Things That Make You Go Hmmm

My buddy Joe was one of the first to get his driver’s license out of the guys I hung out with in high school.  Whenever I hear C+C Music Factory (which is extremely rare come to think of it,) my mind teleports to riding through the streets of Manchester in Joe’s Mazda 626 while Gonna Make You Sweat blared out any attempted conversation between the passengers.  Ah, the nineties.  I digress.

Tilly has recently transitioned somewhere from Australopithecus man to Homo habilis man.  Assuming the memory serves me correctly from World Cultures class, Australopithecus was one of the more primitive primates from whom humans evolved.  Homo habilis was the first species in the evolutionary chain who used tools.  I think.  Or maybe it was Homo erectus.

 

Irregardless, Tilly has begun mastering pulling herself up to stand.  The other day, I saw her standing at the toy tool table.  She was firing away at the circular saw until Gus came along and nudged her out of the way.  Tilly then grabbed a toy hammer and whacked away at her brother’s leg.  Hence, homo habilis.

Notwithstanding her evolutionary progression, Tilly’s eating quirks are probably more akin to Cro-Magnon man or possibly Neanderthal.  First, the volume of food she consumes is akin to the intake of a Biggest Loser contestant the night before they begin a competition.  Second, her table manners are atrocious.  We basically need a high-powered hose to blast away all the food scraps and crumbs that accumulate between her fingers, in her hair, on her cheeks, and in the folds of her neck after a meal. 

Most entertaining, though, is the sound that Tilly makes once we’ve begun to feed our little beast.  The only way I can accurately describe my baby’s happy hum while eating is well, um, the sound I imagine of a woman taking a bubble bath with several lit candles around her after a couple glasses of Chardonnay as she watches that movie about male strippers starring Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey.  I’m just saying. It’s funny and uncomfortable to witness at the same time.

That’s is for this week.  I’m off to download “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” because I can’t get it out of my brain.

Thoughts Too Long for Side Note at Side Bar:

THE WIFE graciously granted me a short parole this weekend so I could catch at least one of the four NFL playoff games.  I headed to Owen O’Leary’s, which is an Irish Pub and Restaurant just over the border between Easton and Brockton.  I’d never eaten there but I drive by it literally every single day, so it’s been on the list of places to check out for a while.

Upon entering, I deduced quickly that the average age of the clientele was somewhere between seventy and eighty years old.  Mind you, I was there on a Sunday at four o’clock, but I was still surprised at how much of a hot spot this was for the “well into retirement” crowd.

So this place is an old school type of family restaurant with very affordable entrees and Keno to boot.  The ambience is kind of dark and sleepy.  The décor is kind of outdated but clean and presentable.  Most of the couples ignored each other and their food because their eyes were transfixed on the monitor to see if they hit on their seven pick exacto.

I ordered the shepard’s pie and a stout.  Neither disappointed.  Good stuff.  Rumor has it that OO’s has a younger crowd during Pats’ games and when Stonehill’s students are back in session, but I’ll believe it when I see it…

I caught the Seahawks-Redskins game and just before it began, Erin Andrews (formerly of ESPN, Dancing With The Stars, and the unfortunate victim of a peeping Tom with a camera as she changed in a hotel room) came on the screen with a Fox pre-game report.  I couldn’t help but notice that everyone in the place all took a brief pause to look at the gorgeous woman.  I forgot how attractive she is…

I ask this sincerely because making fun of health issues just isn’t funny.  Has anyone heard Boomer Esiason’s voice lately?  Somebody give that guy a lozenge.  Just listening to him gives me a sore throat.  I’ll feel like a complete jackass if he genuinely has a throat sickness or something, but assuming that’s not the case, he needs to take some time off from work like yesterday.  Every time I hear him on the radio, I crave a hot toddy…

Speaking of the radio, the best report I heard after leaving the restaurant went something like this, “Thanks Jim.  I was just standing near the bench of the Seahawks and [the field goal kicker I think] was having his groin stretched feverishly.”  Personally, I’m pretty sure I know how I’d react to someone stretching my groin.  For said person to stretch my groin feverishly, well, I’d probably start making sounds like Tilly does when she’s eating a nice meal…