Paris, mon amour

Yesterday, Kristin flew off to Paris for five days with her cousin Merriah and a few other friends. When we were checking the chart for her seats, it said she was in business class! I was laughing that she'd have a tipsy, fifty-something businessman next to her, buying her drinks and attempting to schedule romantic ron-dez-vouses with her on the Champs-Élysées.Unfortunately, I was looking at wrong seating chart. She ended up with the little people in coach, next to a guy with bad breath who farted, repeatedly, in his sleep. You have to suffer if you want to see Paris.Meanwhile, I took the boys to Ikea where we found an Eiffel Tower of our own. Bitty Bear struck a fitting pose:Me and the boys for five days! As Nancy Reagan used to say: "Stop the Madness!"

Why Pay More?

Boy, competition has really brought down prices for cremation, hasn't it? Seems that, like Starbucks, there's a new crematory popping up on every corner. I think there's one opening down in Underground Atlanta. That place is really hopping!
I must say that, as far as undertakers go, the proprietor of this particular crematory is quite fetching. She may even prove a small step forward in reforming the stereotype of undertakers as emaciated Harry Reid lookalikes:
She is certainly much easier on the eyes than the undertaker who haunted my childhood dreams, Angus Scrimm in the 70s horror-schlock film Phantasm:

Biker Babe

Via PDN's Photo of the Day:
An absolutely wonderful image by the great German photographer August Sander. The girl on the bike would be enough, but throw in a German Shorthair Pointer, and I'm in portrait nirvana. Just exquisite! August Sander, Forester’s Child, Westerwald, 1931. An absolutely wonderful image by the great German photographer August Sander. The girl on the bike would be enough, but throw in a German Shorthair Pointer, and I'm in portrait nirvana. Just exquisite!

Potty Talk

Calder: "you do that stinky gas, daddy?"
Daddy: "No. That was Tillman."
Calder: "Tillman, you go sit on the potty."

Reunite Gondwanaland!

Back when I was studying geology at UGA, the geeky, inside-joke bumper sticker among the geodudes read "Reunite Gondwanaland!" accompanied by the de rigueur lefty power fist.
(This recent example sadly lacks the fist. Apparently the designers aren't down with the struggle.)
 
If you don't know, Gondwanaland was the southern supercontinent that included South America, Africa, Antartica and Australia. Given the bumper context, most people thought it was some esoteric leftist political movement which hadn't quite reached the mainstream of Che shirts and Tibetan bumper stickers. You still see these occasionally, usually plastered across a freak-mobile and accompanied by a thousand other bumper stickers.
I started thinking about reuniting Gondwanaland when Walker discovered this tiny tectonic convergence in the parking lot at Stone Mountain.

Tillmanisms

Ouch! Puccini just stepped on my tentacles.

Tillmanisms

K: "While you're out, would you stop at Walgreen's and get us some hats and tooters for New Year's Eve?" Till, pointing at his behind: "You mean THIS kind of tooter!?!?"

Christmas with Churchill

Here then, for one night only, each home throughout the English-speaking world should be a brightly lighted island of happiness and peace. Let the children have their night of fun and laughter. Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play. Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern tasks and formidable year that lie before us. Resolved that by our sacrifice and daring these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to live in a free and decent world. And so, in God's mercy, a happy Christmas to you all. - Winston Churchill's Christmas Eve address, Washington, 1941

Kid Talk

When I bite, I get what I want. - anonymous portrait client