Warning: Dangerous Timewaster Ahead!

Some benighted, bewitched, bothered and bewildered soul has put together the following:

The 50 Most Memorable Sesame Street Moments

Where else, I ask you, could you find video so tailor-made to glue my siblings -- and quite possibly my parents -- to their monitors, helpless with laughter?

Enjoy, y'all. And if you watch 'em, do list your favorites in the Comments here.

oof

The big push is on! The new play festival my theater puts on annually has arrived once again.

I will be posting from the Land of Tired and Crazy for the next week or so.

Send good karma my way. :-)

a word from my nephew

I spent the night at Wright Manor yesterday, and while I arrived so late in the evening that the nephews were nestled all snug in their beds, I got to spend some quality time with both boys this morning. Thence springs this blog post.

If your life is anything like mine, you wake in the morning to some kind of alarm clock. Whether you have a buzzer, a beeper, an old-fashioned bell, or (my personal favorite) NPR, some exterior sound wakes you up at an appointed time. Probably well before you would naturally wake up.

So, for most of us, the first sound we make in the morning is a moan, groan, snarl or cuss word as we turn off the alarm.

Not so for Drew, my 18-month-old nephew, he of the limited but highly expressive vocabulary.

Drew wakes up in the morning and cries, "Yay!"

Sometimes, this is the first thing his parents hear in the morning, his little voice piping "Yay!" as he greets the day. Sometimes he is so overflowing with happiness to be awake, that he doubles the serving -- "Yayyay!!"

I think we can all take a page from Drew's book. (And if you've seen how Drew treats a book, you'll know that the pages would be easy to take.)

Try it for a few days. Say "Yay!" when you first wake up. I personally guarantee, it will not ruin your day.

YAY !!

The Friday Five - Movin' On Up

A meme from Tripp the Anglobaptist...

1. How many times have you moved? When was the last time?

I have moved from city to city, state to state, time zone to time zone, and/or country to country a total of 12 times. I have moved within cities another 11 times. So, the grand total is 23 household moves so far.

The most recent one was in July 2006, when I moved into an un-air-conditioned apartment during a triple-digit heat wave. This is probably poetic justice, when balanced against the time that I moved to Minneapolis at New Year's and it was 35 below when I arrived.

2. What do you love and hate about moving?

I love the fresh start. I hate cleaning the place I'm moving out of.

3. Do you do it yourself or hire movers?

Professionals came into the picture around move # 15. On an interstate move, I take my "survival kit" myself -- inflatable bed, basic kitchen equipment, alarm clock. etc. -- so that I can camp in my new home until the movers catch up with me. On a move within a city, I handle much of the kitchen transfer, artwork, plants, etc. but still hire pros to do the heavy lifting.

4. Advice for surviving and thriving during a move?

Plan plan plan. Make lists, then make lists of the lists that you've made. Keep a "move file" with notes on all the phone calls you've placed about mundanities like electrical service, changing the address for your newspaper delivery, etc. Never let the "move file" out of your sight until at least a week after the move is complete.

5. Are you in the middle of any inner moves, if not outer ones?

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you...