You would do best to simply ignore the first paragraph.

I don't have any idea what I'm about to write and don't much care except that I hope I don't type a stream of profanities. Of course, not that I have any reason to such as anger or frustration or intense pain, and not that I have Tourette's Syndrome. But mostly because I tend to romanticize swearing, especially it's cool look in type and if I were to include some choice words then I might offend certain personages that might care to read this blog.

I should cut to the quick, but instead I'll end the blog and say this first: things are good, as good as could be expected when uprooting oneself and only to transplant in another country, even though that country is still in North America and speaks understandable English and watches plenty of American (that is, from the U.S) television.

Okay, and I'll that Elise and I and the kids are immeasurably breathtaken by how beautiful the city of Vancouver is.

For those of you wanting more details: more is to come, but be assured: We are alive and well!

O Land of Beautiful Greenery and Gracious Folk

That is a funny post title, but that is my last impression from our walk this morning. We are staying in the heart of the city and are amazed the beautiful plants and kind and lovely people that we have come in contact with. Yes, we are sure we will stay in the city of Vancouver.

Okay, I'm done. I have some people around who are giving me a hard time for blogging. Bye.

It's like a thriller.

I'm afraid I will not be able to top the controversy of the last post. (Unless I say this: I was at a middle school today where I had access to "P of A" in the room and realized I needed to finish the book.)

Anyway, so you should all know that we will be leaving for Vancouver in nearly two weeks. Can't say how totally thrilled we are. The dream is becoming reality.

Another thought: Elise and I just saw "The Graduate" for the first time. What a brilliant movie. Says so much about the America of the late 1960s in such an efficient way. So beautifully directed, scripted and acted. See it if you haven't yet. See it again if you have.

A broom now in pieces like a raisin in the sun.

Have read about 200 pages of "Prisoner of Azkaban" and decided that it is such a compulsively formulaic and utterly ridiculous drag that I will not read any more. Why should I care about H.P. in the first place? Well, to start with, because I was in Holland when it got big and so many of those pathological, uptight, Evangelical moralists made a big deal of it. Then I got a shirt from the thrift store that was a kind of Gryffindor quidditch team jersey (which embarrassingly enough I was too chickenshit to wear because of the witch-hunters that were going to burn me at the stake). Then everyone surmised that I was "Harry Potter, The College Years" incarnate. Later we discovered many new friends that were all up-ons about H.P. and finally I decided to get sucked in. I quasi-enjoyed "Chamber of Secrets" but the third-in-series just plain blows. You see, I wanted to read for myself what was all the Hula Hoop about this series of hopelessly Scooby-Doo-ish books that made the once-homeless Rowling into multi-gazillionaire (second only to Dan Brown in the literary world).

Hell, I'm not even sure why I rant.

In other news, I recently found out that I am a "4" which means I am something of a Romantic/Individualist, although I have very Observer/Investigator tendencies. This is my latest obsession. It is called the Enneagram and it is a personality categorizer similar to - yet quite different from - the familiar Psych 101 Myers-Briggs test.

By the way, I am positively uninterested in this blogging nonsense. How ironic, eh? It strikes me as some kind of reverse-voyeurism, a self-absorbed and narcissistic indulgence - and in the most graphic terms, a sort of psycho-analytic masturbation. The more forthright and gruesome, the better: read, read, read and never get enough!

I prefer human relationships. Let this ugly cur-bastard-child of a replacement for personal human contact pass away, and dry up like a raisin in the sun.

Man, I love to rant. What a self-congratulatory waste of time for all parties involved.

But the 4 in me gives this last caveat: I'm a passionate SOB when I want to be (which is usually always), so take my words with a salt shaker handy (is that mixing metaphors?)

Recentish.

Still substitute teaching. Still planning our big move to Vancouver. Still reading books (see more additions to the right!). Haven't written/posted in awhile. I'm not as in to blogging as I used to be, and hope never to become addicted. If we had internet access in our place of dwelling, how much time would be sucked up by the blogmonster? We'll see yet.

More pictures of the little ones? The only thing that matters. These are sorta recent. More later (someday, of course).