he stickiness of the glue is directly proportional to the size of the warning label

the past week has been rather enjoyable. after all the homecoming hoopla faded and the family left town, andrew and i cut a swath through every comic shop and shoe store in the lexington-cincinnati-louisville triangle. it should be easy to guess that the shoes were for me and the comics for andrew, but i enjoy a few comics myself. and comic shops are always full of interesting things and people that you rarely see in daylight anywhere else. if you are thinking about a similar trek, you should know that the best comics were found in frankfort. there is an unknown, hole-in-the-stipmall store, and it would seem that no one else ever shops there, which allowed us to buy all the things that were sold out in the big city shops. as for the shoes, if you are familiar with zappos.com, then you might be interested to know that they have an outlet/warehouse store in louisville. i think their online shoes can be a little pricy (really their gimmick is free shipping on returns) but their actual store is a shoe shopper's paradise (and sometimes they do sidewalk sales where all the shoes are $10-15). however, the highlight of the trip was the B&B. if you are ever in the cinci area and are looking for a cozy getaway for you and your sweetie, The Weller Haus receives our highest possible recommendations. They offer a variety of nice things like in-room massages, jacuzzis for two, and breakfast dropped off outside the door so that you can scamper back with it and eat it in bed.

since then, andrew and i have been lounging and working on some projects. one of his projects required glue, and we really spent quite some time in the walmart craft isle. the items to be glued need to survive army life in iraq so the glue needed to be nearly industrial if not illegal. we found some: amazing goop. the warning label was impressively long and the fumes were surely toxic but the items appear to be stuck to each other. since this was andrew's project and i had my own, i wasn't really paying much attention until he shouted out, "communist, unholy-pit-fiends."

that's not really something you expect to hear during family craft time.

the problem was in resecuring the lid to the glue tube; the problem is that you can't. it originally came with a cap. you unscrew it, poke a hole in the metal seal, and then screw on a tappered topper. now that he was done with the glue, you couldn't just take off the three inch tappered topper, it was full of glue. but you also couldn't put the original cap on top of the topper. so we are just stuck with a huge tube of incredible toxic glue and no way to seal it. we may die in our sleep from the fumes, but the project turned out terrific.