02 May 2010
Planning Owen’s birthday party has been uncharacteristically hard work this year. Of course, we’ve known since the start of the year that his birthday would correspond with finals week, so we were already concerned with how we’d adequately fit in both activities. So, several months ago, we thought we’d just go ahead and hold his party at some party room somewhere.
But this isn’t as good as it seems. For one thing, those places are expensive. For another thing, they all have crazy restrictions, like a (stupidly low) limit on number of people, or a restriction on bringing in outside food. One of Owen’s classmates had the celebration part of their party (you know – cake and presents) just at a random table at a community center, then we all went downstairs to a play area. This seemed like a good idea to me, as it gave the kids a fun place to play without having to pay for a party room reservation, but further research led me to conclude this was risky business, as there’s no guarantee we’d be able to find an empty spot to hold the party, and the play area downstairs could be filled to capacity and we could be turned away.
We thought of Choo Choo Bob’s Train Store, which is pretty relaxed in the restrictions department and, mercifully, not crazy expensive. But…they’re booked. We could have held his party there on the 23rd (over a week after his birthday), but it would’ve had to have been in the morning. Yuck.
We tried one of the local city parks, too, but they’re totally booked. It’s tough competing with Mother’s Day and graduation season. The other thing that worries me about booking a pavilion is the weather. It has been known to rain (and snow!) in May.
Why not just have the party at our place, you ask? Two reasons: 1) we only have about 10 square feet of usable space, and since we wanted to invite some of Owen’s classmates this year, we feared our home would be standing room only. And 2) getting back to finals week: it’d be quite tough to clean and decorate during the same week we’re trying to finish up some big projects.
Owen’s party will be held at his grandparents’ home this year.
03 May 2010
So…I don’t normally advocate destroying media…but I made a big exception today.
While cleaning out my car, I came upon a cassette tape I hadn’t seen in years. Back in 2002 and 2003, I worked in Oakdale, which was about a half hour drive from my townhome in Apple Valley. There was this woman in my congregation who listened to the Watchtower and Awake! on tape in her car and, when she heard I had a longer commute, she offered to give me the cassettes she’d finished with. I listened to some of them in the car but (and this probably goes without saying), they were boring. Sometimes the Awake! magazine had some interesting articles related to history or science, but I never listened to the Watchtower. I tossed them in my backseat, and got rid of them sometime later.
Except for the Watchtower from August 15, 2003, which somehow managed to slide itself under the backseat and hide from detection for over six years.
When I brought it in the house today, laughing about what I’d found, Owen said he wanted to listen to it. I told him it wasn’t music, and he said “oh.” I was going to just throw it in our garbage but – not wanting to pass up an opportunity for learning, I instead fished out the spool of tape and handed Owen the cassette.
“Go walk down the hall,” I said, “let’s see how much tape is in one of these cassettes.”
He walked down the hall, laughing. When he got to our bedroom door, I said: “I think you’re gonna have to open the door and keep going.” He did, and then when he got to the far wall, I looped the tape around a chair and walked down the hall to meet him; the tape de-spooling as I went. Then I grabbed his end of the tape, and had him walk back. When he got down to the kitchen, he asked if the tape was done, but I pointed out it wasn’t even half done. Not knowing where else we could go, I just instructed him to run around the kitchen, into the dining room, through the living room, back towards me, then round and round again and again. Though he snagged the tape on some dishes, a chair, and a couple plants, nothing was ruined.
I was pleased to, at last, find some educational value in the Watchtower.
Here, Owen is holding the bulk of the tape that we de-spooled running up and down the hallway. On the left side of the photo, you can see the tape emanating out from from my hand – each line of tape runs at least 12 feet – past the dishwasher, sink, counter, then into the living room in front of the TV. The cassette itself can be seen, still attached, dangling right in front of me.
Look at all that tape! Owen is clearly enamored with this activity.
Owen took this picture, wherein I placed some of the tape on my head like a wig. My first thought upon seeing this photo was “Man, he takes some lousy pictures.” But on further consideration, I think this is how sees the world – in a continuous frenetic blur – and he’s just documenting it as accurately as he can.