Baby Babble

Pardon all the baby stuff.

Your Sis felt Roo move for the first time this morning. Even if she wanted to wake me up to share it, I was out cold on NyQuil. My throat is raw from running on Saturday. I thought it was warm enough, and I'm downing Yogi tea and cough drops until I'm back to normal. Your Sis pointed out that such tea, made with slippery elm, can lead to miscarriages. I should be OK though.

Sparked by outside conversations, we discussed allowances and books. I'm of the mind that allowances are earned, and advances are earned through extra work. I think allowances can include "overtime pay" for extra work that doesn't diminish the next allowance installment. Your Sis likes making Roo use the allowance to buy the cool stuff. We'll provide basics, but if Roo wants the cool clothes, Roo has to use the allowance. I'm OK with that.

We also have a simple curriculum of stages of reading. I like Judy Blume. Your Sis doesn't not. Because she's a commie. I read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (and its sequel, Superfudge) and Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great repeatedly. She won't hear of it. She wonders what chapter-books we should move to after the basic kids books. Charlotte's Web is her choice. I also like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. She asked when Harry Potter could be introduced, and I said it depended on Roo's maturity. But Narnia and The Hobbit would make for a good entree into Potter and The Ring trilogy later. No discussion on comics yet. We talked about this over lunch, and I'm sure we entertained the other restaurant patrons as we told those books' stories to each other. I could have used a puppet or two.

I'm starting two new comic projects this weekend: a comic story told one page each month, and a casual diary comic. Both are going online. I'll tell you where to find them as they go up. The monthly comic is story I've dabbled with for over a year. In addition to these, I need to hammer out about three minicomics for the May convention. But I have four months to do the latter and can manage that if I stick to a schedule.

I have the rare weekday lunch with Your Sister today, and I'm sure we'll bore everyone with baby talk.

Picture of the Day
Crucial notes if you ever go time traveling.

Not Quite.

The docs declined to crank up the ultrasound machine, but Your Sister is fine. The office was happy with the blood pressure, urine tests, and weight. She's put on six pounds in the last month. The baby's heartbeat, which we heard, is fine, and we go back in two weeks for what they're calling "the anatomy." They'll do a range of tests, and we should learn what we're carrying. The doctor mentioned the option of various tests, and we passed. We're going to term unless the scanner shows us something dangerous to Your Sister. The doctor mentioned the arbitrary nature of defect probabilities and noted the risks were there but slight, even for old folks like us. We're inviting My Mom to the next appointment, and Your Mom will be invited to the next one. Oh, Your Sis was given Midrin for her headaches, which were described as hormonal.

Mom is beginning Zoloft today. Her doc said she needs a little help dealing with everything of the past two years. He and I agree that she needs to break her routine and get out of the house. I seemed to have talked her into seeing a movie this weekend, and she does still intend to travel this summer. Spring will be here soon, and that will help. She agreed to come up for the appointment so long as there's not ice blizzard tornado that day.

The website is up, simple and plain. I can't get the mouseovers to behave.

Picture of the Day
A lesson in Legos.

Oh. Right.

I had the idea to start a Flickr page to work around the page limit of my new website. Imagine my surprise when I learned I already had a Flickr page set up, and it included the anthology comic I did last spring. I completely forgot. I don't have an email detailing when I signed up and with what password. Wait ... I just figured it out. I have access to the page now.

I started digitally inking a sketch last night. It isn't faster yet, but it will save me time on digitally repairing the traditional inks. I hope to post the image by the weekend on FB.

We have our appointment today, and I'm groundlessly hoping we can get scanned and learn the sex. I continue to fight the inclination to yearn for one gender over another. It's not fair to anyone.

Picture of the Day
Dr. Hoodie Robot, can you see the golden child?

She Has A Point

Me: "So I got a call from GoDaddy.com tech support today. My site was flagged as a sex site, and they wanted to know what was up."

Her: "GoDaddy was worried?"

Me: "Yeah."

Her: "The people who advertise with the girls in jumpsuits talking about their 'enhancements' are worried about people making sex sites?"

Me: "Yeah. Apparently Heygregory looks like heytherebigboy."

Her: "So what will your sex site offer?"

Me: "Imagine the tips for dumb husbands in our baby book. My tips will be for the prequel."

I called them today for a tech question, and they fixed it immediately. Their ad campaign is dopey, but the service is fantastic.

I think Your Sis is suffering from the dry air. The headaches and traces of sinus blood parallel the heater's recent workout. We use a humidifier in the bedroom to help. I don't think the head problems are pregnancy related, but we'll mention them tomorrow. Since they're not doing a scan, we'll get our money's worth by burying them in minutiae. Although if we can bully them into a scan, and we do find out the baby's sex, we'll broadcast it.

Picture of the Day
This is why kayaking is preferable.

Shifting

My website was hosted by GeoCities since the mid-'90s. GeoCities closed in September after nicely warning their customers for months on end. The comic convention will list websites in their program and website, goosing me to get to work. My old site is kaput. I will build a new one and leave the personal material to FaceBook.

I decided to host a site at GoDaddy. It has good prices and is large enough to offer decent tech support. I had no idea how good it was until this morning. I've been a customer for less than 24 hours, and they called me to get my site on the right footing. It's so unheard of that I still suspect it might have been a scammer calling to steal my site or ID. My site was somehow flagged as a sex site, and I had to explain its real intent (and content). The site is currently a one-page greeting for now, but I should get everything online by the end of the month.

I've also scripted the first mini designed specifically for the convention. I hope to experiment with digital artwork this weekend. I used my PC tablet to draw repairs on the comic I did for the high-school arts magazine, and it was not only quick but fun. I want to have that energy for the convention material creation. I was told this morning that I can't sit with the publisher at the con; the tables around theirs are reserved. We won't be that far away, and I can practice working on my own for a while. It's been a quick succession of decisions since Friday, starting from "maybe I'll go" to "how many comics can I make and sell at my own table." Golly.

Your Sister is bedeviled by headaches, and I blame her grading posture. She curls on the couch and strains her eyes with sunlight reflected off the yard glaciers. It may also be work stress, but there's no sign that it's related to pregnancy. I try to relax her when I see her brow furrow about work matters. "Don't boil Roo," I warn. She needs help sometimes getting off the couch and off the bed, depending on her positions.

Picture of the Day
This photo wasn't labeled, and I initially thought the woman was in the cockpit of a blimp. By the joystick of the pilot looks a tad too modern for that. His cap and haircut say '60s to me.

New Things

School was canceled Friday due to a dusting of snow Thursday night. Exams are now pushed back a week, and teachers noted this with much relief.

We begin Week 17 today. Your Sis is a tad rounder. But then we're stuck inside all day. I'm probably a tad rounder too. We learned only recently that this week's doctor's appointment will not include a new ultrasound, meaning we have to wait another month to discover the sex. That's deflating. That will happen, we hope, four weeks later, and we're inviting My Mom to come along.

Your Sis is changing snacks and will now try peanut butter and celery. Also, clementines were bought. She's moved away from grapefruit for now.

Within two says of each other, I was asked to take part in online comic projects. One is a story told with via page posted online per month. The other is a journal comic. Then I discovered Asheville is hosting a comic convention in May. The prices for artist tables is dirt cheap ($35/50 per table), and I have decided to slap together minicomics to sell. I'm going to work a table for my stuff. But I since learned my publisher will have a table there. I will contact him to see if he wants to meld tables for the show. I'll also give him the first opportunity to print my stuff. If he passes, I'll do it myself. The con is holding a poster contest, and I want to give that a shot too. There's a money grand prize. My publisher is probably going to enter as well, and I'd like to show him up in the spirit of friendly competition.

The NFL Bet
We blew it. All of our teams are now kaput. Your Sister adopted the Arizona Cardinals again during last night's game. She wants old QB Kurt Warner to succeed.

Picture of the Day
Another new item in the grocery store: Buddha hand. I hadn't seen it before. I'm amazed at what we sometimes find in this yokel burg.

Convening With Mentors

Our local Mexican restaurant hosts a school fundraiser the first Wednesday of each month. The proceeds go to the high school's language courses. The teachers are strongly encouraged to go, and I join in. We sat last night with teachers and their babies, and we all talked baby shop. We're shadowing parents now. The common question now is whether we'll learn the sex before the delivery. We hear stories of people who didn't want to know and others who learned at birth that the shipment was not what they ordered. We hope to learn next week, but there's no hurry.

I learned my mentored senior will fail English. A healthy chunk of that grade is based on the senior project. I was assured that he was simply a horrible student across the board.

The town is vibrating at the prospect of more snowfall before Friday morning.

We continue to eating Christmas leftovers. They're good. But still.

Our NFL Bet
It's been ugly for both of us. We're down to the one mutual team we picked (the Patriots), and it doesn't have an easy route for the Super Bowl.

ME:
Pittsburgh Steelers 9-7 (out of the playoffs)
New England Patriots 10-6
Philadelphia Eagles 11-5
Atlanta Falcons 9-7 (out of the playoffs)

Her
Pittsburgh Steelers 9-7 (out of the playoffs)
New England Patriots 10-6
New York Giants 8-8 (out of the playoffs)
St. Louis Rams 1-15 (worst record this season)

Picture of the Day
The Lost Supper. There's a rumor the State of the Union might land on the same Tuesday as the Lost season premiere and preempt it.

A Triumphant Victory of Winningness

With terror coursing through his tremulous fingers, the aging man approached the fearsome innards of the contraption. It sat silent upon the work desk. It was deactivated, silent. Lurking. But once it was awakened, none knew what might ensue. Would it continue its benevolent demeanor? Or would it instead lash out in a destructive fury bringing doom to all, including its own damnable existence?

HP Lovecraft could corner the market on computer-repair horror. (Wait. HP "Hewlett-Packard" Lovecraft?)

I paced the house until I goaded myself to get it over with, and it took 45 minutes. I had to open the PC frame three times to adjust the memory boards. They snap into place, and one frets about breaking them before hearing that snap. It didn't begin well. I used a power screwdriver to open the frame and then opened the memory-board package. The first instruction was not to use a power screwdriver to open the frame. F' F' F'.

I used a coat hanger to ground myself. I unwound it, stretched it out, and hooked it around my wrist and the PC frame. I thought I had bought the wrong board as the only obvious slot was too small. Then I realized those were hardware slots for adding components to the PC. I had to move wires to find the memory. Snap snap snap, a silent prayer to Ganesha and Odin and Batman, and I hit the power button. It cranked up. An online scan confirmed the memory upgrade, and it indeed runs quicker. I did it. I credit the new Tom Waits CD for getting me through. And of course Batman, Odin, and Ganesha.

Your Sister got through a long day of meetings, and her back was feeling it. She hitched a ride home with a fellow teacher. She was OK after supper. Behold the healing power of fajitarittos.

Picture of the Day
I need not your astromech droids.

Tinkering

I picked up a RAM chip for the PC while checking with the Best Buy employee and my notes from home. The latter is a stream of gibberish, a list of acronyms and numbers. Almost all of them match the RAM package I picked up from the shelf. All except the mHz, a measure of clock speed, a term I almost understand. The employee assured me what I had in hand would work with my computer. My online advisers, who also told us how to repair a wet iPhone, said I'm OK. We'll see.

I took the HP drive back to Target and surprisingly got my money back with no hassle. I went a few doors down to Office Max and picked up a Seagate drive at the suggestion of a pal. It works like a charm. Better, it works like a backup drive is supposed to. It doesn't, for example, crash Windows. I copied all my PC files last night. Your Sister is working late, and I hope to install the RAM tonight.

It's a quick process. You crack open the tower, remove the motherboard, clip in the memory, reassemble and turn on the PC. I've installed more complicated hardware back when I had to manually install a board for a scanner. As with that process, the biggest danger is static electricity. I'd like to have antistatic band, but I can work without it.

Your Sister is walking back from work tonight, and I told her to call me first. I'll walk to work and walk back with her. Why not drive, you ask? She wants the exercise. But I won't let her walk back alone so late in this lung-crushing cold. I think my abs have gotten a workout from shivering.

Picture of the Day
This one goes here, that one goes there. Right?

Back At It

I've looked at external back-up drives for months now. The miniaturization of memory created a glut of drives, and one goes snowblind looking at them on the shelves. I hoped to get one this weekend and had settled on which brand to get. Then I saw the new HP SimpleSave with 1 terabyte of space. It was only $100. A big name and a small price is usually a good sign.

Nope. It crashed my Windows repeatedly. Online searches found nothing but press releases, but I did learn this was the PC version of Mac's Time Machine. The SimpleSave purports to need no software installation and only a USB connection and Windows. It doesn't tell you on the package that it also needs an AC outlet and the most modern motherboard driver available. So no go. I've been advised by a trusted retail expert that Seagate is the bestest, and I saw Wal-Mart advertise a 500G drive for $50.

I spent most of Sunday learning how to update various PC components and eventually needed only to boot the PC with a homemade driver disc. Couldn't do it. My common-sense was tingling. I realized I needed a new back-up drive not a risky PC upgrade. I do plan to install new running memory today; I can do that fine. We want a drive to backup my PC and her laptop, and I doubt we could fill up 500 gigs even with five years of Roo pictures.

Your Sis is nursing a tender back and using an exercise ball to loosen her hips (hey now). We got a body pillow to keep her off her back at night to encourage vena cava circulation. We return to work today, and she has an exercise ball now in her classroom to help her make it through the workdays. I think she needs support shoes. Also, she's moved to the Be Band virtually everyday to prevent jean chafing on the belly. We're at 16 weeks today. The book says Roo has languo all over.

We had the occasional Roo philosophy chat yesterday. Normally we discuss practical matters like aches and food, but sometimes we hunker down and plan out parent strategies. We both have unspoken gender preferences for Roo, and we've agreed to keep it that way. We picked up a book on baby sign language; maybe we can have specific "conversations" with Roo before it can talk.

The back yard is a sheet of thick, unyielding ice. The neighborhood continues to host mini-glaciers, and this 20-degree weather ain't helping. I can't punch through with my heels anymore. If we hadn't scraped out the walkways and driveway, I think it would still be a ski jump.

Picture of the Day
Oh HP, why must you fail me so?

Homes and Holmes

Your Sister doesn't do vacations where one sits around. She moves forward always. In between grading papers, she's combining the guest bedroom space and the office and beginning the transition between Old Office and Nursery. Yesterday she finished construction on the guest bed, elevating it from the floor and affixing the Hitchcock boards to the bed frame and the wall. She reassembled her office desk in the guest bedroom.

We also finally donated some of my old furniture, and I, also not so grand with inertia, cleaned out the DVD closet. We're donating a heap of VHS movies. Owning them is needless when we can stream them online anytime. Included in there is Twin Peaks, my college obsession. It makes a better cultural document than a watchable series. Also, it's on DVD now, and I would upgrade if I wanted to watch it again.

We snuck out of the house before the sleet came down and caught a movie.

Sherlock Holmes is instantly forgettable. If not for the stunt casting of Downey, it would get no attention. I wonder if this is a similar scenario to Saving Private Ryan: a by-the-numbers script is taken to Olympus by Very Big Names.

As the opening production credits rolled, it made me wish someone else had taken a crack at adapting From Hell, the the Alan Moore comic about Jack the Ripper. Then I realized this film is an accidental sequel to From Hell. Even though the bad guy is never linked to those murders, it's an obvious avoidance of identification. In that perspective, I liked the film.

The "update" of Holmes is mild. Instead of the immaculate intellect we're used to, we instead get the cliched slob-genius, seemingly for no reason. Downey could have been directed to play this straight, and it would have worked fine. But this "new" direction is mild. It hedges its bet, and leaves very little impression. Same with Law and Adams as the other leads. They're just walking through stale roles.

However, they set up a sequel very well, and with another bit of stunt casting, it could be fun to watch. But I'll be watching actors, not characters.

We walked out to an iced car and drove to the grocery store for dessert: doughnuts and red velvet cake. We crashed into bed with a quick sugar plummet.

Picture of the Day
Jeepers, the cops!

It's Not Avatar-ible.

I got back from Mom's around 2 on Saturday, and that can only be the result of a time-warp. I can't be sure what happened; I was falling asleep as I entered my city limits. That night I inhaled 6 turkey-and-tomato rolls while I flipped channels on the new HD signal. It's hypnotizing. Unfortunately, we have 3 dozen shopping channel to wade through.

On Sunday, we did our usual grocery run before I cleared the driveway of the remaining ice. I thought it might take an hour. It took almost three. Only NPR programming got me through. When Says You ended at five, so did I. We had talked about catching Avatar later in the day, and I found a theatre showing it in two-and three-D. We arrived at the cinema about 20 minutes before the movie, and we discovered a shocking brain failure by the staff: They scheduled five movies to start at the same time, including the two viewings of Avatar. The lobby was a mob scene with one guy -- one small, old guy -- directing traffic. The vast majority of the ticket holders were there to see the film in 3D, and that left us in a small but crammed theatre.

It's a gigantic movie. About halfway through it, I realized I hadn't seen a film on this scale since Lord of the Rings. I mentally declared that it took four years for an effects-heavy film to compete with that trilogy's new standard of FX. When the film ended, I notice that WETA, the Rings FX people were the prominent FX company for the film. Of course.

It's clearly a step up from the Robert Zemeckis motion-capture animation style (Polar Express, Beowulf, Christmas Carol), but it also cheated a bit by focusing on non-humans to carry the film. Still, it had sweep and more than a little art doing the heavy lifting. It's impressive. It's also the definitive Cameron film, combining all his previous films. There's even a nod to True Lies when a character dangles by a locked missile. I suspect that felling of the big tree surpassed the emotional wallop of all of 2012. I'm glad I saw it. Glad Sigourney Weaver had a prominent role too.

We snuck into the soon-to-close Krispy Kreme for our post-movie ritual and drove home. I slept hard. I was exhausted.

Picture of the Day
We all fear the Math Witches.

Productive Anger

I left work around 3 in order to beat the freeze. I got to Your Sister's school to pick her up and noticed the tremendous reduction in death ice. It was now mush and pavement.

Her phone is a curious device; it will always connect to my phone immediately, but it won't accept the signal from my phone when she's at school. I call her whenever I'm back in town, and I did so again yesterday.

Of course the phone doesn't pick up, and I leave a message. The problem here is that I don't have a school key, and, if I'm picking her up, I have to stand outside the school, banging on the thick glass in hopes someone will hear me. This routine has gone on since before we married. This is the important part: This has happened for years. It's the norm.

I get to the school, park as I did yesterday morning, and slop around to the front of the building. By this time, I've had a frustrating day. Let's wrap it all up in senioritis. I'm counting the minutes until I have a vacation. And after I drive home in the slush and gunk, I have to summon Your Sister by playing building bongos. She hears me, comes to the door, and asks wide eyed and sincere, "why didn't you call?"

I lose it. "I DID." It's officially a spat. As we walk to the car (sitting on the other end of the still ruinous parking lot), her phone receives the message I left ten minutes earlier. This happens every time. Why is this such a surprise for both of us? I fume all the way home. She pulls up the garbage bags arranged to melt a walkway, and I grab the shovels. I shoo her inside eventually and chisel away the ice between the road and the garage door. Burning with anger, I keep at it until I have a walk cleared. It takes 90 minutes, and I finish just as my light disappears. The anger's gone. I've spent it.

I get inside and find Your Sis has made me my first hot toddy. It's good. It's welcome. And we're fine. She gets to bed early, and I go back to the workshop to finish her Christmas gift. It'll be in flux until the last second.

I think I can clear the road next to our yard enough to allow all of you to parallel park next to the snowbank. There's no way I can clear the driveway for parking. The snowplows have packed the glaciers in front of it.

I'm almost finished with Christmas shopping. One more thing to get ...

Picture of the Day
I'll start the garden early this year.

Work Ahead

It's warmer but not by much. If we're going to host people for Christmas, I'm going to have to spend Christmas Eve shoveling. It's inescapable. I'm still a bit stiff from chopping away at the road on Sunday. Hopefully, the sunlight and forecast warmth will help me out.

I'm going into work today for a half day and going home before the road refreezes. I took Your Sister to work, but the school parking lot is not plowed. We parked on a back road, and I escorted her to the building. I don't know why they wanted teachers to work when they didn't clear the lot. It's a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Picture of the Day
Lego Hoth.

Snowpocalypse

The two major weather reports -- NPR and Wunderground -- said it was gonna snow. Not maybe, not might. And we'd get a lot of it. We did. It poured snow and ice Friday, and you've seen the pics of us from that day. It continued until Saturday morning. From what I can tell by scraping the car,we got six inches of snow topped by two inches of ice. Our road was a sheet with deep tread troughs. There was no way our car could move for days.

I had to take the shovel out of Your Sister's hands and remind her she was pregnent. No work for her. Instead, I went to the road to see what I could do. It took me 90 minutes to carve away 30 square feet. A neighbor came down to help only because he couldn't make headway with his driveway ice. When I cleared a runway for the car, I hoped it would be enough to get us to the store. Your Sister and I checked the road beyond our street, and there was no stinking way. It was all ice. And I was beat up from digging and a slapstick black-ice fall. I took to the couch with the heating pad for a few hours, and we've since watched three movies: Capote, There Will Be Blood, and Alien Nation.

This morning we talked to you, and we have since gone to the store. The road was bad, but the troughs were so deep, the car slipped through. Ever seen kids bowl with the gutter bumpers? That's what we had. The store was packed and oddly hot. All those caffeinated bodies made it thick with dry heat. We nervously approached the road home, and I spied a blinking yellow light. It was a snowplow pulled to the side of the road. And then I saw it was not pulled over. It was titling over. It was stuck just before it tipped over on its side in the neighbor's yard. Some crew guys helped us slip by, and then they had to move their truck from my cleared out bay so we could park and unpack.

Since then, the plow has been righted and is now scrapping our road, and I worry it will bury my car as it sits at roadside. I'll try to clear it out in a few hours if need be. I'm sure we can accommodate the family for a Christmas visit even if we park the cars at the school and shuttle people back and forth.

Picture of the Day
Lost pairings.

Second Visit

It's a snow day, and we're both at home.

We saw the doctor for the first time in a month.

Your Sister weighed in at 155 and seemed happy with that. Her blood pressure was "perfect." Our nurse used a baby CB contraption to hear the heartbeat. We could also hear Roo moving. The heartbeat was 150, also "perfect." It was a relief. We see all the signs of Roo's occupancy without seeing Roo. It's like living with a teen.

Dr. Hernandez popped his head in to ask if we wanted an ultrasound. She deferred until I said I wanted one, and then she leaped up to have it done. The office was demo'ing a new 3D scanner and wanted to test it more. After sitting for a while, he came into the room with the new toy and gooped up her tummy. We saw much more development: backbones, skull, limbs, the pulsing umbilical cord, the heart and stomach chambers. The doc thinks we saw boy parts. We're not sold yet. It might have been girl stuff. Perhaps labia. We're calling it "maybia."

I had a rush of nausea and lightheadedness, and I fretted about getting sick in the office. So I was panicking over a possible panic attack. I breathed it through, but she noticed and suggested it was the same spell she had last Friday. I wonder. Was I disappointed that it might be a son? Did I feel that strongly about a daughter? Was it the reality of a baby smacking me around? I thought I had gotten past this. Maybe it was my wonky brain computing strong emotion. For her. For Roo. I dunno.

We go back Jan. 14.

This morning, school was canceled "for students." No word on what teachers were to do. I walked Your Sis to the school, and we found only one other teacher there. Also the Pepsi guy was filling up the vending machines. After 20 minutes, a notice was placed on the school website that everyone was to stay home. We packed up and trudged home. We've since split into our offices for work-done-getting.

Picture of the Day
I'm getting winter skin.

Frankly, My Dear, She Doesn't Give A Damn.

Forgot to mention a failed experiment after the grading dinner Tuesday.

Your Sis and I plopped down on the luuuuuuuuuvseat and activated the magic speakity box. I found Gone With the Wind, and it had been on for only 20 minutes. I again tried to get Your Sis to watch it -- to endure it, mayhap even enjoy it -- and she only lasted 20 minutes. She hates Scarlett so much she can't enjoy the reactions of those around the character. I knew marrying a Cape Cod girl would bring me frustration eventually, but I never figured I would:
a) grow to enjoy the movie; and
b) marry a woman who didn't.

Alas.

Yesterday, I cruised the mall to find knickknacks for Your Sister. I intentionally made a circuit near the mall Santa and was lucky enough to catch him between kids. I didn't approach him, but I did walk close enough to catch his eye and wave. And he waved back. That made my day.

She's now call herself fat, and I remind her she's preggers. She is definitely showing. Oddly, her arms look thinner. I don't think it's relative to the belly. I think her mass is moving to the tummy. We see the doctor again this afternoon.

She reported that my mentored student earned the second lowest oral-presentation score among all the seniors. The worst grade belongs to his girlfriend.

Picture of the Day
Frustrated by Your Sister's driving, the redlights are ending it all.

The Hammer Falls

We met up with two other teachers to grade the community volunteer section of the senior projects. The students had to present their products and the crafting process to the layman. The volunteers score the presentation in 20 categories; we added the scores over dinner.

The students have to speak no less than seven minutes and no more then ten. I knew my student couldn't do it, and he did not. He spoke for five minutes and had nothing left. I didn't tally his sheet; I didn't want him to have any leeway to gripe. I was assured it was unlikely he could complain, but I wouldn't risk it. I did see the final grades he earned from the volunteers. He bombed it. He averaged 85 points, the lowest of all the seniors this semester. It's also a near-record low from these local folks who want to help the kids succeed. They are an easy crowd, and he couldn't win them over. That's pathetic.

I'm not happy with his grade, but I'm satisfied with it. This counts 20 percent of the final project grade. I remain curious about his final overall grade.

The grading dinner is always fun work. We take over a table at the Mexican restaurant and crunch numbers over cheap food. This year, I did not drink. I'm still wary of drinking in front of Your Sister. It sometimes seems mean.

Picture of the Day
Bebe Neuwirth and Nathan Lane as the leads in the new Addams Family musical. I'm geeking out over this.

Stunned.

When Your Sis and I went window shopping Saturday for maternity items, we also kept Christmas shopping in mind. I told her before we left that I would point out items on my list for her to catalog. The understanding being, I thought, that she could note the items and decide what to buy later. Instead, I pointed out an item, and she picked it up to buy. I was stunned.

"No, wait. It's just a suggestion."
"I know. But you want this, right?"
"For Christmas, yes."
"Right. For Christmas."

Now when I say "for Christmas," I mean "if you're going to buy it for me, don't let me see it." I like Christmas gifts as surprises. That's why we wrap them. But she refused to put it back.

"When am I going to get a chance to be here again to buy it?"
"Dude. Amazon."

A few hours later, at another store, I showed her an item I had considered to get her. I showed her some options to leave the mystery. The final specific item would be a surprise. Instead (again) she picked one out and carried it to the register. More stunnage.

This isn't how I do Christmas. So now, I'm gonna ambush her with whatever strikes my jolly-elf fancy. Christmas should be a mix of surprise, joy, and gratitude. It's date-specific altruism.

When I arrived home last night, Your Sister had just returned from more Christmas shopping. As she recounted her day, she said "oh, and I bought [those other items] you asked for." Super stunnage.

"OK, please. If you're buying me anything else for Christmas, don't tell me what it is. Please."
"OK."

Maybe it's the pregnancy. She didn't do this before.

Picture of the Day
Line forms on the right.

Window Shopping

We're thinking of hosting a meal for the family at Christmas/New Year. Would you be up for it?

As the semester nears its end, Your Sister seeks to avoid the pile of papers and again wished to get the hell out of Dodge. She needed some clothing items, including unmentionables. She's definitely showing. And growing. She leaped two cup sizes. We bought a belly wrap called a Bee Band. It covers unbuttoned jeans and fills third-trimester jeans immediately after birth.

She saw the mall maternity store. It's slim pickin's, and it seems to cater to the last trimester and first six months of motherhood. I walked in there by myself a few weeks back and got the hair eyeball. I think they thought I was a fetishist. We looked at kids books at Barnes & Noble and traded notes on what we read as youngsters. I found Encyclopedia Brown and Choose Your Own Adventure. She found Beatrix Potter. We decided to skip the Winnie the Pooh library for now, but it's inevitably coming to our house.

We picked up two jumpdrives for two students who claimed they couldn't afford them. We could find none smaller than 2 gigs, and they were only $10 each. Amazing.

I put up the tree yesterday. A little Star Wars here, old Bullock ornaments there. It looks fine.

Picture of the Day
Greetings, citizens! I am your bright yellow sentinel of the night! Enjoy the safety of my guard as you rest your weary heads! I hope my bright yellow radiance doesn't blast your eyes while you chase the blessed release of sleep! Carry on! Don't mind me!

A Man With A Plan

I bought a digest-sized magazine called Make. It's a geek craft title. My nesting instincts are driving me to expand my knowledge base, including making stuff. I can design it. I can decorate it. It's that crucial corporeal component that eludes me. I wanna work on that. This issue is geared toward kids, and that sounds like the perfect entry point for me to hop aboard.

I ordered HD for our satellite service, and it will be installed the day after Christmas. We've had the TV for almost a year without making that final step. Now I think we're ready to be gobsmacked by every broadcast image. I ordered early to avoid the inevitable rush after many an HD TV are unwrapped this year.

If there's a food Your Sister is craving, it's cheese. It's quickly emerged as the common ingredient in all our dishes. Maybe it's the salt. We check to see if it's pasteurized, and in it goes into he dish by the bucketful. Instead of thawing leftovers as we planned, she asked if we could zip to the local Italian place for pizza. That we can do.

Suddenly, it's December, and suddenly, it's two weeks from Christmas, and I don't have clues what to buy people. You mentioned kayak stuff, and we'll be glad to do that once you give us details. So give us details. Everything I think to buy Your Sister is immediately disqualified by her hologram in my head.

Also, it's shockingly cold.

Picture of the Day
No introduction needed.

A Brief Whine

Obviously the next six months will be tougher on Your Sister than on me. I've had very little inconvenience since we discovered we were pregnant and began alterations. One of them was her edict that chicken is out the door. She lost the taste for it. That included, of course, buffalo wings, a staple of my weekly diet.

I've had them once a week for ten years. It was true comfort food, synchronized with the roughest work days. It was usually a Monday because that's when the alt-weekly went to press; I often worked 11 hours to prepare and FTP the issue. We recently moved it to Fridays to cap off our work week. But it's gone now, and I acceded sincerely. What she needs is what we'll do. I'll treat the pregnancy as frat-food Lent. Why should she suffer alone?

So I haven't had buffalo wings since October. Only two months. Not much of a hardship. (So far, the whole pregnancy has been an easyship. It shouldn't go this well, should it? The shoe has to drop, right? The baby will be born with faces on its knees or something.) I don't have the heart to grumble about losing wings while she deals with daily nausea in front of schoolkids. Sickness with an audience even sounds hellish.

But let me just exhale heavily at the cruel fate that decided that the new business that opens next week across from my office windows is a wing restaurant. Fucking fuck.

Picture of the Day
Da wonna wonga is Bib Fortuna's best pick-up line, I'm sure.

It's Not Quite Over

After all the entire semester, after all the alleged cramming between the end of Thanksgiving and yesterday, after giving me the runaround and then asking for one last big favor, after slamming together a rudimentary semblance of a comic, and after a last-second mentor review, he didn't turn it in. As of lunchtime yesterday, his teacher didn't receive the final product. He may as well not have done any work at all. From what I saw, he practically didn't.

The project has three graded elements: a 5-page-minimum paper discussing the field he chose, a portfolio documenting his progress of the product, and a 7-minute minimum oral presentation on the whole effort. Two of them are utter crap from what I hear, and he hasn't said seven total minutes of anything to me since we met in October.

He's not alone though: a number of seniors blew off the deadline. But they know they have another chance next semester if there's enough room in those classes scheduled to host senior projects. If they can't get in, they fail. If they get in and bomb their second project, they fail. And a good number of them have to apply for college and worry about their other classes too. It's a tough spot they put themselves in.

Your Sister called up the local comic store and bought a replacement copy of the Hellboy issue he trashed. That gets extra smooches.

Headslapping Picture of the Day
This is what he made after two months of advice and examples. He taped 24 sketched panels onto the final pages.

Is It Over?

Your Sis got home at 8 last night and handed me the folder with my minicomic stuff. It was all there. The full-size Hellboy issue was trashed, and it feels like it was drenched before drying. I should have bagged and boarded it. Also inside was his final product, the comic he wanted to make beginning in September.

It's tragic. He didn't follow my templates. He merely folded letter-size pages and cut them into strips. There were no page numbers. Also, instead of drawing on the pages, he cut out and taped his sketch work onto the pages. Those panels are about a quarter of the size of each minicomic page. The lettering is horrid. Yes, high-school boys don't necessarily have good penmanship, but when the lettering is technically artwork, it needs to be clear. Legible would be nice. I remembered late last night that I had suggested he do a minicomic to make his final product heftier and more impressive. Had he worked at a traditional size, we might have gotten three pages stapled at the corner.

The mentor verification form was filled with a pencil instead of the mandatory ink, but he did list the correct number and dates of our meetings. He actually undercut the length of the first meeting by half, and I didn't correct him. I had some questions to answer, and I noted I couldn't verify he had completed 15 hours of work outside our meetings. I also wrote a paragraph saying his final product didn't look anything like the examples I had shown him nor did it represent the standards I had set for him. I wanted to write more, but Your Sis said the point was made. I asked her to xerox the form I completed before giving the original and minicomic back to him today.

His teachers already know from my emails how his project failed to materialize. I think my participation is now over. I may be called to explain what went wrong to a group of teachers who grade the projects, and I'll use my notes as reference. I emailed one teacher to thank her for approving the original zombie-comic project and to offer mentoring on a similar project in the future. What a disaster.

I promised myself I'd tackle some home projects when my one-pager and this project were done. The DVD closet needs an overhaul, and I may have to finally chuck all my VHS tapes. I'll try to convert my theatre recordings to DVD at least. Also, we need to put up the tree before the weekend.

+ + +

Your Sister's students recommend Beau Hunter as a name for Roo. Impressive.

Moving Picture of the Day
Finally found it for you.

Today, My Favorite F-Word That Ends in K ...

is flunk, because the senior I mentored damn near guaranteed that he has.

A week ago today, he called me to say that he forgot to do any work on the comic during the Thanksgiving holiday (five days off of school). While he was on the phone with me, I could tell he was reading the template instructions for the first time. He set up a meeting time for 12:30 this Saturday at the library, at our usual time and place.

Your Sis and I arrived at 12:15. She had a book and found a corner to sit in. I usually sat outside to meet him, but it was cold and wet (not cold enough for us to get any of the snow that befell our mountains). I made sure to take the first visible seat inside the library, in the periodical section. I grabbed a Village Voice and waited. And waited. I wasn't bored, not with all those wonderfully tawdry advertisements. Man, I miss alt-weeklies.

He has never been on time for a meeting. We've had three of them. This was to be our fourth, the bare minimum required by the senior-project guidelines. After half an hour, I called him. Again, that was nothing new. At earlier meetings, I would wait 15 minutes and ring him up to see if he was en route. He's a teenager. I cut him some slack.

But this time he said that he was not en route. He had spent the night at a friend's house, and they were on their way to the dump. He still had to go back home, get the comic stuff, and get a ride to the library.

Me: Why didn't you call me to let me know?
Him: Uh ...
Me: Yeah. I'm wasting my time here, and my wife [a well-known teacher at this school] is here too wasting her time. When are you gonna be here?
Him: Uh ... ... ... ... uh ... ...
Me: Come on, be decisive. When are you going to be here?
Him: Maybe ... half an hour.
Me: I'll give you a half hour. You call me when you're on the way. Got that?
Him: Yeah?
Me: You're gonna call when you're on the way?
Him: Yeah.
Me: Bye.

I sat next to Your Sister and apologized for the delay. She smiled and went back to reading. I started sketching Wonder Woman because the fucking song won't leave my fucking head (get us out from under, Wonder Womaaaaaan). Travis came by to chat, and we caught up on the pregnancy and holiday plans. I told him that a kid was half an hour away from failing his senior year, and we traded stories from our days as lazy students.

The senior called me at 1:28.

Me: Hey, where are you?
Him: Um, well ...

Thereby hung a tale. He said he got home too late to get a ride from his mom, and he was trying to talk his dead into bringing him, and I'm relating this without the hundred of "uhs" and "ums" that signify bad lies and panic.

Me: So you're not coming?
Him: I'm really sorry I wasted your ...
Me: Yeah. Listen, I'm going home. You're gonna take all the stuff that's mine and whatever I need to sign to the school on Monday and give it to [Your Sister]. When I have it in hand Monday night, I'll call you to confirm I got it, and then I'll send back whatever I'm supposed to. Got that?
Him: Yeah. I'm really sorry ...

I repeated the directions and hung up. I went back to Your Sis and Travis. "Well, he just failed."

I had two emotions fighting for prominence: anger and disbelief. Disbelief was winning. I couldn't fathom, and still can't, that a kid would ask for such a fun project, get it approved, and then blow it by not doing any of the work. There are seniors learning how to rebuild engines, bake cakes, cut hair, learn EMT procedures -- real, actual toil. He was allowed to spend a semester sitting by himself and crafting a zombie story in comic form. And he blew it. My jaw can't hit the ground hard enough to create an appropriately loud crash. I have shock, and my shock has shock. My shock is sitting next to me on a bench, and we're looking at each other in shock.

I got home and emailed his teacher with the update. I was supposed to sign a form confirming we met the minimum amount of times for the appropriate hours. That didn't happen. He was supposed to take photos documenting our communal effort on his project. That didn't happen. I took pics of our first two meetings. I gave him assignments to move his project along cleanly. None of those happened.

Your Sister offered me ideas to meet with him or allow him to get the forms back from me earlier, and I shooed them away. He's gotten enough chances and benefits of doubt. He's screwed, and he has screwed himself.

He emailed me Sunday morning saying he needed the photos of our meetings. I replied that I would email them to him when I had all my stuff in hand Monday night. I don't think he realizes that I won't get them until around 8 tonight; Your Sis is hosting an AP lab and won't be home before then to give me whatever he brings to school. Either way, I have two photos of meeting with him. That's not enough for his project-related portfolio which he'll now be working on within 12 hours of the project's deadline. He didn't take any pictures, as was assigned. I thought I was being helpful, adding to the documentation he would provide. In the end, my few pics were the only documentation. Again, I refer to flunk.

As I told his teachers, I don't begrudge the senior project or resent volunteering to mentor. This had the makings of a fun project. Unfortunately, he thinks, as I did as an underclassmen, that he'll pass because teachers won't hold him accountable. He's too smart, too nice a kid. I grew out of that as a junior, thankfully before I took on projects that could ruin my senior year.

I honestly don't see how he can pass. I give him a 5% chance of it. I say that without joy. Hopefully, he'll learn from it. Double hopefully, this won't count against the next kid who wants to try a similar project. I'd be willing to help that kid. This senior, though, has met the end of my kindness.

+ + +

Your Sis had a rough week of indigestion. I blame a particularly rich weekend diet. She's hit the ravenous stage, and I am cautiously joining her, well aware that I will put on weight in a much sloppier fashion if I match her bite for bite. She slept a lot, even for her, this weekend.

We're at 12 weeks today. The baby book details the skin conditions she might experience and how to treat them. It also mentioned tests for cystic fibrosis. Roo should be at 2.5 inches from rump to head.

EDIT: I was wrong. He only had to meet me three times, but I was supposed to see his final product and sign off on it. That won't happen before he turns it in tomorrow.

Picture of the Day
The gay marriage rhetoric chart.

Must I Rage? Rage I Must.

One thing about Your Mom's office visit on Tuesday: She mentioned that the delay in deciding to be pregnant was Your Sister's doing. She said she knew I wanted kids, but Your Sister was focused on work. I mention this to preemptively set the record straight in case you encounter this line of thinking. It's completely wrong.

I immediately told her it was a long-standing and constantly affirmed mutual decision to remain a duo. No one is "at fault" for us remaining childless for, as My Mom puts it, "so long." The change of position was a yearlong adjustment from both of us. No one can be said to have instigated the decision. Those regular questions we asked each other about maintaining our duo-hood began to get new answers, and they came from both of us. There was no peer pressure, no ticking clock, no fear of remaining outside the definition of a "real family." The Debacles began as a family in 2004. We're bringing in an 18-year tenant. We're building an addition.

Just FYI. If she continues to pass this along, and I'm asking you flatly to rat her out, I'm gonna sit her down and repeat the facts until she can recite them back to me. She often assumes the worst about her daughters, and it's often dismissed in a cloud of stunned dismay. Not this. I won't allow it. Your Sister will not be accused of refusing to be a mom, of stubbornly, cruelly denying me offspring, especially while she's with child.

Damn it. Now I'm mad.

Suddenly it's almost Christmas, and I have no idea what to buy anyone. I'm totally baffled. I'm baffled and mad.

Pictures of the Day
This is the first inked draft of the comic. I hand lettered it, and it failed to make the grade. I re-lettered it on the computer before I tweaked the art digitally. It's due tomorrow, and I'm doing last-second polishing of the faucets on the Titanic.

Progress

Your Mom dropped by the office to hand me pants expanders for Your Sister. We're now officially using maternity wear. She can no longer suck in the little pouch. Makes sense; we are just shy of 12 weeks.

She walks to work and back unless it's raining, like today. She says it's becoming harder to make it up that hill and blames Roo. I pointed out that it's also colder out there, and breathing hard goes with outdoor fall activity. She shrugged it off and said, nope, it's the pregnancy. OK. I know not these things.

We're asked often about deliveries and plans, but we rarely talk about it. Your Mom wondered about a pool birth, and I think we'll deviate from the standard dry, prone method only if the doctor recommends it. We focus on the current necessities: diet, clothes, exercise. We have plenty of time to transition to the delivery and everything after.

I printed out a draft of the comic for Your Sister to read. It went over well but needs tweaking to sell the humor. I decided to try digitally drawing the corrections using my small tablet. This morning, I redrew a panel on the computer, saving myself the time of sketching, inking, and scanning. I can see a total digital transition for my comic work if I get a bigger tablet. It's damn convenient. The comic is due Friday, and I have plenty of time to adjust it before the submission. Unlike my senior student who will need superhuman efforts just to complete his project. I shouldn't be smug about competing with a teenager for comic production, but my process is again proven to work.

Moving Picture of the Day
This Spanish language trailer for Lost reveals more than the English promos.

Allegations and Bad Planning

My senior student called me last night to say he had just opened his template package. He claimed to have forgotten about it over the holiday break. He couldn't hear my eyes rolling. He claims to have finished all his preliminary work and is ready to begin in earnest. He has exactly one week to draw 24 pages (his new page count) and the covers and Xerox four copies and assemble them into individual issues and prepare his senior portfolio. I have folding money that says it's gonna be crap. We're to meet Saturday to finalize the project, and I intend to warn his teachers about his lazy-ass ways. What he turns in cannot be regarded as what I tried to teach him. I think the one-page story I'm turning into the school literary magazine will show the distance between his lame work and a designed comic. I turn that in Friday.

+ + +

My theatre liaison called me yesterday afternoon to ask again if I'd direct a play next summer. He had mentioned this most recently when I saw the Halloween play he directed, and it was a suggestion he made in script committees a few months back. He called on behalf of the latest artistic director, his replacement, who wanted the directors all set before the new season started.

Before, I had said I would have to see about directing the offered play (Mousetrap). It's a much larger challenge than directing the one-act this past spring. I had my doubts about it even then. Directing a one-act took up so much of my time that I dreaded tackling any three-act play, much less the longest running play in theatre history and the standard for parlor mysteries. My answers weren't coy. They started off as "hmm, maybe"and quickly shifted to "I can't do it." Now I was asked point blank to say yea or nay. I did, and I added the best alibi possible: My wife is expecting. I may not leave the house next year, I said. Congratulations followed as did the newest eye-rolling, head-slapping story of the local company.

The theatre leases the local Legion Hall to host its shows. It's a five-year contract with the option of doubling that. The Legion has been good about working with the theatre for upgrading the premises. The theatre has installed a nice new curtain system both on and offstage. Plans are afoot to renovate the kitchen and pantry to allow for more variety in intermission food sales. One big project was scrapping and rebuilding the green room. After some stupendous estimates from an architectural firm, the theatre was saved by an offer from the Legion. They would provide the labor free and build the green room if the theatre bought the new equipment (window units, lights, furniture, etc.). The estimate shrank from $50,000 to $5,000 to about $2,500. It was a godsend for a cash-strapped company. The Legion recently went the extra mile and offered to host a fundraising BBQ, with a chunk of the money going to the theatre to pay for that green room. The Legion advertised it in the paper and around town.

What did the theatre do? Stayed completely away. No one showed up to either volunteer or buy food. The Legion folks are pissed and declared they will not provide any labor for any projects, including the green room. That's gonna double the current estimate again. And the Christmas show starts in a few weeks.

My liaison is no longer my official theatre connection. He decided to relinquish his positions and step away, except to direct an upcoming show. He and I can equally share the freedom from entanglements in bad decisions and follow-through. Good night and good luck.

+ + +

Your Sister had a hankering for Ruebens last night The sandwiches, not the artist. I had never made nor eaten one. They're pretty good. Sauerkraut isn't bad at all. We didn't have any of this where I grew up. The closest we got to sauerkraut was boiled cabbage. Your Sister liked what I made and followed it with the rest of the cranberry salad leftovers.

+ + +

We got our second creditor phone call with a year looking for my ex-wife. I suspect she's gone off the grid and living with someone whose name is on every bill. Jesus, am I glad we didn't have kids.

Picture of the Day
These are the initial sketches for the comic story. I knew I wanted to talk about running and where the mind goes. On the top right of the first image, you can see the page design I envisioned: lots of boxes with prose outside the art. That changed to a more traditional format, seen below. The title, Running Through My Mind, was a no-brainer.

I'm Gonna Babble About How We Got Here

Now I can finally post about what's really going on in the house: Baby preparations.

Your Sister snacks constantly to ward off nausea. She got sick for the first time Saturday night, and I blame the restaurant's olive-oil dip. Also, she devoured the complementary bread after a few hours of an empty stomach. That couldn't help. She slept all day yesterday. I mean, all day. I'm worried she's going to be insurmountably behind in her weekend grading.

I, it turns out, am nesting. Without knowing it, I've become focused on home improvement. I was told last week that this is an instinct. Your Sister was warned by a parental magazine and disregarded it. The next morning, she says, I announced the gutters needed my attention. It's continued since. I'm a slave to nature.

We ate the Thanksgiving leftovers and the rest of the BBQ last night. Thanks again for that; it was bueno. Your Sis has declared chicken verboten in the house for now; the thought of it makes her ill. The pork you brought hit the spot.

We told Your Aunt about Roo on Friday, and she called back to suggest two names: Balthazar and another that sounds like "Brasilius." We thanked her, hung up the phone, and threw it into a fire. Your Sis talked to My Mom Sunday, and we all compared notes. Mom explained that she was stunned when we told her and gradually grew to happiness. It had to set in. She said she had written us off as breeders because we had been married so long (only four years, I reminded her), and we hadn't told anyone we were trying.

The second item probably requires some clarification. No, we told only a few people, and those were folks I knew from high school who have become moms. I wanted anecdotal advice from people at a distance. Then we had actual news to relay, we'd announce it to the world. I was worried about how long it might take to be pregnant, and I didn't want Your Sister subjected to fertility advice and requests for updates. I didn't want outside impatience to badger her. Luckily, we had no problems. As in, it was virtually immediate. That was a jolt. Turns out the abstinence-only advocates weren't spouting total gibberish after all. But let's hear it for Planned Parenthood and sex ed for allowing us to start a pregnancy when we wanted and when we were ready.

And we do think we're ready. We talked about this off and on for a year and decided in spring to make arrangements. That's when we started our name list (Good, Maybe, and Oh God No). When we found out we hit paydirt (Oct. 25), we began to skulk around store baby sections to check the equipment. We even printed out random registries at Target so we'd have an alibi if we were caught by friends. Mom offered to buy all the baby furniture, and we told her we appreciated it, and there was tons of time to window shop and make our must-have lists.

Your Sister suggested we tell you in advance, and I poo-pooed it. It's my fault. She mentioned it again recently, and I asked her if it was really a good idea to drop that bomb via a phone call while you were preparing for exams. I reminded you that a certain dim bulb did something similar, and she agreed we'd wait. It quickly becomes a burden to have such info that can't be shared. We each almost leaked to several people, and the wait was painful. Then, wouldn't you know, she was in wrenching tears Thursday at the thought of telling her family. She was terrified at the possible reactions. So I jumped on the grenade. That's why I was the one to say it. She admitted later she was silly to panic. Wild emotions are apparently par of the pregnant course.

Me, I have no nerves. I realize our convenient schedules will be compromised, and we will not know a decent night's sleep for years. Then I recall why we decided to do this: Not only will Your Sis make a great mom, but we feel the need to intelligently raise a kid. To combat through benevolent nurturing the madness we see around us. Our kid is an investment, a literal vessel of hope for better. This wasn't done because we're bored or envious of parents. We debated this for a year and checked our motives each time. We can do this right, and we can't wait much longer. In we jumped. Off we go.

We made a gingerbread house with Brooke Saturday as her parents enjoyed a night out with friends. She clung pretty tight to me starting Thursday afternoon and all through the weekend. We all went to the Grove Park Inn to see the gingerbread houses, and that scene was a zoo. Carrying her for two days was a fantastic workout. It also somewhat proved that we can watch a child without anyone exploding.

This blog won't change to cuddly-coo baby stories. I assure you. But I'll let you know how we're doing. We're officially at eleven weeks today. Roo is the height of a small lime and has fingernails, so the guidebook says.

Picture of the Day
The impending golden child in no way infringes upon our geekdom.

Saturday Signing

The new comic store in Asheville held an artists signing. I met webcomic creator Danielle Corsetto (Girls With Slingshots) in this year's Asheville's HeroesCon back in June. This was the store's first signing, and it was a smash. I got a sketch, and we talked shop for a bit.

To thank the store for arranging the signing, I shelled out for a big comic. I discovered that the artist and I worked for the same website some years back. She did comics, and I wrote long reviews. The site wasn't that well known, but the owner had heard of it was surprised to find she and I were connected with it.

I also ran into Mazel Tov Cocktail of the local roller derby team. She's a jammer, one of the few team member who score points by lapping the other team.

Possibly inspired by the signing, I set up my one-page comic page in the kitchen and drew at the counter so I could face the TV. I pounded out the majority of the comic over the day to my surprise. I have almost two weeks to ink and letter it. It's a lark of a notion, but it's shaping up nicely.

Your Sister and I watched Saving Private Ryan. She hadn't seen it before. I still hate the script, but I appreciate the movie made with it.

I promised Your Sister to finally model the suit I bought for the August work convention. She approved. I still fit in it. I finally ran again Sunday morning right before the cold rains came.

My Mom is reconsidering coming to Thanksgiving. She's upset by her appearance, no matter how much I try to assure her she's exaggerating it. She says she has a Thanksgiving invite from the neighbors, and that would at least allow her to be with someone on the day if she won't come up. I offered to get her and take her back home. She's still mulling it over. I hope Susan has plans too.

Hay Hay Hay. That's What I Say

I called Mom, and she's generally OK. She thinks there's more numbness and possible actual droop on her face, but she may be imagining it. She can eat fine. She needs a draw to drink until she picks up the knack. Hopefully the palsy will subside before then. She's in good spirits, again because this could have been so much worse.

We caught a one-act package at the high school last night. We actually only caught the first two one-acts. I promised a teacher's daughter I'd watch her monologue. She wants to work with the local theatre, and I'm kind of a role model for working with them. If she only knew. I wrote a note for her mother to pass along to her after school tomorrow. She has the basics down. Good energy, good projection. She clearly has more instruction than the other kids we saw, and that's no fault of theirs. She got good laughs.

My car was hit by a bale of hay this morning, giving credence to my theory that Matrices are magnets. It fell off a truck in front of me. There are some scratches, but no steering damage.

The senior didn't pick up the templates waiting for him in Your Sister's classroom. My enthusiasm for helping him has plummeted. I've offered to meet him again tomorrow and ensure he grasps the templates. Mentally and physically.

This is from ABC:

ABC ANNOUNCES THE PREMIERE OF THE SIXTH AND FINAL SEASON OF "LOST," WITH A SPECIAL ALL-NIGHT EVENT ON TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2

ABC announces the premiere of the sixth and final season of "Lost," with a special all-night event on Tuesday, February 2. A recap special will kick off the night from 8:00-9:00 p.m., ET, followed by the much anticipated two-hour premiere from 9:00-11:00 p.m.

The series will then air in its regular time period Tuesday nights from 9:00-10:00 p.m., ET beginning the following week, on February 9.

Well, crap. The show was a Wednesday mainstay for the previous five years.

Picture of the Day
Kenny baker indulges.

The Day After

I talked to Mom yesterday, and she was exhausted from worry but relieved it was "only" Bell's. She was given eye medicine and told the symptoms should be gone in about two weeks. I tried to help her relax and said "the biggest question, however, is can you still hold the cigarette in your mouth? Do we need to get you a headband?" She laughed. She intended to go back to work today, and I'll call her when she's likely to be home.

I feel a bit odd being here still after she went through this scare, but all I could do is sit and stare at her while she sleeps it off. She's totally lucid. There's no other neurological damage. She's relatively fine. I don't want to hover, to suggest she should be anxious -- more anxious -- about what she went through.

I made french onion soup last night, and I had hoped this would be a dish I can easily make for you when you visits. And then I remembered the four cups of beef broth and scratched that off the list. I have recipe books; I'll find new recipes to master. We clearly can't have sushi while Mom is visiting.

I also made minicomic templates and instructions for the senior. This lasted into the wee hours. I doubt it will help. I suspect he'll slap everything together the weekend before it's due and try to coast through. That's what I would have done at his age. I'll show him how the template works by assembling a minicomic in front of him if need be, and then that's all I can do. He has to show a skill set learned during this semester and he has to offer a product of that skill set. It's in his hands now. Literally.

Picture of the Day
This week may make my head a'splode.

Emergency Room

I got a call from a doctor couple who work with My Mom that she went to the emergency room with some arm weakness and facial droop this morning. She's lucid and relaxed. Preliminary diagnosis is a TIA, a pseudo ministroke whose effects may vanish within a day or a few hours. She's undergoing tests. I'm still in NC. Mom didn't want me to be informed until she had a concrete diagnosis, and I'm staying put until I get the word. This is how we handled her gall bladder when it flared up this summer. The doctor wife called Your Sister who called me to wait for the doctor husband to call me. All this contact is behind Mom's back.

At best, she'll realize this is a warning to knock off that fucking smoking and eat some meals. At worst, she'll be reliant one someone else to a degree. But that's for later planning.

Now you know as much as I do. Tell no one else until we get news.

Twenty minutes later: It's Bells Palsy. She's on the way home, but I haven't talked to her directly and don't know what she was told to expect or to do. Still sitting tight.

Blasphemy!

R2D2 is in the new Star Trek movie. Gizmodo says he was placed there by ILM, the Lucas effects house who worked on the film.

I'm making a page template for the senior to follow. With letter-size paper, he can draw, fold, and cut his minicomic using less than 20 sheets to make 4 32-page comics. I even used math. I'll have Your Sis hand it to him this week at school, and our weekend meeting will confirm he knows how to use it. It takes some work out of my hands, and I can't complain. I'm now getting eager for my one-pager for the arts magazine.

Virtually Glad It's Monday

As hesitant as I am to bitch about a long work day to a medical student, Friday was a shrew of a hag of a chore, and I'm glad to be rid of it. I got to work at 9 and left after 7. It was all magazine work, and it reminded me too much of the bad ole alt-weekly days. A small teacher party was waiting for me back home, and I arrived before it broke up. I was informed they had beer, snacks, and ... '80s Trivial Pursuit? And would I like to play?? Pardon me while I lay waste to your homelands! I destroyed them. I went home with the afterglow of conquering.

I discovered the next day that only 90% of my gutter repairs worked. I recaulked the leak, and I think it will hold for now. We'll have to get new gutters next year, I'm pretty sure. I'm also concerned about the deck.

Sunday evening was spent coordinating Thanksgiving plans with Your Parents and My Mom. Your Mom is a little scattered about making plans for the girls. Things are still up in the air, but Your Sis and I aren't worried. We obviously know the town. We can offer options, something we can't do in Birmingham.

I managed to find the one copy of the Ultimate Blu-Ray edition of Watchmen (deleted scenes and tons of extras) at Best Buy. I hope to watch it when I we get five hours. I also set up the PS3 to stream NetFlix on our big TV. It's all so sci-fi. When we have you at the house, we'll plop you down in front of the TV. We have DVDs. We have video games. We'll spoil you a bit.

I met my senior kid this weekend, and I'm worried he's gonna blow this project. He has three weeks to draw, letter, and print a 32-page comic. Even I can't do that. I've warned him and related the meetings to his teacher. I fear he's gonna turn in something done at the last second. He has virtually no sketches, his rough script (unfinished) has no dialogue, and he hasn't thumbnailed a rough of the comic. It will take charity to get a passing grade.

Your Sis and I walked again in this very bizarre, warm evening air. It helped inspire notions for the school arts magazine for which I've been asked to submit an item. I'm gonna do a comic on running. I spent the weekend sketching a format I want to experiment with, and I've already chucked my first big idea (a collage of small drawings) for a straight-forward comic style, and I've got my first and last panels. I know what the comic will be about and roughly how many panels. I feel good. It's due Dec. 4. This is feasible. Unlike that the kid wants to do.

His teacher emailed me to say that I can't print and assemble the comic for him. He has to learn the skill set for the entire process. That means more work for him, less for me. I can live with that.

Picture of the Day
Invasion at the White House!