The Queen City

Harper and I just got back from a quick trip to Cincinnati. Counting my time at Miami University, I spent about 10 years in the greater Cincinnati area. That's one third of my life. Every time I go back, I have this weird deja vu feeling - like I'm home, but I'm totally not home. It messes with my head. I can't say that I loved Cincinnati while I lived there. But now, I find myself really missing the little things about the Queen City that I took for granted. Here are a couple I thought about on the drive home today.

• 90.9 WGUC, Cincinnati's classical public radio station. I really miss listening to classical music on the radio. Nashville, Music City, does not have a dedicated classical music station. That's sad.
• The older established neighborhoods on the west side that have huge perfectly manicured lawns to go with the huge perfectly manicured houses. They're really beautiful and there's some cool history in that part of town.
• Great Lakes Beer. Yes it's from Cleveland not Cincinnati. But, you can get it in Cincinnati and not in Nashville. I brought some back with me.
• My friends. I have a couple awesome friends that I miss dearly. We don't call each other nearly as much as we should, but when we see each other, it's as if nothing has changed.
• My friends' kids. They're pretty awesome. It makes me sad that Harper isn't growing up with them. It's just not right. But, such is life.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

I took Harper to the park after baby school yesterday. We played on the playground and had a picnic dinner. As we ate and played, I kept thinking about how 2 year olds can switch effortlessly between being totally content, being in total meltdown mode, and then back to totally content again. It's amazing.

For example... as we were eating, a squirrel came over to our picnic table. I threw him a piece of bread and Harper thought that was the best thing in the world. Then she started throwing him little pieces of her bread. Once he started eating it, she became infuriated that he was eating her bread. She wanted it back - even the pieces that he had already eaten. There were tears and stomping of feet. I went over and picked up the pieces that he hadn't eaten yet and gave them to her. I told her not to eat them because they had been on the ground. She looked at the bread in her hand, looked at me, and then said "yes eat it" and shoved them all in her mouth. Then she smiled and all was right with the world again.

I took these pictures with my cell phone - my very old cell phone. You may be asking yourself why am I using my very old cell phone to take pictures. Well, it's because I dropped my very new phone in the toilet and ruined it. Awesome. So, instead of paying a ton of money to get another new phone I reactivated my old phone.

Sunset

This was the view from our deck last night. It had just stopped raining and the sun was almost down. If you look closely, you can see a rainbow.

PT Cruiser Strikes Again

This news story is just more data supporting the notion that people who drive PT Cruisers are a little off. Read all about it here.

If you missed my theory on PT Cruisers, you can read about it here and here.

Lab Rat

One of the perks about working in a research environment is that from time to time I get asked to participate in clinical studies. I decline most of them because I don't really have an interest in having things implanted in me or testing controversial vaccinations with painful side effects. But, every once in a while an "easy money" study comes along. Today was one of those days. It was a study to test a new way to find out if people are allergic to mice. Since I work with mice, I was a good fit because they wanted participants who are regularly exposed to mice.

I just had to have a skin test that would evaluate my allergic response to several things including mice. They also tested certain tree and grass pollens that are common in Middle Tennessee as well as 2 types of mold, dust mites, dogs, cats, and cockroaches (yes cockroaches).

Here's a picture of my arm a few minutes after they started the test.

As it turns out, I am fairly allergic to trees and grass (oak and pecan in particular), somewhat allergic to dogs, mildly allergic to cockroaches (go figure), and slightly sensitive to mice. All in all, it was a very easy way to make some extra cash. Did you know that some people actually make a living being professional lab rats? I guess they're the ones that don't mind having things implanted. I think I'll stick to the skin tests.

Class Picture

I got Harper's class picture yesterday. This is her old class (she's a big kid now, remember?). I continue to be amazed at how much order these 2 teachers are able to establish with 8 little kiddos. 99% of the time, I can't get Harper to look at my camera and simultaneously simile nicely. But these wonder-teachers got 8 kids to stand still, not pick their nose, and all look at the camera at the same time. Miraculous.

Principle

The garage sale was a success! We made more money than I anticipated and got rid of about half of our stuff. 99.9% of the people that came were really nice. 2 people were not.

The first lady wanted to buy something that was marked $5. She asked if I would take $3. I said I'd take $4. She said ok and proceeded to give me $3. I told her that she owed me one more dollar. She pretended she didn't speak English and then said that she didn't have any more money. Then she found something else she wanted to buy and whipped out a wad of cash. Unbelievable.

The second lady was looking at a care bear that was priced at 25 cents. A pretty good deal if I do say so myself. I saw her holding it and showing it to the other lady she came with. Then I got busy with another customer. I saw the 2 ladies walking away. When I finished checking out the customer, I went over to look at the care bear and it was gone. Two middle aged women stole a 25 cent toy. Unbelievable.