More Shots of Short

The New Yorker Winter Fiction Issue came in the other day. It has four stories in it.

  • “Another Manhattan” by Donald Antrim -Thumbs up. Anxiety producing story of a two New York couples. The husband of one suffers from manic/depressive disorder and wants to buy his wife some flowers. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong.
  • “Some Women” by Alice Munro – Thumbs up. Even though at the end I go “Uh.” Munro’s writing is hypnotic to me. So even though I don’t have the EQ to understand the story I love the writing.
  • “Meeting with Enrique Lihn” by Roberto Bolano – Thumbs sideways. I try to read without “rules.” Phrases such as “A good story has to have …” drive me crazy. All that matters is if the story is a good read. That being said I think that it is hard to make a story work that is one sentence and one paragraph for three pages of triple column type.
  • “The Gangsters” by Colson Whitehead – Thumbs sideways. I about gave up on this but this story of gangster wannabees of affluent parents in Long Island finally got its act together to make it interesting.

Playing Pranks

Our 10 year old son, SuperPizzaBoy never fails to amaze me. He is one very complex little dude who I don’t ever think that I’ll figure out but enjoy just listening to and learning from him. He has Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism, that makes the process that much more interesting.

We found out something about him a few weeks ago after Sunday School. Our church has volunteers, called “Buddy’s” who help the kids with special needs during Sunday School so the parents don’t have to worry so much about their children and can more fully participate in the life of the church. The Buddys rotate so they don’t get burned out either. It is a wonderful program.

After Sunday School one day I was chatting with one of the buddys about SPB and he mentioned that PizzaBoy had been in a little bit of trouble basically trying to sneak in places that he wasn’t supposed to be. Sweetie and I were a little concerned because usually we hear about good he is. I asked him about what was going on and after some discussion he said that he just wanted to play a prank because he felt mischevious. So we talked about that and later I talked with Sweetie. We basically agreed that we look for places he could play a prank but it had to be where nobody was hurt, nor property damaged, nor add undue work to anybody.

We had an opportunity today. We went on a shopping expedition today and at about the third store I noticed him kind of sneaking around. I asked him what he was doing and he said that he was going to play a prank by putting a bunch of clothes on the floor. I said, nope, won’t work. That will get the clothes dirty. So he started moving clothes between racks. I figured what the hey, many clothes are switched by regular shoppers so I said that is an ok prank.

He had a high old time doing that. After about five minutes I pulled the camera out and got him in video mode. I noticed afterward that my reflection is in the mirror on the right side of the image.

The kid cracks me up. His prank did genuinely seem to make him happy. I apologize to the employees of Kohls for them having to straighten his mess out.

Christmas 2008

Every year it seems like there is a theme for Christmas in the Yogi family. This is not a theme that is thought out beforehand. It just kind of happens on its own. This year was the year for critters. The Yogi family loves dogs and cats. We have two, Ginger and Abigail, and one, Chrissy, respectively. Sweeties Mom, Nana loves critters also she has Fiona, a shi-tzu.

Well this year we each added one animal. So we went from a combined four animals to six. SuperPizzaBoy got a kitten, yet to be named and Nana rescued a black lab – hound dog puppy named Snowflake. He is a loveable pupply, all legs, who is getting along well with the other dogs.

Below is Sweetie, SPB, and Nana with Snowflake.


Sweetie and I took all the mutts on a walk Christmas Eve. Snowflake ran out of gas and then got cold when I was carrying him back so I got to do the kangaroo thing with her. She really liked it.

Here is SPB with the yet to be named male kitten. He also got videogames, books, bakugans, bionicles, a digital camera, and other stuff but he said the kitten was his favorite.


Below are the two new critters together.

We have a giant Maine Coon cat named Chrissy. She isn’t quite sure of what to think of the new cat. I just hope that she doesn’t sit on it.

I for one am having Christmas hangover. Too much food, not enough sleep, too many animals. What a zoo.
Wouldn’t trade it for anything.

The Radio City Christmas Spectacular


The Yogi family ventured downtown Tuesday afternoon to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at the BOK Center.

We saw why they call it a Spectacular, because it is. They had everything, the Nutcracker, Christmas Carols, Santa Claus (a bunch of Santa Clauses, he revealed the secret to why there are so many Santas floating around), a Christmas Pageant (complete with live critters, two camels, a donkey, and several sheep), ice skating (part of the thrust stage was a small ice rink), a bus tour of New York and of course the Rockettes.

The Rockettes were truly spectacular. The troupe is very fluid and precise. Their various routines are very intricate and they pulled them all of flawlessly at least to me. They did lots and lots of kicks. To the right, the left, and straight ahead. I had never seen so many legs flying around.

The special effects were also spectacular. The coordination between the video screens and the peformers on stage was unbelievable. One segment had a life size double decker tour bus on stage. Somehow, with the video screen behind the bus, it made it look like it was going on a nighttime tour of the lights of Manhattan.

The show is completely over the top in almost all respects. I loved it and recommend it highly.

We had an unexpected bonus of the show. We had bought nosebleed seats and we got a free upgrade to lower level, so it was a double upgrade. I don’t think the show would be too enjoyable from the cheap seats. We bought the tickets prior to finding out at the Carrie Underwood concert that the cheap seats are not worth having.

We had a great time. I rate the show as 4+ stars out of 4.

Bluestone Steakhouse and Four Christmases

Saturday night we had a sitter for SuperPizzaBoy so Sweetie and I went out for a date. Dinner and a Movie.
For dinner we went to the Bluestone Steakhouse and Seafood Restaurant in south Tulsa at 101st and Sheridan. It is in a strip shopping center but the interior is very nicely done. That night they had a pianist playing which was a nice touch.
Sweetie had the Salmon Salad and I had one of the specials, the Ivory Tuna. The Salmon Salad featurd a huge portion of Salmon for only $12. Sweetie gave me a taste and it was great. The Tuna was very mild and fresh and cooked just right.
The service was very attentive. I had never been there before but we will be back.
Afterward we went to see The Four Christmases.
The movie has a great cast, Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon play the leads, Robert Duvall, Kristin Chenowith, Sissy Spacek, Tim McGraw, and Dwight Yoakum are in supporting roles.
Vaughn and Witherspoon do a good job together. He goes over the top, as expected and she brings him back in. Many of the pieces of the movie are hilarious but the whole thing doesn’t hang together very well. The end especially doesn’t quite hang together. Overall though it is worth seeing. I give it 2.5 stars out of 4. Which is where 95% of romantic comedies end up.

Afterward we ran into Baloney and Doc in the lobby. Turned out they saw the same movie. We chatted a bit and then headed home.

Mayor Taylor’s Fitness Challenge

I’ve got a new obsession. No, No, its not the Mayor!! You are sick! Its Reading Challenges. I’m talking about challenges to read and list books. I love lists and keeping track of stuff. I am absolutely OCD about it, and I love analyzing the lists also. That is one reason I love geocaching. Not only do I get to go find stuff out in the woods, the web site keeps track of my finds and there is software to analyze the finds. You know how you determine if a geocacher is lying to you? Its easy, if he or she say “I don’t really care about the numbers …. blah blah blah”, then they are lying to you, big time! and should have their, uh sorry…. Anyway, back to Reading Challenges. I’ve already signed up for three. I’m going to hold it there for the time being, at least through tonight.

Now, I’m looking for other type challenges. I love to run and keeping track of mileage and workouts and stuff is a classic runners obsession. I used to keep track of my miles but quit for some reason. Now I’ve found a running challenge. It is by our very own Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor. You can sign up here. It is called the Mayor’s Fitness Challenge. Its free! Except I would use a web based email account not your real one to sign up with to avoid election emails.

Its based on running but you can credit for walking, aerobics, and other stuff. I didn’t see one for TV watching but maybe that is coming.

So today at noon I trudged over to my gym downtown and put in three miles on a treadmill. Its painful but my friends with Metallica were pulling for me especially at the last where they played “Broken, Beat, and Scarred”, “Judas Kiss,” and “Cyanide” just for me. Now I’ve signed up with Mayor Taylor’s challenge and it tells me that so far that:

928 people have signed up for the challenge, and they have run, or done eqivalent exercise, a total of

64,515 miles or an average of

69.52 miles each. Of which Mayor Taylor has done

53.45 miles and I have personally contributed

3.00 miles to that total.
So, she owes me. If I hadn’t signed up then she would have only 64,512 miles on her challenge. Where would she be then? She owes me big time. I’m going to call her and tell her so.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa


On a very cold Saturday Sweetie and I took SuperPizzaBoy and his buddy AgentQ to see Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

If you like the first one you will like this one. Singing, dancing, romance, reconciliation. The whole package. A kid movie that the parents like. What is better than that?

3.5 stars out of 4.

Book Review “Look Me in the Eyes” by John Elder Robison

“Look Me in the Eye” is a memoir written by John Elder Robison, a very talented and determined man who was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome when he was 40 years old. Robison overcame indifferent if not hostile parents, no help from the school system, and a lack of education to eventually become an audio and special effects specialist for the rock band KISS and then later work for Milton Bradley developing video games and then eventually forming his own sucessful business restoring and repairing classic cars. He married twice and has child of his own.

The book is very heartening to this Dad of a 10 year old boy with Aspergers. Robison is a good writer, if kind of flat (like maybe he has Asperger’s) and he has some hair rasing adventures to tell. One of the more fascinating things he talks about is how he thinks and how his method of thinking has changed over time as he became more social.

The book is very encouraging and I recommend it highly to those who have a child with Aspergers or is otherwise interested in the subject