I told you so. 

That felt SOOOO good.  Let me say it again.

I told you so!

Did you listen to me last year? 

Nope.

Did you pick up pen and paper and write to the owners of the Chicago Cubs like I asked you to?

Nope. 

Did you forward my October 8, 2007, post to all Cub fans everywhere?

Probably not.

Did you forward my February 27, 2008, letter to Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry to all of your friends, encouraging them to copy it, sign their names, and mail it to the lovable losers on the north side?  And did you send one of your own?

I highly doubt it.

Now, I get to hear the explanations.  I was too busy, Arby!  I don’t know any Cub fans, Arby!  I don’t want the owners of the Cubs to think that I am a loon like you, Arby!

But if you had listened to me, if you had invested five minutes of your life into the future of 25 pin-stripe clad men on Chicago’s north side and all of their adoring fans, the Dodgers would be licking their play-off wounds and the Cubs wouldn’t be preparing for their 101^st year of rebuilding. 

I did not invest a single ounce of energy on this year’s Chicago Cubs team.  Countless people asked, “How ‘bout them Cubs?”  Many more asked if I had seen this play or that play.   Even my 73 year-old-father, a man who has watched the Cubs lose since 1935, fell into the trap of thinking, “Maybe this year.”  He likes Lou Pinella.  And he lost his mind.  I did not invest a single ounce of energy into this years’ baseball season because the Cubs ignored my advice once again, and failed to install a goat within the walls of the friendly confines.  That meant that it wasn’t a question of IF the Cubs would fold up their season before they reached the World Series, it was a question of WHEN the Cubs folded up their season before they reached the World Series.   Why waste the energy?

Oh, I bet you’re going to listen to ol’ Arby now.  I bet you’re going to reconsider ignoring his sage advice.  Do you want to see the Cubs win in 2009?  Re-read my two posts linked above.  Then pick up pen and paper and write to the Chicago Cubs.  Tell them the truth: the Cubs will not find playoff success until they put a goat in Wrigley Field.  I strongly suggest that it be allowed to roam on grass planted in the center field section during all home games.  Listen to Arby.  He knows.  In order to save next season, the Cubs need a goat. 

This is one of those blogs that I've needed to write for days but have been putting off. 

I received word this week that Mamasmurf, Chrissy Murphy, lost her battle with cancer.  She passed away on October 1^st.  I will miss her.  I was inspired by Mamasmurf’s faith in the face of her medical challenges. I loved the pictures that she posted on her blog.  I enjoyed the fact that every time I left a comment on her blog, whether it was serious or completely inane, she always visited my blog and thanked me for the comment.   She was unfailingly polite.  I’ve been praying for Mamasmurf.  I’ve had my church pray for her.  Now, I ask for your prayers for her husband, Rob, as he copes with the loss of his wife, and for their son, Deinoil, who lost his mother and teacher.   If you wish, you can leave comments at Mamasmurf’s blog, or at Deinoil’s blog.  I have their address if you wish to send a note the more conventional way. 

When I finished the front of the shield I was satisfied that I had done a good job. I only spent three dollars on a piece of plywood, and the rest of the materials (paint, brushes, pencils, etc.) were items that I already had around the house. It was an inexpensive start to the “Link” Halloween costume.    Major Havoc was thrilled, and that was all that mattered.  Then three things happened within 12 hours that changed all of that.

The first thing that happened was rivets.  The grey around the edge of the shield is supposed to be metal, and metal would be held in place by rivets.  I needed rivets.  How in the world would I make rivets?  I decided to put that one on the back burner. 

Later in the day, I found a message on my answering machine from my neighbor informing me that she had silver paint in her basement and I was welcome to use it.   My neighbor is a regular reader of Arby’s Archives.  She saw the shield.  She liked the shield.  She knew what the shield would look like if it were silver instead of grey.  So, she called.

Then, I received an e-mail from the Boss.  She was thinking the same thing that I was.  It’s funny how spouses do that.  The shield needed rivets.  She even sent me a picture of a small wood screw that would have made for a nice rivet.   The top of the screw was not rounded enough, but I knew that a pan head sheet metal screw would be perfect.  A ¼” #10 pan head screw, to be precise.  Unfortunately, the local hardware stores do not carry a ¼” #10 pan head screw.  The smallest size they carry is a ½” screw, and that was ¼ of an inch too long.  The shield was cut out of ¼” plywood. 

Dilemmas...dilemmas...

Then I remembered Gronis.  Since moving to the Leavenworth area I have been told many times that if I needed something hardware I should go to Gronis.  It is the hardware store of hardware stores, located in downtown Leavenworth.  They had everything.  So I went there. It’s big.  It’s old.  It’s been in the same location since Colonel Leavenworth settled the area in 1820.  The placed smelled of machine oil.  That’s a smell you just don’t get at Ace Hardware.   And guess what?  They didn’t have a ¼” #10 pan head screw, but they did have a 3/16” #8 pan head screw. 

I had rivets!  I bought 20.   And I don’t even mind the fact that it jacked up the cost of the shield by $1.20. 

I went home, screwed the screws into the shield, filled the tops with wood putty, and painted them silver.  Now we have a shield!

I don’t remember the last time I had this much fun with Halloween. 

I have just over one month to turn the Major into Link.

For Halloween, the Major wants to dress like Link from The Legend of Zelda video game series. 

The first thing I did on my quest to fulfill the Major’s dream of trick-or-treating as Link was to create a Hyrulian Shield.  I measured the dimensions of the shield and its design, multiplied those numbers by three, and used that information to recreate the shield on ¼ inch plywood.  Then I painted it.   It went from

To

I have to create a Hyrulian Sword.  I know how I want to make it, but I have not started yet. 

This project is fun, and might be the single biggest stress reducing activity that I have done since the Boss departed in July.  

On my ill fated trip to Wally World I purchased a pattern and material.   In answer to Kellieann's question in yesterday's comments, yes, I can sew.  Oh, I’m not proficient.  I don’t sew as well as the Boss, and I’d rather she were here to do it.  But, I neither paint as well as the Boss nor do woodwork as well as Norm Abram, and the shield turned out well.  I figure that if I can make the shield, I can tackle the sewing project.  I’ll share the end result, success or failure, here. 

We went bowling today at the post bowling alley as the second part of Major Havoc’s birthday celebration.   The young man turned six years old last Wednesday.  We celebrated his birthday with a Percy the Tank Engine cake, which none of the children ate, presents, and then the usual Wednesday night Tiger Scouts meeting for the Major and Confirmation class for the General.  Today’s activity featured six children bowling on two lanes sharing three 6 pound balls.  Most of the time they pushed their ball down a small metal rack that provided enough momentum for the smaller kids to actually see their ball hit a pin or two.  Oddly enough, Captain Chaos, the four-year-old, won both games, and she spent most of the afternoon trying to push the ball down the rack with her chin.  After she made two strikes in a row I seriously considered adopting that technique the next time I bowl.

Saturday, I discovered a sure-fire method for making a Wal*Mart zone supervisor so angry that she will not talk to me.  It happened when I attempted to obtain four yards of fabric in their fabric department.  I picked out the material that I needed and stood at the empty counter waiting for an employee.  A small sign over a small bell informed customers to “Ring the bell once or twice ONLY” and wait for an associate.  One ring produced no results.  After waiting for five minutes, I rang the bell twice.  Another five minutes passed.  No associate. The Major and the Captain were openly planning a rebellion.  Each was tired of sitting in their respective shopping cart.  The General ran off to find an associate.  I used the time to unroll the bolt of fabric, measure it, and determine that it was three inches longer than four yards. That was perfect.   Several more dings on the fabric counter bell produced no associate, so I picked up the telephone on the counter, punched the “Page” button, and said:

“A customer needs assistance at the fabric counter.”

Three or four minutes later a zone supervisor arrived at the fabric department and promptly helped another customer who had arrived after me.  When they were finished, she stepped to the counter.

“Have you been helped?” she inquired.

“No yet,” I replied.  “I would like to buy the remainder of this bolt of fabric.  It is just over four yards long.”

“Did someone measure it?” she asked.

“Yes.  I did.”

“Well, I’ll have to measure it,” she told me.

“Go ahead, but I had time to kill waiting for help, so I did it myself.  If I could have written the sales ticket myself, I would have.  Since no one answered the bell, I paged for assistance.”

“I heard,” she told me, shooting daggers with her eyes.  Like that was going to affect me.  I’m married.  For the second time.  Eye-daggers are nothing.   

“Are you a Wal*Mart associate?” she continued.

“Nope.”

“You really shouldn’t do that,” she said icily.

I smiled at her.   “And you really should provide better quality customer service.”

She folded the fabric into a nice, neat square, slapped on a price tag, handed it to me and walked away without uttering a single syllable.  At no point in the conversation did this supervisor offer an apology for the prolonged wait.  She did not offer the customary feeble excuse for the lack of associates available to assist customers.  Her beef was over my self-reliance.   I strongly suspected that she was looking for an apology from me. 

The most amusing part of this conversation was that I conducted it in a very friendly tone of voice, laughing and smiling, while she was obviously not amused.   But honestly, if she wanted to press the issue, how long is a customer supposed to wait for service?  Besides, I dropped a couple of hundred on groceries that day, so if she wanted to argue, I would not have thought twice about dropping off the carts at the customer service desk, telling them why I was taking my business elsewhere, and then heading across the street to the competition. 

After first taking my kids out of the carts, of course.  

There's an update on Mamasmurf at: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/UK/597122/?#c1160800

I told General Mayhem to cancel any plans he has for being a professional thief.  He’s just not smart enough.   This conversation came after I found three candy wrappers and a thin green piece of curling ribbon in the washing machine on Monday.  He has been stealing candy again.  This isn’t the first time that he’s done this.  Two years ago I discovered that he was swiping Halloween candy from the candy bucket without asking.  He took 2-3 pieces a day, ate them on his loft in his bedroom, and then hid the wrappers between his mattress and the wall, behind books on his book shelves, and by stuffing them behind his dresser.  It was during a thorough room cleaning that I found the few hundred wrappers, and I thought the punishment for that had solved the problem.  Until Monday.   That’s when I found three candy wrappers and a thin bit of green curling ribbon in the washer.  He was at it again.

We revisited the entire candy stealing thing, the necessary health warning about eating too much stolen candy thing, and the need for brushing his teeth after eating all of that stolen candy thing.  The General sat at the table looking guilty and angry.   He barely said a word.  I thought the incident was over.   So, I was rather surprised when I was emptying pants pockets Tuesday morning prior to doing the wash and found fifteen additional candy wrappers and bits of both red and green thin curling ribbon.  The boy had not just stolen three pieces of candy.  It was 18 pieces, information that he kept to himself the previous day.   Unfortunately for him, he not only kept the evidence in his pants pockets, but he failed to empty his pants pockets before putting his pants in the laundry, something that I have been after him to do for a long time.

Busted.

Now, besides the entire issue of stealing candy, it is important to know from where he is stealing the candy, and for that we must revisit Kellieann’s blog.  Do you remember this? Go ahead.  Look at the picture.  I’ll wait.

Yes, it was last October that Kellieann started the first annual “Where’s the Wreath?” contest.  Kellie posted several pictures on her blog each day, and her readers had the task of finding the wreath hidden in one of the pictures.  I’ve had the wreath for almost a year, ever since Kellieann sent it to me as a gift after her contest ended.   Someone suggested that I hold the Arby’s Archives edition of the “Where’s the Wreath?” contest, and I’ve been planning that event ever since.  Part of preparing for the contest is selecting the best photos of the hidden, or partially hidden wreath.  For the past couple of months I’ve carted that darn wreath with me where ever I go.  It has its own special place in my car.  When I see a good location for a picture, I take out the wreath and my camera, snap a few pictures, and then go about my business.  It’s been fun.

Apparently, the wreath has presented quite the temptation for General Mayhem.  It hangs from a hook on a handle in the back of the van, near where he sits.  Last week that temptation became too much for the young lad.  While a friend of mine visited for three days, the General took the opportunity of the distraction to quietly remove candy from the wreath.  I discovered the wrappers and the entire operation came to light.  Did I mention the 18 pieces of candy removed from the wreath?  I was wrong.  When I looked at the wreath I found four more empty wrappers hanging from their respective pieces of curling ribbon, bringing the total to 22!

The bigger problem here is the note that Kellieann sent with the wreath when it arrived on my doorstep along with gifts for the kids and the Boss (Kellieann is both thoughtful and generous!).  The note explained that the candy was six or seven years old and should not be eaten, a fact that I shared with my son when the wreath arrived!  I didn’t want him to get sick.  Apparently, the General has the constitution of a goat.

“What were you thinking, eating seven year old candy?” I asked him

“It was really good.  It was all soft and chewy!” he explained. 

“Chewy?!  IT”S SUPPOSED TO BE HARD CANDY!” I exclaimed. 

The answer to this year’s question, “Where’s the Wreath?” is “In the General’s stomach!”

The good news is that the boy is okay.  The wreath will be repaired.  By the General.  The contest will begin in about a month.  We’ll have cool prizes and fun will be had by all.   And if you happen to find this wreath on your doorstep this holiday season, please...

DON’T EAT THE CANDY!

A quick note from “Papasmurf” Rob let me know that Chrissy is back in the hospital but doing okay.  She had a rough few days, but the doctors “relieved some pressure and pain and today she is a lot brighter, more alert and eating and drinking well.  I have been able to have a conversation for the first time for several days.  We are of course hoping that this can be sustained.”  They appreciate all the prayers that the homeschooling community is sending up for Mamasmurf and her family.  Chrissy is aware that we are praying for her.  She says, “Thanks!”

If any of you wish to send her a card, contact me by e-mail and I’ll send you her address

Internet maps and driving directions tell me that the trip from my Kansas home to my parent’s home in Chicago should cover 531 miles and take 8 hours, traveling over arguably the world’s most boring stretch of road, Interstate 72 from Hannibal, Missouri, to Springfield, Illinois.  This is, of course, if you discount I70 from Denver, CO, to Kansas City, MO, a stretch of highway so flat and so boring your brain cells will seriously consider Hari Kari.  I suppose that if I drove non-stop except for one gas refill I could make the trip in 8 hours.  My dad completed the drive in 8 hours and 15 minutes many years ago.  The flaw in the internet map information is that it is based upon one driver driving non-stop except for one quick gasoline fill-up and a Depends change.  In reality, travel time calculations should be based upon Tater’s Bladder, a new algorithm of my own creation. 

Tater’s Bladder is quite simple.  I take the door-to-door distance of the trip in miles and divide by three. The answer is the number of bathroom stops I’ll have to make from my front door to that of my final destination, because three is the number of mile markers that I will pass before my daughter Tater announces, “Potty, daddy.  Potty!” Add ten minutes for each stop.   On our last trip, the answer was 177.  177 stops times 10 minutes per stop equals 1770 minutes of watching Tater look at a public bathroom in pure horror and say, “Nooooooooooooo!” while waving her hands frantically in the air in front of her.  1770 minutes of stops divided by 60 minutes in an hour equals 29.5 hours of bathroom stops where the girl squeezes out a tablespoon of pee before cheerily announcing, “All done!” Add eight hours of actual driving time and we’re scheduled to arrive at my parent’s house next Thursday. 

Thimblena Bladderina made it her personal mission to visit every public restroom between Kansas City and Chicago.   I sat down yesterday to calculate our travel time between Kansas City and Fort Benning, Georgia, for our December trip to meet the Boss when she returns from Iraq, and I’ve determined that in order to meet her on December 10^th we need to depart for Georgia last April.

I’ve only now just recovered enough from the last experience to blog about it.

The Morning Before the Roosters Left
With apologies to Clement Clarke Moore

'Twas a mid-September morning, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even our pet mouse;

Our socks, they were tossed on the floor without care,

In homage to mommy, we wished she were here;

The boys were nestled all snug in their beds,

The Captain in mine with her feet on my head;

With mamma in Iraq, busily computing,

I was about to awake to some birds needing shooting,

As what to my much annoyed ears I did hear,

 But a rooster crowing, quite loudly, quite near.

‘Neath our bedroom window the cockerel sat,

And I poked out my head and directed it at

The fowl little noisemaker happily singing, and yelled out to him,

"Alright now, that will be enough out of you!"

The chicken dude paused with a look of indifference,

And I returned to bed.

(You try rhyming “indifference!”)

A mere moment later the crowing resumed,

I sprang from my bed, and sped ‘cross the room,

And lifting the curtains and throwing the sash,

Cracked my skull on the window and fell on my @ss,

I looked out the window, my head slightly spinning,

Through teary eyes I saw that rooster was grinning!

“Be quiet!” I yelled.  “That’s enough cock-a-doodling,

The neighbors have heard you, my phone will start ringing!

Back into your coop with your sharp caterwaul!

Now fly away! Scoot away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,

They looked nothing like leaves, this fearless fowl foursome,

Rather than moving, they sat down for moresome.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard three of them crowing.

I knew at that point that two birds would be going.

I put out an ad on the Freecycle e-mail,

For a fresh chicken dinner, or two pets, both of them male.

A nice man named Bill put those birds in a box,

Which he put in his truck, two slightly confused cocks.

Now they live on a farm north of town in a coop,

And my yard has fifty percent less bird poop.

Now each morn I awake to the sound of one crowing,

God’s notice to me that it’s time to get going.

I get up and brew some fresh joe for the day,

And dream of the time when this bird goes away,

After my hen starts a flock of her own

And I have four pullets that call my coop home.   

So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” - John 11:3

My friends, I just received sad news from Rob Murphy in England.  Most of you do not know Rob, but many of you know Rob’s wife, Chrissy.  Chrissy is one of our Homeschoolblogger.com bloggers.  She writes under the name Mamasmurf.    Rob and Chrissy’s 14 year old son Deiniol writes his own blog on Homeschool.com, Littlesmurf’s “The Captain’s Blog.” 

Chrissy has been battling cancer for over a decade.  I have found her writing about living with cancer and her faith in God to be inspirational.  I has been a pleasure to get to know both Chrissy and her son during this past year, my first year of blogging.

Chrissy went into the hospital around the 24^th of August.  Rob took the time to write to me today and share her news.  He wrote:

Chrissy was released from the hospital in the earlier part of the week.  The infection appeared to have been brought under control and her temperature stabilized.  She wasn’t really ready for coming home and she hasn’t recovered to the level before the infection took a hold, and to be honest I don’t think that she will.  Chrissy has come home very frail, she has little energy and her mobility has decreased drastically.

Our family doctor advised us that she was very, very ill and he didn’t think that she would survive.  He’s of the opinion that Chrissy’s cancer is now coming into the final stages, that she is just going to get weaker and he wants to start making plans for when she becomes too ill.  Another event like this one may well result in Chrissy not surviving. 

Although we have known about this, and had to face this situation for a number of years, for it suddenly to be brought sharply back into focus & become a reality is quite traumatic for all of us.

Please take a moment and say a prayer for Chrissy, for her husband Rob, and for their son Deiniol.   Now more than ever they need the support that can only come from God through his son Jesus Christ.   Please spread the word through our blogging community that one of our members needs help.  Messages of support for Mamasmurf can be left on her blog HERE.

It wasn’t even a rhetorical question.  It was a toss-off one-liner.   I didn’t expect a response.  When I realized that two of my four chickens were roosters after the polyphonic poultry serenaded me with a cock-a-doodle-duet, I asked, “What are the odds?”  I was more than a little amused after Junosmom actually calculated the odds and posted them on her blog.   My immediate reaction was, “Wow, now there’s a woman with a lot of spare time.”  She answered the question.  The odds of four roosters coming from four eggs is 20%.  She went on to suggest that I could beat those odds.  I did.  Just barely.

We’ve grown so accustomed to listening to cockerel crooning that we do not stop to see which bird is on center stage.  It’s one of the black ones with the fuzzy head. 

The Captain frequently tells me, “Oh no, daddy, the chickens are crying!”  It was General Mayhem who told me this afternoon, “Dad, we have another rooster!”  My first thought was that some strange bird flew into our yard.  Could I be that lucky?  Nope.  Trouble, the first bird to hatch, the bird that rolled all the other eggs around the incubator like a manic forward in an ovicular soccer match, hopped up onto our play slide, stretched his fowl little neck out as long as he could, and let fly with a full-throttled, throaty, cock-a-doodle-do!  We have three roosters.  Now I know why our hen looks so nervous. 

Right now, Twisted Sister is at home laughing.  She took great delight Friday in informing me that Trouble was a rooster.  “Large comb, brightly colored, large prominent tail...yep, that’s a rooster!” she declared, when she arrived to pick-up her boys.  I boisterously refused to believe her.   I went into capon denial.  My reaction was all the revenge that she needed after I suggested to her a few weeks ago that the end of her cute little pet quail story came about via one lip-smacking tree-bound ophidian. 

This situation presents a genuine dilemma.   I have to get rid of two of the three roosters.  Honestly, I only want to keep the last rooster around long enough to help Clumsy bring about one batch of fertilized eggs.   I’m all for allowing her to do the work instead of my turning eggs on my kitchen counter for three weeks.   But, do I keep Trouble, the Ameracauna rooster that came from the same batch of eggs as Clumsy, or do I keep one of the White Crested Black Polish roosters and allow that bird to party away with the one available chicken on the block?   Is it a problem to allow a brother and sister from the same batch of eggs to mate?  The last thing I need is a three-headed chicken in my coop.  I’m not P.T. Barnum.  I won’t be selling tickets for a tour.  If there is a sucker born every minute then I was one of them.  I am the man who told my wife, “Sure, we can have chickens.  Sure, you can leave for six months right after they hatch.  No problem!”   

Baghdad, we have a problem! 

Trouble is the bird that has started to bite the hand that feeds him.  Literally.  He’s pecked at the General twice during feeding time.  He ran across the yard to sucker-peck me on the ankle after I had the audacity to feed the birds and open the coop door to allow them to roam.   I’m not turning my back on him any time soon.  That bird has “stewpot” written all over him.  

The other two roosters just look at us quizzically, shake their heads, and walk away.  They’re probably thinking the same thing I am as I look at them.  “Awkward and kinda funny lookin’.” 

September 1, 2008

Camp Victory, Baghdad, Iraq

Labor Day in Iraq

by LTC Greg Graves

On Labor Day at military bases around the United States, the garrison flag will fly.  The garrison flag is the largest size flag flown, and at 38 feet in length, it often hangs halfway down the flagpole.  At Camp Victory, a ceremonial flag larger than the garrison flag was displayed on Labor Day – not flown on a flagpole but hung from the third floor of Al Faw Palace in the rotunda at the palace’s center.  At 1600 hours, a ceremony began, shown in the photo at right. This ceremony was a celebration – a celebration of accomplishment, of achieving a long-awaited goal, of looking forward to a new and exciting future.  For this was not a celebration of Labor Day as Americans typically remember it.  There were no barbecues, no baseball or softball games, and no days off from work.  Iraq is after all, still a combat zone.

No, this celebration of accomplishment came in the form of 192 soldiers and marines who were born in 54 foreign countries.  Each of these servicemen and women swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States when they weren’t even citizens of our country.  But all that changed today.  You see, this ceremony was a Naturalization Ceremony.  Today, 192 soldiers and marines raised their right hands to become citizens of the country for which they were already fighting.  Today, the gift of citizenship in the “land of the free and the home of the brave” was given to 192 people who do not take it for granted.  And for these 192, this is not the end, this is just the beginning – the beginning of opportunity, of responsibility, and of accountability. 

And yet these young people do not shy away from responsibility or accountability.  They face them head on as they have the other challenges that have been put in their lives as soldiers and marines.  So look at the faces below of these new citizens.  As you do, you see people who came to the United States from Europe, from Asia, from Africa, Caribbean nations, Mexico, Central America… Much like your ancestors and mine.

As the ceremony ended, I couldn’t help but feel pride, hope, and humility.  Not pride for anything that I have done, but pride for the accomplishments of these young citizens of the United States and hope for the future that they and many of their families seek in the great nation that we serve.  And once again, I was humbled by the tremendous honor that it is to serve a great nation along with great soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines like these who willingly face adversity in the hope of a better future for themselves and for others.  For this honor, I will always be thankful.

Arby's Archives will be out-of-action for a few days while Arby tends to some family matters in Chicago.  He will return with some thrilling tales in just a few days, so don't lose this address. 

Yes, Prodoceo, I will call.

Twisted, get a back-up for Friday morning.  I'm still good for Saturday.

Rastaman, the Strawberries are in season, but the Big Cheese gets his at midnight. 

And let's just see if that doesn't wake up a few computers at Homeland Security!  

We don’t know how Reggie slipped past us, the cute one year old black lab we were dog sitting.  One minute she was in the house, oblivious to the fact that the Big Fuzzy Dog deeply resented her presence.  The next minute she was in the back yard, chicken hunting.   Actually, chicken hunting is not accurate.  If she were chicken hunting, she’d have eaten the two roosters she managed to scare into avian comas.  I think she was playing with something that ran quickly, was fun to chase, and made great squawking noises when roused.  But, they sure looked dead in the middle of the back yard. 

I wasn’t there for the great chicken run of 2008.  It happened while Major Havoc was in speech therapy and I was finding “Broken Needs Repaired” signs in the elementary school.  General Mayhem was home alone, pretending to complete his schoolwork, when he noticed two medium sized black blobs in the lawn, too large to be BFD deposits and too small to be, well, anything else he recognized.  He went out and found two terrorized hens on the patio, squawking behind a large Rubbermaid container full of outdoor stuff, and the dog running in giant circles on the hunt for fresh squeaky toys.  The chicken whisperer returned one slightly punch-drunk rooster to the coop where he took a short nap before returning to his busy schedule of eating bugs and fertilizing the lawn, and then picked up the second rooster and carefully placed him in a small plastic box lined with a towel. This bird wasn’t moving. He added food and water and waited for me to return home. When I returned home I discovered a rooster in a box on my kitchen table.   The rooster spent the night on the kitchen counter, right about where he hatched last May.  This morning he stood up and looked around, a clear indication that he was in good health.   I had seen him eating earlier in the morning.  He may have been short a few feathers, but there were no wounds.

If Reggie had killed the bird, I hope she would have had the good sense to eat it.  It would have been a fantastic home schooling opportunity.  Remember Marlin Perkins? Remember how calmly he said things like, “And now Jim is going to put his head in the crocodile’s mouth?”   I always felt sorry for Jim, out in the wild with lions while Marlin narrated from the safety of a Mutual of Omaha recording studio.   That would have been me from the behind the patio door, taking advantage of what some people call a “teachable moment.” 

“Hey kids, see how Reggie flipped ‘Phyllis’ (we still haven’t renamed this conflicted bird) onto his back and ripped open his abdomen?  Notice how she is eating his intestines?   That’s because in the wild, these two creatures are mortal enemies...”

I’m sure someone from PETA would be outraged, but nature is nature. 

And speaking of conflicted, I realize that I’m writing about a female dog named “Reggie” and a male rooster named “Phyllis.”   For the record, I did not name “Reggie,” but it is short for “Regina.”  “Phyllis” is just “Phyllis” because of wishful thinking and a natural aversion to flipping a young bird onto its back and inspecting its little poultry privates. 

Both the bird and the dog are going to be fine, Uncle Lar- 

I just returned from the special education cooperative where Major Havoc has his speech therapy.  While he was in speech therapy the Captain and I went exploring.  This year the coop is housed in the former elementary school building.  This building was vacated over the summer after construction on the new elementary school was completed.  The halls and classrooms are filled with school equipment that has yet to be moved into the new building. While strolling through the empty halls of the school, I stumbled across two interesting items.  The first was a foosball table.   I have no idea why the school had a foosball table, or what was the educational value of a foosball table.  If it had value, why didn’t they move it to the new school?  The second item that caught my attention was a sign taped to an overhead projector sitting on top of a four drawer filing cabinet.  The sign read, “Broken Needs Repaired.”

As soon as I post this I’m logging on to A Beka and buying the next 18 year’s worth of curriculum. 

I had my one year blogaversary a few days ago.  I sat down to write something significant and heartwarming and special, but thought to myself, “You know, I really don’t care.”   This has been my blogging state-of-mind for a few days now.   It wasn’t writer’s block.   It was caring block.   Oh, about a month ago I cared.  About a month ago I thought of researching my files and picking the highlights, the best of Arby’s Archives.   But, the closer the actual date of my blogaversary came the less I cared because, if truth be told, it just sounded like too much work. 

Twisted Sister posted the results of an on-line quiz that she took.  This one asked, “What Superhero are you?”   I went to the website that hosted the quiz and answered a bunch of questions about myself, such as, “Are you accident prone?” and “Did you have a bad childhood?” and “Do you wear a push-up bra?”  (note to self: return to that site and change answer to, “No”)   I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw my result.  According to them, I am the Flash!   Somewhere in Iraq, the Boss just spewed Mountain Dew on a computer screen.  I am about as un-flash-like as a guy can be.  Honestly, fat people don’t move that quickly, unless you’re Ted Kennedy and someone yells “Last call!” 

Major Havoc has turned out to be the most enthusiastic homeschooler you could wish for.  Emphasis on “you.”  He walked into my bedroom yesterday morning and woke me up from a sound sleep by asking, “Dad, can you make me a PO?  Dad?  Can we do schoolwork?” 

“Schoolwork?” I mumbled, lifting my head from the pillow and staring at a blurry alarm clock.  “Son, I haven’t brewed a pot of coffee yet, so if you want to be alive when it’s time to do your math, I suggest you go find something else to do right now.” 

That sweet kid.  He said, “Okay.”

Two friends came to my house for dinner last night.  They brought the dinner, too!  All I had to do was supply the plates and utensils.  I had adult conversation last night.  I spoke in long sentences without being interrupted.  We made inappropriate comments when the kids weren’t in the room and laughed at them.   It was GREAT!   I offered to let them move in, but they had to go home.  This is the second time in two weeks that they have come over.  I think I’m in love.

Homeschooling is busy this year!  This teaching two kids thing is really different than teaching one.  Major Havoc’s enthusiasm is infectious.  While we were working on language arts this morning, General Mayhem kept interrupting us to share interesting facts from his history book. Normally, he’d read his history silently, answer a few question and be done with it.  It has occurred to me that for the last four years Major Havoc watched me teach his brother.  He saw his brother get a lot of attention.  He has been waiting for his turn, and now that his turn has arrived he is taking full advantage of it.  It never occurred to me when we were making the decision on whether or not to homeschool the Major that he saw it as a rite of passage.  His time has come.  To do anything but homeschool him would be grossly unfair, and probably cause a lot of harm.  He is a happy, eager learner, and a delight to work with.

I was amused to see that the Major shares something in common with his brother, that being that he does his work in the starter’s blocks.  The boy sits on the edge of a chair, one cheek on the seat and the other off, one leg behind him and the other in front, ready to run straight ahead on a moment’s notice.  This is his preferred position for all subjects.  Sometimes he will momentarily tuck his feet under his rump and sit on his heels, but that doesn’t last long.  Sometimes he will lean over the table on his arms.  Mostly, he’s ready to be off at the races.  While watching this today I had one reoccurring thought: Classrooms are just not made for little boys.

It is my hope that each and every one of you, who take the time to stop here at the Archives and share a bit of life in my home, has a safe and happy Labor Day weekend.  I appreciate the fact that you find something here that keeps you coming back.  I appreciate your comments.  I enjoy it when someone delurks.   Thank you for helping to make this a fun year. 

It is with absolutely no regret that I must announce the passing of Va-va-voom.  The entire scandalously red gallon of chicken bordello paint spent its final hours in a large puddle on the floor of my garage, knocked over by my seldom spoken of fourth child, “Idunno.”  I first heard of Ms. Voom’s fatal predicament when the General entered the kitchen from the garage and casually mentioned, “Dad, there’s some paint on the floor.”

“Some paint?” I replied.

“Yeah.  I think some paint might have spilled.”

Our first vocabulary lesson of the school year will be defining “some.”  “Some paint might have spilled” is like being a little bit pregnant. 

I was mad.  Hoo-wee, I was mad.  I wasn’t mad because the paint spilled.  If there was ever a color of paint to have spilled on the garage floor, it was Va-va-voom.  If it hadn’t spilled, I would have mailed the entire gallon to Kellieann.  She seemed to enjoy it.   No, I was mad because the discovery of the spill came directly on the heels of 30 minutes of play time that involved 29 minutes and 59 seconds of screaming by all three children, and one second of my announcing, “That’s enough!  My nerves can’t take it anymore!” 

I felt like my wife.

I was mad because I could not get a straight answer out of General Mayhem as to how the paint was spilled.  He was pushing for a Latex-based suicide. He denied all possible involvement.  Major Havoc and Captain Chaos were both possible culprits, but it was the General who climbing through the mountain of stuff in our garage right before the floor changed colors.  If he had just come to me and said, “Dad, I spilled a gallon of paint on the floor, I’m sorry,” or said, “Dad, I’m not sure how it happened, but a gallon of paint has been spilled on the garage floor and we need to clean it up before it runs to all corners of the garage and underneath everything on sitting on the floor,” I would have been okay.  Instead, I was told about “some” paint possibly being on the floor.

I don’t know how to get it through to my son that his instincts for self-preservation get him in more trouble than the original incident from which he is trying to disassociate himself.   When he comes to me and tells me the truth, like the day he brought me my favorite cordless drill in two pieces, I’m pretty cool.  It’s when I get jerked around that I come unglued.

To his credit, the young man apologized for not telling me the truth, although he still dodged full responsibility for any wrong-doing.  That kid would make an excellent lawyer.  I was ankle deep in scarlet glop when he observed, “Dad, you’re kinda scary when you’re mad.” 

God love him. 

We were laughing about the entire thing before I was finished cleaning.  Deep down, I was just grateful that it was on the garage floor and not on my carpeting.   Oh, Va-va-voom, how we’ll miss you.

Not!

I know I looked like Navin R. Johnson, running down the street yelling, “The phone books are here!  The phone books are here!”   When I saw the big brown truck pull up in front of my house, I ran down the driveway yelling, “The curriculum is here!  The curriculum is here!”   The UPS man smiled, handing me a large box.  “Wow,” I told him.  “The kids are going to hate this!  I’m so happy!”

Thus ends part two of a three part odyssey known as ordering this year’s curriculum.  I know, I know, all of you disgusting people who planned in advance and ordered in advance and cleaned and painted and organized in advance - I really don’t want to hear it.  Remember the picture of my desk?  Did that look like the desk of someone who is organized?

All of the organization in the world wouldn’t have prepared me for the secret attack of the VISA security force, those sly little buggers who work for my bank, monitoring debit card action and attempting to prevent fraud.   Personally, I appreciate the fact that they have my back.  I just wish that they told me in advance of my shopping trip that they closed my debit card because the Boss needed a few supplies in Baghdad and used her debit card to buy them.  The VISA security people noticed that 99.9% of my debits come from the greater Kansas City area.  The Baghdad charge looked slightly out-of-place.  6,722 miles slightly out-of-place, to be exact.  So they shut down the card.   That’s cool.  The fact that they never called, never left a message, and decided that popping a letter in the mail was enough of an effort on their part to contact me was not cool.   A phone call from me solved the problem, and soon the debit card was free for use.

Last weekend, I noticed that my curriculum order with A Beka did not leave the “Pending” stage on the online invoice and move into the “Shipping” stage and then on to the “arriving at my door step” phase.  I called them Monday morning to inquire on the status of my order. 

“Oh, your charge was declined,” the nice customer service representative told me. 

“Gee, were you going to tell me?” I asked.

Silence.

I then politely explained what had happened with my debit card and why it had happened and expressed my gratitude for the VISA people looking out for my best interests and would A Beka please reprocess the order?  They did.  It went through, as I knew it would, because the problem was never an availability of funds but rather a convenient method of transferring said funds from my meager stockpile of gators to A Beka’s coffers. 

After ending that conversation I called Rainbow Resources, because I knew the same thing happened there.  A short conversation with a Rainbow Resources customer service representative informed me that some of the materials I ordered were on backorder and wouldn’t be in stock until today.  They wouldn’t charge me until the entire order was ready to be shipped, so unlike with A Beka, nothing was declined.   Cool. 

Rainbow Resources’ shipment arrived today.  The backorder must have arrived early. 

So, “The curriculum is here!  The curriculum is here!”  I get to start first grade math with Major Havoc!

Solving the temporarily suspended debit card and reprocessing my orders was part one of the ordering curriculum odyssey.   Receiving both shipments was parts two and three.   As soon as the A Beka order arrives, we will have completed part three. 

Now, because I am married to the world’s best sale shopper and internet sorceress, a great deal of our curriculum was purchased online at a significant savings by the Boss before she deployed.   This allowed me to begin math with General Mayhem this week, because his Saxon math books have been on the shelf all summer.   General Mayhem expressed his joy at the resumption of mathematical studies by stretching out 25 basic review math problems over three hours on the first day.  He needed four hours to complete 35 problems on the second day.   I needed only a few seconds to remind him how quickly I can pick up the phone and register him for classes at our local middle school, a building that we ride past every day when we take our bikes to bring Captain Chaos to her preschool class at the new elementary school with the broken exit a block further south of the middle school.  One of the middle school students saw the General riding his bike during normal school hours and took it upon himself to shout, “Hey, why aren’t you in class here?” out of a window.  The General just laughed.  He wasn’t laughing when an elementary school assistant principal stopped him while I was unloading the Captain from the bike trailer and asked him why he wasn’t in class.  General Mayhem responded, “Because I’m home schooled.”   That satisfied the man, but not me.  I walked up to the principal after the Captain went inside the building with her teacher and asked him, “Is anything wrong?”  The guy shot me a look of annoyance and mumbled, “Just checking.”   Then he told me not to ride my bike on the sidewalk.   We will see if the General has any stronger motivation for faster computations on Monday.

Speaking of the Boss, she finds herself with a little extra time on her hands in the evening.  There isn’t enough time to watch a movie on her DVD player, which may or may not work depending upon whether or not she fried her adaptor with the foreign power source, but there is enough time to read a book.  The problem is, she doesn’t have any.  So, I have a request for you!

Do any of you happen to have a copy of one of the 13 Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum novels that you would like to donate to the Boss for her reading pleasure while relaxing in the evenings in Iraq?   Would you be willing to drop said novel in an envelope and send it to her?   She already read books #1 and #3, and I am sending her book #7 tomorrow (sshh!  Keep it a secret! I want it to be a surprise!)  The boss is interested in reading Two For the Dough, Four to Score, High Five, Hot Six, Hard Eight, Visions of Sugar Plums, To the Nines, Ten Big Ones, Eleven on Top, Twelve Sharp, Plum Lovin’, and Mean Thirteen.  If you have any of these titles sitting on your book shelves and you are willing to send them to the Boss, please e-mail me at writearby@gmail.com.  I have been trying to buy these books through eBay auctions and keep losing to people who are willing to spend some tall dollars to obtain them. 

I hope that you have a good weekend!

Here’s something that hasn’t happened in a long time.  I’ve been tagged.  That’s actually a good thing, as I really didn’t have much to say today.  Thank you to Mamasmurf for sending this assignment my way.  If you are not a regular reader of Mamasmurf’s blog, you should take a peek.  She is a remarkable homeschooling mother of one, who just happens to have been battling cancer for over a decade. Her faith and her gratitude in the face of her struggle are truly inspirational.  Her nature pictures are great to look at, too. 

The tag is titled “6 Quirky Things.”  I am supposed to

1. Link back to the person who tagged you

2. Mention the rules on your blog

3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours

4. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them

5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

Six unspectacular quirky things about Arby...

I really should have the Boss write this one.

Who am I kidding?  I’m not that stupid.