It has neither buttons nor ties, being lapped left over right across the chest and secured at the waist by a broad sash known as an obi. The short-sleeved kimono (kosode), worn by women as an outer garment, was introduced in the Muromachi period (Ashikaga shogunate; 1338-1573). The contemporary wide obi dates only from the 18th century. Although the kimono is not of Japanese origin, as is often supposed, its great beauty is attributable to 17th- and 18th-century Japanese designers.

The kids love to eat Chinese food. So as a lark we got Fox dress up in his Chinese outfit our friend picked up on his latest jaunt to Shanghi.

Chloe has a darling purple one and for the life of me I can’t figure out why I didn’t think to put her in it before we left.

Anyway, Fox enjoyed mugging in his outfit. I guess he liked the feel of the silk because now he always asks to wear it. He’s one good lookin’ kid. Someday I’ll figure out who his parents are.

It’s been a kinda crappy stressful time. At present all of us are sick in ways that nobody in polite society would dare mention. The kids have been sick with minor colds before but this time they all had high fevers, sever coughs, and just laid around. My kids DON’T lay around. I don’t think they are still even when they sleep.

I’ve been sick at the same time and now Barry’s caught it. It ain’t pretty, it ain’t fun and I’ll sure be glad to see the back end of this thing.

On the good side, all the kids want to do is snuggle–en masse. Sometimes they have fights for lap space, but pretty much all we’ve been doing is laying on the couch and watching Cartoon Network. Never thought I’d get tired of that, but I’m due for a break.

Because things have been going so well at Ka-blam, we’ve put the kids in Day Care twice a week. I’ve had a really hard time with that. Barry and I have always worked shifts–I watch the kids during then day then do my drawing at Disney at night and he…well…he watches the kids at night and works all night as well ; o )

OHMYHEAVENS is day care expensive! I don’t know how people do it. And I don’t know for how long we can do it. For 3 kids 2 times a week it’s $230.

Molly watches Daddy come in the room. I love how she lit up.

Getting ready for first day of school. Yep. I do need to finish my laundry. I think it’s still in the same spot from a few weeks ago.

Fox checks out the toy cars.

I certainly grown to respect the work that Thomas an Barry do at the offices. I don’t know how they get all the printing, coding, shipping, cutting, binding done that they do. They totally have my respect. They do this 7 days a week–I work occasionally from home doing the hand holding on the forum posts, and then twice a week in the office before going to work at Disney and I’m exhausted.

The kids seem to be adapting well to the Day Care thing. The first little while was really hard. One of us has always been there for the kids. Then they were rapidly put into a new environment. Molly has been having the toughest time.

I’m pretty sure that the crud we’ve all got now is a direct result of the germ factory that is Day Care. They kids had to miss Thursday because they were all sick and STILL the day care charged us for them. $230 down the drain. It hurt something fierce.

On top of that I got a crappy tooth and had to have a root canal done. That set us back another $2100! Yep, sucks not having insurance.

For a little while there we’d come into a little bit of extra money…not enough to turn me Republican by any means, but it gave us a little cushion and we got to get a Toyota mini van (henceforth referred to as “The Mystery Machine”–Daddy and Fox’s idea, natch).

Molly has already made the Captains seat hers.

Chloe wears her IronMan shades.

So we now have 2 vehicles. But after my tooth episode, the sicknesses, car, various paying off of bills…back to middle class for us.

BOOK ‘EM, DANNO

Went to visit my local crack house–a.k.a. Books-A-Million. I picked up a really cook book…Buffy the Vampire Hunter: Panel to Panel

Of course Mystery Science Theater 3000 is my all time favorite t.v. show, but Buffy is a top 3 or 4 pick for sure.

It’s a really cool collection of comic book art, pin-ups and various and sundry. I’ve really enjoyed it. It’ll help me a lot when I start coloring Womblees again.
I spent far too much time and money at BaM. They had quite a few costume books from the Victorian period that somehow kept getting into my hands. I felt it my personal duty to go ahead and buy them. Haven’t had a chance to really look at them yet.

UNDER THE BOARDWALK..DOWN BY THE SEA…

We took the kids to Aquatica…a new waterpark that opened here.

Chloe is fascinated by the Commersons Dolphins. They have a water slide where a tube goes thru their habitat…but she was an inch or two too short. She took it like a champ. Maybe next time.

Fox catching a breath.

Chloe wanted to just watch the dolphins.

These Egrets are one pissed off species. I guess it’s their molting season, but MAN! where they cranky. If you came anywhere close to them they bristled up and hissed. Which they usually don’t do.

They are lovely and I want to try and paint this picture.

Went over to Seaworld for a bit and watched the Walrus.

More of the pissed off bird.

The green Moray eels are always fun to watch.

Molly is one smart cookie. Here she commands the dolphins with her mind.

JUST TAKE A PICTURE ALREADY

Got me a new camera. This is the first pict I took with it.

I’ve grown pretty weary of Kodak stuff–for me they’ve been pretty unreliable, and subject to frequent breakage that isn’t kid related. I didn’t want a “big boy” camera (big lens), just one that I could keep in my purse. Yet I also wanted one with a good optical zoom and good mega pixels. So I arrived at the Panasonic DMC-TZ5K

I LOVE this camera! It’s got 9.1 megapixels, 10x optical zoom, face recognition, image stabilizer, and one bitchin’ LEICA DC Vario-Elmar lens. Schweet! The shutter speed is very fast, no lag, great view screen (3 inches!!!), and does great movies. Extremely easy to use with it’s Intelligent Auto or you can play around with your own settings. I couldn’t be happier with this camera.

WOULDN’T CHA LIKE TO BE A PEPPER TO?

I LOVE hot sauces. The hotter the better. BUT…they gotta have flavor. Any sauce can take the roof off your mouth thru the burn, but it’s gotta taste good.

Came across this Habenero sauce called Iguana Radioactive Atomic Pepper Sauce. Cool label, too. It’s by Half Moon Bay Trading. It rocks! Lots of flavor and ooooooohhhh what delightfully painful burn is in store.

BEST OF LUCK TO YA!

INDIANA JONES ALERT!!

Ok, I’ve not seen the movie, I’ve heard weeping and wailing from various friends about the movie, but I got a spoiler just from watching a stupid commercial.

IT’S ALIENS???

WTF???

Ok, I bought and loved the archaic Jewish Mysticism, I enjoyed the South America spookiness…but…ALIENS????

Damn.

If you’ve never listend to him before, give my pal Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds a listen.
Dig! Lazarus Dig is one of his best albums in forever–and this cats been around a long time.

Also, listen to “Red Right Hand”.