Will Orvedal builds furniture in Lawrence, KS.  He gets it right – note the detail in the second photo.

I don’t need one more material thing in this world until I go to Williams-Sonoma. These hand hammered pans with cast lid knobs wouldn’t improve my life, but they wouldn’t hurt a thing either.

The Kansas City T-Bones have a wonderful new stadium in Kansas City, Kansas, and I spent an absolutely perfect evening there last night. The weather is rarely so nice here in Kansas, and I got to hang out with my friends, eating hot dogs with lots of mustard and drinking beer.

I had a very nice chat with the woman sitting next to me, Colleen. She’s from Scranton and is a diehard Steelers fan. I was fascinated by the mishapen fellow wearing an apron who was standing in direct line with the pitcher. That was actually the umpire, but I never got an explanation of why he didn’t use a mitt. I would think that might be handy with baseballs coming at you. However, Colleen explained that he wears heavy padding under his clothes, hence his strange body shape, and that he uses the apron for extra baseballs. Good to know.

Anyway, she told me all about being the youngest member of Eastern Star, at the age of 40, and that her mother is one of 14 kids and her father is one of 8. With a family of that size, she relies on Facebook for communication, and we had a nice chat about the merits of Facebook.

Have you thought any more about putting your soul in cold storage? Think how nice those helpless animal pelts would feel this winter if you didn’t have a pesky soul to bother you.

Frankly, life has been pretty darned annoying lately. I’ve been needing a new handbag, but I can’t seem to find one that suits me. Not only that, but it’s dawned on me that I can no longer asphyxiate myself in the garage by running the car, since the damned hybrid doesn’t run unless it’s moving. Toyota really ought to point that out in their brochures.

So, I was flipping through The New Yorker this morning and found the answer. There is a new company called The Soul Storage Company that will remove your soul and keep it in cold storage in case you ever need it again. I think this is something like putting your furs in cold storage for the summer. I’m sure life would be much easier without having to drag your soul around with you all the time, and you could take it out for holidays and weddings if you needed to.

Just think, without a soul, you could eat veal, tell the United Way to get lost and drive a Hummer. I’ve been saving up for a boob job, but soul storage may actually be the better way to go.

This is Sarah Jarosz and she’s just released her first CD, Song Up In Her Head. My brother and I saw her at the Old Settler’s Music Festival a couple of years ago and she was great then, but she’s knocked one out of the park with this CD. (BTW, she’s eighteen years old and plays guitar, mandolin and banjo.) Thanks, Shawn!

Isn’t that a great name? Why don’t more parents select that name for their little girls and boys?

According to babynamewizard.com, it means flax or blond in Greek and possibly one who mourns in Etruscan. Of course, the Etruscan meaning is shaky, since the language hasn’t actually been spoken since about 100 AD and the last known reader was Emperor Claudius, who died in 54 AD. His wife was Etruscan, so you can imagine how those conversations went. Probably lots of gesturing.

Anyway, it’s a great name, given to a few famous people, most notably Linus van Pelt. Remember Linus and his blanket from the Peanuts cartoon? Wikipedia reminds me that he was Lucy’s little brother and that he sometimes quoted the Gospels. Remember The Great Pumpkin? The was Linus’ version of Santa Claus. He is reputed to have coined the term “security blanket”.  And I’m going to give you this straight from Wikipedia, regarding his blanket: “ Ridicule of the habit is not a major concern for him as shown when one friend, Roy, warned him at summer camp that he would be viciously teased for it. In response, Linus uses his blanket like a whip and shears off a tree branch with intimidating power and notes “They never tease me more than once.” The blanket, it turns out, has something of a personality of its own (a non-verbal one), and it once engaged Lucy in a knock-down drag-out fight, due to her constant, albeit failed, attempts to get rid of it by throwing it in the trash burner.”

There is also Linus Pauling, Linus Torvalds, Linus Roache and Pope St. Linus.

If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you. If you really make them think, they’ll hate you.

-Don Marquis

This is the cathedral in Cologne and I’m sure that most people don’t feel that it’s evil. It’s just that I figure it was built by serfs and war slaves who worked hard and died young in the name of Christian glory. Sorry, I know that’s not a popular view, but really…

I visited my friend Paul in Cologne last week and stayed in a hotel about 100 yards from the cathedral. The second photo was taken from the bed in my hotel room and let me tell you, it was pretty strange to wake up in the morning to that. Actually, it was astonishing and awe inspiring. Just imagine cracking a sleepy eye open to that!

The sorry part is that I failed to get any photos of Paul and Bonny or their brilliant creations, Henry and Owen, the twin two year olds. And yes, I had a great time with them. The boys were an absolute blast, and Paul and Bonny are a pretty great duo. I guess they have to be to survive these twin dervishes.

I know, it’s a crude subject line, but I couldn’t help it.

The top photo is of a door just down the street from my apartment. I admire it every single day and I hope to meet the owner before I leave. Amsterdam is jam packed with wonderful iron work, both old and new, cast and forged.

The second photo is of a restaurant door, also not far from where I’m staying. They serve North African food, which probably explains the words on the brass panel above the door knocker.  Maybe we’ll go there for dinner tonight.

Yeah, I know, long time, no post.  And that’s a lotta commas in a short sentence.

We’re staying at the Hotel Pulitzer in Amsterdam, in a room overlooking the Prinsengracht canal. It’s one of the more foreign-feeling cities I’ve visited, and altogether civilized. And the language is fantastic. This is the warning sticker on a package of cigars: “Roken is dodelijk”. If it weren’t on the package of cigars, reminding us that smoking will kill us, I’d think it was some sort of fantastic chocolate dessert. Of course, speakers of the language sound as if they’re occasionally gagging. Or maybe they’re trying to tell us to stop smoking those stinking cigars.

What a great day we’ve had. The weather couldn’t be more perfect, we spent the morning looking at paintings at the Rijksmuseum, had pizza and beer for lunch, then rented a paddleboat for the trip back to the hotel. The day is still young, since it doesn’t get dark until 10 pm or later, so there is more fun to come.