Frog of My Heart

Tonight, instead of issuing ~$200 in tickets and towing my dad's car, an officer took a picture of the Frog in my passenger seat. I think the wig really sealed the deal. I drove away, as I came, without my license or registration. And with one more illegal left turn under my belt. 

Getting Back in the Habit

Spring Break. A once annual celebration. After last year's Spring Break '94, there was at least one other thing to do—Spring Break: Back to Philadelphia. Darcy showed up with her party-culottes on which lead, among other things, to drinking by the train tracks, that picture with Kermit, and a party MVP award. I didn't vote for her, but I've got a good idea about who did. 

Kermit, as usual, was over served.

By the time Katie showed up at beautiful Wayne Junction the lamb had been marinated, the cucumber had been 'tziki-ed, and all the spana was kopacetica. We celebrated Mary's loss of a son, but gaining of a god, with wine, bourbon, and rum from an authentic Englishman. Next time that happens I'm gonna need to get a picture of The Two Evans together.

Why you eyin' my Crapples boxes?

I'll tell you something though. I don't care who died and went to heaven, I'm not gonna not get the gang back together on a day like last Monday. The Philadelphia cast of BikeTUB made a day of it. With Evan, on his cruiser, leading the parade.

Not satisfied by her tour of the basements of historic Northern Liberties, Katie demanded a walking tour of Germantown—birthplace of abolitionism, Bill Cosby, and Monopoly. We sent her out with our leading expert in local history the next day for a tour of the sites literally minutes before the NYTimes guy was there to blow the lid off the whole thing. Continuing in a long Philadelphia tradition though, she and my dad got really close to a lot of colonial buildings but never actually got into to any. Here he is outside of Clivden, cheesin' as always.

Next up on the history list: Gettysburg. Originally scheduled for Wednesday, its postponement to Saturday was voted best decision in '011. In the meantime it was all BALLRs & tilts for us. It's called the highlife, you should try it sometime. But don't actually try tilt. It's terrible.

Livin' It.

It'll Never Fit on My Shelf

I stopped by St. Vincent de Paul's this afternoon to see if I could pick up a fake book on the cheap to help me prepare for my new one-man show—Barnebey & the Bassoon: A Melodic Journey from Morrissey to Missy. No such luck, but I did come away with this frog-sized atlas for $3.00. It depicts the world as it was the year I was born. Peep those Antilles, there's nothing Lesser about 'em.


I wish I had also been in the market for another chair though. They were having a blue light special over in the furniture section: buy 1 get 1 free. In honor of Sarah Michelle Gellar's birthday.

Mustache On My Shoulder (Makes Me Happy)

I made a life-sized paper mâché mustache for my birthday party last year. Then Leslie sat on it. I spent the next several months completing crosswords, making a pile of completed crosswords, and mâché-ing crosswords. It's been a linguistic journey, but the crosstache is finally ready to be wrapped in twine and hung from our ceiling.

The holiday season has begun.

I'm not a person who passes up the chance to wear a tie very often. That sentence seems ambiguous but I'm just trying to say that I like to wear a tie. This tie isn't appropriate for most events that I am interested in. It is appropriate for holiday parties though, which are always events that I am interested in. I am also interested in Kermit themed accessories, so this was really just a win-win.

I'll give you $5 if you can guess what this leg belongs to.

A Thursday Night

Just hanging out in my jeans jacket and sweater vest; with kermit, and a cat around my neck.

Naps with Kermit

Frog Flights

We all know that kermit loves to fly, travels well, and has both functional and fashionable swimwear; but did you know he skydives too‽

Jugglers

Katie claims she's been resolving to learn how to juggle every new year since she was 16. She's finally achieved that goal! To celebrate we juggled our way across the country, and set a new goal. Next up: The Double Juggle.

poll by twiigs.com

Here I Am.

As usual, the weekend in Milwaukee just wasn't enough for me. I stayed Monday, and we won Trivia at The Nomad. I stayed Tuesday and Katie got new ball bearings on her car. Obviously you have to road test new ball bearings. So we drove to Denver (The Sunshine State!). And we brought Kermit!

Along the way, Joanna fed us margaritas and Were-movies in Iowa City. Then we headed west. Do you know how much more boring Nebraska is that Iowa‽ A lot much more boring. Luckily for us there was a wreck on I-80 halfway through NE. Traffic came to an abrupt stop; people immediately exited their vehicles. So we did too. We had made a stop at Art Smarts Dart Mart and Juggling Emporium on Monday afternoon and that was finally paying off for us. We did some juggling in the median, took a couple of jump shots, and brought Kermit out to air out his frog parts for a bit.

I'm not sure which of our antics attracted the attention of the trucker in front of us, but he came over to take a picture. Then he let the frog drive his truck for a little bit. It probably wasn't very safe, but then he did have a laptop attached to his steering wheel. And that can't be very safe either. We told him Kermit would never forget this day and he promised that he wouldn't either.



Turns out he's currently driving across the country with his daughter, and a dachshund. We thought that was the bee's knees. Until we turned around and he had these two baby wieners in his hands. It's hard to imagine something better that could have come out of that truck cab at that moment. Lesson: if you're going to be stuck on a highway in Nebraska make sure you bring your juggling paraphernalia and stop behind a tractor trailer with a litter of wieners hidden inside.

All this dog activity turned out to be really appropriate. In Denver we stayed with Shannon, a Schmaling cousin. She's involved with 2 airedales, and lives in the doggiest neighborhood I've ever been to. We felt a little uncomfortable because we didn't have anything to put on a leash. Our main objective while visiting the Colorado state capital though was juggling in front of large things. As far as large things go, you can't beat this giant chair, topped with a normal sized horse.

Don't worry, this trip is far from over. Just don't expect to see any rafting photos; we just slept through the pre-planned and pre-paid rafting excursion!

Frankfurter Friday Recap

Weekend Montage

From i want to tell you things:

Frog Love

Walks With Kermit

Frog of My Heart

On the way back to Philadelphia Kermit had to ride in the overhead bin. It was his first time up there. I'm pretty sure those things aren't airtight, so he should have been fine, although he may have shifted during flight. I wish I had gotten this email from Jobonga earlier:

Nice. I dare you to press the call button and ask for a tumbler of ice. If Kermit is with you, say, "It's for the frog."

The next item on the frog's itinerary was in Charlottesville, VA. He ended up coming along, but not without some kicking and screaming first. 

I don't know what his problem was, he loves parties. And he really needed to get some sun on his frog parts. We took him for a ramble around the UVa campus between ceremonies and it seemed to do him some good. 

By the time we had to hotfoot it over to the Hindu portion of he evening he was his old bubbly, touchy self again. Which was nice, but as it turns out, it's really not that hard to be green after all. He was even going to come to the reception later. He ended up passing out instead. 

He Matches My Handlebars

This morning Kermit and I were out galavanting around Madison on our bike. Not surprisingly someone was mildly taken aback by seeing a man on a bike, topped with a frog. It's nice that they're talking about it as far away as BOS though. I also crossed paths with Lisa Johns. She told me she was sure it was me because I had a giant frog on my back.

How Much Do You Know?

Putting Out The Vibe

After the Ground Scrabble event on Friday it was time for the first Terrace-ing of the season. The sun really felt right. There were a couple of really satisfying chance occurrences while we hung around playing Apples To Apples over Miller Lite. And once the sun set over the lake we finished up with a few indie rounds of Flip Cup; then moved on with the rest of our Friday night activities.  It  didn't take very long though until we needed to go home, put "Don't Break My Stride" on repeat, and hangout with Kermie on my stoop. 

We threw out one more jump before leaving. Nothing was gonna slow us down!

 

Kermit doesn't seem to make it out of his rocking chair as often as he used to, but when he does, he really breaks it down.

[Look at that flipper to the face!]

I took him for a quick spin to relive old times. 

And here, Katie demonstrates the correct way to make a Frog Pie. It's all in the wrist. And the size of your frog.

 

I signaled Kermit's landing with 2 street flags. I'm going to admit that I've really begun to appreciate the designated neighborhood representative who refills our flagtub every couple of days. They do have their uses.

Unfortunately, Kermit only knows Japanese Semaphore, so he ended up with two broken eyes. Don't worry, I moonlight as an amphibious ocular surgeon on the weekends. He's fine now.

To finish of the night I took one giant midget stomp out of our tree. You don't want any of those things running around unsupervised. 

Brutalism; Brakes

This afternoon Kermit, me, and I went for a quick jaunt around the neighborhood. Mostly we just circled the parking area looking for some cheap jollies, but we also found a couple of chumps hanging around by the carholes to pester. So that was fun. As is usual, whenever Kermit comes out into the open people want to talk to him, and now, two years after moving into this apartment, I finally know another tenant's name.

In a related note, the latest news out of The Kee is Jesse. I'm not going to bring my bike with me this time, but maybe we'll be able to steal somebody's tandem from outside of Wolski's.

The last time you saw this sweater it was raining, again. Which is appropriate, because it's raining again.

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