Not only is this Wednesday my father's sixtieth birthday, last Friday was my aunt Bette's fiftieth. So, we decided to celebrate in style. My older aunt Deanna invited the rest of my mother's brothers and sisters over to Kitchener, where we surprised Bette at a Middle Eastern restaurant, and then retired to Deanna's place for Karaoke.
That's right. Karaoke. I sang Patsy Cline's Crazy, and promptly forgot the words. Later, my mother, Erin and I tried The Lion Sleeps Tonight (I supplied the bass).
Let me just say that Karaoke is harder than it looks and, when one sees the lyrics of The Lion Sleeps Tonight, one cannot help but sink into a fit of giggles. I mean, first of all, most of you know the song, right? Let it play in your head a moment, and picture yourself singing it. Not the bass section, but the high-pitched lead. Right, you got it?
Now, on the Karaoke screen, those lyrics appear as "Wee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee", which, of course, makes the singers want to go "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!" Yikes.
A good time was had by all, and it was great seeing most of the Smith family again. Now, onto my father's birthday celebration this Thursday.
On Sunday, Erin and I headed into Toronto and spent an afternoon with Cameron. We didn't get much writing done, mostly because Cameron is such a good person to talk to, but we did work over some of the structural questions he had with his story, and we also agreed that, next time, we'd each bring material for the others to edit.
Further to my post on Kurdistan, Erin forwarded me this quote from a blog that she occasionally reads (I don't know which one it is, but here's another source):
"If we'd gone to Baghdad and got rid of Saddam Hussein - assuming we could have found him - we'd have had to put a lot of forces in and run him to ground some place. He would not have been easy to capture. Then you've got to put a new government in his place and then you're faced with the question of what kind of government are you going to establish in Iraq? Is it going to be a Kurdish government or a Shia government or a Sunni government? How many forces are you going to have to leave there to keep it propped up, how many casualties are you going to take through the course of this operation?"
--Dick Cheney, February 1992
This is, of course, pretty sensible stuff. I agree with it and understand it. And I would like to hear what has changed for Mr. Cheney to set this aside -- or, at least, if he has a plan to deal with the very serious and valid questions that he himself raises.