Gecko Bloggle

Ripley’s in bed with a nice sunburn (with lemony aloe vera toppings).
Tate’s zonked out after scooting around on the floor for about 45 minutes.
I’m stuffed to the gills on sushi.
Watching the acid trip and wedding part of “Hair” that I bought on DVD for $9 yesterday.

What. The?

I thought I’d seen this movie before, but I guess freakin’ NOT.

Holy Wow do I ever NOT feel connected to my workplace today.

I’ll get the rest of the photos and thoughts about our strange trip into America down here in the near future…

It’s good to be home though, I’ll tell you that for free.

Well, we’re having fun, and Ripley and Tate are having a good time with Grampa Virgil. Today, we all went out to the “Old Bag Factory,” which is very similar to Seattle’s “The Pier,” if you’ve ever been there.

First up, was John Mishler’s weird and wonderful solidsteel kinetic scultures, which spin around when pushed (by people or the elements), which were all being built in his workshop, which was manned by a young guy with 85% of a mohawk, which gave me hope for Goshen’s young folks. We met the artist himself while we were there, and got to talk to him for a minute. Very cool.

Then we wandered into the proper Bag Factory, and now I have to go get some dinner from the fridge for Tate, ’cause he’s decided that Midnight is a good time for a full meal…

… the little drunk…

Okay, so anyhoo, next we went inside, and went to see some of the most gorgeous wood furniture I’ve ever seen in my life. Prarie Style, they called it, and it was an outgrowth of the arts and crafts movement. Definitely had some ArtDeco in it, but wow… Just so rich and warm. I only have video of some of that stuff, so all y’all’ll have to wait to see any of that stuff. I was pretty sure for a few minutes there I wouldn’t be able to get Arwen out of there for less than $10,000, but then we finally moved on.

Next up was the little Turkish place, Gamze Neer Exclusive, with lots of the “Blue Eye” things you see from time to time. The friendly (and maybe a little crazed from all the silence) woman just moved here (direct from Turkey) two years ago, but seemed to be finding a place in this little town, which gave me some hope in a place where the K|@n is still active, or so I’m told. Not that they’d have anything against Turkish people when there’s so many other folks to focus on, but still, you worry for the folk art types with Egyptian stuff in their stores that they’ll be hassled for being “forrin.” My fave quote of hers: “Everything here is from somewhere far away, including me.”

Next up (I think – it’s all a bit of a blur) was the model train exhibit. There was this *great* old guy who’s got four different sizes and six different tracks, and was more than happy to point out the details (as well as the inconsistencies, like “See that one? It’s got a 482 on the front pulling it, but there’s only a 322 along the lines in that part of the world this time of the year.”) Ripley totally dug it, the guy running the place was happy to see a young face who was interested, and it meant people coming to him instead of him having to go down to the cafe to perform some sorta strange reverse panhandling, table to table:

“You been up to the train exhibit on the second floor as of yit?”
“Why no sir, I have not, but I believe I shall after my good wife and I have some of this delicious pie.”
“All right then, I’ll wait for you upstairs, but don’t rush your second cup of tea, or you’re likely to burn your two sets of sippin’ lips.”
“That’s sounds like a fine offer.”
“I’m not even selling nothing up there, so you can come and go as you please…”

See, I thought people were kidding when they talked like that, or it was something quaint that happened in black and white films, as a stylistic thing. Seriously though, that’s almost verbatim what I overheard yesterday while we ate chicken salad sandwiches (with equal amounts chicken and gherkin pickle) in the cafe. Also very strange was the menu’s “free Coffee/Tea on Mondays if you bring in your church bulletin from the day before.” Closest thing to that we have in Vancouver is the “Bring in your movie stub for a free coffee.” thing at Starbucks.

Next was Ten Thousand Villages, just like we have in Vancouver. Oddly, this place full of stuff from all over the world reminded me of the big tent at the Folk Music Festival, and while I was staring at stuff like the population-relative map of the world, and the South is Up map, I felt my compass click into place. I still couldn’t find Indiana on a map without the names on it, but I stopped feeling like I was in some sort of fake biodome, with the mountains hidden behind the reflective walls.

Ooh, also sorta hip was Identity Graphic Design, largely for their very cool dog, and their cigarrette machine full of previous designs for other groups. (click pic for full image).
The last place we went was Quilt Designs.

Oh. My. God.

I never really thought much about quilts. Thought they were “nice” to look at, and were heavy, which felt good on the backs of my knees for that “cat on my legs” sensation when falling asleep, but these?

These were *ART*. Like, wall-hangable in a frame art. Stand and stare at it with little tears brewing at the corners of your eyes sorta art. Seeing the price tag of $3,500 for something and instead of thinking “Are you insane?” thinking “Yeah, that sounds just about right.”

There was a sign on the wall that told us in plain English that pictures were not to be taken, and by nature of their direct manner, I took this as a very stern warning. Instead of something that rhymed and had cute birds on it, this just said “No Photography, Please.” which, after being here for six days, is about as curt as you can get and still be within’ Goshen city limits. Vancouver’s equivalent would be “You pull out a camera, and you draw back a bloody stump,” but said with a smile, or something. Know what I mean?

So at first I was all “What, the flash is going to ruin the material? What’s the big deal?” but as I wandered around and looked – really looked, it struck me. This was copyright protection. The technology to make quilts is old, and (somewhat) easily attainable. What Shirley Shenk is doing is creating these intricate, warm, homey, even vaguely alarming abstract images on something as everyday as a quilt. A photo would be enough for something to make some sorta cheap knockoff, or give it to someone else who’s capable of making expensive replications, and those ideas are what Shirley has. I mean, I’m not saying just anyone could make one of these things by hand (as she does), but that people *could* make them. The ideas? Shirley’s got a gift. Escher-like, some of them, with the fairly standard quilt shapes breaking out of their frames, and reaching off the “canvas,” towards the viewer.

Like I say, same technology, alien brainwave behind it. Very very cool. I’m not going to the next Xmas Craft Fair and going “Oooh aaaaah,” but it’s almost worth $3,000 to show all you good folks that quilts can actually be, y’know. Hip.

Okay, so maybe TOMORROW, I’ll write about TODAY, which’ll be YESTERDAY. Or something. What the hell day is it, anyway?

I got to geek out today, but not entirely in a good way. Filled me with the feeling that I’ve come a long LONG way from being a “whizkid who knows about computers.” :)

So today we got up around 10am localtime, which is 7am PST, which is still “First Thing” Ripley-mean-time.

Breakfast consisted of fruit-sweetened cheerio-like things, and I gotta say: if that’s fruit-sweetened, I’m afraid of what unsweetened would be like. Coffee-bag (like tea bags) took the edge off, but I just couldn’t seem to get moving. Maybe it’s that this vacation is actually setting in a little, ’cause wow, did I ever zone out for a while there today. The heat here’s pretty intense, but it’s not because of *just* the heat, it’s the humidity.

Okay, maybe it’s mostly the heat. 89% humidity at 72 degrees is totally fine, but not when it’s 89 outside. I’m not going to go look up how to convert that to CDN temps, ’cause I’d probably be embarassed to find out it’s 22 or something mild like that.

Tate sat around on the (slightly pointy) grass for about five minutes before he decided it was either too hot or too pokey to continue, but I managed to get a quick shot of him bein’ cute and stuff.

It seems that the most common question about Tate is “is it a boy or a girl?” ‘Cause he’s just so damned pretty, I guess. I refrain from responding with “You should see him at 11:45pm, when he decides he doesn’t wanna sleep until after the Colbert Report is over.

I gotta say though, it’s better than “You named your baby Cake?”

Ripley got out into the backyard, and ran around a lot, with many rounds of “run to the front of the house and ring the doorbell,” which reminded me of Doorway to Summer, with the idea of cats trying to find the door that would lead to a nice day outside, instead of the crappy rain we usually have in BC. Rip worked up a good sweat under all that hair, and

I’m pretty sure I’m going to vaporize at least one rubber lizard when I get out there with the lawnmower tomorrow (heh, I’m gonna do YARDWORK like a REAL MAN in the SUMMER HEAT). Little do they know I’m going to be all “ewww, my shoes are all grassy now,” when I’m done.

It’s because I look stupid in baseball caps, isn’t it? Dead giveaway.

Next up, we went for a walk to Goshen College, which explains the GCScience wifi I occasionally see from our topfloor bed, ’cause it’s about a block and a half away.

Pretty, and quiet, with some nice wind and trees, and sprinklers Ripley danced around in. Especially fun was the one pop-up sprinkler that didn’t pop up, and instead built-up pressure from it’s rather pedestrian six inch drinking-fountain height until it did a full-on ten-foot jet of liquid comedy, drenching Ripley entirely and sending us and three cyclists running away laughing, thankful for the water on such a muggy day.

We schlepped back home, and I was getting a headache. Headache, plus sunglasses, plus new haircut equals “undercover CIA agent” disguise, I’m told.

So in the afternoon, we went out to a “Super” market of some note (most notable that it was “New” in Grampa’s eyes, *AND* there was a Starbucks inside). We were no fools though, and passed by the $1.75 Charbucks coffee for the higher-octane deli lunchcounter coffee, which was about a buck cheaper, three times the size, and would have left most Seattle yuppies vibrating under their collective moon roof, wondering why this “cheap crap” packed such a punch.

Arwen mentioned about five minutes later that she literally saw me “come back online.” We were meanderthals in this warehouse of food (maybe it was the coffee talking, but American supermarkets are just more colourful), looking at the weird stuff for sale that you can’t buy in Canadian supermarkets to wit:

1. The “Hispanic Foods” Isle (not sure why this felt weird, when Vancouver markets all have an “Ethnic Foods” section, but it felt weird nonetheless).
2. Patriotic Cookies (and similarly Red!White!Blue! yogurt covered pretzels, which Ripley dubbed “pigs nostrils when he found strawberry ones a month ago, so I’m calling them that from now on) and tablecloths, and stuff. And other stuff. Oh, and this thing over here, too. Including bunting. Maybe it’s only because the 4th of July is coming soon, but even when you think you’re ready for flag-waving to wander into the cookie aisle, you’re not. Maple-flavoured cookies don’t count. At least, not to me.
3. Coke Black. (Tried this, and it doesn’t suck. Take a bottle (glass, small) of Coke Classic, dump it into a Tim Horton’s small double-double, and you’ve got the same thing). Maybe I just like that it was more coffee.
4. Booze. Not just $4 bottles of wine that would cost $11 in the BCLD, but crazy stuff, like $11 4Litre vats of Sky Vodka, and what looked like “stubbies” of Becks.
5. “Mexican Coke” which is Coke-flavoured-Coke, but in glass bottles. Just like we used to get before some testing house somewhere started tipping them over on cement floors with broom handles, causing them to explode, and we were forced to buy “safety Coke” in plastic bottles that could happily bounce three feet high in the back of the minivan.
6. Parsnip flavoured orangutan toes, in sauce. (No, not really).
7. Tamarinds, in sauce. With guys in sombreros on the label, so they wouldn’t be confused with “Non-Hispanic” foods. We’ll see what happens there. What’s a tamarind?
8. “Spicy Candy” See #7

Next we drove around while my mental compass made whooshing noises (there’s no mountains, and no ocean, so where am I supposed to look for milestones?), and went to some sorta Amish tourist version of an all-you-can-cram-down-your-laughing-gear, complete with tour buses outside. I tried to convince Grampa that it would be okay, ’cause the tourist buses had their doors open in their best “dinner’s over, let’s go talk loudly to each other about something ELSE that’s not like home” pose.
We passed a cloud of loudness in bad shirts as they left. Disaster averted.

The food was this, and they kept bringing more.

1. BIG plate of chicken. Fried, meaty. Good. (We could have done beef too, I understand).
2. Bowl of green beans. Cooked, buttery, good. Almond & bacon snippets, too.
3. Bowl of mashed (mashed? put-near creamed!) potatoes.
4. Bowl of Breaded Stuffing.
5. Bowl of Monster Oversized Noodles in chicken broth that would make the Campbell’s people cry.
6. Pitcher of gravy. (Seriously)
7. Pie. Pie gooood. I refrained from quoting “Weebl & Bob” with “When come back, bring pie.”

The ride home was an all natural lightshow of the likes you just don’t see in BC. At least, not near the ocean, you don’t. Crazy right-angle rain that bounced a good six inches off the ground, and made me feel like I was driving through the world’s largest carwash (oh yeah, I was driving, ’cause it was FUN, honest!) and we ran into the house once again soaking wet. Yay for air conditioning.

The evening was nice and relaxed, with Arwen and Grampa Virgil talking about religion, and family, and life, and Virgil once again blowing my mind with how many things he’s done/been/seen. He’s 84, and done 300 years worth of living, I tell you. If he ever has any sorta near-death experience, it’s gonna take a good long time to have that whole life-review thing, and we’ll need schematics, and diagrams with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one.

Ripley and I stole a National Geographic at bedtime, and read about Polar Bears, NewYork Grand Central Station’s “Lost and Found” department, and street dogs all over the world. Tate continuously threatens to start actually crawling instead of his current “yogic flying” sitting up and hopping on his butt to get around.

I’m not totally relaxed, but I’m getting there.

I didn’t check my Blackberry at all today, and I’m not sure I really want to any more.

And now, I’m going to see if I can hop onto someone’s wifi, and send this post off.

We’re here, and it’s late (for here), and so this’ll be short.

We were only “those people” with “those children” for about 15 minutes during the first (and longest leg) of our journey, so all in all, it went really well. Ripley looked out the window at stuff, and Tate was just cute and sleepy most of the time, and there was a moment where were were a little row of three nerds, playing Mario Kart on a fire-engine red Nintendo DS (Ripley), Sudoku on a sexy blue/black Nintendo DS SLIM from Japan three months before they were available in North America (Arwen) and Burnout Legends on a funky PSP (Me). Sometimes, it’s good to work where I do.

DORKS!

Look at us: We hardly look insane at all!

Okay, maybe a little.

Three hours in the back row of a 757’ll do that to a person.

Multiply that time by three for each child under 6 you’re traveling with, and we were in the air for about… nine days.

Mostly though, things went great, and here’s some pics to prove we were in the AIR!

See that? Mt Baker looking all majestic and stuff, instead of that sorta grimey look it gets when looking at it from my patio on the 19th floor at work (through the smog of 90 gatrillion commuters-worth of cars). It was beautiful up there.

After the trip to Cincinati, we ate at the Outback, and Arwen and I had to actually pull out my Blackberry to find out what STATE we were in. So much for making fun of Americans for not knowing anything about Canadian geography, I was totally lost.

…and I sorta enjoyed that feeling.

After a 2.5 hr stopover, and some time where Ripley could play with his multitude of rubber snakes, lizards and spiders, we were back on a much smaller Delta Connections flight, with Ripley having a seat to himself, and Arwen and I on the other side of the isle. Watching the sun go down when you’re *just* above the clouds is beautiful – something I haven’t remembered seeing since my trip to New York when I was about 12.

When we were landed, and taxying (sp?) into the gate, I spotted fireflies, and when Ripley saw them out HIS side, he got so excited he started yelling (his ears hadn’t popped yet, and hey, he’s four) about “I’ve never seen flier fies before ever!” then we were off and standing on the ground…

Another one-hour car trip along the various highways of Indiana (why do I always feel like I’m driving West when there’s no Ocean, Sun, or Mountains for a BC boy to navigate by?), and we arrived at Grampa Virgil’s house in Goshen. He mentioned as we were pulling up that he paid $11,000 for the place 60+ years ago, and figured it’s be worth maaaybe $80G now…

This house, my friends, would pull an easy $800,000 in Vancouver’s market right now… Guh.

After much conversation about airflow, and new paint, and putting fans in the windows upstairs while opening the windows downstairs, we’re all in bed now.

So I’ll sign off now with this little bit of highway wisdom: When you hit a firefly on the highway, the little glow bit gets left on the windshield.

and this little bit of airplane wisdom:

People who fly have a different view of the world than those who spend their lives on the ground. A very wise man once wrote a poem while he was flying, and he called this poem “The God’s Eye View,” and he said that this view was entirely different than the view he always had on the ground, which he called “The Bug’s Eye View.”

Out there, somewhere, in the air we fly through, exists an old Persian legend much like this poem about a bug who spent his entire life in the world’s most beautifully designed Persian rug. All the bug ever saw in his lifetime were his problems. They stood up all around him. He couldn’t see over the top of them, and he had to fight his way through these tufts of wool in the rug to find the crumbs that people had spilled on the rug. And the tragedy of the story of the bug in the rug was this: that he lived and he died in the world’s most beautifully designed rug, but he never once knew that he spent his life inside something which had a pattern. Even if he, this bug, had even once gotten above the rug so that he could have seen all of it, he would have discovered something – that the very things he called his problems were a part of the pattern.

Have you ever felt like that bug in the rug? That you are so surrounded by your problems that you can’t see any pattern to the world in which you live? Have you heard anybody say lately that the world is a total mess? That, my friends, is the Bug’s Eye View, and seeing only a little of the world, we might be inclined to think that this is true.

Edit: Oh, and if anybody was wondering: “linksys” in Goshen is an unsecured WAP. Thank you, whoever you are, and I promise not to do anything alarming on your node.

So, on the first night of our adventure, we stayed in Kent, at the quiet and reasonably-priced Best Western “On the Green,” which means every room (that’s not overlooking the parking lot) is overlooking the uh… golfers. Actually, it was mostly overlooking the ducks, and the occasional golfcart. I had visions of Rip and I sneaking out in the middle of the night and recreating scenes from CaddyShack, but then decided against it due to my hurt back (managed to mangle something in my lowerback during a particularly rousing round of “Laundry Bucket Street: Overload Extreme 360,” which Arwen tends to perform using a stroller, but I like to do bareback, ’cause that’s how I roll).

So anyhoo, we get everything into the room, and since we’re all starvin’ like Marvin, we decide to wander into the wild streets of Kent’s golfing district, and see what there is to eat.

Ripley saw the chinese food place next door, which I won’t name, lest Google unleash its daemons on the place, and start associating it with terms like “suck” and “gross” and “unintentionally comedic,” but here’s a picture.

(Note the single vehicle parked out front – should’ve been our first hint).

We walk in, and were seated as far away as possible from the only other occupied table, probably a bad sign, and we should’ve kept going to… oh, anywhere. The sports bar next door sounded pretty good after this place, I’m serious.

So we order a combo plate thing, at $12/person, ’cause it’s got Beef & Brocolli, which is my personal fave, and sweet & sour pork, which is Rip’s fave. I don’t know if there was anything Arwen wanted in there or not. We were all in for a real… buncha plates of food…

First comes the wonton soup, which was very very MSG-y, and contained ONE! ENTIRE! WONTON! per bowl. Okay, so maybe that’s not their forte, or something. It’ll get better, we keep telling ourselves. Rip liked it (salt AND sugar? where do I sign up?). Next arrived the sweet and sour shrimp, which was from the EAST combo, not the SOUTH combo that we ordered, so we sent that back. Not a problem, just a little mixup. While that’s being fixed, a plate of deep fried and heavily glazed something (I think I was supposed to be ginger chicken, but who knows, really?) arrived, along with a plate of sauces…

So what do we have here? There’s the plate of ginger something at the top left there, and then the sweet & sour sauce, which came with the spring rolls (to be fair, those were edible, if very greasy), but that little trifecta plate there on the right? Know what was in that?

Sesame seeds. Ketchup. And of course, that cornerstone of Asian Cousine: Dijon freakin’ Mustard.

These things arrived with the warning that they were very very hot, and when I said “Hot – spicy?” the guy went into this elaborate hand-gestured thing about how it was so spicy, that if Ripley were to touch it with his fingertips, it would probably burn the skin.

So I start thinking “okay… now we’re talking. HOT stuff. Like chillis and stuff. Things that’ll blow the top of my head clean off…”

No, he meant heat-hot, not spice hot.

When I tried the ginger chicken, risking the blazing hoop of doom, Arwen asked me if it was “that spicy,” and I responded “I could probably put this in my eye without it being annoying.”

The sweet and (not-at-all) sour pork finally arrived, and we ate (some of) that.

But oh good lord, it was bad.

We scuttled back to our hotel room, and Arwen and I thought we’d wash down all that salt & sugar with some coffee. How can we go wrong?

It tasted fine, dear readers, even if the little grounds & filter thing looked like something that should come with a DustBuster (I fully expected to see the words “HEPA Filter” on the bag somewhere).

It was good though, (Note to self: Next time I find some, I gotta buy & try some Coke Black, which is Coke with Coffee in it – no, seriously).

So we drank that, and watched Ice Age II, during which I had a shower that had enough water pressure to blow my eyebrows off.

Everything, including the kiddies and (only!) ten toys for Rip into my mom’s car, and away we went.

We drove from our place in downtown Vancouver straight through to Bellis Fair, where Arwen got a whole schwack of stuff she’s really happy about at maybe 30% what she would’ve paid for the same things in Vancouver. Rip shared toys with other kids, and we saw a 8.5mo kid who’s already crawling (even up slides!) so now Tate seems very small. Still cute & happy as a clam though.

Now, we’re at the hotel in Kent, and watching the Cartoon Network, which makes Rip look like this:

Yes, those are toys all over the bed, but the commercials (omigod, commercials?) are totally flooring our kid.

Tate seems unphased, and started opening drawers (something he can’t do at home, ’cause they’re usually crammed full o’ clothes).

Work’s only *slightly* freaking out due to some things that were impossible to finish before I left, so I’m quickly feeling less like “leave me alone,” and more like “somebody ELSE can deal with it, I’m OFF.”

Tomorrow, we fly. Pray for sleepy and/or happy kids, so we’re not “those parents” with “those children” during the flight.

We’re going to be out of town for a week and a bit, out here, where there’s no mountains OR ocean to navigate by.  I might be able to post something interesting once or twice (probably mostly photos of things and stuff, and the odd “Whoo, it’s HOT out here!” post).

If you wanna point and laugh at how much I’ll be sweating under my SPF50 sunscreen, check out the #7 Google link for Goshen Indiana Webcam, and see what the weather’s like. And while you are at it look for products to remove sweat odors from clothes, at least if you care what you smell like after the heat of the sun.
If you wanna play with any of our laptops, Nintendo DS Slim, iPod mini/shuffle, cameras, cel phone, Blackberry, or battery charger, you can’t, ’cause we took ’em with us.  Any of the other stuff?  You’ll have to ask Arwen‘s brother, ’cause he’ll be feeding our fish & cat.

Be good to each other out there, and we’ll see you next week.

Don’t make fun of my accent when I get back.

Via Claire

Insane turntablism stuff that actually sounds like… well…

Like MUSIC… With strings and stuff.

Check out the six-minute video

See also Birdy Nam Nam’s site.

So, about two weeks ago, Riplechip and I watched part of Baraka on the computer, and I thought it would be interesting for him to see/hear this incredibly beautiful film. He was rapt. From the Ramayana monkey chant to the crazed high-speed footage of traffic in New York and pedestrian crosswalks in China.

I wanted him to see how freakin’ big and amazing and beautiful the world is, even if it’s a little scary at times. The volcanic craters and clouds moving over mountains. The sun in full eclipse, and thousands upon thousands of flamingos looking more like gnats than birds. The tribes from all over the world with their dances, and how movement and music and animals and Earth all intertwined.

Here’s a little clip that blends a bunch of the movie together, but only one song. It doesn’t do the entire work justice, but gives you an idea of what sorts of things Rip was having poured into his little brain.

I really enjoyed trying to explain the guy that’s “walking zen” with the little bell, and bowl, and awesome hat. We talked a little about meditation, and I tried my best to explain to Rip that he (the monk, not Rip) rang the bell to remind himself to be in the moment, and not to think about anything else… Rip looked at me as if to say “Well, yeah…” and then asked “Then why does he need the bowl?”

“…”

Q: How does one explain zen to a preschooler?
A: How doesn’t one?

…so we got about halfway through the thing two weeks back. Tonight, we watched the other half while I folded clothes, and Tatertot (now 8.5 months old) did these great faceplanting attempts at crawling on the bed, and unfolding the laundry daddy was silly enough to put within frogleaping distance.

We started around here, with some funky Brazillian (?) music and subways, churches and all sorts of craziness, and it was really cool… He even made the connection between the thousands of chickens being sorted and moved via slides, and the people commuting into subways, and after I assured him that the baby chicks weren’t being hurt when their beaks were being burnt (I know I’m gonna have to explain that to him as soon as *I* understand it myself), he was totally into the movie again…

But then there was some sequences that were about, well… death, dying, war, destruction. Pyramids. Temples of long-forgotten gods. Funeral pyres. Auschwitz. Piles of skulls and bones. Photos of thousands of people up on walls. Faces of kids not much older than him staring back in staggering black and while. People who are no more, and children who never had a chance.

Cars/trucks/tanks blown to bits. Roads engulfed in flames. Guys with rifles standing next to piles of RPGs and 50cal rounds.

We talked as the movie kept going, and we tried to make sense of burying statues with people, and why you’d need a standing army when you’re dead, and he said “If I died tomorrow, I’d be pretty sad.”

“Me too kiddo, me too…”

Q: How can one explain war to a preschooler?
A: Historically, I hope.

But we got through it, and put him to bed.

See? We don’t just watch fun stuff together.