We finally got to visit Kidspace Museum in Pasadena on Saturday. Our last visit was a huge setback since it was closed due to a football game (not a big fan of football even more now.) The place was smaller than expected but had a lot of interesting play stuff for kids a little order than our 16-month old. The only thing they had for kids her age was a Gymboree style playroom, which we sat in for nearly an hour while my daughter ran around with a toy-shopping cart (who knew shopping carts could be so much fun?) Until a few little boys came in and started taking stuff and knocking the kids over like a motorcycle gang from Van Nuys. I spent about 20 minutes keeping them away from my jewel and her shopping cart fun, until they left for their “feeding” of raw meat and Coors Light. It really made me realize the HUGE difference between boys and girls around this age. It’s almost scary.
Most of the time I lounged in a corner sketching kids in my sketchbook while parents were all raving about how smart geniuses their kids are (welcome to Pasadena). When they looked at me, I told them my daughter could blow really huge snot bubbles in the shape of Masai giraffes.
I’m sure we’ll go back in a year or two when we don’t have to sit in the “Early Childhood Development” room.
Today, we saw a house nearby that’s going to be on that HGTV show “Designed to Sell”. It was the big open house ‘reveal’ were the public gets to see the place all fixed up and they film visitors walking in and out with reactions like “Oh! Wow!” “I like the wainscoting!”” Look! Even Grandma has a place to sleep!” When we got there they immediately made us fill out an appearance waiver and then they filmed my wife, daughter and I walking up (I’ll let everybody know when that episode airs) The house did look pretty good inside, but you can tell most of the work was quick cosmetic fixes - uneven paint jobs, fabric draped over things concealing junk, mirrors and large furniture everywhere to make the place feel and look bigger – I think we’ve watched the show enough to know “the magician’s secrets”, even though it looked good. My wife and I still love the HGTV. And the English host dude is TALL and big. I bet he could blow really big snot bubbles (in the shape of furniture.)
By the way – with all this talk I’ve been doing of Doogie Houser - did anybody see the news yesterday about Doogie Houser’s Neil Patrick Harris ‘coming out’? Seriously, I wouldn’t have guessed. Anyhow, I thought this article was funny announcing "Doogie gay, but not Canadian".