"Flat Daddy"

I've made it a habit since moving here to watch the local news every morning. I figure it's good to be in touch with this new and rather strange city. This morning there was a special segment on the families of military people in Iraq. Apparently there's a new program which may or may not be called "Flat Daddy." I didn't quite get all the facts. What I did get was this: the new program sends life sized pictures of the wife/husband/whoever to the family. The family that was featured uses this "Flat Daddy" in their daily life. They set it at the table with them, take it to football games and even take family pictures with it! How GREAT. They interviewed the "Actual Daddy" live during this segment and though the wife and two children seemed totally into the idea he seemed more or less miserable and didn't even smile once while on camera.

I don't think it's necessary to comment further on this - it's funny and weird all at the same time.

Next up: there are forest fires raging all around the area. Every morning they talk about the day fires and how if you have asthma to take precautions. Yesterday the sky looked funny. I said to a coworker: "Is the sky weird because of the fires?" Him: "What fires?" Um. I hope he doesn't have asthma.