A recent blog entry by Joshia got me thinking about ways to deal with rising gas prices. In our responses to his blog, the readers debated the relative merits of hybrids and high MPG conventional vehicles.

Meanwhile, Alli and I are 2 months away from owning her car 100%, so as an American, my natural instinct is to sell that car and buy a shiny new one. In this dream scenario, the new toy would be a Toyota Highlander Hybrid. However, since I live in the real world (debatable, if you know me), I’ve been considering more economical approaches to the challenge of getting myself, my family, and our stuff from Point A to Point B. Amazingly-smart guy that I am, I’ve come up with the perfect solution.

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The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German,which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.

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First: Straight from the Funky Presbyterian, a new iPod rumor?

Second: Click on this banner to help me win.

Third: Tell your friends to come over here and click my banner. If you help me, I might help you.

The wind is whipping through the trees right now, giving me a soundtrack of leaves rustling and earlier, there was the cracking of trees.

I’m working from home today, since Damon is under deadline stress and can’t stay home with Fuller. Staying home allows me the unusual luxury of keeping the TV on to check the news and see the pictures from the aftermath of Katrina.

The devastation is a bit much for me to get my mind around and I keep wondering what it is like in my SIL’s neighborhood. And her husband is a buisness owner, a Furniture Medic, who just recently moved the business from their garage to an actual warehouse space. I wonder what kind of damage they sustained.

I’m glad we have power so that I am able to work from home today. It is a luxury, to say the least. So many people don’t have anything right now.

One of the skills that Fuller has definitely mastered is clapping. And what is so cute about it is that when he is watching TV, say Clifford for example (and not Ellen, no not that ever) he will clap when the people on TV are clapping.

It is absolutely precious.

I have family members leaving both places.

My dad will be leaving Iraq soon and should be home with my mom by September 9th.

My sister-in-law and her family (including her inlaws) have left their home in Madisonville, LA to flee Katrina. They will have a hurricane party at Lake Martin, AL, at Damon’s parents house.

Thinking about both places and knowing that there is imminent danger can be kind of overwhelming. Knowing that the family that I love is safe now, or will be soon gives me calm.

I can only thank God for taking care of my family.

September 3, 2005

September 2, 2005

September 1, 2005

August 31, 2005

August 30, 2005

August 29, 2005

August 28, 2005

I would prefer to keep the previous post at the top of the blog for a little longer, but something amazing just happened that I have to share.

St. Elmo has been plagued lately by a small crime wave. Some friends of ours had their shed broken into and their lawnmower and small power tools were stolen. Someone else on our neighborhood email list had their home broken into and some computers were taken. Most of this was probably in the name of purchasing drugs, quick cash to score fast. (I also hold to the theory that since it is the beginning of the school year that some of this might be gang initiation type activities.)

Well, just a moment ago a car pulled up in front of my house and a young, African-American woman came through the gate. Well, she kind of had to wade through the high grass and weeds to get through, but she was determined. Even the dogs barking at her didn’t really deter her. I opened the door before she was able to get to the porch (I wanted to call off the dogs).

The girl asked if I needed my grass cut. This happens every once in a while and our answer is always no. I am always weary to give money anway, because of the drug trades happening just a few blocks down our street. And, Damon is particular about his grass and I didn’t have any cash.

Well, the girl went on to say that she was just wondering because she needed some cash to buy her baby some pampers.

Me: “You need diapers?”

Girl: “Yeah.”

Me: “What size?”

Girl: “Um, size 4.”

Me: “Hang on.”

Just last night I had to break down and buy Fuller size 5 diapers because the size 4s were just not doing it for his bulging belly. We were going through several outfits a day because of leaks. The reason we had been holding off on buying size 5s was that we still had 40-50 size 4s left in Fuller’s changing table. We were worried about waste and we have been pinching pennies lately.

Well, suddenly they weren’t a waste. I ran inside and grabbed the extra size 4s (40 of them still compressed in the plastic wrapping) and rushed back outside to give them to my surprised visitor.

I could tell she was relieved to not have to cut any grass.

I was relieved that Damon hasn’t had the time to cut the grass for a week.

In case you aren’t aware, Fuller’s full name is Buckminster Fuller Crumley. To learn more about the original Bucky, go here.

We will wait.

Ok, now one of the things that Bucky was famous for was inventing and building a geodesic dome. You are probably familiar with the concept from places like Epcot or your neighborhood playground. And if you have been following this blog and the adventures of the “If I had a Million Dollars…” series, you would remember this project, a special something for Fuller’s exersaucer. It never really worked on the saucer, but we would hang links and toys from it and it provided Fuller with minutes of entertainment.

Well, all this to say that recently, as Fuller works on his mobility, Damon pulled down Fuller’s dome to see if he would start to interact with it again. (The exersaucer was put away awhile ago.)

See what you think.

Fuller has little, itty, bitty hands with pudgy, wudgy fingers all attached to a meaty wrist that apparently has decided to dedicate its life to finding its way into Fuller’s mouth at all times. It is rare that Fuller doesn’t have a finger or hand or wrist (usually all his own) in his mouth. And another favorite pasttime of his is to vocalize and put his hand (or wrist) over his mouth, covering and uncovering it to make this sound, “WO-oo-OH-wa-OO-oh-BABA-bbbb-MAMAMA-mmmmmm.” It is really fun to listen to. Really.

Yes. Really.

Anyway, the dedication that Fuller has to putting his wrist in his mouth is quite serious. Recently he has decided to add to his hand-mouth love wrist-hand-mouth anger. Grrrr.

In the past few days, when we have told Fuller “No” and removed him from a “No” situation, Fuller’s response has been to whine, open his mouth, insert his wrist (or the pad of his hand) and bite down.

Yes, my son bites himself.

At first it was cute and I laughed. But as he keeps doing it, I realized that it wasn’t that cute and I was getting kind of disturbed by seeing him hurt himself repeatedly.

I’m trying to figure out what, if anything, should be done in this situation. For one thing, Fuller isn’t biting others, just himself. One another hand, biting could be a gateway to cutting (or just a gateway to bitinh kids in the nursery), so it could be a self destructive behavior that I need to break. And then there is the hand that says that this type of behavior is just trying to getting any kind of reaction from me (good or bad) and I should just ignore him. Finally, the fourth hand that I have says to get over it and what kind of harm can eight tiny teeth do? (As oppossed to eight tiny reindeer.) I plan on offering that fourth hand to Fuller to bite down on so that fourth hand knows exactly what kind of harm eight tiny teeth can do.

At this second, Fuller is napping and all his drool is ending up on the sheets and not his wrist. I am inclined to just say that it really doesn’t matter right now. So, he bites himself when he gets upset. I think I’ll really start to worry when he actually does bite another kid. Or if the eight tiny reindeer start to bite him.