I have a whole series of children's books I wrote starring a mischievous rabbit who always ends up doing the right thing in the end. My Perry books cover Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and the 4th of July. I tried getting the Christmas one (the 1st one) published once and gave up.
Someday, I will try again especially now that I have a whole series. The Christmas one is claymation and the rest are cartoons that I illustrated on the computer in Quark. Read with your kids, hopefully enjoy, and let me know what they think. I used to bring them to the children's class to have their teachers read to the kids but once they hit 5th grade, I got a cease and desist order from Lukah.
Well, Christmas will soon be here so I thought the following photo was holiday appropriate to get you all in the spirit. I always sleep with a pillow over my face (except for my mouth because I have become accustomed to breathing and am quite fond of it), so when I wake up, every hair on my head is usually standing on end. So, this morning I got up and thought my hair looked like Heat Miser from The Year Without a Santa Claus.
This photo really doesn't do it justice but you have to give it to me that there is a resemblance.
Speaking of resemblances, I always thought that Heat Miser looked more like he should be the brother of Burgermeister Meisterburger from Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town . . .
instead of Snow Miser who I think looks more like. . .
the postal carrier/narrator (Fred Astaire) of Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town.
I do know one thing. Hermey (thought it was "Herbie"? Me, too. Look it up on imdb.com) from Rudolph and Ace Ventura go to the same barber.
On a similar same note, our kids have looked like other people to us before. When Callahan was little, what little hair he had was white so he looked bald as a cue ball thus resembling Charlie Brown.
On a side note related to Charlie Brown, I put this Christmas tree up in our bedroom every year. Andi hates it because she thinks it looks like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree.
I have had it since I was a little kid. The base broke off decades ago and it is held up with a block of wood, a toothpick, and love (but mostly the toothpick).
Now back to Callahan. When he got a little older, his hair got curly and we thought he looked more like Matthew McConaughey. That's probably why the chicks dug him in preschool.
When Mikah was little, her face was a dead ringer for the Pepsi girl. Their hair was different colors but her features were exact right down to the split in her front teeth. She got tired of people constantly pointing this out to her.
In Mikah's old age, she now slightly reflects Jennifer Aniston.
On the other hand, Lukah has just always looked like Reese Witherspoon.
Don't you love how we only picked beautiful people for our children to resemble. Mikah might lose some self confidence had I said she looked more like Jack Elam.
Even Andi used to get likened to a celebrity early on in our marriage. More than once she was compared to Lisa Kudrow but I think Andi is much prettier (Score Corey 10 brownie points now please).
As for myself, I am annoyed getting constantly stopped at the grocery store being mistaken for. . . .
It's creepy, isn't it? Watching ER is just like staring at myself in a mirror for an hour.
Well, here we are down to just ones that I have directed at my much older, dumber, less-talented sister and none from her in return. If she ever decides to write a new one, I will post it but I think she may have just admitted defeat due to my superior intellect.
Fuhgeddaboutit. That's right, I'm part Italian. I am proud to be part of a race of people where being fat is cool.
Now I am also part of a lot of other nationalities but my closest link is to Italy, more specifically Sicily. I could regale you with tales from my grandma about mafia ties and witnessing mafia dons at funerals but we all know that the mafia doesn't really exist, right (wink)? There mafia guys, now don't come after me.
My great grandfather, Mariano Capodici (or Capodice, yes I am related to the mega rich Capodices of Bloomington but yet ironically, I wear Wal-Mart jeans), came over in 1899 from Termini, Sicily on the ship Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Then, in 1900, he returned to Sicily to bring over my great grandmother Rosa Rini.
Now, here we are over a century later. They made their millions in produce and I made my hundreds in the printing industry. A few years ago, my aunt used to host what was called the "Italian Family Reunion". I'm not sure what the difference was between this one and the regular family reunion other than my Aunt Marietta standing on a picnic table singing Italian songs at the top of her lungs. I guess it did draw some of the extended relatives that I had never seen before and some odd stares from neighbors. Even the food was all Italian themed and my brother looked to the Italian flag for inspiration.
He made a lovely cake and set it on the dessert table when we arrived. Once my great Uncle Martin was done urinating in the shrubbery, it was time to eat. My brother and I worked our way down the food line and came to his cake.
After witnessing all of the little miniature Italian toothpick flags all down the table, we soon both realized that he had reversed the red and green color bars on the flag. We stood there distraught and confused trying to figure out how such a huge oversight could happen.
We were even discussing how to sneak the cake off of the table before anyone noticed this embarrassing predicament. Or maybe he could eat the red stripe, I could eat the green stripe and no one would be the wiser. Then, a little girl (about 4 years old I'm guessing) heard our plight and offered. . .
Oh, uh, dammit! That worked. Or I guess we also could have just went to the other side of the table. Regardless, it all worked out and we even sent over some friends to personally thank the little sweetie for pointing out our stupidity.
College. What a wonderful time to drink the shittiest beer known to man because it was all about volume for the least amount of money at that time. If you had passed through any of our shithole living establishments at any time in my 4.5 years of college (yes, I was less than a full credit short of graduating that they conveniently caught 2 weeks after add/drops), you might have seen someone drinking Stag, Old Milwaukee, Milwaukee's Best, Schaefer's, Buckhorn, Red, White, and Blue, Black Label, Falstaff, Natural Light, Keystone, Schlitz, Olde English 800, and the king. . . Pabst Blue Ribbon. Dennis Hopper liked it in Blue Velvet.
Typing all of those beer names took me and my kidneys on a trip down memory lane. I must say that although my kidney's enjoyed the memory, I suspect my liver has never forgiven me for so many trips to Old Milwaukee.
Now although I was never really a fan of PBR, I was able to procure a giant Pabst sign that used to hang in front of one of our not-so-nice liquor establishments here in Clinton called "Finn's". In fact, I was only ever in there two different times and in that two times, I saw three fights and had a pitcher of beer thrown on me. Nevertheless, this sign is a lovely addition to the one room in the house that I am allowed to decorate, the garage.
I'm not really sure why my decorating tastes aren't allowed to spill over into the main living areas. I think my Beavis and Butthead poster would look fantastic in the living room right where our family portrait is hanging.
My moth eaten, homemade Cubs or giant Angus Young banners would gel nicely in place of the fancy art in the bathroom.
How could anyone think that my old collection of Peanut's and Mad books wouldn't look better on this shelf rather than those alien artifacts that are there now.
Now wouldn't John Wayne look nice hanging over the kitchen table so he could watch us eat?
Anyway, on to the crown jewel of my garage-THE BEER FRIDGE. I have a theory that you should never be more than 20 feet from a beer fridge because you never know when a drinking emergency may arise. This is my family room beer fridge for when we are on the computer.
This is my garage beer fridge and the keeper of the Miller Lite.
I drink Miller Lite bottles and the missus drinks Miller Lite cans. She is afraid that if we both drank bottles that I might dip into her stash since I drink considerably faster than her. I do not hold this against her at all as I am sure she is right.
Well, in my beer fridge, you will see a lone, beat up, well past it's expiration date Pabst Blue Ribbon. This is a special can that has been secretly snuck back and forth with my neighbor for YEARS. I am not sure any more how it even started but this can has been dropped so many times from the crooked path between our houses (okay, it's actually straight but it's usually crooked when I'm stumbing it) that I can't believe it hasn't exploded. There was one desperate time when my old college friends were up that we ran out of beer and almost drank it out of desperation. But it survives.
Somehow it had magically appeared in my fridge about a month ago so on Halloween (since we were going to my neighbor's to drink after Trick or Treating), I snuck it back down there. So, here it is in it's new home with a note of warm tidings for the Holiday season.
So long old friend. I am sure we will meet again someday. Probably the next time I leave my garage door up.
