I’m thinking of changing the name of the blog to “Astoot,” so you can all claim to be Astoot readers. It occurred to me to spell it “Asstoot,” instead, but that doesn’t have the same jenn-air says quark, or something.

Anyhow, I have astute readers and commenters, and they’ve pointed out a few lovely items I should share with you.

Ron over at Fluffy Stuffin’ enjoyed our travelogue of doors that would have been slammed in my face if the occupants got the opportunity, and sent me a link to some Ann Arbor, Michigan local flavah: Fairy Doors

I’m a lover of anachronism, but I’m giving the nice people involved a pass for spelling it “fairy” instead of “faerie.” I bet they don’t spell haemoglobin properly either. At any rate, I love this sort of local tradition. It’s always difficult to predict in advance what will captivate a young child. These things seem to grow organically from the original modest, charming idea. Lovely.

By the way, Ron’s earlier take on Cinco de Mayo is a tour-de-force of the genre.

On another front, hyper-super-astute-massive-google-fu reader and occasional commenter “lohwoman”has determined the current status of the Fickie mansion, which as you no doubt remember was our idea of the ultimate Second Empire house. Well, the neighborhood has indeed continued to creep up on it, but it’s still there. And its… a fraternity house for a chiropractic college now.

I don’t know why, but that strikes me as funny.

Oh, we got trouble
Right here in River City
Right here in River City
With Greek Alphabet”D” and that rhymes with ‘smelter’ and that stands for ‘subluxation’
That stands for subluxation
We surely got trouble
We surely got trouble
Right here in River City
Right here

Gotta figure out a way to keep the young ones
holistic after school

Spoken:
Mothers of River City,
heed this warning before it’s too late
Watch for the tell-tale signs of subluxation
The minute your son leaves the house
does he manipulate his bones below the knee?
Is there a insurance co-pay stain on his index finger?
A medical textbook hidden in the corncrib?
Is he starting to memorize jokes
from St. Elsewhere?
Are certain words creeping into his conversation?
Words like… swell?
And… ‘osteopath’?
Well if so, my friends…

Then we’ve got trouble…