Matildia: I want a pony.
Me: It’s not that easy. We need land for the pony to run and eat. Ponies need to be outside.
M: So let’s buy the neighbor’s house.
Me: Well, even if we could afford to buy the neighbor’s house and turn it into a stable, we’d still need permits. I’m not even sure it would be allowed by the county or the city. Plus, that’s still not enough room for the pony.
M: Her name would be Sparkles and she’d be my best friend.
Me: I understand, but ponies cost a lot of money. Can I buy you a plastic pony?
M: I want to be president. Can you make me president?
Me: Why would you want to be president? That’s a hard job.
M: So I could make a law to put dads who don’t buy ponies for their daughters in jail.
Me: That’s not what the president does.
M: Okay, I want to be a Congressman.
Me: Woman. A Congresswoman.
M: No, Congressman. They’re more crooked.
Me: Okay. Still, you have to make laws that make sense and appeal to your voters. The people you’re appealing to can’t vote.
M: If I were president, I’d change that.
Me: But you’re not. You’re a Congresswoman.
M: I don’t want to be a Congresswoman anymore. I want to be a model.
Me: That’s a leap. Why do you want to be a model?
M: Am I not cute enough?
Me: Of course you’re cute enough. I just thought that, well . . . especially considering this conversation . . . that you’re smarter than that.
M: So models aren’t smart?
Me: No, it’s not that. But, you seem to have more depth than using your looks to get ahead.
M: So models are shallow? Are you saying I’m shallow?
Me: No honey, of course not. I’m just saying that being cute is only one of your many great attributes.
M: So you don’t think I’m cute enough.
Me: I didn’t say that.
M: Buy me a magazine. I want to be on the cover.
Me: It doesn’t work that way. You can’t just buy a magazine. First it requires a lot of money and you can’t just use a magazine as your personal corkboard.
M: It’s all about money for you. Don’t you want me to be happy?
Me: Of course. But there are limits.
M: To my happiness? You should be willing to make sacrifices for my happiness. I’m your child.
Me: Well yes. And I do make sacrifices. But, honey, there are limits to how much money I have.
M: We’re not talking about money here, father. We’re talking about my ever-lasting happiness.
Me: You’re only eight. The criteria for your ever-lasting happiness changes on a daily basis.
M: So keep up. Do I need to provide you with a tally sheet?
Me: No. I understand what you need to be happy.
M: So we’re clear then.
Me: On what makes you happy? Sure.
M: Good. Just have the pony delivered to the back yard.
Discuss Watching the Ponies
Monday, July 21, 2003
Thursday, July 17, 2003
Through the Looking Glass
It’s been almost a week now and I didn’t want to draw attention to it lest it become an issue.
Matilda wears glasses now, as I mentioned. She’s been wearing for a week and, I have to be honest, I haven’t even noticed. She looks so natural. Very intelligent and sophisticated for an eight year old.
Walking out of the store she read every sign she could see. She was so pleased not to be living in a murky world of fuzzy images and blurred edges that she was a machine.
“I can see the building over there! It’s address is 13023! I can see that bird! I can see the gas prices! I can see each pore on our face! You need to have a better plan for that. I’m recommending you for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”
She’s spent the better part of the last week in front of the mirror, admiring her face in its newfound resolution.
Last night, as we were reading Harry Potter, she looked over at me and said, “You know, I look good in glasses. I mean, I look really good in glasses.”
And she does. Somehow she looks cuter, more refined. They fit her face perfectly and her normally startling blue eyes are even more sparkling and radiant.
And this is where I’m in trouble. She’s heading toward puberty. She’s always going to be svelte and blonde and now with glasses, she’s going to be damn cute.
Boys are going to dig her. And she’s going to dig boys digging her.
And I’m completely screwed.
At least now with the glasses, the odds of her picking Zeke the Carny over Sheldon the Physicist are slightly slimmer. But I suppose that depends on how much she wants to piss me off.
I know this is a long way off. But I worry. I’m sure she won’t be shallow; she’s a very considerate kid. But I worry. I worry that I’ll have to live in a hotel until she gets married. I won’t be able to handle it.
She’s cute. And smart. And witty. And pretty. And everything else Maria was in Westside Story. And she lives with me. Soon the phone will start ringing and instead of Abby asking for Matilda, it will be Josh. And Josh will have a Z-28. And Josh will be a complete ass that I’ll despise.
I need to teach her criteria. “Look at your mom. She’s beautiful too, right? And she picked a chubby geek for a husband. You don’t want that rich kid with the cool car. Look at the boys in the chemistry lab with silver fingers from handling silver iodide. Those are the boys you want to date.”
But Josh is cute.
“True, he is cute. But Josh is a jock. Being a geek I am programmed to dislike jocks because they beat me up and stuffed me in trash cans.”
That never happened dad. You always said that in high school you had lots of friends who were all in bands.
“Uh, yeah. You can’t date those boys either.”
Why?
“Trust me. Don’t date boys who listen to Zeppelin 2 repeatedly.”
Why?
“Because they . . . look, you can date guys who understand the blues and its influence on late sixties rock later in life. After I’m dead. Stick with the nerds.”
But they’re pale and they don’t like to go to parties.
“I’m failing to see the problem honey.”
They’re boring.
“And . . .”
They’re boring. And they drive Corollas.
“A sensible, economic safe car.”
Sigh. Never mind dad. I have to get ready for my date.
“Okay. I’ll go get your hair shirt and frock.”
Discuss
Matilda wears glasses now, as I mentioned. She’s been wearing for a week and, I have to be honest, I haven’t even noticed. She looks so natural. Very intelligent and sophisticated for an eight year old.
Walking out of the store she read every sign she could see. She was so pleased not to be living in a murky world of fuzzy images and blurred edges that she was a machine.
“I can see the building over there! It’s address is 13023! I can see that bird! I can see the gas prices! I can see each pore on our face! You need to have a better plan for that. I’m recommending you for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”
She’s spent the better part of the last week in front of the mirror, admiring her face in its newfound resolution.
Last night, as we were reading Harry Potter, she looked over at me and said, “You know, I look good in glasses. I mean, I look really good in glasses.”
And she does. Somehow she looks cuter, more refined. They fit her face perfectly and her normally startling blue eyes are even more sparkling and radiant.
And this is where I’m in trouble. She’s heading toward puberty. She’s always going to be svelte and blonde and now with glasses, she’s going to be damn cute.
Boys are going to dig her. And she’s going to dig boys digging her.
And I’m completely screwed.
At least now with the glasses, the odds of her picking Zeke the Carny over Sheldon the Physicist are slightly slimmer. But I suppose that depends on how much she wants to piss me off.
I know this is a long way off. But I worry. I’m sure she won’t be shallow; she’s a very considerate kid. But I worry. I worry that I’ll have to live in a hotel until she gets married. I won’t be able to handle it.
She’s cute. And smart. And witty. And pretty. And everything else Maria was in Westside Story. And she lives with me. Soon the phone will start ringing and instead of Abby asking for Matilda, it will be Josh. And Josh will have a Z-28. And Josh will be a complete ass that I’ll despise.
I need to teach her criteria. “Look at your mom. She’s beautiful too, right? And she picked a chubby geek for a husband. You don’t want that rich kid with the cool car. Look at the boys in the chemistry lab with silver fingers from handling silver iodide. Those are the boys you want to date.”
But Josh is cute.
“True, he is cute. But Josh is a jock. Being a geek I am programmed to dislike jocks because they beat me up and stuffed me in trash cans.”
That never happened dad. You always said that in high school you had lots of friends who were all in bands.
“Uh, yeah. You can’t date those boys either.”
Why?
“Trust me. Don’t date boys who listen to Zeppelin 2 repeatedly.”
Why?
“Because they . . . look, you can date guys who understand the blues and its influence on late sixties rock later in life. After I’m dead. Stick with the nerds.”
But they’re pale and they don’t like to go to parties.
“I’m failing to see the problem honey.”
They’re boring.
“And . . .”
They’re boring. And they drive Corollas.
“A sensible, economic safe car.”
Sigh. Never mind dad. I have to get ready for my date.
“Okay. I’ll go get your hair shirt and frock.”
Discuss
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
First My Sandal . . .
Now my breakfast. It is no longer mine. I want it back.
Each and every morning, we have a very set routine we all follow. Mommy gets the kids up and goes in the shower. Matilda gets ready while the baby sits on my lap and cuddles out the grogginess. Roughly ¾ of the way through Mommy’s shower, Gertrude gets a burst of energy and starts running around like a maniac in her strange off-kilter way. She runs like her knee joints are made out of Jell-O and the world is slightly tilted to the left. She veers, corrects course, veers again. The whole time she runs she says, “Bwababwababwababwaba.” I don’t know why. Perhaps because she’s a weird little kid.
I then get in the shower while the kids brush their teeth, etc. We come out to the kitchen together, make coffee and the baby and her sister go get the paper while we fix them breakfast.
About this time Kismet, the cat, comes out of hiding with an angry look on her face. It’s like she’s just come off a bender and our chattering is ringing in her head like a bunch of monks singing a particularly raucous Gregorian chant. She always looks at us like, “Would you shut the &$*# up? It’s EARLY.”
We give the girls their breakfast while I fix my own and wait for the coffee to finish brewing. Sometimes I can’t wait and I just stick my head underneath the stream of steaming coffee and suck it down raw. If it’s a particularly bad morning, I’ll grab the carafe and drink it straight out of there, forgoing the traditional ceramic mug.
I then sit down with the paper and a bowl of cereal. Matilda at my left, Gertrude straight across. With my first spoonful of the crispy, healthful crispies (unless it’s Apple Jacks, my favorite from childhood), Gertrude starts yelling, "All done! All done!” and hops off her chair, spoon or fork in hand. She then runs over to me yelling, “My daddy, my daddy” and crawls on my lap.
Each morning I think she’s just coming over to give me some affection. But within seconds, her spoon has plunged into my cereal and she’s going to town on my breakfast. Sometimes she can’t get the cereal on her baby sized spoon and she asks for help. As if I’m going to aid her in stealing my food.
Of course, I always do.
Once the last remnant of the cereal is gone, she leaves her spoon in my bowl and hops off to go play before we leave for the sitter.
I thought this was cute the first time it happened. Reasonably adorable the second. Kind of sweet the third and rather hobbit like the fourth. Now I view her as a food leech.
So, yesterday I thought I’d do something different. I picked up a twigs and nuts cereal and dumped it into a bowl of yogurt. Surely, I thought, she wouldn’t like this. Climbing up, she said, “eeeeww, yuck” when she looked at it. But, she plunged her spoon right in and started eating. At first, she gave a disgusted face at the encounter with the yogurt. But within seconds, she was wolfing down my cereal.
When she finished, I gave her her spoon and asked her to put it in the sink. There was still a glob of yogurt on it. Out comes her tongue and she’s lapping it up like a dog with table scraps. Looking up at mom she says, "Yummmmm.”
Today I gave her her own bowl of this concoction. She said, “eew yuck” to it and ate mine. Then she ate hers.
And you wonder why I named her after a hobbit. But she doesn’t have furry feet.
Still, I complain about this. I feel I should. I can’t set a precedent. Daddy isn’t a buffet line. But, her chubby little legs bouncing up and down while she sits on my lap . . . the fat little arm reaching around my neck when she says, “My Daddy”. I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
I wouldn’t and I can’t. Who would take her?
Discuss Breakfast Larceny
Each and every morning, we have a very set routine we all follow. Mommy gets the kids up and goes in the shower. Matilda gets ready while the baby sits on my lap and cuddles out the grogginess. Roughly ¾ of the way through Mommy’s shower, Gertrude gets a burst of energy and starts running around like a maniac in her strange off-kilter way. She runs like her knee joints are made out of Jell-O and the world is slightly tilted to the left. She veers, corrects course, veers again. The whole time she runs she says, “Bwababwababwababwaba.” I don’t know why. Perhaps because she’s a weird little kid.
I then get in the shower while the kids brush their teeth, etc. We come out to the kitchen together, make coffee and the baby and her sister go get the paper while we fix them breakfast.
About this time Kismet, the cat, comes out of hiding with an angry look on her face. It’s like she’s just come off a bender and our chattering is ringing in her head like a bunch of monks singing a particularly raucous Gregorian chant. She always looks at us like, “Would you shut the &$*# up? It’s EARLY.”
We give the girls their breakfast while I fix my own and wait for the coffee to finish brewing. Sometimes I can’t wait and I just stick my head underneath the stream of steaming coffee and suck it down raw. If it’s a particularly bad morning, I’ll grab the carafe and drink it straight out of there, forgoing the traditional ceramic mug.
I then sit down with the paper and a bowl of cereal. Matilda at my left, Gertrude straight across. With my first spoonful of the crispy, healthful crispies (unless it’s Apple Jacks, my favorite from childhood), Gertrude starts yelling, "All done! All done!” and hops off her chair, spoon or fork in hand. She then runs over to me yelling, “My daddy, my daddy” and crawls on my lap.
Each morning I think she’s just coming over to give me some affection. But within seconds, her spoon has plunged into my cereal and she’s going to town on my breakfast. Sometimes she can’t get the cereal on her baby sized spoon and she asks for help. As if I’m going to aid her in stealing my food.
Of course, I always do.
Once the last remnant of the cereal is gone, she leaves her spoon in my bowl and hops off to go play before we leave for the sitter.
I thought this was cute the first time it happened. Reasonably adorable the second. Kind of sweet the third and rather hobbit like the fourth. Now I view her as a food leech.
So, yesterday I thought I’d do something different. I picked up a twigs and nuts cereal and dumped it into a bowl of yogurt. Surely, I thought, she wouldn’t like this. Climbing up, she said, “eeeeww, yuck” when she looked at it. But, she plunged her spoon right in and started eating. At first, she gave a disgusted face at the encounter with the yogurt. But within seconds, she was wolfing down my cereal.
When she finished, I gave her her spoon and asked her to put it in the sink. There was still a glob of yogurt on it. Out comes her tongue and she’s lapping it up like a dog with table scraps. Looking up at mom she says, "Yummmmm.”
Today I gave her her own bowl of this concoction. She said, “eew yuck” to it and ate mine. Then she ate hers.
And you wonder why I named her after a hobbit. But she doesn’t have furry feet.
Still, I complain about this. I feel I should. I can’t set a precedent. Daddy isn’t a buffet line. But, her chubby little legs bouncing up and down while she sits on my lap . . . the fat little arm reaching around my neck when she says, “My Daddy”. I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
I wouldn’t and I can’t. Who would take her?
Discuss Breakfast Larceny
Tuesday, July 15, 2003
Should I Worry?
My current favorite album is a loose “concept album”/comic book about a maniacal dog named Freemdoom who controls the mild-mannered inhabitants of the island nation Krone Ishta. Freemdoom has a monster sidekick named Gorgar and they are intent on controlling and polluting the island and seizing control away from the kind-hearted Frog King and Mal the Fish.
Mal dies, by the way.
Oh yeah, Freemdoom can control people's lungs.
Why do I suddenly feel like I’ve regressed to the days I listened to “Singring and the Glass Guitar” over and over again. I think I was eight. Todd Rungren might have been eight, mentally, when he wrote it.
Oh well.
Freemdoom rocks.
Mal dies, by the way.
Oh yeah, Freemdoom can control people's lungs.
Why do I suddenly feel like I’ve regressed to the days I listened to “Singring and the Glass Guitar” over and over again. I think I was eight. Todd Rungren might have been eight, mentally, when he wrote it.
Oh well.
Freemdoom rocks.
Roll With It Baby
So yesterday I forgot to explain the story of the maniacal baby rolling under the bed and getting stuck.
I apologize for my shortsighted mistake. I have flogged myself duly.
There’s a bit of a back story first. I’ve taken to calling young Gertrude “Pip”. It’s a three-fold reference, really. Classical literature students will recognize this as the main character from Dickens’ “Great Expectations”. However, I picked up my reference from two less respectable sources. The first is the television show Farscape. The main character John Crichton refers to mischievous female alien Chiana as “Pip” (geek proof number one: Gary likes sci fi TV). Gertrude shares many of Chiana’s more mischievous character elements. She has little sense of fear, leaps without looking and grins when she gets caught. The secondary reference is to the Hobbit Pippin from the Lord of the Rings series. Pippin is impatient, nosy and inquisitive. His curiosity often gets his friends in trouble (see the fireworks escapade, or what he does in Moria). (Geek proof #2, Gary knows his Lord of the Rings chronology, topography and cartography.) Plus, Pippin loves food and will take yours if given the chance. Gertrude does this as well. The only difference between the two would be Pippin’s love for beer. Gertrude may share this love, but I’d be reported to family services if I indulged it. Drunken babies, no matter how funny, are illegal. Pippin was also known as “Prince of the Halflings”. Gertrude is a Halfling and a princess.
Close enough.
This weekend, I was distracting young Pip while her mother did some work in the kitchen. Normally Gertrude would “help” mommy by undoing all of the work mommy had accomplished.
So, I did my fatherly duty of playing with the baby. It’s a hard job, but someone has to do it, right?
We started out by jumping on the bed. Gertrude would leap in the air and yell, “I jump!” I’d stop her from falling to her doom. It was a good set up. But she quickly tired of it. There was no element of danger if daddy saved her all the time.
So we moved on to what we call “steam rolling”. We both lie on the floor and roll into each other. This causes the baby to laugh hysterically. For some reason being rolled over, albeit gently, by a man 10 times her size, is hilarious.
Our bedroom is the perfect place for this event. It’s big, with plenty of rolling space and a nice, soft carpet to boot. The only problem is Gertrude has no directional control. Given a wide open space, she’d roll in figure eights. Unfortunately our bedroom has obstacles. Like the bed.
She promptly rolled right and straight under the bed, lodging her shoulder on the box spring frame. She laughed. And laughed and laughed.
But suddenly she realized that being stuck isn’t so funny. “I stuck! Help! I stuck!” I grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her out. She laughed the entire time.
Round two of steam rolling. I figured she’s intelligent; she’ll not do that again. Wrong. When I said GO! She went straight under the bed again. This time I think she did it on purpose.
“I stuck! (Gasping laughter) Help! I stuck!” She giggled the whole time.
Doing my duty, I extracted her again. I’m a good guy, like that. When she came out, hair all statically and flying every which way, she laughed. Hard. Like a surfer who had just wiped out on the rocks and said, “Gnarly.” “Huh huh. Huh huh. Huh huh.”
So I decided this was a bad idea. Next thing I know she’ll be falling down wells and be on the national news.
We moved to the window to watch copious wildlife cavort playfully in the yard. All we got was a squirrel. It did cavort, though. Gertrude laughed and laughed. Every thing seemed to be funny today.
“Squew! Run! Twee!” It was a short show, and I think she was disappointed by the lack of conflict.
We ran through our entire repertoire of animal voices. “What does a birdie say?” Tweet tweet. “What does a dog say?” Barf barf. “What does a monkey say?” Oooh. Oooh. “What does a humpback whale say?” Ooooooooooomooooooan click click tweeeeeeeee!
At this point I was physically exhausted. We had been jumping rolling and howling forever. She hopped off the window sill and proceeded to run around in circles until she fell down. Huh huh huh, she laughed. “Gertrude do it! Daddy do! Daddy do!” So I did.
Observation: A thirty year old gets dizzy faster than a one year old.
Time to check on mommy. Daddy’s going to have a heart attack trying to keep up with this kid.
“Mom? Are you done?”
”Done? No! It’s only been five minutes.”
Crap. She’s only one and I only last for five minutes.
Her sister is so much more reserved. What happened to this one? I’m beginning to think her mother took hallucinogens during pregnancy without telling me. Or sharing.
Could be the fact that the last movie mom saw before Gertrude’s birth was Mulholland Drive.
Or it could be that my caffeine intake somehow warped the chromosomes I contributed to this little goofball.
Still, exhausted, sweating and purple from exertion, I scooped my little girl up in my arms and hugged her tight. You get overwhelmed with love for these little creatures at the strangest time. Even in the middle of a spinning-induced aneurism.
She looked at me, smiled and kissed me on the cheek. My heart swelled with love.
Then her back stiffened and she got a relieved look on her face. “I toot”, she giggled. Sigh. That’s my girl.
Only seventeen more years until I send her to college.
Why does that seem so short all of a sudden?
Discuss Roll With It, Baby
I apologize for my shortsighted mistake. I have flogged myself duly.
There’s a bit of a back story first. I’ve taken to calling young Gertrude “Pip”. It’s a three-fold reference, really. Classical literature students will recognize this as the main character from Dickens’ “Great Expectations”. However, I picked up my reference from two less respectable sources. The first is the television show Farscape. The main character John Crichton refers to mischievous female alien Chiana as “Pip” (geek proof number one: Gary likes sci fi TV). Gertrude shares many of Chiana’s more mischievous character elements. She has little sense of fear, leaps without looking and grins when she gets caught. The secondary reference is to the Hobbit Pippin from the Lord of the Rings series. Pippin is impatient, nosy and inquisitive. His curiosity often gets his friends in trouble (see the fireworks escapade, or what he does in Moria). (Geek proof #2, Gary knows his Lord of the Rings chronology, topography and cartography.) Plus, Pippin loves food and will take yours if given the chance. Gertrude does this as well. The only difference between the two would be Pippin’s love for beer. Gertrude may share this love, but I’d be reported to family services if I indulged it. Drunken babies, no matter how funny, are illegal. Pippin was also known as “Prince of the Halflings”. Gertrude is a Halfling and a princess.
Close enough.
This weekend, I was distracting young Pip while her mother did some work in the kitchen. Normally Gertrude would “help” mommy by undoing all of the work mommy had accomplished.
So, I did my fatherly duty of playing with the baby. It’s a hard job, but someone has to do it, right?
We started out by jumping on the bed. Gertrude would leap in the air and yell, “I jump!” I’d stop her from falling to her doom. It was a good set up. But she quickly tired of it. There was no element of danger if daddy saved her all the time.
So we moved on to what we call “steam rolling”. We both lie on the floor and roll into each other. This causes the baby to laugh hysterically. For some reason being rolled over, albeit gently, by a man 10 times her size, is hilarious.
Our bedroom is the perfect place for this event. It’s big, with plenty of rolling space and a nice, soft carpet to boot. The only problem is Gertrude has no directional control. Given a wide open space, she’d roll in figure eights. Unfortunately our bedroom has obstacles. Like the bed.
She promptly rolled right and straight under the bed, lodging her shoulder on the box spring frame. She laughed. And laughed and laughed.
But suddenly she realized that being stuck isn’t so funny. “I stuck! Help! I stuck!” I grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her out. She laughed the entire time.
Round two of steam rolling. I figured she’s intelligent; she’ll not do that again. Wrong. When I said GO! She went straight under the bed again. This time I think she did it on purpose.
“I stuck! (Gasping laughter) Help! I stuck!” She giggled the whole time.
Doing my duty, I extracted her again. I’m a good guy, like that. When she came out, hair all statically and flying every which way, she laughed. Hard. Like a surfer who had just wiped out on the rocks and said, “Gnarly.” “Huh huh. Huh huh. Huh huh.”
So I decided this was a bad idea. Next thing I know she’ll be falling down wells and be on the national news.
We moved to the window to watch copious wildlife cavort playfully in the yard. All we got was a squirrel. It did cavort, though. Gertrude laughed and laughed. Every thing seemed to be funny today.
“Squew! Run! Twee!” It was a short show, and I think she was disappointed by the lack of conflict.
We ran through our entire repertoire of animal voices. “What does a birdie say?” Tweet tweet. “What does a dog say?” Barf barf. “What does a monkey say?” Oooh. Oooh. “What does a humpback whale say?” Ooooooooooomooooooan click click tweeeeeeeee!
At this point I was physically exhausted. We had been jumping rolling and howling forever. She hopped off the window sill and proceeded to run around in circles until she fell down. Huh huh huh, she laughed. “Gertrude do it! Daddy do! Daddy do!” So I did.
Observation: A thirty year old gets dizzy faster than a one year old.
Time to check on mommy. Daddy’s going to have a heart attack trying to keep up with this kid.
“Mom? Are you done?”
”Done? No! It’s only been five minutes.”
Crap. She’s only one and I only last for five minutes.
Her sister is so much more reserved. What happened to this one? I’m beginning to think her mother took hallucinogens during pregnancy without telling me. Or sharing.
Could be the fact that the last movie mom saw before Gertrude’s birth was Mulholland Drive.
Or it could be that my caffeine intake somehow warped the chromosomes I contributed to this little goofball.
Still, exhausted, sweating and purple from exertion, I scooped my little girl up in my arms and hugged her tight. You get overwhelmed with love for these little creatures at the strangest time. Even in the middle of a spinning-induced aneurism.
She looked at me, smiled and kissed me on the cheek. My heart swelled with love.
Then her back stiffened and she got a relieved look on her face. “I toot”, she giggled. Sigh. That’s my girl.
Only seventeen more years until I send her to college.
Why does that seem so short all of a sudden?
Discuss Roll With It, Baby
Monday, July 14, 2003
Hunt For The Red October
Ah, the weekend. A time to relax and enjoy everything that’s good in life. Like clogged drains, bug bites, railroad tie splinters embedded so deeply in your arm that they become a part of your skeletal system and psychotic babies that roll under the bed, get stuck and giggle insanely when they can’t get out.
I’ll start with the good stuff. We watched a pretty decent movie on Friday. Almodovar’s “Talk to Her.” I enjoyed 90% of the film, but thought it was too predictable in the end. Which is quite an accomplishment considering it was in Spanish.
Saturday morning we decided to rip out the railroad ties in our back yard. Because we’re idiots. Complete, moronic idiots. We shouldn’t be allowed in public. That took what seemed like three or four days. Sweat, blood, dirt and bugs that have more legs than the President has advisors. Yuck.
In the midst of the festivities, my wife discovered a black plastic bag buried beneath the ties. Thinking nothing of it, we threw it away. That was that. Well, two hours later, both the baby and the mommy have strange lesions on their arms. Gasp, we thought. Could this be anthrax?
Now, before you laugh at our psychotic, paranoid delusions, let me explain something. We bought our house two months ago from a man named Oleg. Oleg had about eight people living in his house. All of them were “relatives” but no one looked alike. Suspicious.
What’s more, Oleg had a big satellite dish on the roof. Now, according to law, he is supposed to leave that dish. On our final walkthrough, I noticed the dish was gone. When questioned about this, Oleg replied, “It is a Russian dish. You need nothing of it.”
Okay. From what I saw it was an elliptical DirectTV satellite dish. But what do I know? I’m only a gadget-obsessed geek.
Well, we bought the house and moved in. Besides leaving behind various bits of furniture that we would assume a normal person would like to take with them, we noticed that there were video amplifiers installed in the house. It’s not a big house and there was really no need for Oleg to boost his digital cable signal. This got me thinking. Again, suspicious.
Well, after a few days we noticed that there was a rectangular patch in the far end of the back yard that seemed to be slightly higher than the rest of the ground. Obviously a grave. Plus, strewn about in the same area were various car parts. Like an exhaust system for a 1985 Thunderbird, an oil pan for a 72 Chevy Vega and another exhaust system for a Peugeot.
So, naturally, we put two and two together and got Q. Oleg was, quite obviously, a spy. And he had to kill his partner, get rid of his cars and bury them all in the back yard.
Therefore (bear with me, I’m getting back to the point), it was clear that the black plastic bag was filled with weapons-grade anthrax that Oleg was refining in order to keep his good standing with the rogue KGB agents who, after the war in Iraq, are planning on staging a coup and putting Russia back under a pure Communist regime.
Turns out the anthrax lesions that my wife and daughter have are actually bug bites. But I still stand by my theory that Oleg was a Russian spy. We don’t like Russians, right? Because they have nuclear weapons and put Laika in space before we were able to launch the Mars rover or something?
I should probably read the paper periodically.
So anyway, after rustling the kids into bed after a finely barbequed meal by yours truly with only three grease fires and one scarrable burn, we were getting ready to settle in for an evening of relaxation.
Then my wife said it.
“Would you switch the load of laundry?”
Why of course. I’d love to. Hey, what’s that water streaming underneath the wall of the basement bathroom? I do hope nothing is terribly awry.
Holy Crap. Mother of Edith Head. Sweet Bake McBride.
The sink in the bathroom seemed to have exploded with the ectoplasm of a thousand writhing souls doing time in the pits of hell. The floor was caked in a one-inch thick quagmire of muck and blackened grime being fed by a bubbling, spitting mass of blackened sludge oozing from the sink. And I swear it was staring at me.
“Dear God,” I thought, “I’m on Dagobah.”
I summoned my wife. She cried for an hour and started packing our things, swearing that renting property wasn’t so bad, as I prepared the dynamite packs, trying to make it look like a gas leak lest we lose the insurance.
Shortly after midnight, we were finished. I swore I would figure it out the next day and fix it myself, by gum. After I mowed the lawn, edged, trimmed bushes and complained about the heat and humidity.
Well, I did figure out the problem. It was basic science. There was a blockage in the drain slightly below the joint where the sinks’ drain met up with the pipe. Whenever we used the kitchen sink, which is on the same drain, the water and contents from the garbage disposal would end up in the sink in the bathroom. It was lovely.
But wait! They have products to deal with this sort of thing! I can buy something and fix it good as new! Yay! My man-ness was salvaged.
Sort of. I never considered that if it is impossible for this store-bought sludge to actually reach the crud in the pipe, it won’t work.
So, after many hours I relented and hired a professional. He came in, without any butt crack showing, and cleared our drain. He was very impressed that I was able to tell him where the problem was, despite my lack of knowledge of the term “Furncoe”. Even now I don’t think I know what it is, or even if it really is something. Maybe he screwed me when installing the furncoe. Or something. Who cares? I can now do dishes without flooding the basement.
But, to top off my fantastic weekend, when I woke up this morning, the trashmen had come two and a half hours ahead of schedule, so I still have my trash. And then, when hanging up my towel, the hook fell out of the wall.
I’m so happy I work in an editorial capacity. Because if I worked with nuclear materials, I’d surely have an extra head, with the luck I’m having.
Discuss Paranoid Delusions
I’ll start with the good stuff. We watched a pretty decent movie on Friday. Almodovar’s “Talk to Her.” I enjoyed 90% of the film, but thought it was too predictable in the end. Which is quite an accomplishment considering it was in Spanish.
Saturday morning we decided to rip out the railroad ties in our back yard. Because we’re idiots. Complete, moronic idiots. We shouldn’t be allowed in public. That took what seemed like three or four days. Sweat, blood, dirt and bugs that have more legs than the President has advisors. Yuck.
In the midst of the festivities, my wife discovered a black plastic bag buried beneath the ties. Thinking nothing of it, we threw it away. That was that. Well, two hours later, both the baby and the mommy have strange lesions on their arms. Gasp, we thought. Could this be anthrax?
Now, before you laugh at our psychotic, paranoid delusions, let me explain something. We bought our house two months ago from a man named Oleg. Oleg had about eight people living in his house. All of them were “relatives” but no one looked alike. Suspicious.
What’s more, Oleg had a big satellite dish on the roof. Now, according to law, he is supposed to leave that dish. On our final walkthrough, I noticed the dish was gone. When questioned about this, Oleg replied, “It is a Russian dish. You need nothing of it.”
Okay. From what I saw it was an elliptical DirectTV satellite dish. But what do I know? I’m only a gadget-obsessed geek.
Well, we bought the house and moved in. Besides leaving behind various bits of furniture that we would assume a normal person would like to take with them, we noticed that there were video amplifiers installed in the house. It’s not a big house and there was really no need for Oleg to boost his digital cable signal. This got me thinking. Again, suspicious.
Well, after a few days we noticed that there was a rectangular patch in the far end of the back yard that seemed to be slightly higher than the rest of the ground. Obviously a grave. Plus, strewn about in the same area were various car parts. Like an exhaust system for a 1985 Thunderbird, an oil pan for a 72 Chevy Vega and another exhaust system for a Peugeot.
So, naturally, we put two and two together and got Q. Oleg was, quite obviously, a spy. And he had to kill his partner, get rid of his cars and bury them all in the back yard.
Therefore (bear with me, I’m getting back to the point), it was clear that the black plastic bag was filled with weapons-grade anthrax that Oleg was refining in order to keep his good standing with the rogue KGB agents who, after the war in Iraq, are planning on staging a coup and putting Russia back under a pure Communist regime.
Turns out the anthrax lesions that my wife and daughter have are actually bug bites. But I still stand by my theory that Oleg was a Russian spy. We don’t like Russians, right? Because they have nuclear weapons and put Laika in space before we were able to launch the Mars rover or something?
I should probably read the paper periodically.
So anyway, after rustling the kids into bed after a finely barbequed meal by yours truly with only three grease fires and one scarrable burn, we were getting ready to settle in for an evening of relaxation.
Then my wife said it.
“Would you switch the load of laundry?”
Why of course. I’d love to. Hey, what’s that water streaming underneath the wall of the basement bathroom? I do hope nothing is terribly awry.
Holy Crap. Mother of Edith Head. Sweet Bake McBride.
The sink in the bathroom seemed to have exploded with the ectoplasm of a thousand writhing souls doing time in the pits of hell. The floor was caked in a one-inch thick quagmire of muck and blackened grime being fed by a bubbling, spitting mass of blackened sludge oozing from the sink. And I swear it was staring at me.
“Dear God,” I thought, “I’m on Dagobah.”
I summoned my wife. She cried for an hour and started packing our things, swearing that renting property wasn’t so bad, as I prepared the dynamite packs, trying to make it look like a gas leak lest we lose the insurance.
Shortly after midnight, we were finished. I swore I would figure it out the next day and fix it myself, by gum. After I mowed the lawn, edged, trimmed bushes and complained about the heat and humidity.
Well, I did figure out the problem. It was basic science. There was a blockage in the drain slightly below the joint where the sinks’ drain met up with the pipe. Whenever we used the kitchen sink, which is on the same drain, the water and contents from the garbage disposal would end up in the sink in the bathroom. It was lovely.
But wait! They have products to deal with this sort of thing! I can buy something and fix it good as new! Yay! My man-ness was salvaged.
Sort of. I never considered that if it is impossible for this store-bought sludge to actually reach the crud in the pipe, it won’t work.
So, after many hours I relented and hired a professional. He came in, without any butt crack showing, and cleared our drain. He was very impressed that I was able to tell him where the problem was, despite my lack of knowledge of the term “Furncoe”. Even now I don’t think I know what it is, or even if it really is something. Maybe he screwed me when installing the furncoe. Or something. Who cares? I can now do dishes without flooding the basement.
But, to top off my fantastic weekend, when I woke up this morning, the trashmen had come two and a half hours ahead of schedule, so I still have my trash. And then, when hanging up my towel, the hook fell out of the wall.
I’m so happy I work in an editorial capacity. Because if I worked with nuclear materials, I’d surely have an extra head, with the luck I’m having.
Discuss Paranoid Delusions
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