IDYLLOPUS PRESS IS A VALIANT LITTLE ROWBOAT

Grand Canyon Tourists, 2006

One of these days I’ll get around to writing another post. Right now I’m feeling rather zombified.

For dinner tonight we had guacamole.

We make great guac. While making our great guac we realized we were out of lemon and co-adult ran out to get some. Gotta have lemon for the guac. And it was great guac. The avocados were perfect.

The last ingredient added was a little salt. Just a touch. We don’t put too much salt in the guac. I suppose a kind of production was made of this as I was doing the seasoning and did so with a little extra flourish. I guess. I’m one of those people who tends to do “ta da” extra flourishes to things. No, I don’t mean like a Martha Stewart type who can turn a pear and a can of gold paint into a festive table arrangement. No, I don’t mean an extra flourish in that way. I mean an extra flourish in the manner of the person who tap dances the last couple of steps to the gallows. That kind of person. And not knowing how to tap dance wouldn’t get in my way at all. While at the same time doing my best to not attract attention. That kind of contorted shy exhibitionist.

We made enough for tomorrow as well. And I was looking forward to snacking on the guac.

Co-adult and I were sitting and eating our tostadas with the guac. Our son, who wouldn’t touch guac with a ten foot pole, comes in and excitedly wants us to come taste the guac as he added more salt to it to make it extra good.

We thought he was joking.

Our son, who has never exhibited any interest in anything to do with the kitchen except the magic of jello solidifying and the wonders of pudding thickening as one stirs, kept saying he was trying to make it extra good and wanted us to try it out.

“How much salt did you put in?” I finally said.

“Two teaspoons,” he brightly replied like he knew what in the world he was talking about.

Probably more like two tablespoons. For we realized he might not be joking and co-adult took a taste and spat it right back out.

The guac was ruined.

“I was just trying to help,” H.o.p. said, adding that he’d been thinking if we became really good cooks then we could open a restaurant and earn our living that way.

So this evening I for some reason thought about how it had been a while since I’d had one of those coincidental moments with H.o.p. where something I’m thinking will pop out of his mouth.

Earlier today I wrote on the blog how I was feeling “zombified”. It’s not a normal part of my vocabulary. I just happened to use it.

Several hours later H.o.p. is sitting there playing on the computer and he says, “What does zombified mean?” He doesn’t read the blog so I asked him why. He said he’d seen it on a game and was wondering, then showed me the end game screen of the Power Puff girls game he’d just been playing, which read, “You’ve been zombified!”

Not much of a coincidence but it’s still funny that “zombified” is the world he elected to ask me about.

I guess zombified is the word of the day.

At the Museum - The Boar

Have held on to this for a while for the Museum series. I had planned to do a digital painting of it but then decided I liked too well the muddy grain of the photo and didn’t much see the point in doing a digital painting in which what I was going to do would be replicating the grain.

Or maybe I’m just being lazy.

What in the world is it with my getting so many visitors today to this old post, And She Stole All the Curtains and the Dresser? I hardly ever go through my visitor logs but was taking a break from painting and when taking a break from painting or writing then just about any path of least resistance is up for grabs. And so I visited the visitor logs and would have stopped after a brief glance, but I found two people (directed from an unknown source) visiting that post in a brief space of time, so I continued looking and there was another and another and another and another and another and another…and for me a dozen or so others is a lot. I don’t have a paid counter, a freebie and can only see the most recent 100 visitors, but people have visited that post from Germany, San Antonio, the Arkansas Public School system, Midwestern Intermediate Unit IV in Pennsylvania, Sun city California, Bangkal in the Philippines, some unknown place, and San Diego. And none of them have a referral source so I don’t know what’s throwing the traffic to that post.

It’s Thursday???? Man, I lost two days. I’m used to losing a day here and there when I’m deep deep in concentration on something but this time I lost two days. Suddenly it’s Thursday.

The National Counterterrorism Center for Kids Page sucks. You knew it would but it sucks even more than you could have guessed.

The reason I was there is The Spy Who Billed Me’s blog on the National Counterterrorism Center’s release of their 2007 Counterterrorism Calendar, which I went to take a look at and is one hefty download.

Hah. Then I saw the kid’s section and thought well let’s check this out. Me and H.o.p. both.

First stop is the NCTC Kids Home Page which introduces Beaker the Eagle and Little Lady Liberty who “will come along with you as you learn about the National Counterterrorism Center”. Little Lady Liberty is minty green but desaturate her and you get a suspiciously Casper the Friendly Ghost experience.

“What do you think of them?” I asked H.o.p.

“I think they look ridiculous.”

“Why do they look ridiculous?”

“Actually they look kind of funny.”

“What do you think of Beaker the Eagle?”

“He’s kind of cute. Is he supposed to be the Bald Eagle?”

“Yes. What do you think of Little Lady Liberty?”

“She’s cute. She looks like the Statue of Liberty.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

OK. So he found the cartoons cute. I wasn’t going to argue with that, but I decided it was time to take a side trip to look at many pics of the Statue of Liberty, including old ones, and to talk about its origins–and of course along the way I pointed out that the Statue of Liberty wasn’t going to mean the same thing to American Indians as it did to immigrants. Then looking at pics, H.o..p. pointed out a Google one showing banners hanging from Lady Liberty and we checked it out and it was a 2000 news article on a Vieques protest. And we talked about that. Then he pointed out a Google pic showing Lady Liberty as the famous Abu Gharib hooded prisoner standing on a box wired up for fake electrocution and he asked what was that about and we talked about the history of that some.

Then we went back to the NCTC website.

The “Who We Are” page states, well, it’s one of many organizations with a goal of defeating and deterring terrorism. A little pic of Little Liberty accompanies. There are a number of links to the kids pages of related agencies and half the links do not work which is slack.

On the “What We Do” page it says, well, they serve as a main center for intelligence related to terrorism. A little pic of Beaker Eagle accompanies. I was reading the text to H.o.p. and found it extremely difficult, my tongue consistently stumbling over the words.

For example: First and foremost, we serve as the main center for all intelligence related to terrorism. This includes information on all known and suspected terrorists and terror groups. We are responsible for making sure that all other organizations that need this information get this information.

I just couldn’t say the above and the other paragraphs without mangling it all badly, switching syllables everywhere, which started with having so many times to read “defeat and deter” terrorism, which became quickly a tongue twister.

The “When We Started” page brings back Little Lady Liberty standing beside three paragraphs devoted to Bush establishing the NCTC with dates and legislation mentioned.

The “Why We Are Here” page returns Beaker Eagle saying they were created to deter and defeat international terrorism.

All of it, I thought, to a kid’s ears will likely be jabberwocky nonsense.

The Activities page? A one page PDF of Little Lady Liberty for coloring in, and the same for Beaker the Eagle.

That’s all? How lame. I heap scorn upon it here (heaping of scorn applied) and wonder how much those two measly cartoony characters cost and how much and what kind of research went into developing them.

And isn’t Little Lady Liberty (who holds the torch in her right hand rather than her left [update: I mean vice-versa...sorry, the dyslexia thing]), Casper the Friendly Spook with a tiara and a pistachio ice cream cone?

Ok, never mind. My hyperactive imagination.

So, I read all this to H.o.p. and then asked, “What did this website teach you?” I really was interested in finding out what H.o.p. would extract from those few pages, and after our virtual tour of the Statue of Liberty I had read the NCTC Kids pages to him as freely of ridicule as possible.

“I learned about the Statue of Liberty,” he said.

“No, we went off elsewhere and read about the Statue of Liberty and its history. What did you learn here?”

“I dunno? I didn’t understand it. About fear being used to hurt people? I didn’t understand the other stuff.”

Ok. Fear was the one word retained. Interesting.

He must not have thought Beaker Eagle and Little Lady Liberty were that cute. He didn’t ask me to print them out which means they didn’t pass the cut.