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Back to the park this morning and this time we weren't rained off. Phoebe was fearless on the slide though and on her last attempt seemed to pull a muscle or something as she was unsteady on her feet for a little while and then hobbling and holding her thigh. But she didn't cry and she seemed to be OK. As a parent you're presented with loads of occasions where you have to work out if you need to go into hospital. We're erred on the side of caution before, but no tears and no obvious discomfort and Phoebe was soon running around again (with only a slight limp) and you know she's got another leg anyway. And we're in the orthopaedic capital of the world so I reckon they can knock up another one no problem.
We were planning to tour Warsaw to visit all 20 of the statues that temporarily reside on the street corners here, so I could make a little video insert for AIOTM (or at least as an extra for subscribers). Tragically the little lazy aborted foetus crosses have been taken down because school is back this week and obviously it would be sick to have the crosses on a playing field during term time (though I think these people are even more lazy than I initially thought - if they are really good Catholics then there should be a cross for every sperm that had died unfulfilled since 1982 - that would take some doing), but luckily I have the photos. I am certainly formulating some good routines for a US based episode 1 of the series.
Anyway on the way from the playground to the first statue we saw a fire engine (they call them trucks, but a truck is something else, right? Or is an engine something else? I can't tell which language is more ridiculous any more) and we stopped to look at it with Phoebe, who is quite into trucks and engines and trains. One of the firemen saw us and called us over and asked if we'd like to look inside. So I took Phoebe up into the row of seats behind the driver. It was mainly full of fireman costumes (they call them uniforms here!) but it was still pretty exciting to be in a real fire engine/truck or whatever the Hell it was. The Warsaw fire department had been busy and this was their 5th call out of the day (they do 1000 calls a year), and it wasn't even midday, though none of those calls had been fires luckily. Fire crews do a lot of mundane stuff between the superhero fucking heroics that even I would not dare take the piss out of. Firemen and women are just the best people and this guy was super nice as well as super brave. There was no need for him to make two little children so happy (me and my daughter). What a thrill.
It was a hot day as we made our way round town and I ad-libbed sarcastic comments about all of the statues. I am not sure how useable any of it is, but I have a vision of Emma Kennedy playing Abraham Lincoln and Dan Tetsell being a bejumpered man who is only interested in the President's hat, so I am sure we'll get something out of this. Even if it's just some Abraham Lincoln/Quantum Leap crossover.
I dragged my wife and daughter round the town, with it's town square mildly reminiscent of Back to the Future, trying to work out what was going on in each statue and why only one of them transcended reality (at least obviously). We stopped for a milk shake along the way. My sugar intake has gone through the roof. If I lived here I would be dead by now and I am not sure I can survive another week.
I collected all 20 Pokemons (as I liked to think of them) and slightly lost sight of what was real and what was pretend. You don't have to come to Warsaw Indiana to see them (but it helps), as you can view the brochure with pics of all of them here. Though I was doing it with a sense of irony, I enjoyed it unironically also. It's proper engaging and populist art and it makes you look at your surroundings in a different way.
It's been an extraordinary trip with much going on in the family that I can't really talk about on here, but it's tragic and surreal in equal measure. And then I am going round town going in fire machines and speculating about the lives of people made from bronze. It might be the sugar. Or I might be dead already.
As there's a delay on production you now have til August 20th to get your name in tour programme and donate to SCOPE. You need to donate at least £15 here to get the limited edition signed programme sent to you, but if you just want your name in there you can give any tiny amount you like.
