Just about four years ago we brought you home from the hospital.

A few days ago we celebrated your fourth birthday.

I’ve learned so much about the world because of you. You’ve gone from being a bright-eyed little baby to somebody with a mind all her own. I love your sense of humour, the little jokes you make and the way you like to laugh about things. Your fearlessness going down the big slides is a source of pride to me. When you ask about giving half your birthday money to your brother, I envy your big heart. The fact that my kisses still make your scraped knees feel better melts my heart. Happy birthday to “daddy’s little girl.”

So after seeing my face sans beard for the first time in five or six years I knew it was time for the moustache to come off as well. No one I currently hang out with, including my wife, has seen me without a moustache. The only person reading this, who might remember, would be the blogger known as “vegan chai“.

I’ve had a moustache ever since high school so I am still a little spooked when I see myself in a mirror.

A few responses to the commenters from the previous shaving entry.

Q. Was this on purpose? (Pearl)

A. I did this on purpose. I planned it out in advance and checked with all the people in my life who kiss me. Now that I write that, I realize that I didn’t check with my wife’s grandmother. I assume since she made it through the depression and WWII she’ll weather this change just fine.

Q. Was this because of the goat comment? (anonymous)

A. No.

Q. Why did you do it?

A. Cry for help, like everything else.

Q. Seriously why did you do it?

A. Not quite sure, it just felt like the right time.

Q. You did it to get attention right?

A. O.K. but didn’t I already say it was a cry for help?

Q. They say men with beards are hiding something — what were you hiding?

A. Traditionally men are hiding fat jowls & receding hairlines — obviously those couldn’t apply to me

The best reaction after shaving just the beard and leaving the moustache was from my favorite co-worker who screamed and said, “You grew a moustache.”

I also enjoyed my daughter telling me the next day, “Put your beard back on.” It was as if she thought I had sent my beard out for drycleaning or left it hanging in the closet.

I’ve haven’t written much lately so here are so I’ll do a little catching up tonight.

I loved The Angels Retirement Speech, by Annie Farnsworth, which appeared on The Writer’s Alamanac.

... now they've got
their own miracles, like cell phones
and videos - who needs a visitation
when they've got their own apparitions
appearing and disappearing, all night
on Extended Basic Cable?
With advances like that,
a voice from heaven is not all that impressive,
nor the sight of winged creatures hovering
in a golden shaft of light.

Food for thought.

Who Would Jesus Torture?. I’ve got no answer to that question. Good time to re-read Sister Helen Prejeans essay “Would Jesus pull the switch?”

Very odd.

Walking on water — I still snort at the line in the article which said “Anyway, the pontoons are tethered to each other so the walker’s legs don’t spread apart and make him look like an idiot. Can’t have that happening can we?” There was a whole article in the NY Times covering this idea a while later.

Great random quote.

“In the future, everyone will be on the TSA’s no-fly list”, Coyote Blog — My Follow-up to Andy Warhol.

Oddly compelling art from nuclear weapons testing.

One more poetry link for good measure.

The rest of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

And for the avid do-it-yourselfer in the audience …

Build your own computerized etch-a-sketch. Man I wish I had the free time to build one of these.

The First Ammendment Project is putting together an auction to raise some money. There are a number of authors including Amy Tan, Michael Chabon and Stephen King who are auctioning off the oppourtunity for your name to appear in an upcoming book. The web page lists Chuck Palahniuk as well but he isn’t listed on the Ebay auction page. He would be my personal first choice if I had the any chance of wining this kind of auction.

before

after

I finally got around to reading “The Shipping News” by Annie Proulx.

It took me a little while to adjust to her writing style, but I found that I really enjoyed her amusing descriptions of the characters and scenes in the novel. I didn’t have to read very long before I found myself quite interested in the fate of Quoyle and his family. I’ll definitely check out some other books that she has written.

There were a lot of lines I really enjoyed, but perhaps the last paragraph in the book was the most haunting.

I spent part of the week having a little R&R in B&B Lanesboro, MN.

Lanesboro is one of those really quaint small towns with nice inns, B&B’s, arts, interesting stores and a theater. It’s also right on the Root River trail. The trail is an easy to ride, paved 42 mile trail which follows the Root River.

Jeannie and I stayed at the Habberstad House. The owners Nancy and Dave made us feel right at home. The breakfasts were great. The house blend of coffee was first rate and everything they prepared was perfectly done. I’m not sold on eating ice cream or molten chocolate cakes as the first course of breakfast, but other than that it was very good. I enjoyed the chit chat in the morning with the other guests in the home. We had guests from the UK who were especially entertaining. I kept explaining that not all Americans ate ice cream for breakfast. Much to everyone’s amusement we kept running into them in town at the various restaurants and shops.

Here is the view from the Carriage House. You can see the grounds are nicely landscaped.

The bed part of the B&B.

On Wednesday we headed out of town a few miles and came to the house of local potter Joel and his wife Maria. Joel is my aunt’s brother. I visited them a few years back. They were kind enough to take time out of their busy day to show Jeannie and me around their home and workshop area. They have a truly amazing home; even their bathroom sink is a beautiful hand thrown piece of pottery. It was a pleasure to spend time with them enjoying their kind hospitality. They seem to have an idyllic life.

We biked on to the next town, Peterson, and had a great lunch in the local diner. I don’t think there was anything on the menu that cost more than $4.25. The pies were freshly made and the sandwiches were filling and tasty. We headed back to Lanesboro and ended up with 28+ miles on the odometer.

I can’t seem to get enough roasted vegetables lately.

They are so easy to make. I just get whatever looks good at the farmers market, wash it, slice it, toss it lightly with olive oil & sea salt, bake it at 400° until it looks ready to eat. The veggies cook up sweet, soft and a tiny bit carmelized.

I finally got around to seeing Super Size Me. I loved this movie. It was funny; it made its point rather well and didn’t pretend to be anything too serious. Morgan Spurlock does a great job of being the writer, director and star of the show.

I haven’t eaten very much fast food this year. I rather suspect I won’t be eating much fast food for a good long while. I can’t get over the size of the ingredient list for the chicken nuggets.

Seeing this movie reminded me of “the ramen incident.” My employer used to provided free ramen noodles. I used to eat them for lunch a lot, sometime three or four times a week. One day as I was walking down the hallway a co-worker, W_____, looked at me and told me something like, “those things will kill you.” Once I started thinking of them as “death noodles” they lost a fair amount of their original appeal.