English lesson

Today's English lesson is brought to you by Kyly Salvato. Many of us have gotten up in age, and we have completely forgotten the lessons we learned at an early age. Therefore, here is a refresher course in the English language for all of us as taught by a professional 23 month old linguist:

"Hane" - The round white thing on a stand that spins around and cools the air.

"Haaaaaannne" - Same as above, but larger and mounted on the ceiling.

"APPuhl" - Anything that is remotely round and/or red.

"Joooooose!" - Anything liquid that you put in a cup. (Sometimes known as "Moo")

"WahWah" - Large four-legged furry garbage disposals that live in the back yard.

"Moooooo" - Any four-legged animal you pass while driving in the car.

"Moo" - See "Joooooose" above.

"Doo-doh" - That stinky thing that you make in your pants.

"Uh oh, Doo-doh!" - Get a firehose and a mop.

"Poo-poh" - See "Doo-doh."

"Po-po" - See "Doo-doh."

Pa-Paaaaaaahhhh! - Grandpa (What did you expect from an Italian?)

"Stuck" - "Excuse me, I seem to have tried to put on my swimsuit, five shirts, and two pairs of pants all at the same time and it has become impossible to move. I recommend you get a pair of scissors and possibly dial 911 to get me out of here."

"No" - This must mean "I love you mommy and daddy" because it is the most frequently used word in a toddler's vocabulary.

"Where's Daddy?" - Hello Mommy, It's really nice to see you.

"Where's Mommy?" - Hello Daddy, It's really nice to see you.

"Shooooes" - This is a game where you try to take things off of your feet as fast as Mommy and Daddy can put them on you. If Mommy and Daddy manage to win, you can still beat them by throwing them off in the car. Be sure to lose the socks as well as Mommy and Daddy love searching for them.

"Buh-Bye!" - Go away now.

Random song lyric of the day

Your president was on TV tonight hogging up all of the networks. This reminded me of a song that was released in 1992 near the end of George H.W. Bush's term, about six months before Hillary and her husband became president. Eighteen years later, the similarities to today are almost surreal. The country was in a recession in 1992, and the outgoing Republican president was defeated by a Democrat who promised to fix everything. Who can't read these lyrics and think the name should be changed to "Ode to the failed stimulus package?" The lyrics are downright scary how closely they relate to today's news with foreclosures, unemployment, and falling markets causing a lot of folks sleepless nights.

Megadeth: Foreclosure of a Dream

Rise so high, yet so far to fall
A plan of dignity and balance for all
Political breakthrough, euphoria's high
More borrowed money, more borrowed time
Backed in a corner, caught up in the race
Means to an end ended in disgrace
Perspective is lost in the spirit of the chase

Foreclosure of a dream
Those visions never seen
Until all is lost,
Personal holocaust
Foreclosure of a dream

Sunday at Sea World

Okay, I gotta admit, we are Sea World junkies. I don't know why, but we seem to spend a lot of time there. Maybe because it's so close by and the season passes are so cheap. Or maybe it's because I'm getting too old to brave Six Flags without the fear that I when I get off of the roller coaster I will leave parts behind. For whatever reason, we figured that the Sunday after school started would be a good day to go since it possibly wouldn't be crowded. Thankfully, we were right as there was hardly anyone there, and we were able to have a lot of fun without worrying about crowds. Even the weather cooperated as the overcast sky kept the sun at bay all day. We even had a little cloudburst as we were leaving. So it was a very good day at Sea World for us.

But we almost didn't make it there in one piece. I have lived in Dallas, Houston, and Austin, and I frequently drive to San Marcos, San Antonio, etc. But yesterday seemed to be National Idiotic Driver Day, and the idiots were having their convention in San Antonio. Not once, not twice, but at least seven times some idiot tried to change from the right lane into my front seat. I didn't notice any strange radioactive disturbance or sunspots yesterday that would have suddenly prevented mirrors from working. Hell, had I know I was going to be invisible yesterday, we could have had a really good time! I can see the Pflugerville Chief of Police doing the interview right now: "We got us a report of a missin' family from Floooogerveele, an' we wuz searchin' everwhar for 'em. They wuz finally found at the Taco Cabana when they got out of that there invisible car they wuz drivin'. We tried to ketch up to 'em but they got back in the car an' we lost 'em in the parkin' lot."

So after we finally braved the traffic and arrived, Kyly ended up having a lot of fun. She got to feed the dolphins, feed the sea lions, and ride her first amusement park ride. She got to go on the log ride with us, and she was having a good old time until we went down the huge drop off. The picture is worth a thousand words. She has the biggest "Oh Shit!" look on her face. Priceless. But she loved it and didn't want to get out of the "boat!" as she kept saying.

Feeding the sea lions and dolphins was an experience. Nothing like handling a tray full of stinking dead fish in the 95 degree heat. Reminds me of the oldest joke in the world:

What did the blind man say when he walked past the fish market?

"Hello ladies!"

Random song lyric of the day

Today's random song lyric is brought to you by The Foo Fighters, formed by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl, from the song "This is a call":

Fingernails are pretty
Fingernails are good
Seems that all they ever wanted was a marking

Them balloons are pretty
Big and say they should
Ever fall to ground
Call the magic marker

Dave, you are a musical genius, but what the $#@& does that mean?

Random song lyric of the day

With today being Sunday, today's random song lyric comes from one of my all-time favorite bands: Black Sabbath. Before you get in an uproar, it's important to note that the band was formed by four regular working-class guys who originally named the band "Earth." The infamous moniker came about because there was already another band on the scene named "Earth", so the guys had to quickly find another name. A local movie theater was showing the now classic 1963 horror movie "Black Sabbath" starring Boris Karloff and the guys saw the name advertised on the marquee of the theater. Over 40 years later the rest is history and all four members are still going strong. The evil, satanic, devil worshipping persona was actually created by the media, and the band capitalized on it as a promotional gimmick.

So here are some lyrics for your Sabbath Day that you may find surprising from Black Sabbath's song "After Forever" from their second album "Master of Reality":

When you think about death, do you lose your breath
Or do you keep your cool?
Would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope
Do you think he's a fool?
Well I have seen the truth, yes I've seen the light
And I've changed my ways
And I'll be prepared when you're lonely and scared
At the end of our days

Could it be you're afraid of what your friends might say
If they knew you believe in God above?
They should realize before they criticize
That God is the only way to love

Have a great Sunday!

A Saturday off

So having the pleasure of a three day weekend, we decided to spend the first day running errands. Time to take the family truckster to get the oil changed. That's just an oil change. I don't need five filters, eight wiper blades, or my tires rotated. And for God's sake, if I wanted anything "flushed" I would have taken care of that at the house before I left. By the way dude, your stretchy uniform pants that are Civil War issue blue have so much oil on them you can probably just lay down and slide home from work when your shift ends. Just get your friends to give you a good push and you're on your way.

Lunch at Chuy's was a gas. But isn't all good Mexican food a gas? I got to see a picky eater in action, and I don't mean Kyly. When I order something, I just order it and eat it. Sometimes I'll ask them to cut the lettuce on my burger, because come on, lettuce is just solid green water. It serves no purpose and just fill you up quicker. But the couple at the table next to us were creepin' me out man! If I were the waiter, the conversation would have gone something like this: "I'll have a salad with no lettuce or tomato." "Okay, we'll bring you a bowl with an onion in it." Then the guy says he wants chicken fajitas and "Make sure to cook the onions with the chicken so the onions get the chicken juice on them." Seriously? Okay dude, the cook will choke his chicken over your onions until all juiced out. You asked for it.

Before we even left the house to have all of this fun, we found out that our soon-to-be-2-year-old is actually a teenager. What else would explain her two favorite words: "No" and "Mine"? What else would explain her sleeping until almost 11:00 today? And what else would explain her putting on mommy's makeup, or as she called it "soap?" Yeah, she was soaped up from head to toe in a matter of seconds. I'm waiting for the doorbell to ring and some handsome 3 year old to be standing at the door with his Power Wheels Corvette waiting in the driveway and a six pack of something hardcore like cranberry or pomegranate juice hiding in the trunk. Oh come on kid, come back in about 20 years or so...

Welcome to our new and (un)improved blog

Hello and welcome back to Tim and Jen's blog. We had put the blog on hiatus last year due to privacy restrictions surrounding our adoption. Now that we have been successfully adopted (?!), we are unfortunately going to bore you to death *(disclaimer: Not responsible if you do actually die) with daily musings, ramblings, and drudgery based on our fabulously interesting lives (yawn.)

So here's a refresher course for those who haven't been keeping up with us because you've been living under a rock or something. (No offense to those who do actually live under rocks. I've seen some nice ones out there...)

We live in Pflugerville TX (also known as Boogerville, Flooooogerveele, or "where did you say you live?) Contrary to popular belief, Pflugerville is not full of hillbillies. The rednecks have scared them all away. Are residents of Pflugerville really known as Pflugervillians? Weird. We recently finalized the adoption of our lovely daughter, Miss Kyly Ann Salvato, after almost two years of red tape, road blocks, court appearances, and the accumulation of a stack of paperwork taller than our daughter. Kyly is doing great, and the stack of paperwork seems to be adjusting fairly well also. We have three fish and two dogs. The fish are regularly boiled in the summer time and frozen in the winter, but they always seem to come out unscathed. The dogs are free to a good home, so ask and ye shall receive.

Readers of this blog will be subject to a warped sense of humor, random song lyrics of the day, and other odd, strange, mindless, pointless postings. Sorry.

We plan to update this blog daily. But hey, procrastinators are the leaders of tomorrow right? We'll see how often it actually gets updated. If you live to read this thing each and every day...you might want to get another hobby to fill your time between postings. Ever play chicken shit bingo? You get these huge bingo cards with numbers on them, and you lay them on the floor. Then you let the chickens walk all over them and they mark the numbers by...never mind...maybe another hobby would be more fun.

Now is your chance to hit the delete button...