? A lack of chafing among the children? The aroma of coconut wafting through the house? I'll find out soon enough what's up, I'm sure, when one or all of them comes slipping and sliding into my room to tell me to call Mom at the store because we are somehow out of lotion.

S is for Splinter

S got a splinter yesterday. A big, wicked splinter in her right index finger. After much crying and arguing last night, Kristy was unable to extract the offending matter. Unable, in fact, to get near the digit. When I arrived home from work this evening, S showed me her finger with the splinter still in it, not so much upset about it as proud. Like some sort of tiny, wooden badge of honor underneath her skin. And then I made what was perhaps a poor parenting decision when I instructed her to go to the cigar box where I dump all my pocket things at the end of each day and bring me my knife and lighter and then bring the bourbon, the cheap bourbon. And she did it. She brought my pocket knife and Zippo to me, but no bourbon, we’re not a bourbon-drinking family. She brought these things to me, handing them over with all the trust of a 4-year-old, and asked what I was going to do with them. “The lighter is to sterilize the blade, and then I’m going to take your finger off at that knuckle right there, just below the splinter.” She ran away from me. I was only joking, of course, but I’m worried now that the little shard may be with her for quite some time. In my defense, I never claimed to be a doctor of any sort to these kids. I’m just a guy with a knife and the sense of humor to use it.

Why Did It Have To Be Snakes?

At some point the lessons I pass on to The Quartet are going to have to become more substantive. So far it’s mainly been music, books and movies. I know there are other things out there that they need to know but I’m just waiting for Hollywood or Oprah to tell me what they are.

So far we’ve covered the Marx Brothers, Superman, Spiderman, The Godfather, The Cohen Brothers, Star Wars, Warner Brothers cartoons, The Lord of the Rings, 1950s film noir, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Coltrane, Miles Davis, Monk, Billie Holiday, Elvis Costello, Jack Johnson, Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Van Halen, Django Reinhardt, Chet Baker, Oscar Peterson, Brubeck, The Stax Museum of American Soul, R.E.M., U2, Scott Fitzgerald, Salinger, Michael Chabon, Dickens, Max Perkins, Paul Auster, Hemingway, crossword puzzles and the New Yorker magazine, among many, many others.

Last night it was time to introduce the kids to Indiana Jones, so with the help of Uncle Toby and his vault of DVDs, we watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. Such a great movie. The Quartet agrees:

“C, what did you think of Indiana Jones?”
“It’s cool.”
There you go.

Mush

Did you ever have the feeling that you forgot something? I had that feeling yesterday as I left work, knowing there was something I meant to do but had forgotten, and began immediately planning on being angry with myself when I did finally remember. Well, I remembered about seven this morning. I had meant to grind some coffee beans at work yesterday and bring them home, so I had no coffee this morning. And then, while watching CBS Sunday Morning through a caffeine-less haze, I was made aware that the Iditarod began yesterday. That’s what I forgot. This was my year to race and it completely escaped me. I was disappointed to discover that even if I was able to afford a plane ticket to Alaska, find a sled and locate 16 dogs, I would be so far behind the field, all of whom began yesterday, that it would just be silly and pointless.

This is all too bad because I had my heart set on spending the week in places like Skwentna, Finger Lake, Nikolai, Anvik, Unalakleet and Safety, on my way from Anchorage to Nome. I knew I should write a note to myself and put it someplace conspicuous. I’m always forgetting things like this. No coffee this morning, no 1,150-mile dogsled race yesterday. Instead I’ll spend my week in such exotic locales as Work, The Bathroom, The Kitchen, The Car, The Schnuck’s and The Bedroom. My team of dogs will consist of four little people, ages 9-months to 9 years, with no sense of direction, a limited dietary regimen and no respect for my peace of mind. The weekly obstacles will consist of diapers, car seat buckles, creditors, zippers, baths and dirty laundry, but the upside is that the temperature should be in the 60s here this week instead of the zero degrees it is in Anchorage as I write this.

The competitors in the Iditarod got lucky this year because I simply forgot, giving them a better than average chance. My attention will now be turned to Le Tour de France for which I will write myself a reminder right now because I know the race begins … sometime … soon.

Father Knows Nothing

There has been a paradigm shift in power over at Castilo Urf! Or, in any perceived power, anyway. There was a time not so long ago, though some days it seems longer than others, when I had some time to myself. Not a lot, mind you, but a couple of hours here and there. Saturday night was my night. Dadurday, it would later be called, though too late, as the free time was gone by then. Dadurday consisted of the few hours between me closing the store and my family returning from the in-laws’ house way out east. It was a time I could spend doing things that I wanted to do, but usually just sitting quietly and reading, though there was the occasional movie or dinner with people. Just a little quality time with myself so I could regroup after a long week. But then something crazy happened and the in-laws moved to Midtown, thus ending the great Dadurday experiment.

Recently, other things have started happening. Kristy now goes to the gym at least two nights a week, leaving me alone with the kids. Then last night she went out for drinks with friends, leaving me with The Quartet and the friend’s kid. When I woke up this morning, I fixed breakfast for the family and our friends and, as I was cleaning up, Kristy left to run a 5k. It was all very gradual and subtle, but I’m beginning to sense that the revolution has begun.

I’ve never really considered myself in power at home because, well, I’m not. Never have been. In fact, I’m somewhere at the bottom of the chain of command most days. Oh, sure, I huff and puff and throw things around and growl, but that’s about all I’ve got. I’m all bark. And I’ve certainly never considered myself the stereotypical 1950s father. Nor have I considered myself the stereotypical 1950s housewife, either, until lately. But here I am in my high heels and pearls, doing laundry and dishes, changing diapers, and getting the kids ready for school or feeding them TV dinners while Ward is out for an evening with the girls! The kids are running around the house like wild animals, stepping on each other and throwing our decorative accent pieces at the wall, and all I can say is, “Wait until your mother gets home!” My ironing isn’t done, JP’s trousers still need to be darned and the cake has fallen, and I don’t know when she’ll be home because Larry Tate needs her to stay late and work on a deadline or entertain clients.

Bitter? No, I’m not bitter. I’m tired. And these heels are pinching my toes. I don’t begrudge Big Mama her moments away, we all need to get away from time to time. We need to get away from our jobs and customers or bosses and, as bad as it may sound, sometimes we need time away from our family. Not a lot of time, but just enough to get our heads right, have a drink alone or shop for a new apron at Macy’s.

What's In A Name?

This morning, on the way to school, The Quartet and I were discussing what everyone would be called if not by their original names. JP said: I don't want anybody to call me Ooa (oo-uh) anymore.

Me: Does somebody at school call you Ooa?
JP: No.
Me: Does anyone call you Ooa?
JP: No.

Why We Bother

I feel like I need to expand on my earlier post, Why Bother?, written a week ago and only hours after my business had been broken into, and perhaps answer my own question. Why bother, I wondered, to live in a city with an increasing crime rate and leaders who are impotent to fight it? Why bother to work six days a week for eight years to build a business only to have some piece of crap break into it and take what he likes? Why bother to live within the law when so many seem to have no respect whatsoever for it? These are the questions I had that early morning on only a few hours of sleep. And most of this is still a dilemma for me, let me make that clear. However, since that day, some of those questions have been answered for me. They’ve been answered by friends and family who live in this city, or have lived here. Some of them have been victims of crime recently and are entrepreneurs themselves.

Both S.A.M. and StephChockley, in response to my question, waxed more eloquently than I can on why it is we live where we live. They touched on friends more than anything, friends who have become family. Their posts meant more than many of you realize because they have both been victims of crime recently as well, one in her family’s home and one a victim of armed robbery at her place of business. Yet they are able to see past this all to recount the good in this city and her people. I should take a page from their book, or blog, if these are pages, and look for the positives in my fellow Memphians. But it’s difficult for me. It’s difficult because this was my fifth break-in, because of the garbage I witness harassing the good people downtown every day and because the newspapers are full of the irresponsibility, incompetence and egos of the leaders of our city. But this is where we are. This is where I grew up, bought a business and am raising four children. If I were to suggest to Big Mama tonight that we pack up the kids and our favorite books into the Volvo 740 turbo wagon and move away from here, she would do it, such is her disdain for the city, but we both know that’s not possible. We’re entrenched here … for now. And as long as we’re entrenched, we’re lucky to be so with some really good people, true friends and family.

My other question had to do with owning a small business. Why bother? I heard from an old friend living in Oklahoma who reminded me that she reads about the four reasons why I do the work I do on this very blog all the time. And there’s truth in that. One of the reasons I wanted to own my own business, to be my own boss, was to show my kids that it was possible. That they could make their own way, just as my father-in-law and step-father had shown me. I’m not sure how good a job I’m doing of teaching them, but as long as they don’t have access to the books yet then I’m still the king. When something happens like a break-in, however, I keep it from them because they don’t need to know that things they see on the news or in television shows is happening to their father. And just the fact that some stranger has affected me in such a way that is out of my control, and that I have to keep it from my kids, makes me angry.

Other friends have stepped up, too. One has a blog devoted to the entrepreneurial spirit. He’s a zealot and it is worth a read. S.A.M. owns a couple of businesses, too, and tells me to repeat the word “cubicle” over and over when times become distressing. Even my mother, who called just to talk about the original post – no, wait, she called to talk about The Godfather III – laughed at my considering corporate work, saying I should go to work for Enron.

What stands out to me more than what these people said is that they said it at all, or wrote, or called at all. Friends understood, they sympathized and they empathized. I bother because of all of them. I bother because I owe it to my family to bother. Memphis is our home, we’ve made friends here and we have family here. And this city is ours as much as, if not more, than those who wish to sully it. So we’ll stay here for now with our fellow Memphians and we’ll visit Peabody Park and travel to each others’ houses, we’ll eat pork and go to work and school, and we won’t let the bastards get us down.

Shush! Big Mama's Watching Her Stories

My wife watches two television programs religiously: Heroes and Lost. She’s a big fan of the mystery, the character development and the one-word titles. Tonight Heroes is on and I heard this addressed to The Quartet at 7:59 p.m., “This is my show and anybody who gets on my nerves will be banished from the living room!” I’m not sure how long the banishment lasts, and it’s a somewhat ambiguous threat anyway, so I opted to just stay safely out of there. I would suggest the kids do the same, but I’m not going back in there until nine o’clock.

Un Sacchetto Grande di Crap

There are very few givens in this life. Some of them, however, are the love of a mother, bad things happen in threes, you should always double down on an eleven and The Godfather is the greatest movie ever made. Last weekend, GK and I settled in to watch the marathon that is The Godfather II, which is as exquisite as its predecessor is magnificent, and it gave me the opportunity to teach her that, above all else, you never - ever - go fishing with Al Neri. I have The Trilogy on DVD and some weeks ago we sat up and watched The Godfather. Tonight, we watched The Godfather III and I have to say something that I haven’t admitted to myself up until this night. I’ve seen this movie dozens of times and, as it turns out, it is a big bag of crap. I’ve been in denial over this since it came out because, I believe, I wanted it to be good. It’s Coppola, it’s Puzo, it’s Pacino. How could it be bad? And I’m not saying it’s bad for the one reason most people say it’s bad: Sofia Coppola. She’s bad, but the first choice for Mary Corleone was Madonna. Now that would be bad. And the mere presence on screen of Diane Keaton makes me want to wretch more than the smell of the microwave popcorn GK insisted on eating. So it’s not just one actor that makes this film a big bag of crap, it’s the fact that they tried to remake the original in many ways. And failed miserably. The one saving grace is the way Andy Garcia portrays Vincent Mancini and his rise to power, his transformation into a leader, which was handled adeptly, though a hazy reflection of One. It’s the same thing we saw with a young Michael Corleone in the original, and yet, not. And the whole cast spends time in Sicily, just as Robert DeNiro’s young Vito did in Two, and yet, not. My brother-in-law and I have argued this movie for years, nearly coming to blows (and yet, not) over whether it holds water against the first two, and I’m here tonight to admit that he is right, Three’s water is putrid toilet bowl water. He’s rarely wrong, and this is why he’s my consigliere. My Tom Hagan, though, and not my … whoever the hell George Hamilton played.

I feel somewhat bad for letting GK watch the film tonight. Not for the violence or language or any of that, but because she’s older than she was a few weeks ago when we watched The Godfather, and older than last week when we watched The Godfather II. So I’m afraid this is the only one she’ll remember, and she’ll remember the Corleone family story as being a big bag of crap. It should be okay, though, because another given is that I will be watching the first two films again, probably very soon.

Why Bother?

I believe nature abhors a vacuum but loves irony. I think I have that right. I get a kick out of irony, I know that, whether in fiction or real life. But I don’t care so much for it when it kicks me in the solar plexus. Such is the case tonight, or this morning, whichever it is now. Fresh on the heels of the previous post, Robbin’ & Stealin’, wherein I poke fun at S and a friend’s daughter for stealing things, my business was broken into. Again. This makes five times in roughly seven years. I haven’t written much about what I do, but I own a small retail business in downtown Memphis. I’m sitting here, having spent two hours boarding up a window, picking up merchandise and sweeping up glass. And all I can do now is sit and type and wonder Why Bother? Why try to keep a small business going when there are animals out there? And that’s what they are – animals – a class of citizens in this city that wanders around and simply takes what they like with no regard at all for anyone else. They are no better than a pack of wild, roving animals and should be treated as such. Why bother trying to raise a family in a city that is increasingly becoming a cesspool of crime? Why bother being an entrepreneur at all? Why not work for a corporation and let all of this be someone else’s problem? Let them try to find money in the budget for a new 8-foot window.

Perhaps I’m just tired. I’ve got a full day now, once I go back home to get The Quartet dressed, fed and out the door for school, of cleaning, securing and buying glass. Or perhaps I’m just tired of everything.

Robbin' & Stealin'

After school and work today, Kristy took The Quartet over to some friends’ house (people without blogs, how weird are they?) to play with their kids. It seems that while there, S took a liking to a Sacagawea dollar coin she came across and pocketed it. When Kristy discovered this upon returning home, she took the opportunity to make the distinction between right and wrong to S. This is how she did it: “When we’re at a friends’ house and you see something you like, that doesn’t mean you can just take it. How would you like it if when Miss M came over to your house she just took something of yours that she liked?”

It is a lesson that needs to be taught, and the earlier the better. Stealing is wrong and an egregious invasion of someone else’s personal space. It is disrespectful and impolitic. The coin will be returned to her friend and the point has been made. But now I need my point made. I’m glad this came up tonight, not just to curtail my child’s possible life of crime, but because it finally put out in the open the fact that Miss M has been stealing from me for years. Now, I know S.A.M. just hit the ceiling, or at least sat up straighter in a fit of Nordic anger, but this has to be said. I keep a jar next to the door that I throw loose change into. Occasionally I will take this change to the Kroger to color it up into bills and buy necessities like milk, Ovaltine, Pop-Tarts and new toothbrushes. But Miss M helps herself to this change, her tiny three-year-old hands digging deep for the higher denominations. And it isn’t just change, but cookies (lots of cookies), toys, a TV remote, some tools, a John Coltrane CD, one potted plant, a brand new toothbrush and a handful of Cuban Bolivar coronas. Now, I don’t know if Andria or The Admiral are the ringleaders of this little Gypsy operation, but hopefully this will put an end to it all.

The Sacagawea coin is going back to its rightful owner and S learned her lesson about stealing. Or at least about getting caught, which is another lesson that needs to be learned because if she and Miss M have designs on teaming up then they’ll need some instruction from a master. Someone like Jiro who, I believe, has absconded with my Reservoir Dogs DVD, though I can’t prove that. Yet.

Talking Points

Allow me to pummel the dead horse that is JP’s behavioral issues. I’ve written extensively on the conduct grading system at school: the Es, Ss, Ns and Us, from best to worst. We’ve seen them all with JP and, frankly, we’ve gotten used to the Ss (Satisfactory). Take today, for instance. He came home with yet another S and when I asked him what it was for he said, “Talking in the hall.” Now, The Quartet’s propensity for talk is woven into their DNA, and asking them not to talk would be like asking them not to be short or tall, or telling them not to have brown hair or blond, or not to watch TV. So we’ve become used to the fact that he’s going to talk, and his teachers may need to get used to that fact, too.

When he was younger (he’s five now), he was quiet. For a short period of time between when he started talking and when he started talking a lot, he was a quiet boy. Just like me, he was an observer. But then he reached a certain age, or height or temperature or whatever, and he began talking and babbling and whoop!ing, and he hasn’t let up. Apparently he doesn’t let up in school either and that is what has attributed to this torrent of daily letters. I wish I could tell you what it is he talks about but I’ve become adept at blocking out the voices until I hear, “Ow! My head … !” or “The baby … and … duct tape from the ceiling fan … to the fuse box!” Other than that I’m pretty sure it’s all talk of Scooby-Doo, Pop-Tarts, fart jokes and something or other they need from their mother. And it’s all. the. time.

I shouldn’t joke, I know that. Just as there are children in China without Brussels sprouts, there are kids in China who can’t speak English. So my kids need to make sure to eat enough for all the hungry kids of the world, and to speak enough English for all those who can’t, or won’t, or just care enough about their fathers to give them a little bit of quiet every now and then.

Around The House

A few images from around the house this past week.














S and me dancing in the kitchen.















C working on his Dizzy Gillespie report at my desk. He worked on this for a week, though he missed the deadline due to a fake illness and a real illness. This project caused so much stress in this house that I never thought I'd be so sick of hearing about Dizzy.















JP wearing a cape and eating some pizza.



















GK's favorite thing is to be held and for the person doing the holding to be standing up, so that's what she and I are doing here.

Sans Monkeys

Three months ago Kristy and I went out with our friends and without any children. We just got around to doing it again last night because it takes that long to plan one of these outings. We all have to coordinate sitters during weekend nights when no one else has plans, or is out of town, or has to work, and it all becomes a really big headache. You start to wonder if it’s even worth it. But it was. It was because there were no children. And that’s really why we have children, to get away from the children. The children Kristy and I left last night happened to be sick, too. At least two of them were. Yet we went anyway because that’s the kind of commitment we have to getting away from our kids.

As of late afternoon Friday the plan was to eat sushi out east, but with a flurry of last-minute E-mails this was changed to Midtown Northern Italian at our favorite restaurant, Bari. Phone calls yesterday confirmed that Bari was booked, so other plans were hastily arranged by people other than me, and we ended up at Marena’s for some Exquisite Dining (it says so on their menu). We all met up early for a drink at Fresh Slices, which has no bar to speak of and I’d like to apologize now to the couple trying to eat their dinner seated at the two-top so close to where we were all huddled up with our beers. We walked down to Marena’s and found two delightful little Mediterranean decorated rooms, dim lighting, and service that was so bad it became laughable. Laughable for seven of the eight of us anyway. We talked a bit about the kids we left behind and laughed at their expense because that’s another reason we have kids (incidentally, the third reason to have kids is so you have someone to take over the crime syndicate some day, because you should never trust anyone outside the family). Other conversation revolved around how electric cars, Ed Begley Jr. and Al Gore could save this very planet, college fundraising, religion or the lack of, the tastiness of baby animals, booze, weddings and other nuggets that will never make it into this blog.

Despite the last-minute scrambling for a location and the truly bad service, it was a wonderful evening full of good food, wine, talk and friends. I’m looking forward to sometime in May when we can possibly do this again. We really should start thinking about it now, though, so we can get that ball rolling five hours before we’re to meet.

I'm Too Busy To Write This Post

What is the most boring topic to read about on someone’s blog? Why the author believes everyone should vote for Barack Obama in November … of next year.

What is the second most boring topic to read about on someone’s blog? Anything at all to do with Anna Nicole Smith.

Okay, but what would be the third thing? Why the author of that blog hasn’t been posting lately. And that’s what I’m doing tonight. I’m writing the third most boring blog entry.

I’ve been working on another writing project lately and it’s sapping my energy. When I sit down at my desk to write, I know I can either work on Urf! or I can work on the other thing. And lately the other thing has been consuming me. How much energy could it take to write a blog post you ask? Well, not much, really. Hardly any. It took more energy, in fact, to come up with the excuse. And I wasn’t even going to tell you the excuse but then I got a very nice E-mail from Cousin P in D.C. who writes to say he reads this very blog and enjoys it. Hey, Cousin P!

So I’m writing this for him. And for the other two of you who read this to let you know I’m still here, just busy with other stuff. Urf! is still around and The Quartet is doing well. We’re plodding along through February and thinking of warm weather so we can get out and stretch our legs and separate from each other for a bit. Or for two bits; we’re really on each others’ nerves.

Please keep reading and keep in contact and maybe, just maybe, I’ll tell you one day what that other project is. (Hint: It’s not the Tesla coil. Not yet, anyway.)

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life

This post is about movies, television and one night of peace. Tonight marks a milestone in Team Urf!’s social evolution. Tonight was the inaugural flight of Midtown Movie Night, where two families with five kids would attempt the unthinkable. We gathered at Casa de S.A.M. for a feast from Fresh Slices, homemade ice cream and a showing of Minnesota native Andria’s own Garrison Keillor in A Prarie Home Companion. And it went off without a hitch. Really. We made it through the entire movie and heard almost all of the dialogue, finishing with a good grasp of the plot if not of why so many people would star in a public radio variety program. Keep in mind, too, that this is a Robert Altman film, a man who, before his death, had carte blanche to make a nine hour film if he felt like it. I questioned the choice of movie, not because I didn’t want to see it, but because I knew it would be dialogue-heavy, and who would have thought that we’d be able to hear anything being said with all these … well, with Miss M and S in the house? I thought, perhaps, a Jason Statham film would make more sense, something where the only thing that had to be understood was whose ass was getting kicked at any given moment. But I was proven wrong, and because of that I want to thank The Quartet and Miss M for being quiet. That’s all, just being quiet for a couple of hours so adults could sit, stare at the television and laugh with each other. When you have kids, it’s the little things you have to be grateful for.

In other television news, I’d like to announce C’s sudden appreciation, thanks to PBS, of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Have you ever watched a nine-year-old laughing at 38-year-old British comedy? It is truly something to behold.

Watch Your Step

There are only two girls I dance with now. My girls. I have a boozy memory of dancing with my wife at my sister’s wedding five years ago. And then I’m pretty sure we slow danced more recently, but I think that’s where The GK Surprise came from. She has tried, begged, in recent years to get me to take swing dance lessons with her, something I assure all of you will never happen. I used to dance in high school until I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and that was the end of that. This was around 1986 or ‘87, so you can just imagine. So now my dancing is limited to my daughters, in our kitchen, which I did tonight while Kristy was at the gym. These girls don’t care that I have no rhythm or three left feet or one leg that is partially numb below the knee. All they know is that the music is loud and their daddy is bouncing around like an idiot. Or, on the slower tunes, moving imperceptibly from side to side like an idiot.

I have no doubt that when my daughters pass the age of 42 and elope to get married, saving me loads of money, that I will dance with them when they get back to celebrate their nuptials and the money they have saved me. But should any of you happen by our house before then and peek in the kitchen window to find me in the middle of an epileptic seizure (fast dancing), or doing some sort of mentally impaired box step (slow dancing), then please don’t laugh, I’m only trying to impress my daughters while I still have the chance.

And because everyone loves music and a good list, here is what we danced to this evening. Make your own mix tape if you like and join us from wherever you are:

Watch Your Step Elvis Costello
The ‘In’ Crowd Ramsey Lewis
Pale Blue Eyes The Velvet Underground
Less Than Zero Elvis Costello
Sabotage Beastie Boys
Star Dust Hoagy Carmichael
Rock And Roll The Velvet Underground
Alison Elvis Costello
Sing It Way Down Low Hoagy Carmichael

Be Bop

Charlie Parker played Be Bop.
Charlie Parker played saxaphone.
The music sounded like Be Bop.
Never leave your cat alone.

A couple of nights ago I was reading to the kids at bedtime and one of them had chosen one of our old favorites, Charlie Parker Played Be Bop by Chris Raschka. It’s a delightful little book about Bird (though they don’t even refer to him as “Bird” which you would think would be perfect for a children’s book. No mention of heroin use, either) and the sound he helped create. The kids were refreshingly excited about Parker and Be Bop. So much so that I told them that I would play them a Parker CD the next night. This drove them into a frenzy, which is just what I was looking for at bedtime. The next night they actually reminded me about the CD. I pulled out Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie - Diz ‘N Bird at Carnegie Hall. C knows of Dizzy from The Cosby Show, of all places, from his guest appearance on that show some 15 years before C was even born. I cued it up to “Confirmation,” which then went into “Koko,” both Parker compositions and two great performances. The kids made it through the first few bars before leaving the room for the safety and familiarity of the television and all it has to offer. My work here is not even close to done.

Be Bop.
Fisk, fisk.
Lollipop.
Boomba, boomba.
Bus stop.
Zznnzznn.
Boppitty, bippitty, bop.
Bang!

Soulsville U.S.A.

Let me say this to you: Every school age child in Memphis should be taken on a field trip to the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. I went for the first time this morning, with C, to see the Milt Hinton photography exhibit that I wrote about last November. This was the last weekend it will be showing, so, of course, it was now or never. I was really just there to see the photographs, but the whole tour begins with a 20-minute video on the history of Stax that takes you through the birth of the “Memphis sound” and, briefly, race relations and really puts our city’s modern history into perspective. It is a wonderfully produced piece that makes the whole trip worthwhile.

We somewhat hurried through much of the museum to get to the Hinton photos, which were at the end of the tour, but C did enjoy Albert King’s purple guitar, Ike Turner’s Fender, seeing what must have seemed like a prehistoric reel-to-reel recorder, and Isaac Hayes’s stack boots and custom Cadillac. The photos were just as promised, candid shots of some of the best jazz artists of the time, of any time. Hinton was not only a chronicler of the iconic jazz figures he worked with and befriended but also, during tours of the South, the Jim Crow signs seen everywhere. He and his colleagues found them fascinating and funny, in an absurd way, I suppose, since they were mostly northerners and hadn’t come into contact with this silly way of life. C asked me about a part in the film where Steve Cropper spoke emotionally about Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and how it changed, not just the city and country, but Stax itself. He asked if Dr. King was in one of the bands. So, the Stax Museum, at College and McLemore became the place for me to explain to C how things used to be, how if we were living back in the 1950s and 60s, that his two best friends, J and T, wouldn’t be his two best friends. They wouldn’t go to school together and they probably wouldn’t have come over to spend the night as they did last weekend. He said he understood, though it must be a difficult concept for someone only nine-years-old in 2007 to grasp, as it should be. By looking at black-and-white photos of Dizzy Gillespie, Gene Krupa, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and that heart-breaking image of Billie Holliday, hopefully, C learned more than just who it is playing those tunes in Daddy’s stereo, but also what an insane world we live in, though there are people out there who work to make it better. Music, today, became the catalyst for understanding human nature, and that was a totally unexpected turn of events for the morning.

C’s comprehension of facts and situations is becoming finely tuned. He is eager to learn and asks a lot of questions. This was made apparent on the drive home when he said to me, “How long ago did Louis Armstrong walk on the Moon?” And, instead of snickering at him, I explained that Louis Armstrong didn’t walk on the Moon, but in 1969 he won the Tour de France seven times.

Driving To Distraction

I’ve been prepared for the fact that The Quartet’s roads would diverge at some point in their lives and they would each take their separate paths to glory. I expected it to come in their teenage and young adult years, however, with their choices of friends, music, jobs and other interests. I didn’t expect it to be so apparent so soon. Like tonight. C and JP have been on the same road – same parents, same house, same routine, same basic life – but C has decided to get in the HOV lane and break some speeding laws while JP moved to the shoulder so he could get out and tinkle on a daffodil.

I know this is wrong to talk about. I know some of you parents are cringing right now, wondering how I could possibly compare my children to each other (in public, that is, I know you all do it). This is what I’m thinking about, though, and this is what Urf! is all about. Understand first that my love for these kids is as unconditional as it comes, and that before I would allow anything bad to happen to them, I’d give up my left foot, and it’s the only one I can still feel! But tonight, I came home from work to find a package from one of C’s teachers containing his CLUE evaluation. CLUE is the advanced program he’s in at school and his evaluation was glowing. There was also a self-evaluation where C answered questions honestly concerning his interests, what he hoped to achieve and even his shortcomings. Then there was a book he brought home with information on the Memphis City School’s Optional Program and on the cover is a photo of C himself. Later in the evening he completed a Sudoku puzzle in the paper and helped me solve their chess quiz. JP, bless his heart as my mom would say, ate some pizza, bathed and dressed himself for bed. All good things. All necessary activities. We still haven’t sat him down to discuss the ‘U’ in conduct he received the other day at school, or why the homework he completed the night before didn’t find its way to school, but there is time for that. He’ll be with us for quite a while, I’m afraid.

Again, this is the wrong way to look at the situation, I understand, but this is what I faced tonight and I just wanted to put it out there. I know all parents of multiples go through this. I know it must have been difficult for my own parents watching my siblings straining to keep up with me as I swerved into that left-hand lane and they lost me in the horizon, but it doesn’t mean they loved them any less. JP will catch up to C, I’m certain of that. He’ll have to, JP will be the only mechanic C will be able to trust with his Bentley by then.

[Incidentally, on that road they were traveling down tonight, S would have been taking out pedestrians with her front bumper and GK pooped in my car.]

Just Me and JP

I'm always thinking about what I need to teach The Quartet, what experiences I should share with them and what I'm responsible for exposing them to. Naturally, this leads to my concern for ventures we haven't yet undertaken. And then there are nights like last night, when I'm reminded ever so sweetly of an activity. I settled in to read books at bedtime last night, the three older kids each get to pick a book, and JP picked Just Me and My Dad. This is one of the "Critter" books and involves the spiky little protagonist going camping with just his dad. JP said he picked it because "you said once that we could go camping sometime." Which we haven't done. We haven't done that among so many other things, though he wasn't complaining in the least. JP just wanted me to know that he is still looking forward to it and waiting, patiently, for that camping trip.

Deal Me In

When does it all get easier with these kids? When I ask this rhetorical question, I’m not talking about the basics of raising them, educating them, feeding and bathing them, and the like. I’m talking about poker. I found myself at Stacey’s Friday night with Warren and Andria, their kids, and JP and S in tow. After a lovely spaghetti dinner whipped up by Warren, an impromptu poker game broke out. None of the other adults had cash, which was one problem, so we were playing for “fun,” but there was still the whole problem of the kids wanting, or demanding, our attention, which is distracting enough in its own right, but much more so when you’re working on a full house (I don’t think I worked on a full house the entire evening, but you get the idea).

So last night we were invited to Andria’s for chili and we actually planned on playing poker. Everyone even brought cash, which was a good start, but we also brought our kids and that's where the problem lies, because the children were unruly, all seven of them. They ran around, spilled water and popcorn, demanded apples and more popcorn, hit each other, threw things, and all the other activities that we really should expect by now. But there was poker going on, or trying to go on. Some things should be sacred. I recall all of my aunts and uncles, parents, grandparents and great-grandparents playing poker into the wee hours of the night when we were children. Were my cousins and I better behaved? More easily distracted by the three television channels we had in 1979? Or were our parents just better at ignoring us?

My dream, of course, is to teach The Quartet to play so they can take their friends' money and then I, in turn, can win it from them. To do this, though, they’re all going to have to calm down and watch and learn. Either that or the adults all need to work on their poker faces, which includes ignoring whatever mayhem is going on in the other room.

The Drive To Drink

Childhood tends to be remembered as a menagerie of cars and houses, and mine was no different. When I was a kid, we went through several different cars. We had a Ford Grenada, a Ford Pinto, an MG Spitfire, a Porsche 914, Buick Regal, a Renault, a Camaro and a Cadillac. We drove everywhere in these cars, from Memphis to the Gulf Coast and Chicago, to Pickwick and Sardis, countless trips to my grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ houses, to Montesi’s, Central Hardware, downtown to take my father to work and to the liquor store. My dad went to the liquor store a lot, though we kids had to stay in the car while he ran in. I never knew what went on behind the doors of the liquor store. In my mind there were naked women dancing around. Seriously. That’s what was taboo in my prepubescent head – nudity. It couldn’t simply be that there was booze in there, because there was booze everywhere. It was also the 70s and must have been safer to leave your two or three kids in the car with the windows down while you ran in for a bottle of scotch or rum or gin.

Tonight, on the way home from work, I had one of The Quartet with me and needed to stop by the liquor store for a bottle of wine. I debated with myself the whole way there as to whether or not he should come in with me. I didn’t see any reason why not, but something told me he shouldn’t, not because I think a liquor store is some sort of den of iniquity, but simply because I wasn’t allowed to at his age so neither should he. I silently talked to myself the whole way there about the situation, shaking my head and shrugging just the way my mother does, and finally decided, as I pulled into the parking lot, that he should stay in the car. I have no good reason for that. More reason, in fact, for him to come in with me, what with all the crazies out there eyeing my 1991 Volvo 740 wagon. The car could easily be taken with one of The Quartet in it. I really questioned my decision when I got out of the car and was immediately panhandled by one of our quaint, Midtown denizens. But I’d parked right in front of the store, had locked the doors and could see the car the whole time from the Pinot Noir display and the front counter.

So the trip ended safely and neither the car nor the kid were stolen. The kid barely escaped a visit to Gomorrah and I was left with a nice bottle of wine and the nagging disappointment, as an adult, that there are no naked girls dancing behind the door of a liquor store.

C & Me

We can’t time travel, obviously. Yet. But how fascinating would it be to watch yourself grow up? How cool to be able to manipulate your Younger Self at crucial times? To be able to change things just in the nick of time to make your life or personality go this way or that? Witnessing myself grow up is what I’m doing now as I watch C age and become a young person with hopes and dreams and, unfortunately, fears. He looks like me, he acts like me, he thinks like me. What worries me, naturally, is that he worries like me. From time to time he becomes anxious at night, around bedtime, for no real reason. At least not one he can give voice to. He tried last night, saying it was a story from a book of short stories I read to him and JP which was, admittedly, too scary for bedtime. I didn’t realize where the story was going until it was too late. He said it scared him, which it probably did, though he somewhat overreacted. I knew it wasn’t the story. I knew it was just what happens to him sometimes in the night. Kristy can’t understand it because being anxious is foreign to her, but I remember just what it was like to be C’s age and have that feeling in my gut. That feeling that you can’t explain, can’t rationalize, because it just is. What I can’t remember is what would have made it better at that age. I’m trying. I’m going through my childhood like a biographer, recalling nights when I’d lie awake thinking about school or worrying about nuclear war (it was the ‘70s) or killer bees in Mexico headed for the U.S., or some other thing I couldn’t control. The more I think about it, though, the more I think that there is nothing anyone could have said or done to chase the anxiety away. I know my mother tried. And I know Kristy has tried. And I believe I should be able to do more than try because he is me.

We’ve talked about it before and I told him that I understand exactly what he’s going through even if no one else seems to. I told him that I went through it all myself and I tried to make him understand that everything turns out just fine and that with all the sleepless nights I had worrying that there was a test at school I’d forgotten about or that someone was going to come into our house to do us harm (I know it’s morbid, I’m not saying it was pretty, but does anyone remember Leslie Gattas? She was taken from, and hidden in, my childhood neighborhood.), that despite all of that, I’m still here. Not only am I here but I have a wonderful, happy family as well, and none of the good that has happened is because I was up worrying all night.

I began writing this earlier in the evening then stopped for dinner and family duties. At bedtime, when I was reading to the kids, S became upset for no reason and wanted her mother, so I took her in and put her in our bed with Kristy and GK. Then C came out of his room, upset again with no explanation. I took him back to his room, he got in bed and I sat with him. After a bit, I told him we were going to try it again and that he should just close his eyes, take deep breaths and try to relax until he fell asleep. Maybe none of this can be rationalized and all he needs is to be sat with for a few extra minutes, to be reassured that family is close. Perhaps that’s all I ever needed. I know for sure I got that.

Characters

The first sentence of my next novel:

"I'm in bacon heaven," JP said to The Admiral that rainy Sunday morning.

Always Teaching

Conversation with JP last night regarding the 'S' in conduct he brought home from school.

Me: Why did you get an S?
JP: Acting bad in Spanish.
Me: What did you do?
JP: We were acting crazy.
Me: Loco.
JP: What?
Me: Loco. It's how you say 'crazy' in Spanish.
JP: Oh.

Mousetrap

Allow me to give you a glimpse into an evening at Castilo Urf!. This evening I played the game Mousetrap with three of The Quartet. I haven't played Mousetrap probably since I was C's age, about 27 years ago, but he just got it for his birthday so it is currently the game of the hour. I don't think it's changed much since I was a boy, though my version may have been made of metal and asbestos instead of the safer, rounded plastics of today.

One does not need to be an architect or engineer to build the structure in Mousetrap, which is good because not one of my kids is even close to it. They're closer, in fact, to the vermin that are the game's namesake. I'm mean, you say? Uncaring? Cruel, even? Perhaps. But you didn't just spend an hour watching the blind lead the blind through an activity geared towards "Ages two and up."

Other highlights of the evening included a very inappropriate episode of How I Met Your Mother that we let the kids watch, and me recalling the album Dead Letter Office, which I do not currently own, by R.E.M., which led to a rendition of "King of the Road" by Kristy and me. GK threw up what Kristy called "real puke" all over her pajamas and JP spontaneously combusted every time he added a piece to the trap with "I'm a genius!" I don't recall Mousetrap being such a noisy game when Elizabeth, Katherine and I played as kids. But then, I also don't recall sitting around with my parents watching sitcoms about teenagers losing their virginity, or having them sing really bad versions of Roger Miller tunes either, thankfully.

So this was an evening in my home, and it's only Monday. Come by tomorrow night when we may play Battleship, and possibly with real explosives, if we can figure out where JP, the genius, hid them.

[Thanks to S.A.M. for the use of her old computer while my Apple is in for service. This isn't an Apple. I think it may be Texas Instruments. In fact, I may be attempting to post this on the interweb right now using an oversized calculator. Nevertheless, I appreciate the loaner. Grazie!]

Rotten Apple

I write what you read here on an Apple iBook G4, and she's acting very sketchy the past two days so I'm taking her out to the Apple Store to see what they might know. However, if they elect to keep her, to go in for some sort of invasive process, then you may not hear from me for anywhere from a couple of days to several weeks, such is the nature of the "Genius" Bar.

I'll be back as soon as possible. Wish me luck.

A Trivial Pursuit

I have a good friend who attends Trivia Night at the P&H Cafe every Tuesday. She's been trying to get me to go for some time, but with all these kids I'm not allowed to have fun very busy with other priorities. But this morning, as she told me about last night's bout and how her team fared, I realized that I travel everywhere with my own team of six. So I'm considering entering Team Urf! on an upcoming Tuesday. Here are the categories we'll truly dominate in, should these categories even exist:

• Literature
• The Simpsons
• Dictators of the World
• Bacon
• Armchair sailing
• Poop

The entry fee may still be a sticking point, though. This blog currently makes no money whatsoever for this family and we're a little strapped after Christmas, but I have no worries that we will dominate in our fields and, thus, the entire tournament. The winnings should cover the entry fee, most of Kristy's draft beer consumption and The Quartet's affinity for quarter pool and shots.

So let this be a warning to all of you trivia buffs out there. Team Urf! is on the way - we're knowledgeable, hungry and Kristy, at least, is very, very thirsty.

2007

Happy New Year from Big Mama and Me!