Hubby Lobby.

What will an average husband take pictures of while his wife is shopping in Hobby Lobby? Let's find out!

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"These places all look the same. What's the difference between Hobby Lobby and Micheal's?"

"Oh!"

"Here's looking at you, kid."

"A place like this could give a guy ideas."

"Did you just assume my gender?"

"Holy crap! The secret's been here all along! Hey, everybody!"

"Crazy Knitty Ladies appear to have as much paraphernalia available as Crazy Kitty Ladies. Is there a lot of overlap? Don't cats ruin yarnwork? Just askin' -- not trying to start a rumble or anything."

"Painting by numbers: Craft or art? Hobby Lobby says craft. Let's poll Aisle 8."

"Hey, they do have a men's department in this place."

(Sorry for the bad picture, but among the books on sale are C. S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity; you won't find that at Blick.)

"Come on, everyone! Na na na na na na na na, Na na na na na na na na, BATMAAAAN!"

(At this point hubby is sent to wait in the car.)

Soccer to ME?

Google keeps trying to make me care about the Women's World Cup. 

C'mon, c'mon...

Oh, dear!

I don't wish to be mean. Well, maybe I do, but not for the reasons it may seem. Let's go to the videotape and sort it out.

⚽ I don't have anything against women's sports. I like watching the women's events in the Olympics just fine, and not out of prurient interest. Women + sports = no problem.

⚽ And I don't want to burst the soccer ball even though I don't happen to like soccer. Soccer was considered a poor sport when I was a kid, something you might fall back on when all you had was a ball you couldn't throw. Even stickball required more equipment (i.e.: stick). And if you had a throwing ball and nothing else, you might play monkey in the middle. I'm saying, we never saw soccer on TV, our dads had no respect for the game, and it looked really boring.

⚽ Plus the clock moves in the wrong direction and the rules encourage faking injuries.

⚽ But I can appreciate that others may enjoy it. I've worked on some kids' books about Pelé and the World Cup, and I think it's fine. Go enjoy it. Many people enjoy many things that I don't understand, like wine tasting and rock climbing and Kabuki theater, and that's fine too. There are things I do understand but don't want to participate in, like gardening and chess and building intricate model train sets. And there are things that just leave me cold. Soccer is one such.

⚽ (I would like to add that it has been almost five years since I introduced my plan to fix all of soccer's problems, and FIFA has completed ignored me. Sad!)

⚽ And I understand that Google thinks everyone should be cool on World Cup because so many people love the game that billions of human beings will literally pull every hair out of their heads if their national team loses a squeaker.

⚽ And Google thinks women everything is great because Women!

⚽ And not out of prurient interest, Stiiv.

⚽ But Google doesn't address what's going to happen to women's sports when their progressive agenda leads to FIFA and the International Olympic Committee recognizing trans athletes -- men who play dressed as women -- who go on to wipe the floor with the actual women playing, as is happening in NCAA-sanctioned events now. However sincere these men are about becoming women, they've opened the door to future women's events being played entirely by men who couldn't make the cut in the men's events. So everyone who ever made fun of women's sports as being a crappy (rather than just different) version of men's sports will be justified in the end, because that's all it will be.

⚽ But that last point doesn't have anything to do with this year's Women's World Cup. I just don't like soccer. Still: USA! USA! USA! (Assuming they're in it.)

Okay, that's all the caring I have for today. I have to go lie down.

The dog is relatively cheap.

I've always thought that a good hobby ought to be enjoyable with very little money or a whale of a lot of money, or any amount of money in between. 

You can try fishing with a string, a stick, a worm, and a pin, or you can have a giant sport fishing boat with mounted rods and $500 lures and God knows what else. Maybe a private chef to cook your sailfish. You can take up shooting with a Walmart pellet gun for plinking in the yard, or get a gun collection with a walk-in safe, indoor range, and black-market weaponry. You can homebrew with a big jug, some empty bottles, and cheap ingredients, or turn your cellar into a brewery. You get one cheap HO scale set with an engine and two cars, and before you know it there's a room with fifteen tracks and a roundhouse and every Christmas you get Lionel-themed gifts from everyone. 

I guess pets are like that a little. You can get a goldfish and enjoy it in a vase for five days. Or you can get a horse.

Not my car. No horse.

Most of the time the wise hobbyist will start small---perhaps a pair of knitting needles and a couple of skeins of yarn, rather than jumping in all at once with the yard ball winder and knitting machine and spinning wheel. It takes time for a hobby obsession to build.

The dog is a little like a hobby in that regard. When we got Tralfaz I knew we'd have the cost of him, his medical care, his food and treats, his license, and his toys. Then came classes, and possible dogsitting (which we haven't needed, but a friend of mine drops $5000 a year to have someone come to play with his dog for an hour a day). Then the possibility of fencing off the backyard, which we have not yet done, but probably will when we have the dough on hand (buy my books! Help give my pup a big playpen!). And then maybe a homemade agility course to keep him trained. And THEN a second dog, or third....

Still, it's cheaper than a horse. So it could be worse.

I've always kind of wanted an elephant, and that would be worse. An elephant might be lonely here, though; not a lot of other elephants to play with. Besides, New York probably has some stupid law against keeping elephants in the yard. Stupid New York!

Hey, do they breed dwarf pygmy elephants?