Sunday
Oct152006
great day
Sunday, October 15, 2006 at 01:55AM
My parents, my brother and his wife came to town this weekend. They got in late last night and spent the day with us today. It was a pretty great day.
The weather here, and I said this in my last post, is amazing right now. This is one of the few weekends I'm home this Fall and I'm so glad. It was a little chilly, but just clear and fresh and so alive.
The whole family, including Alison, Ella, Alison's brother Clay and his wife Sarah, all piled into cars this morning to go to a pumpkin farm. It's sort of like a petting zoo, but with pumpkins. That was a ridiculous sentence. There were so many little kids there I was worried people wouldn't be as thrilled by the cute-ness of my daughter. Tough. But we had fun, and we bought a white pumpkin, which is both sort of cool and sort of "possibly evil."
I say this, of course, because of something that happened when the movie The DaVinci Code came out earlier this year. (Don't remember it? I think Pat Robertson challenged it to a cage match...) Anyway, I didn't read the book or see the movie, not because it was supposed to be so evil but because I thought it looked lame, but apparently the bad guy was an albino.
And I read an article somewhere that this was the straw that broke the albino's back, culturally speaking.
Some organization of albinos got together to petition the movie people to let the bad guy not be an albino this time. They quoted some statistic that in the last forty years there have been 70-odd albinos featured in major motion pictures and, get this, EVERY ONE WAS THE BAD GUY!! The greatest part was, the real-life albinos weren't angry or anything, they were more like "come on, guys, let us be good, just this once..." and I'm with them. Especially after seeing the Indigo Girls live. I'm all for people in the minority when they don't just seem angry all the time.
Note to screenwriters: if you're working on something where we don't know who the bad guy is and you have an albino in the movie anywhere, you gave it away. Statistically.
I digress.
So my family and I went to a pumpkin farm, then came home, ate Chik-Fil-A (glorious Chik-Fil-A), sat around and chatted until Ella woke up from her nap and then spent most of the afternoon outside. My neighbor Kenny (who I sing about in my song Early in the Morning) and his wife Eileen dropped by with one of their new puppies. She's nine weeks old and won fourth place this morning in the cutest puppy competition at the annual Nashville Humane Society Dog Walk. Kenny's in a big wheelchair, so he had to sit in the car for the walk. He was jazzed, though, because Leann Rimes was there and she came over to him and talked to him for a bit and gave him an autograph. He said she was really sweet.
Anyway, Kenny and I hung out in the middle of the street while Ella ran around in the front yard like a complete and total crazy person, just thrilled that every single thing she did was wonderful to her visiting grandparents and aunt and uncle. And cousin Dean. He was here for a while, as well. Basically, it was just a fun day with family and neighbors and all of that.
The only tiny bit of "work" I did today was a phone call to Randall on the way to pick up some lucious Bar-B-Cutie for dinner so we could discuss a line he wrote in a song called (as of now) Shadow of the World for the new Caedmon's record. I loved his original line, it was my favorite of the song, and he sent me an e-mail with a new line that he liked better. I disagreed. So I called him. He told me why it wasn't the greatest line theologically. Dang it, he was right. I still like the original line, though, so we'll need to keep working. These are the times you sort of wish you were writing for R.E.M. or something. Nobody cares about their theology so if a line is cool, go for it.
So, yeah, had that quick talk, ended the conversation how we end every conversation right now... "this record is going to be great, dude." "I know, I'm so excited." "Me, too." You know, good stuff.
Obviously, I'm way too tired and can't stop writing, so I'll go now. I hereby also formally apologize to all the good things about this day I forgot to write down. Like how we played Cranium and MY MOM guessed the name of the band "Radiohead" while MY WIFE WHO IS MARRIED TO ME guessed "antennahead."
Thanks for reading, hope your weekend is a fine one, as well. And thank you, thank you, thank you, for all the wonderful comments and e-mails. Seriously, internet group hug. See you tomorrow...
The weather here, and I said this in my last post, is amazing right now. This is one of the few weekends I'm home this Fall and I'm so glad. It was a little chilly, but just clear and fresh and so alive.
The whole family, including Alison, Ella, Alison's brother Clay and his wife Sarah, all piled into cars this morning to go to a pumpkin farm. It's sort of like a petting zoo, but with pumpkins. That was a ridiculous sentence. There were so many little kids there I was worried people wouldn't be as thrilled by the cute-ness of my daughter. Tough. But we had fun, and we bought a white pumpkin, which is both sort of cool and sort of "possibly evil."
I say this, of course, because of something that happened when the movie The DaVinci Code came out earlier this year. (Don't remember it? I think Pat Robertson challenged it to a cage match...) Anyway, I didn't read the book or see the movie, not because it was supposed to be so evil but because I thought it looked lame, but apparently the bad guy was an albino.
And I read an article somewhere that this was the straw that broke the albino's back, culturally speaking.
Some organization of albinos got together to petition the movie people to let the bad guy not be an albino this time. They quoted some statistic that in the last forty years there have been 70-odd albinos featured in major motion pictures and, get this, EVERY ONE WAS THE BAD GUY!! The greatest part was, the real-life albinos weren't angry or anything, they were more like "come on, guys, let us be good, just this once..." and I'm with them. Especially after seeing the Indigo Girls live. I'm all for people in the minority when they don't just seem angry all the time.
Note to screenwriters: if you're working on something where we don't know who the bad guy is and you have an albino in the movie anywhere, you gave it away. Statistically.
I digress.
So my family and I went to a pumpkin farm, then came home, ate Chik-Fil-A (glorious Chik-Fil-A), sat around and chatted until Ella woke up from her nap and then spent most of the afternoon outside. My neighbor Kenny (who I sing about in my song Early in the Morning) and his wife Eileen dropped by with one of their new puppies. She's nine weeks old and won fourth place this morning in the cutest puppy competition at the annual Nashville Humane Society Dog Walk. Kenny's in a big wheelchair, so he had to sit in the car for the walk. He was jazzed, though, because Leann Rimes was there and she came over to him and talked to him for a bit and gave him an autograph. He said she was really sweet.
Anyway, Kenny and I hung out in the middle of the street while Ella ran around in the front yard like a complete and total crazy person, just thrilled that every single thing she did was wonderful to her visiting grandparents and aunt and uncle. And cousin Dean. He was here for a while, as well. Basically, it was just a fun day with family and neighbors and all of that.
The only tiny bit of "work" I did today was a phone call to Randall on the way to pick up some lucious Bar-B-Cutie for dinner so we could discuss a line he wrote in a song called (as of now) Shadow of the World for the new Caedmon's record. I loved his original line, it was my favorite of the song, and he sent me an e-mail with a new line that he liked better. I disagreed. So I called him. He told me why it wasn't the greatest line theologically. Dang it, he was right. I still like the original line, though, so we'll need to keep working. These are the times you sort of wish you were writing for R.E.M. or something. Nobody cares about their theology so if a line is cool, go for it.
So, yeah, had that quick talk, ended the conversation how we end every conversation right now... "this record is going to be great, dude." "I know, I'm so excited." "Me, too." You know, good stuff.
Obviously, I'm way too tired and can't stop writing, so I'll go now. I hereby also formally apologize to all the good things about this day I forgot to write down. Like how we played Cranium and MY MOM guessed the name of the band "Radiohead" while MY WIFE WHO IS MARRIED TO ME guessed "antennahead."
Thanks for reading, hope your weekend is a fine one, as well. And thank you, thank you, thank you, for all the wonderful comments and e-mails. Seriously, internet group hug. See you tomorrow...
Reader Comments (13)
Praise God for such opportunities for joy! I'm glad your day was smashing. mine was fun. I spent it in the car looking for places to post up flyers for a concert for a guy named Andrew Osenga for next saturday. It was pretty much awesome. Then I went to a friend's house and watched "The Empire Strikes Back" and ate pizza and drank root beer. Such fun.
antennahead.
yep.
You need to pull together a radiohead cover band and call it "antennahead."
That would be awesome.
"It’s sort of like a petting zoo, but with pumpkins. That was a ridiculous sentence. There were so many little kids there I was worried people wouldn’t be as thrilled by the cute-ness of my daughter. Tough. But we had fun, and we bought a white pumpkin, which is both sort of cool and sort of “possibly evil.�
That has to be one of the funniest, most random paragraphs I've read.
I can relate to the sentence about people noticing Ella. When I go to the grocery store, I'm just as likely to pick the shortest line as I am the line with the nice older checkout lady who I think will say sweet things about my little girls.
"Antennahead" - that's pretty classic.
Great post.
I'm glad someone had a day that was more fun than mine. Yesterday was a beautiful fall day and Homecoming no less and I worked on a research paper for English history. :(
That's the second Bar-B-Cutie reference I've caught in your blog.... I love that place!
... Antennahead.... that would be an awesome cover band name. This needs to happen.
There was one "good" albino... that movie Powder was about one with lame superpowers, it had Jeff Goldblum and I think the albino was Sean Patrick Flannery and they learned about being tolerant or why they shouldn't call him Casper or somethng. Then I think he turned into a ball of light... I don't know why though.
But other than him, Albinos are evil!!!!
And the whole "antennahead" bit was the funniest thing I've read in days, shame on Ali.
regarding antennahead...
you are correct, this would be a wonderful cover band name.
In the defense of my sweet wife, I was amazed she got both something at all radio-ish (antennae) and head, because I drew a lame stick figure with a box near, but not too close, to where its head should have been. My dad drew a better Radiohead. Shame on me...
I thought the Normals were a Radiohead cover band. Was I wrong about this? ;)
FAAAAAKE PLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASTIC TREEEEES
"Powder." I forgot about that one. Loved it.
Powder: "And then its possible to talk to someone without any lies. With no sarcasms, no deceptions, no exaggerations, or any of the other things people use to confuse the truth."
Good to see I'm not the only one excited about the next Caedmon's album . . .
We had Bar-B-Cutie on Saturday. I hope the one in Nashville doesn't suck like the one down here.