Kotton Kandy Meditates

sumo

we recently sent our daughter to Kyoto (home of the rejected protocols) to learn the ancient japanese art of sumo wrestling. here she's seen in the standard "hyto" or ready pose preparing for battle. please take note of her special shoes which she received from someone we all know. any guesses who that someone might be? first correct guess will receive a first class trip to kyoto to see elizabeth compete against the great sumo champion erica carl jong ll.

"You Rang?"

We went to a Halloweeeeen Party last night, but the pre-party at Chris & Amys was almost more fun. They fielded a large group as The Adams Family as you can see. Chris made a good Gomez but what was very freaky for me was how much he looked like my brother Ken (with mustache but before wig). Thatcher, Susan, and their friend Andrea went as The Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 & 2. Jim reprised Trever Bumlap and I Glinda. Its hard to maneuver with a headpiece like that!

House Exterior Complete

We finished applying clapboards, shingles and trim to the house on Friday. We'll start trimming the inside in a couple of weeks, once the sheetrock is complete.

The World is a Fellowship Village

A Few of the Residents enjoy the Festivities at Le Village

More Pix from the Big 89!

Daddio Celebrates his 89th

W.B.'s Harem await his arrival
An unlikely duo that works!

"Scene" says Dub Diddy. Dad seemed to enjoy his birthday celebration very much. He had something to say to all while enjoying a big plate of chocolate chip cookies. The festivities continued for several hours. As we left Susan was trailing behind him with his chair but he was motivating under his own steam. Hes amazing!

Whose baby is it anyway?

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Unmarried Households Reign in US

Traditional marriage has ceased to be the preferred living arrangement in the majority of US households, according to the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey. The findings indicated that marriage did not figure in nearly 55.8 million American family households, or 50.2 percent.

More than 14 million of them were headed by single women, another five million by single men, while 36.7 million belonged to a category described as "non-family households," a term that refers primarily to heterosexual or gay couples cohabiting out of formal wedlock. In addition, there were more than 30 million unmarried men and women living alone, who are not categorized as families, the Census Bureau reported.

By comparison, the number of traditional households with married couples at their core stood at slightly more than 55.2 million, or 49.8 percent of the total.

The trend represented a dramatic change from just six years ago, when married couples made up 52 percent of 105.5 million American households.

It indicated that efforts by President George W. Bush and his allies, who over the past five years have made a concerted effort to shore up traditional marriage and families through tax breaks, special legislation and church-sponsored campaigns are bearing little fruit.

The shift, experts said, also raises the question about the future effectiveness of so-called "family value" politics currently played by both Republicans and Democrats.

Douglas Besharov, a sociologist with the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said it is difficult for the traditional family to emerge unscathed after three and a half decades of divorce rates reaching 50 percent and five decades out-of-wedlock births.

"Change is in the air," Besharov said. "The only question is whether it is catastrophic or just evolutionary." He predicted that cohabitation and temporary relationships between people were likely to dominate America's social landscape for years to come.

"Overall, what I see is a situation in which people -- especially children -- will be much more isolated, because not only will their parents both be working, but they'll have fewer siblings, fewer cousins, fewer aunts and uncles," the scholar argued. "So over time, we're moving towards a much more individualistic society."

The Pollies Visit.

These are known as "The Pollies", although the one on the right is actually "transgender Phil". He arrived this morning with no clothes on so I put one of the girls dresses on him and he really liked it. I know, I know that does not make him transgendered, perhaps only vestite. If you look closely you will notice that Phil has a soul patch! Its all rather amazing. All these one inch high dresses and pants, shoes , chairs, closets, etc. Off camera the pollies have their own car with a hot tub in the back! They also have a pack of dogs whose heads are twice the size of their bodies. Hope is unfazed by it all. The thing she is a bit worried about right now is Halloween, more specifically werewolves and vampires. She tells me that last year she heard a werewolf when she was in the corn maze. I said maybe that was someone pretending. " No" she says "it was real howling". Shes curious about " that guy with the horns. Why does he need that three-pointed thing. What is a devil" she says. I try to explain but she interupts with " Hunter says that Wal-Mart is the devil". Out of the mouths of babes, by way of Thatcher.

It's in the Shadows

Like Josh, Maia and I went to football (Pats) last
weekend, and here's what we saw:

Shadows.

Searches.

Support group.

Feckless & Seething.

Greetings from East Rutherford, NJ

Attention.........................................
Have you seen this man! He was last seen guzzling
cold Budweisers and sucking down hot dogs at Giants Stadium
this past Sunday. If you have any information on this
man please contact the Dover Township PD. Answers to the
name Yo! footballhead!

Lovely view from high above........

Mad Cowboy Disease

This is a short poem made up entirely of actual quotations from George W. Bush. These have been arranged, only for aesthetic purposes by Washington Post writer, Richard Thompson.

Make the Pie Higher

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
And potential mental losses.

Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet
Become more few?

How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.

I know that the human being
And the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope,
Where our wings take dream.

Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
I am the Decider!

The President's World View

Well... it’s all right now, in fact, it’s a gas!

Happy 1st Anniversary, Sara and Dave!


Before.

After.

More Italy

Vernazza
Along the trail to Monterosso
In Santa Margherita

La Bella Italia

Cinque Terre is the home of foccacio, here with tomatos, onions, olives, pesto, etc.
Portovenere

Just returned last night from our trip to Cinque Terre. We ate, hiked, and sang our way along the Ligurian coastline. We continually mangled the language but kept trying. However we are absolutely fluent in gelato. We can order in cups or cones, multiple scoops ( gusti) in 20 or more flavors. Vorrei una cona de due gusti, crema e fruta de bosco, per favore.

Hard Rain

by Tony Hoagland

After I heard It's a Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
played softly by an accordion quartet
through the ceiling speakers at the Springdale Shopping Mall,
I understood there's nothing
we can't pluck the stinger from,

nothing we can't turn into a soft drink flavor or a t-shirt.
Even serenity can become something horrible
if you make a commercial about it
using smiling, white-haired people

quoting Thoreau to sell retirement homes
in the Everglades, where the swamp has been
drained and bulldozed into a nineteen-hole golf course
with electrified alligator barriers.

You can't keep beating yourself up, Billy
I heard the therapist say on television
to the teenage murderer,
About all those people you killed—
You just have to be the best person you can be,

one day at a time—

and everybody in the audience claps and weeps a little,
because the level of deep feeling has been touched,
and they want to believe that
the power of Forgiveness is greater
than the power of Consequence, or History.

Dear Abby:
My father is a businessman who travels.
Each time he returns from one of his trips,
his shoes and trousers
are covered with blood-
but he never forgets to bring me a nice present;
Should I say something?
Signed, America.

I used to think I was not part of this,
that I could mind my own business and get along,

but that was just another song
that had been taught to me since birth—

whose words I was humming under my breath,
as I was walking through the Springdale Mall