Larry Turns 60

My father in law turned 60 last week, and during the weekend there was a party for him at his art studio. Pooteewheet made the mistake of telling my sister we might be able to babysit - LissyJo, always check with me, I maintain a calendar. I've added an online Google calendar I can share with Pooteewheet and I'll get her to sign up for the daily dump, but it'll take me a while to move all my details out there - so we ended up taking my niece with us. She had a great time, except for when she tried to stop a larger child (Eryn) from running by just standing in front of her, and except for when she tipped over the cardboard wall and grabbed my leg and bawled, concerned that the wall police were going to get her. Also, she may have been a bit dubious about the book we were reading out loud in the car that involved dead pirates in cages who had rotted away to skeletons. And she wasn't too fond of the stomach ache she got after two pieces of cake. But she was ecstatic about the three (3) cups of meltimints she ate.

Anyway...I just felt bad my sister got stuck with her youngest when she was expecting a night of freedom. We're always happy to mess up both her kids.

Here's Eryn and my niece doing some painting. That's me in the back with the Blackberry. I would have you know that most of the night I was holding a beer (some sort of Goose Island) not a PDA. That's my nephew, between Eryn and me. Shortly before this he was eating meltimints with some paint on them (I think blue and pink). I didn't stop him because he only ate two. There's not a picture of my niece on his side of the family in this post. But I got to witness her looking for some attention, realize it wasn't coming, and then stomp faster and faster until her adrenaline was high enough that the crying was for real. My sister in law asked her "did you get hurt", to which she shook her head up and down vigorously. She's going to be a brilliant actress.


Child train. Woot Woot!


This is what happens when it's your 60th birthday, if the stock market hasn't taken away your entire life savings. I don't know if that's frosting in the middle of Ame's forehead. It was there when we picked her up, so probably not. But she's not Hindu and it wasn't Ash Wednesday (and she's not Anglican), so I don't know why she was dotting her forehead. Maybe they were having toddler bingo at school?

As an aside, my father in law had some very nice paintings he'd done in his studio. His very long mural (15 feet long, 9-12 inches tall?) of ticky tacky houses is something I'd put up in my own house.


This is where I wanted to be as the evening wore down. Upper Cut, next door, was having a boxing match. There were hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand, young people dressed to the nines, at least if you consider "the nines" to include dresses so short both your butt and breasts are falling out, despite your really tall boots, and gold lame' jackets. For a while the traffic was beyond the end of the block. The place was rocking so loud it was coming through the wall into the 60th birthday party. I'm not so sure I couldn't have just opened the gate from our side and walked over with a dozen bottles of beer and been the life of the party. I think boxing and drinking might have made for a perfect denouement to the evening.