Dictator?, I don't even know her!

It is November 16, and it was over 70 degrees and sunny in Knoxville today. This is definitely the time of year that the Winns will miss when we leave in the increasingly less distant future. Presently Jarom and I are keeping each other company while Jenna and Lix visit the Hegewalds on the shores of Lake Erie. Word on the street is that they are having a good time. Alixa has been golfing more in the past week than Jarom has, something that has never happened before. Jenna is getting to know her grandparents, and they enjoy playing with her while Lix golfs with Opa or plays tennis and canasta with Mimi.

Lix and Jenna in front of the fence Jarom climbed over to briefly rescue a kitten

Jenna with a bow in her hair (no glue needed)

This weekend was also the second installment of the Jarom vs. Alixa fantasy football feud. Jarom took game one in the first week of the season, but Lix came into this week’s matchup as a 63-point favorite. That is a spread that any fool would love to take, but since I am not a betting man, I refrained. And it was a good thing too, because not only did Alixa win, but she also covered the spread handily, outscoring her emasculated husband 158-82. Jarom might have to rethink his decision to allow his wife into the league if she keeps beating the tar out of him, because it really isn’t good for his fragile ego.



Before she took off last week, Lix decided to try feeding Jenna some rice cereal, a trick she had been looking forward to for some time. It was an unmitigated disaster. It was messy, of course. That is to be expected. But it was so much worse than that. First I must explain something to you about Jenna – when it comes to her food, she does not mess around. Her hunger typically arises fairly quickly, meaning that she can go from happy to extremely upset in about 5 minutes. You should really use that time wisely to make her a bottle, because if you don’t she will explode into an angry rage. Well, it was feeding time on Thursday when Lix made her the rice cereal. She seemed to enjoy chewing on the spoon, but she wasn’t really getting any food as it was mostly falling all over her and the table around her. Since she was still hungry and the 5-minute window had passed, she began to scream at the top of her lungs inconsolably. The real problem is that when this happens she is unable to calm herself down enough to eat once you do get the bottle ready. So Jarom and Alixa had to spend about 30 minutes with a Jenna siren going off until she finally ran out of gas. Needless to say, the next rice cereal session will be done in between feedings when she is not hungry at all.

Sometimes Jenna gets tired of holding her head up and just lays down. Unfortunately, sometimes there is barfus where she lays her head. She doesn't care.

Another funny story from last week involves Jarom and a fellow student from his ethics class who we will call Hubbs. This class is mostly a big fat waste of time, spent debating ethical dilemmas with the other students. In class environments that center on debating issues Jarom can sometimes become a dominant figure in the discussions. Perhaps other people get their feelings hurt when he points out the glaring flaws in their arguments, or maybe they are just jealous of his stunning good looks, but there have been flashes of hostility from fellow students in the past. However, what occurred a few weeks ago was unprecedented. Amid a discussion about whether it is acceptable for a beer company to sponsor a high school Jarom stated his view that such a scenario seemed inappropriate, particularly given the constant issue of drunk driving and teenage deaths. At the end of his little diatribe, Jarom paused, and then finished. At the pause a friend of Hubbs began to squeeze in his two cents, only to be cut off by the end of Jarom’s thought. Immediately Hubbs said, in a voice that was loud enough for the whole class to hear, “Hold on, the dictator is speaking, nobody else is allowed to say anything.” Well, dictator is hardly the worst thing that Jarom has been called, and he isn’t new to being called out in public either, so he simply laughed it off. One week later, he got an interesting email from Hubbs-

Dear Class,

I just wanted to apologize to the class for my outburst during last week’s class. I said some things that may have offended some of you and there was no excuse for that. I let my emotions get the best of me and I promise that I will not let it happen again.

Thanks for your understanding

He isn’t sure if it was self-motivated or if the teacher had a hand in suggesting the apology. Any thoughts? And feel free to call Jarom dirty names if it will make you feel better.

This video is the greatest taunt/celebration I have ever seen. Lix should have used it after her epic win.