A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the Ernesto Neto’s anthropodino installation at the Park Avenue Armory. (Post and photos here.)

This past Sunday was the final day of the installation and since works of this magnitude are few and far between I wanted to take a second look. I still fondly recall Christo’s Gates project in Central Park. A lot of people grumbled about it but I thought it was fun.

I wanted the girls to see Neto’s beast. I don’t think they’ll remember it because they’re so young, but I knew it would be a fun afternoon for them.

Here are a few pics that will be of interest primarily to family lurkers.

The Daughters explore the labyrinths. As always, the younger running to catch up to her older sister.

Mrs. Wife relaxes in the “bubble tub” while 3-Year Old Daughter struggles with her footing.

Meanwhile, 7-Year Old Daughter goes for a swim.

Contemplating the canopy.

This is New Jersey:

This is the London broil that I grilled over the weekend:

It’s not up there with seeing Christ’s face in the melted snow of a mountainside or the Virgin Mother in the plaster cracks, but it did give me a start. It was like eating one of my own.

My father-in-law signed 7-Year Old Daughter up for golf lessons on Saturday afternoons. He even bought her a set of real clubs. He’s a golfer and he wanted to indoctrinate her into that world.

That’s fine with me but, personally, I’ve never held a golf club in my life and have no desire to start now. It looks like a dull game and I have some negative preconceived notions (i.e., stereotypes) about people who like to hang out in country clubs. In my mind’s eye, they’re the same crowd who kept George Bush in office for eight years and drove our economy off a cliff, amongst other offenses.

Father-in-law was otherwise engaged Saturday afternoon so I took 7-Year Old Daughter to her golf lesson. I was her caddy, which I thought was a hysterical joke until she chastised me for giving her the wrong club.

“No, Dad, that’s my short iron. I need the medium iron. See, it says right here on the head.”

There are only five kids in her class. When we got there, she walked up to the only other girl in her class, Isobel, to greet her. Daughter said, “Hi, Isobel. I like your hair like that. And that’s a cute skirt.”

Isobel is about three years older than Daughter and a few inches taller. She looked down on daughter (literally) said nothing, turned her back and walked away. A few minutes later, I watched from a distance as the same scenario played out. Daughter says something to Isobel, Isobel turns her back and walks away without a word.

Isobel was being a bit cunty to my Daughter. I could see the hurt etched onto Daughter’s face after that second snub. I wondered where Isobel learned such deplorable behavior. I looked over at her father. He was a stick of a man with a pot belly and a tight fish face who drove a BMW.

I was considering teaching Isobel a valuable lesson in humility by kicking her father’s teeth down his fucking throat in full view of the class. The episode confirmed everything I’ve always suspected about the thrilling world of golf.

Here’s my latest obsession.

This is the new MiFi from Verizon. When activated, it creates a wifi bubble. This is perfect for my laptop during the long, tedious train commute, where internet service is nonexistent. The advantage this device has over a wifi card is that I can also use it for my iTouch. That way, I have all the advantages of an iPhone without suffering AT&Ts horrible service. It’s two device drivers for the price of one. Plus I get major kewl kid cred.

Mrs. Wife and I recently used it to check our email while driving from New Jersey to Ohio. In the desolate mid-state Pennsylvania mountains, no one can hear you scream. Or get wifi.

Up to five people can use the same signal, but it’s secure so the only way someone else can leech off of my wifi is if I give them the WEP key password on the back of the device, which I’ll probably never do because I hate people so much.

The bad part is that when I activate my cell phone jammer to cut short a rude boy’s cell phone call, it also knocks out my wifi signal. So I can use one device or the other, but not both simultaneously. Also, I keep it in my pocket and wonder what the negative long-term effects are of having my testicles constantly bombarded with a radio signal at close range. It’ll probably sterilize me but at this point I don’t really mind. But if it starts to shrink my boys, I’ll have to rethink using it.

On a clear, blue, warm day, you can take your girls to the big Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, located on the shores of Lake Erie. Why do you suppose they call it Erie?

Do you like the architecture? I do. It was designed by the brilliant I.M. Pei. It’s suppose to look like a record spindle with some stacked 45s. The girls were mildly amused about the whole thing, which was good enough for me.

My father- and mother-in-law made the trip from New Jersey for my mom’s funeral, which I thought was incredibly gracious of them. The whole lot of us visited the Hall of Fame the next afternoon. There was a big Life and Times of Bruce Springsteen exhibit. Mrs. Wife and her kin are related to Bruce (hence, the backstage passes of a few posts ago), so the family photos and history resonated with them on a deep level.

Father-in-law is a stickler for details, so when he found one small, teensey-weency factoid that was incorrect regarding Bruce’s formative years, he quickly hunted down the exhibit curator and set things right.

This…

…is one of my favorite activities back in Clevo. Those are bratwurst on the top rack. Have you ever had a bratwurst? Oh, holy sweet Mother of Jesus they’re good. Especially if my brother-in-law is at the helm working his grill magic. If you haven’t had the pleasure, please stop reading immediately and run out to your nearest butcher and pick up some links. And if you can arrange it, have my brother-in-law cook them. You’ll thank me later.

Dharma tip o’ the week:

Take it from me; it is virtually impossible to drift off into a state of meditative bliss while the lick from AC/DCs Back in Black is rattling around inside your head.