Mini Superbowl

Next Monday will be pretty raucous in New Orleans. The Saints and Falcons will play in the Superdome on Monday Night Football. ESPN, the NFL, and Saints management are treating this like a mini-superbowl, and the people around here are pretty psyched. Jude Law even showed up at a Saints rally earlier this week and was presented with a Reggie Bush jersey. The pre-game show next Monday will feature the Goo Goo Dolls, Green Day, and U2. Green Day and U2 will even record a song together. As far as the game is concerned, both teams have played surprisingly well, but the Falcons look pretty much unstoppable. Go Saints!

obsessive compulsive weekend

Adam is home this weekend, and he is totally obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine, the water, and crayons. We have a mound of crayons on our bedroom floor, and I've probably spent $100 on toy train engines in the past couple of days. But I'm glad to see him identifying with something, and kids with autism really love Thomas. We had a crisis today, when Adam took a messy dump in the pool. I drained it by pulling it over, with him climbing in and out of the now-underside that was still draining. This was quite an effort, actually; that water weighs a ton, especially when you're trying to drain it in a hurry. I hosed off Adam, and hosed down the pool with clorox, then reset it and refilled it. In the meantime, I dumped his pool toys into a wheelbarrow filled with water and clorox. I brought Adam in for a bath a little later. It was a neat trick, and I'm surprised I pulled it off. Then there was the trip to PetSmart. Adam is obsessed with the automatic door at that store, and he has become obsessed with the sales-circular rack. I had to adjust it back to its proper position (they had moved it to a rather awkward place, actually), and we rearranged the circulars into a situation agreeable to Adam. He got upset when someone actually took one of the circulars from the rack, but he got over it quickly, and we were back to playing with the automatic door.

Update: Adam woke us up at 3 a.m. today. Ugh. After we dropped him off, we picked up Toby for a couple of hours on the town. Toby has become obsessed with the swimming pool at the local hotel where we spend one or two weekends a month, and he kept shouting "swimminapool" the whole time we were out. He refused to enjoy himself. It seems pretty typical of a 9-year-old to be more interested in going into the pool than seeing his parents.

Fictional character

There is a statue of fictional character Ignatius J. Reilly outside the hotel that was once the D.H. Holmes department store. "A Confederacy of Dunces" opens underneath the old clock outside of that store. The statue is pretty much hidden underneath an awning, and the front entrance to the hotel is on the other side to boot. Still, Ignatius stands as a monument to this city's literary history.

Egads, he's reading poetry now

Yesterday, I picked up a book of Dylan Thomas's poetry. I only started to appreciate poetry a few years ago; kind of strange, given that I have always worked with the written word. I suppose that the search for meaning leads us naturally into some degree of appreciation for the arts. Anyhow, here's a classic that happens to be one of my favorite poems:

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas