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A few months ago, I unveiled the masterpiece that was the hot-dogtopus. Now it is time for the sequel: Son of Hot-Dogtopus.

My wife found a food tip in Family Fun magazine: people stuck spaghetti into hot dogs sections to make sea creatures. I forget what they called them – the only thing I remember is thinking that I had yet another weapon to add to my culinary arsenal.

I’m up to four now, I think.

The article showed that you are supposed to stick uncooked spaghetti noodles into the end of a section of hot dog. The noodles go right into the soft hot dog with no problem. Then you boil the whole thing and the meat and noodles get cooked at the same time.

Do not, I repeat, do not, try to cook the spaghetti first and then push it into the hot dog.

Also note: the part of the noodle that is in the hot dog does not cook very quickly. So when the visible noodles are done, the hidden noodles are still crunchy. And if you cook the concoction long enough so that the noodle roots are done, the rest of the noodle is mushy. It may take practice to get the right balance.

We tried two methods. The first was not the method prescribed by the magazine – my wife kept the noodles in the plane perpendicular to the axis of the hot dog. (She stuck them in sideways)

The second method was the official one – noodles parallel with the hot dog.

The first method was tricky to cook. That’s a vote for the second method right there. Plus some of the method-one noodles broke during the cooking process. Some shattered due to just being fragile and having to awkwardly support the weight of the hot dog. Others were sheared somehow, leaving hints of noodle at the skin of the hot dog.

For visual presentation, assuming all the noodles stayed intact, I preferred the first method. Spacing the noodles allowed them to remain separate. The method-two noodles just clumped together and reminded me of hair in the shower drain. Appetizing, I know.

As far as the kids were concerned…they didn’t care or even notice the difference between the two methods. They were too busy eating them.

Even Gamma knew that they were yummy. Even though we hadn’t cooked them yet, he somehow knew they were food and kept trying to get them. It wouldn’t have been a problem except I was holding him while I was trying to take pictures. Perhaps the following explains why I settled for blurry/shadowy pictures for this post:

We still haven’t decided what exactly they are. The choices so far are

• scrawny octopi,
• two-tone squid, or
• nervous jellyfish

(I opted for plain “jellyfish” but Alpha settled on “nervous jellyfish”. I don’t know why it’s nervous, other than it knows it’s about to be eaten)

Side note: In case you’re wondering about today’s verse – yes they were venison hot dogs.

This blogging break has been brought to you by the seasonal flu.

For those of you wondering why I haven’t posted much this week: we are experiencing flu-like symptoms.

For those of you who are not paying attention to how often I write on this blog: I’m not keeping track of how often you read this blog, so we’re even.

I started the family off by getting sick on Thursday. Beta quickly followed and started demonstrating his symptoms about a half hour after I did. Alpha held out until this afternoon. My wife is hoping not to get sick, but the peer pressure might get to her.

Gamma is doing fine so far. We have changed his diet preemptively so that his digestive system will be in better shape if he does catch whatever this is – all he had today was applesauce, bananas, toast, and his formula.

The kids had the swine flu back in the fall. I’ll take that over this flu any day – low-grade fever and a cough versus intestinal problems.

Having just the two kids sick is plenty. We did 3 or 4 loads of laundry today, and that was barely keeping even with all the blankets and sheets and towels that were added to the laundry today.

I hope to be back to a somewhat normal schedule, blogging and otherwise, next week.

In a shameless spoof of MckMama’s Not Me Monday, I am posting a Not Mine Monday.

• My wife and I have not been reprimanding our children when they reference bodily areas or functions inappropriately (i.e. “No potty talk at the dinner table.“). Therefore, it was not our children who invented their own euphemism for such language (e.g. “Hey Alpha, Gamma is going to smack you on the potty talk!“).
• I did not tell the kids that they had to finish putting away their clothes before they could come downstairs and play Lego Star Wars on the Game Cube. We do not bribe our kids to do their chores like that. And if it had worked, I would not have tiptoed downstairs so that my wife and I could play Lego Star Wars before the kids came down.
• I did not notice all the food in Gamma’s bib when he was done eating, and I did not take his spoon and feed him several spoonfuls of whatever had collected in there throughout the course of the meal. That would be gross.

The row in front of us was empty at church last Sunday. We attend a small church, where news travels fast, so we knew exactly who was missing and why they were missing.

At our church, most people have their own spots. This seating chart is unwritten, of course, but well-known and followed. Our spot is behind a family. The mom and dad, in their fifties, along with their daughter, who is our boys’ Sunday School teacher, sit in front of us. Their son used to sit in that row too, before he went away to college. Their other daughter used to sit with them, before she got married two summers ago; our boys were the ring bearers at that wedding. And her parents used to sit there too, before they finished their days on this earth.

But they weren’t in church last Sunday. The marriage which started two summers ago had resulted in the birth of a granddaughter – the first grandchild in the family. That happened just before midnight on Saturday, and the family was awake into the wee hours of Sunday morning. The birth announcement was made from the pulpit, though by that time everyone knew.

She had been ready for grandchildren for a while. She was glad when it was her turn for nursery duty. The church nursery for the last several years has involved our children, and she would let us know after church how much she enjoyed watching or holding our child and how good that child was. She was an elementary school teacher, and kids were a joy to her. Even the troublesome ones received kind words from her. It would have been nice to congratulate them on the birth of their grandchild. “No matter,” we thought that Sunday morning, “we will see them next week and ask about the baby then.”

Later on Sunday, she said she didn’t feel good, and complaints were one thing you did not hear from her. She went back, as a patient this time, to the same hospital in which her daughter was recovering and her granddaughter was sleeping. She got to be a grandmother for about twenty-five hours.

Tonight was the visitation; the funeral is tomorrow. I have been to funerals before, but this is different from any of those. All the others were at least expected – advanced age, prolonged illness, etc. This came out of nowhere and was over before most people even knew it happened.

I was glad the casket was closed during the visitation. I am not a fan of open caskets. I would rather have my memory of a person be that person’s doing something other than lying in a casket. In this case, my mind pictures the photograph that was displayed at the funeral home – she is sitting next to her husband and holding her grandchild.

God has spared me from major sorrow in my life so far, and for that I am grateful. It will be rough for me to see them in church again – just the dad and the daughter now. The spot where she always sat will be right in front of me. It might be empty on Sunday, or maybe someone else will sit there. But it won’t be right.

You may have seen last week’s introduction to PSALMs. Now it is time for the second movie. Once again, there is no theme or correlation with anything – I just made the animation that came to mind with the Legos at hand.

Now only 148 more to go.

If the movie player isn’t working, you can save the .mpg file to your computer and open it with your computer’s movie-player software

or “What’s Wrong with a Pint?”

With no further introduction, ladies and gentlemen, I give you this:

An Open Letter to Bottled-Water Companies

The cost of water in a bottle of water is around 5 cents. So the average company might save a quarter of a penny per bottle. For 2007, the top brand was Dasani, at about 22% market share. The US consumes around 40 billion water bottles a year, so Dasani’s share would be at least 8 billion water bottles per year. At a quarter of a penny per bottle, that would be $20 million in savings per year for one company.

What do they have to lose?

Inspired by both The Brick Testament and Wallace and Gromit, I made a movie. Okay, it is really not much of a movie, just a couple seconds of animation. But it is fun to watch.

PSALM stands for Progressive Stop Action Lego Movie. The official term is stop-motion animation, not stop-action movie, but I took some liberties to make a nice acronym. And if you use Lego people (AKA minifigs) for the characters in the movie, you’re supposed to call it a brickfilm or something like that. Oh well, I’ll stick with PSALM.

Now only 149 more to go.

Notes:

• this movie has nothing to do with Psalm 1.
• usually the verse-of-the-post is somewhat related to the content of that blog post. With this movie, however, I am just going to pick a verse out of that chapter.
• if the movie appears as a white rectangle, scroll the web page up or down.
• if the movie player isn’t working at all, you can save the .mpg file to your computer and open it with your computer’s movie player software