Pool and the City

Yesterday Sylvia and I finally went to the pool again.
We had a great time other than the evil children incident.

I got my first taste of kids who are already "mean girls."
One child shoved another child into the baby pool and the parent justified the shove saying, "well your daughter touched my daughter's house she was building..." OK. That freaked me out.
When did parents stop parenting? Also note that these were not "big kids," they were only a bit older than Sylvia. It's amazing how the personalities are already formed. These same girls also kept taking toys from Sylvia and not sharing and one even would tease Sylvia and act like she was going to give her a toy and then would yank it away as Sylvia grabbed at it. Needless to say, I promptly removed her from the situation and got her away from the girls. At least I know who to avoid next time we're there.

Today we went into DC and visited the bookstore, Politics and Prose. I bought her a new book, "Polar Bear, Polar Bear what do you hear?" She's already off reading it! :O)

Feast of Stephen Reunion Now Live on the Web!

It's finally here! The Radio Free Charleston documentary on the Feast of Stephen reunion is now live and on the Web! Special thanks to Rudy Panucci, the brains behind RFC; Jerry Fugate, our intrepid cameraman and great friend; Brian Young, who ran the mixing board; and especially the other guys in the band: Tommy, Rad, Dan, Bob, and Fred, you guys are my musical brothers forever!

Surf, don't walk, over to Radio Free Charleston right now to watch this great show. You can see out-takes from the rehearsal the night before (which include our biggest hit, "Gomec") on the Feast of Stephen Website (look to the left-hand side of the screen under the band info). And Rudy gives the background on the show on his Myspace blog.

This was a fantastic experience for me and the guys, and we hope that you enjoy it as much as we did. This is Stephen. Witness His Feast.

Butterflies are free

Yesterday Syl and I had a nice day:
Dropped Daddy off at Metro, then drove to the ATM, then went to the post office, then we went to Brookside Gardens (home of my 2010 Art Show) to see the butterfly exhibit.
We met my friend from my old job and her new baby.
It was really a beautiful morning...we walked around the gardens first, looked at the roses and then the wisteria and Syl was obsessed with the fountains. If there is water, she will go to it.
The butterfly exhibit is amazing. There were these HUGE blue and brown butterflies and foot long (wing span) rainbow moths. Really incredible and located 10 min from our house.

Today, alas, was not so fun. We were stuck in the house all morning waiting for the washer repair people. They finally came and then asked to use OUR WD-40. Crazy. And I think the WD-40 might have done the trick. But I will test for the weird noise again tomorrow.
I need to find a better repair person, pronto.

Still likin' those cheap Chinese imports, America?

• Poisoned pet food (that killed my dad's dog, btw)
• Poisoned tooth paste
• Poisoned cough syrup
• Lead paint used on children's toys

And now this lovely chemical burn-inducing flip-flop disaster. Gross!

Also, check out this huge timeline of dangerous Chinese crap blithly imported onto our shores.

Free trade isn't feeling so free these days.