Yesterday will be one of those days we shall all reminisce about 10, 20, 30 years from now.  It will always start with someone saying “Do you remember when Emmy broke her collarbone on the opening day of the Sound of Music… and still performed?”  And we’ll all nod our heads and laugh a bit at how amazing and crazy it all was.

I could tell this story from a lot of different perspectives, but I think I’ll just write it machine gun style based on the tidbits of information I know.

- Emmy, who takes extreme pleasure in playing basketball in gym against the guys, collides with Jesse.  Hard.  Much pain.  Pain that can only mean something is significantly wrong.  She says she’s fine.

- Grace witnesses the collision, goes with Emmy to nurse’s office.  Ice pack is procured.

- The realization sets in that this is going to be a bit more than an ice pack issue. 

- Emmy transforms into I WILL FIX THIS MYSELF mode.  Musical director is informed, Mom is called, cousin Magoo is taken out of class.

- Magoo drives Emmy WAY TOO FAST to hospital.  Mom on her way from Springfield.  Jake B. and I show up at hospital to offer support.

- Me to Emmy: “Your health is more important than the musical, if the doctor says you can’t perform…”  Emmy:  “I WILL PERFORM.”  Me:  “Well if he says…”   Emmy:  “I WILL PERFORM”  Me:  “I’m just saying…”  Emmy:  “I WILL PERFORM.”  Magoo:  “Emmy, you’re not listening…”  Emmy:  “Shut up cousin.”  Jake B:  “I think I’ll wait outside.”  Emmy:  “I WILL PERFORM.”

- Doctor – it’s broken.  Need a sling.  Need to keep still.

- Emmy tells the doctor how this thing is going to work, wraps her good hand around his neck, lifts him into the air, and forces him to give his permission for her to perform.  Thanks him, drops him, and marches out the door. 

- We all back away, protect our vital organs, call an exorcist and follow her out the door…. at a safe distance.

- Emmy and Magoo arrive a bit late to ready for the performance.  Their tardiness is excused.  The costumer manages to fashion three different slings to match her outfits.  A personal dresser is called upon to assist the one armed girl.

- Director explains to audience that a cast member will be in a sling.

- The curtain goes up.

- Emmy performs absolutely amazingly.  Her accident is alluded to in a stage improv.  The audience roars and claps. 

- The show is flawless and wonderful.  Emmy is a rock star.  Unwavering determination and a bit of adrenaline have allowed her to pull off an incredible feat.

- Magoo refuses to take part in allowing Emmy to go to the after performance get-together.  This clash of the titans actually ends in Emmy agreeing to go home and rest.  She MUST be hurt.

Seriously, I’ve joked, but what happened yesterday was terrible and so neat at the same time.  The terrible is pretty obvious.  She’s going to be in some significant pain for quite a while and I worry that these next performances may be even harder than last night.  But, I’ve no doubt she will make it through and perform with excellence.  The neat part was of course Emmy’s incredible will.  In addition, all those who rallied around her to offer support, encouragement, and praise was just further evidence that this new girl in town has been more than accepted.  She is loved and admired.

Now, get the heck OUT OF HER WAY!

I’ve spent the past week in our nation’s capital for work.  Here are a few random observations from my week:

• EVERYONE in politics likes to hear themselves speak.  And does not necessarily care if anyone else is listening.  It’s surreal to see people speaking on the floor of the House to an audience of…   zero.
• Capitol Hill is late to bed, late to rise.
• Most members of Congress, particularly the House, are surprisingly accessible.
• The House floor can be empty until a vote is called.  Then congress members make like insects and come out of the woodwork in a matter of moments, vote via electronic card, then disappear again.
• Two ways to make money in DC:  1) be involved in security in one way or another 2) sell navy blue suits.
• Parts of this city don’t smell so good.
• The architecture in this city is breathtaking.
• Roland Burris passed by me on the street and I didn’t notice.  Someone else had to tell me I missed him.
• Committee hearings are 99.2% show and .8% substance.
• There are many finely dressed folks walking the halls of Congress who appear to be all of 14 years old.
• The Speaker of the House has a HUGE amount of power.  Conversely, junior members of the minority party of the House have virtually no influence.  On anything.
• The House wants to get things done quickly.  The Senate wants to slow things down and contemplate.  Think two years vs. six years until the next re-election bid.
• The Metro is very easy to get around on.  Ditto Capitol Hill – and there is no need to exit buildings to get to another building.  They are connected via tunnels.
• This is a beautiful, fascinating, intellectual, self-absorbed, historical, intimidating city.  A nice place to visit, an even nicer place to leave.
• What’s up with Capitol vs. Capital?  Capitol is the building.  Capital is the city.  Quite confusing.  I’m not convinced I’ve figured it out.

Magoo makes fun of me because I like to mess with photos.  She’s right.  I get a real kick out of it.  I can’t stop.

Last Saturday night was the high school Vice Versa dance.  It was such a fun night. 

Magoo and Emmy were gorgeous.  Da Kaff cleaned up pretty well himself for the Mafia themed evening.

While they all danced away, Singing Sally, DustMeister, Bud, Grace, SweetGuy and I all enjoyed a barn night where we ate assorted cheese enhanced snacks and watched Jurassic Park.

When we found out Bud and DustMeister had never seen this “classic” movie we knew we needed to educate them.  We are all about raising well-rounded children. 

Here’s a few more pictures from the evening.  I mostly refrained from messing with them, but I just couldn’t hold back completely.

Da Kaff was endlessly patient with me posing them. 

Wouldn’t want to meet this gang in a dark alley:

There are few things that warm my heart more than seeing these two having fun with each other.  And, having the opportunity to experience important events like their high school dance together:

OK, so I had to mess with one more picture.  Give me a break.  Here’s a photo of Emmy looking so classically  beautiful.  Yet, call me crazy, but I felt the background of our mini-van and dog pen took away from her beauty.  So I somewhat obscured them.  I was compelled.  Back off.

Doesn’t she look amazing?  AND, she bought this dress for $16. 

That’s like getting fouled on a three point shot, making the shot, and all three free throws.  Go March Madness!!!

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I’m in D.C. this week for work.  I’ve had some cool opportunities.  I’ve met a former congressman, a lead staffer for our current congressman, and a few other political “insiders.”  I’ve visited House and Senate Committees and watched a few oddball votes in the House Gallery.

But nothing compares to my up close and personal meeting with…… ta da……  President Obama.  I took his picture:

What’s that you say?  Can’t quite make out Obama?  Come on, go see an optometrist.  I was practically standing next to him when I took this picture.  But if I must, I’ll zoom in so you can see him better:

See him there?  He’s waving directly at me as he was exiting on the steps of the Capitol.  We had kind of a moment there, Barack and me.

Actually, even though it was so far away, it was pretty cool to see a current President in person.  If I had that on my life list, I would totally be crossing it off.

Oh, and here’s the odd thing.  There was a bagpipe band playing on the steps as the President walked out.  Bizarrely, I could have sworn they were playing “Jesus loves the little children.”  So, yeah, I didn’t really get that.  I suppose it must be the same tune as some other more relevant song. 

Or, maybe it’s a tradition for the President to descend the Capitol steps on St. Patty’s day while a Scottish band plays Jesus Loves the Little Children.  That’s probably it.

Skype is an Internet application that allows you to talk to anyone else around the world computer to computer using a Skype account.  You can talk for free, and if you and whoever you are talking to has a webcam, you can see each other too. 

I had to leave yesterday to go out of town.  I was disappointed to be away from the house for our annual family round of filling out our NCAA basketball pool brackets.  For at least the past five or six years, each of the four of us has entered a bracket guess into SweetGuy’s work pool.  For the $5 entry fee, we get tons of entertainment value.  The most entertaining part of it is when we all sit around together and make our picks.  We have lots of laughs and each have our very impressive ways of choosing our teams. 

Bud’s is all about the coolness of the name — Gonzaga and Xavier always go far in his brackets.

SweetGuy’s is about the ease of spelling the name — Duke will always get the nod over Connecticut in his brackets.

Magoo’s is about getting it over as fast as possible — #1 seeds straight to the Final Four for her.

Me, I’m all about the gut feeling of who I believe will win, no matter their records.

Needless to say, we have never won a thing.  But, we have fun in the process and love filling out the brackets together.

I couldn’t be with them last night to fill in brackets together because of travelling for work.  So, DustMeister set the home computer up with Skype, and I contacted it from my PC on the road.  What a blast.  It turns out they couldnt’ see me, but I could sure see them.  It was like being in the same room with them.

Singing Sally stopped by.  I can’t remember why.  But, it’s always nice to see her. 

Things went south of normal from there.

Turns out Skype allows you to do some interesting things to the video feed.  That’s SweetGuy on the left.

 Bud is a bit two faced.

 Magoo was was either surprised by the incredible impressiveness of the Skype graphics, or by realizing the Phantom of the Opera had snuck up on her from behind.

Do you see what’s creepy about this picture?  You got it.  It is the fact that DustMeister is CRUELY waving his Culver’s ice cream thing in front of my screen and taunting me with it.  Creep.

I wonder if any of them realize I can actually take snapshots of everything they are doing? 

 I’m guessing not.

I sure do miss those goofballs.  Last night, I watched my Skype screen. and continuously laughed out loud.  It felt like I was there… except I couldn’t score any of that ice cream.  Skype needs to work on this.

Remember our friend Mr. Raccoon? 

The one who tore through our heating system, cost us untold amounts of money and countless hours crawling around in a dark, feces-filled barn attic? 

The one who breaks into our garage at least once a week, and ravages the cats’ food container.

This one:

Yes siree.  That’s my sworn enemy behind bars.  Justice, I say.

DustMeister, AKA the crocodile coon hunter, set the live trap one night last week.  A combo of peanut butter and cat food used for bait.  And, to our complete amazement, he actually caught this guy on the very first try.

So, the coon is caught.  Now what?  We hadn’t thought quite that far ahead.  Especially given it was a workday morning and we typically run late even WITHOUT having to do SOMETHING with a caged animal. 

DustMeister loaded the guy into the van, with Magoo proclaiming the jailbird’s cuteness all the while.

We took off on our coon releasing adventure.  I had read that we should release him some 10 miles from home.  But, there was no time for that.  The snag?  I didn’t know if it was legal to release him in our County or not.  (Someone remind me, I definitely need to Google and find this out.)

So we, Dustmeister and I, were potential criminals ourselves, trying to, potentially illegally, dispose of another pseudo criminal – Mr. Raccoon.

I don’t want to implicate us too much here.  Let’s just say that the job was accomplished.  DustMeister shook Mr. Raccoon out of his trap and he (she?) ran away fat and happy.  Yes, fat.  He/she has been eating a LOT of our cat food for months now. 

I look at this as a learning experience.  Big deal that DustMeister lived in Singapore up to a few months ago.  Would he EVER have been able to catch – then release –  a wild animal while simultaneously trying to avoid angry neighbors and possibly law enforcement officials.

I think not.

It’s March. 

The beginning of March does not equal Spring, at least not around here.  It is not warm.  Everything outside is generally wet and muddy and devoid of color.

Yet.  I love this time of year.  A lot.

I love it because we have been, for so long, walking down a trail in a dark depressing forest, and just in the last few moments way up in the distance we spot a bit of extra sunlight.  As we get a bit nearer, we know even though we have some more distance to cover, it is clear that there is something awesome just ahead.  It only takes a few more steps. 

I suck at describing the why of this.  But, I love this time of year.  I especially like that these days I awake to sunlight, and not an alarm.  And I love spotting a puppy who has sniffed out the sunlight and wants to bask in it:

I am so excited about what is to come.  I think that’s called anticipation.  Me and Berzerker… we has it.