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my family had lunch waiting for us when we drove down to joplin last saturday. we took this picture shortly after eating sandwiches, chips, and guacamole. we also sang happy birthday to darla, then mary lynn & sara sang more songs. a few hours later we all met at outback steakhouse, and ate again.

my friend eric john posted this image on facebook yesterday. he found it while going through his closet which he calls “the great vortex of time” because he is a pack rat. when i saw his drawing, i made a guess about its origins:

paul and chuck were friends from college. it was their dream to live on the beach. it was all they ever talked about. “everything we need is there, right?” paul asked. “sure,” answered chuck, “and if it isn’t there today, it will wash up on the shore tomorrow!” one night they gathered some blankets and hot dogs, and set out to make their dream come true. they found a good spot on the beach, built a shelter of out driftwood, and used the leftover sticks to start a fire.

if i could shrink myself down to this size, it would be a small world after all! we found this kid-sized diner at a gift shop in lamoni a couple of weeks ago. it reminded me of another pretend diner that i went to about this time last year.

one of the best episodes of everything is alive went up last month. in this podcast, inanimate objects are given a voice, and take on a life of their own. ian chillag, the show’s host, asks questions, and usually gets a new perspective. in this show he spent 27 minutes talking to shannon the bath towel. at one point he found out she has real concerns of being too good at her job, and what might happen if she dries someone off so much that they disintegrate.

the roads were wet, and the rain fell, but that didn’t stop me from driving to joplin saturday to watch darla blow out her birthday candles a few days early. jenny & i spent the day with mom, jim, darla, steve, mary lynn, sara, and jane. when jenny asked darla the first birthday she remembered, she said, “when i turned 6.” mom & i confirmed that was the year she got a blue bikini and modeled it on the dining room table.

at eddiesrodandcustom.com these words appear on the homepage: if you dream it we can build it. it’s a family business run by one of jenny’s iowa cousins, ed pettus. i see ed and his wife kathy (pictured above) at the herman family reunion every summer. they always bring t-shirts and hats from eddie’s rod & custom. i knew they fixed up old cars, but i had NO idea how creative they were until i talked to ed about the lockhed lakester (also pictured above). ed and his sons turned an old plane’s wing tip fuel tank into one of the coolest race cars on the planet. how awesome is that?

tuesday afternoon, something severed the internet cable outside our house, and left it lying on the ground. no netflix, no internet, just a big sucking sound in cyberspace. when that happened i felt like a balloon on its way to the moon after the string has been cut. so what did i do? i ate pretzels & watched about 12 hours of classic mtv that i had on a flash drive. i was about to start playing my 48 atari games alphabetically when the cable guy came & reconnected me to the outside world. whew!

if it’s not news, is it olds? whatever it is you can read about it here! and here are some stories coming in the next few days:
-Interview With A Bath Towel
-Eddie’s Rod & Custom
-The Shrunken Diner
stay tuned!

we spent a couple of nights in des moines over the weekend. that’s where i found out jenny’s brother ben was an expert in canine footwear. teddy, ben & janice’s dog, over does it when he licks the snow out of his paws. he licks so much, they start to crack. so ben & janice bought these little dog boots. they say when it’s REALLY cold he wears a sweater too.