What is more important: Watching the Cubs or not dying in a tornado?

Yesterday afternoon, there was a tornado warning for Cook County, which includes the city of Chicago. (Fortunately, we in Lake County only had severe thunderstorms and bushels of rain.) During the tornado, I was flipping between the local channels to see who had the best weather coverage, and I noticed something odd: WGN, which was showing an (away) Cubs game, didn't even put a tiny graphic or a scroll at the bottom of the screen indicating that 5.3 million people were in danger of a tornado. (Maybe 10 minutes after the warning had started, WGN finally did put up a graphic.) Is watching the Cubs on an unadulterated screen really more important than letting people know that a twister in descending upon their locale?

Summer Festivals

With so many suburbs here, there are plenty of choices for summer festivals. I think we went to four of them over the course of the summer but the best was definitely the first. Heritage Fest is huge, covering all of downtown on both sides of the train tracks. There's a big carnival (not for Benji yet), a car show, a craft show, several entertainment stages, and blocks and blocks of booths. I've been going for years (although of course I've missed a few while in Virginia) and it was such a treat to share this festival with my son.


At one of the entertainment stages they had a very cheesy Winnie the Pooh production. It really captivated Benji, though.


Many of the local businesses and non-profits had booths with giveaways and/or games. The basketball hoop and the spin-the-wheel were a tie for Benji's favorite, although the free mini basketball may have given this one an edge.


I'm sure Elmo would have been far more impressive than these guys. I think these are the Backyardigans, a show which we don't watch.


Since Benji is such a number addict, we thought he would enjoy a little Bingo. He loved taking the marker ink and telling us which numbers he was coloring. He also decided to play a version of Bingo all his own — he found all the numbers on his card that included a zero.


You'd think Benji had just won Bingo with that smile!








At one of the food booths Mommy decided to get some chocolate fondue from the Melting Pot. I'm not sure that Mommy actually got to eat any of that serving. I had to go back and get more and eat it out of Benji's sight line.


Benji's first carnival game.


Surprisingly, he was more interested in watching the ducks go around than in trying to grab them.

Mi casa es mi casa.

Hi. As of this morning, we are the official owners of a new house.

This is the front:



This is the view from the foyer:



This is the back:



This is the view from the back:



Things we like about our new house:

* the loft, which you can kind of see from picture 2
* the very nicely finished basement
* the large size
* the deck that connects from the second-story master bedroom, which gives us a great view of...
* ...the golf course that abuts our backyard (see picture 4)
* that it was practically ready to move in on day one (decidedly not the case with most houses we looked at)
* that we can park both cars in the garage relatively easily (not true of our last home)
* that our yard does not have a large hill on it (not true of either of our previous homes)
* the very reasonable commute for Kim (only about 15-20 minutes in rush hour)
* the disc golf courses one and three miles away
* the Metra station less than one mile away
* the nice little park four blocks away
* that we're in the district of Adlai E. Stevenson High School, one of the three best non-magnet public high schools in Illinois (the other two being in areas where $1 million gets you a decent starter home)
* that Benji likes it

Things we do not like about our new house:

* the exorbitant Lake County taxes

Oh well.

I prefer dinner ones, but whatever.

Since on Monday, Kim and I will become official Illinois residents, we will have to disgard our really quite wonderful Virginia personalized plates. Mine was "K76" -- a combination that was only supposed to be given out to friends of the governor -- and Kim's was the appropriate "FAIRLDY." Neither of those is available, so we're looking for a few ideas.

The requirements: It has to have 1 to 5 letters followed by 1 or 2 numbers, or it has to have 6 letters followed by 1 number. There has to be a space between the letters and numbers. If it is awesome enough for us to be willing to spend $50 more on it, it could also be 1-7 letters by their lonesome, or up to the number 999 by its lonesome. I assume most of the small awesome combinations are taken (like license plate "Z" or "8") but you can always try them out if you'd like.

Unlike Virginia, which has a small initial fee and medium-sized annual fees, Illinois has a large initial fee and small annual fees, so something I'm not going to want to change in 5 or 6 years (like "RORY ROX") would be for the best.

My favorites so far that aren't taken: "HNDBELL," "HNDBE 11," and "A PLATE." ("PLATE," "NO PLATE," "BLANK," and "MY PLATE" are all taken.) "YO HOMEY" is not taken, but, um, no. (However, "AWW YEAH" is taken.) "ZZZZZ 99" is taken.

Kim has no favorites.

Help us.

Our little chatterbox

A mere six months ago we were all impressed at how many words Benji understood. Now it is time to be impressed with all the words he can say.

People: Mommy, Daddy, Papa, Gramma, Benji (sounds like "ahngee"), baby, Luigi, Elmo, Trash (Oscar the Grouch)

Foods: nana (banana), grape, apple, pear, milk, juice, yogurt, cookie, cracker, puffie, Cheerio, pizza, bread, peanut butter, cheese

Animals: duck, dog/doggie, cat, horsey, fish, bird, giraffe, zebra, bear, lion, frog, sheep

Transportation: car, airplane, boat, bike, train

Letters: A-Z

Numbers: 0-10, 11, 12, 18, 19

Shapes: circle, square, star, heart, oval, triangle

Colors: yellow, purple, blue, green, brown, white

Body Parts: nose, ear, mouth, cheek, chin, hair, eye, neck, shoulder, elbow, knee, belly, toe, foot, teeth, arm

Nature walk: rock, tree, flower, sun, moon, beach, grass

Objects: shoe, sock, boo-boo, TV, book, spoon, swing, slide, penny, coin, chair, tray, ball, clock, key, phone, hat, piano, remote, door, fridge

Polite words: please, thank you, bye-bye, hi, hello, help, night-night

Prepositions, etc.: empty, off, on, up, down, outside, no, OK, again

Phrases: oh no, oh my, boom boom (from the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom), Brown Bear (from the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?), all done, the end

And the ever popular: pee and poop

Libellés : Benji

What will absolutely, positively be the greatest movie in the history of the films of cinema.

This will.

"Imagine there's no meaningful municipal boundries. It's easy if you try."

Imagine that you live in Ames, Iowa, a town of about 52,000 people. (I realize this is difficult for moM and daD, but please bear with me.) Your library would be the Ames Public Library. Your parks would be run by the Ames Parks & Recreation Department. And if you had children in school, their high school would eventually be Ames High School.

Now imagine that you live in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, a town of about 43,000 people -- comparable in size to Ames. You would guess that your library would be the Buffalo Grove library. No. There is no Buffalo Grove library. In fact, not all of Buffalo Grove even goes to the same library: About 30 percent of it goes to the Indian Trails Public Library in Wheeling, and the rest goes to the Vernon Area Public Library in Lincolnshire (next to Vernon Hills, hence the name). "Well," you think, "at least all of Wheeling, which is similarly sized to Buffalo Grove, goes to the Indian Trails Public Library." No. Only about half of Wheeling goes to the Indian Trails Public Library. The rest goes to the Prospect Heights Public Library in Prospect Heights. "Well," you think, "at least all of Vernon Hills goes to the Vernon Area Public Library." No. Very, very little of Vernon Hills goes to the Vernon Area Public Library; the vast majority goes to the Cook Memorial Public Library District, which is based in Libertyville.

"Surely, though," you think, "I am part of the Buffalo Grove Park District." Probably. But not necessarily. For example, if you lived in the apartment complex where Kim and Benji and I have our temporary housing, you would live in the city of Buffalo Grove but be in the Wheeling Park District. (We learned this yesterday when attempting to register for classes in the BGPD.) And there are areas of Arlington Heights that are in the BGPD instead of the Arlington Heights Park District, as well as unincorporated areas with a Buffalo Grove address that are in the Vernon Hills Park District.

"Still," you go on, "I know people get more uptight about schools than parks or libraries, so surely Buffalo Grove goes to Buffalo Grove High School -- or at least most of it." No. Only about 15 percent of Buffalo Grove goes to BGHS; most BGHS students are from Arlington Heights. (Arlington Heights sends students to six different high schools -- Wm. Fremd, John Hersey, Rolling Meadows, Palatine, Wheeling, and BGHS -- none of which are made up of exclusively Arlington Heights residents.) The rest of Buffalo Grove (including our new house) goes to Adlai E. Stevenson High School, which also takes students from the cities of Lincolnshire, Vernon Hills, Hawthorn Woods, Lake Zurich, Mundelein, Long Grove, Kildeer, and Riverwoods. Of those nine towns, only two of them -- Long Grove and Lincolnshire -- send all their high school students to Stevenson, and neither of the two even has 8,000 residents.

I am confused.

Benji never cheers for the home team

Since Benji is too young to know any better or to protest, he has now gone to his second major league baseball game fully decked out for the Blue Jays even though they weren't the home team. This time, though, he was a bit smarter about cheering for the home team. Although Daddy applauded when the Blue Jays did well, Benji followed the crowd and clapped when the stadium clapped. He also booed when the crowd booed. What are we teaching him about thinking for himself? Or has he learned that sometimes it's smarter to go with the flow?

Benji surveys the stadium at his second major league park. I wonder how US Cellular Field compares to Camden Yards.


The tickets we bought (on eBay super cheap) were in the upper deck but in the front of the deck. That sounded really good, but it turns out that the 3rd base line is in the sun. I think we lasted an inning and a half before retreating further up into the upper deck. Despite being "worse" seats, it was so much more pleasant — shady and empty enough for Benji to get his own seat. You can see he liked having his own seat and we all had a great time at the game!


I just love this super close-up!


Although Benji looks like he's really into the game, perhaps even worried about the play, he's really watching the scoreboard. He is so fond of numbers right now that the highlight of the game was the many scoreboards. He loved calling out the number of the player at bat! At first I couldn't figure out why he was randomly calling out "three", "twelve", "two five", etc., but then I figured it out. Mommy is sometimes a little slow.


I think here Benji was playing with the folding seat, letting it go up and down.





Is he yelling at umpires already?








He looks like such a big boy here, taking up most of the seat and relaxing with his drink at the game.


Mommy, where did you go?


Daddy, I'm done now. Let's go.





Got to get a family photo.


After the game we went down to the section nearest the field to get a better look. We had heard they were letting kids run around the bases after the game and thought Benji would enjoy it. It turns out, though, that the line went halfway around the stadium and you had to have some sort of ticket (we think it was for members of their kids' club) so he didn't get to do that. He was just as happy looking at the field and running down the exit ramps.

How I know Wikipedia is better than the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The Encyclopedia Britannica has no article on Nerts.

Facebook him, Danno.

So about six months ago -- or maybe more, I don't remember -- I signed up for Facebook on a lark. In those six months prior to today, I had a dozen people wanting to be my friend. Of those 12, one (hi, Opie!) was looking for me and 11 were looking for an I'm-sure-much-inferior Matthew Prins somewhere in Canada. Depressed, I didn't even accept Opie's friendship (sorry, Opie!). But today Kaly Karleen offered her Facebook friendship to me, and I found Ed's and Alex's Facebook pages through hers, and now I have four legitimate friends. Yay me, I suppose.

Anyway, I say this primarily because if you are a reader of this blog and have a Facebook account and want to be my friend, I would probably accept your friendship. Probably.