Cooking With Villainy: Steak au Poivre

Once more, it falls to Doom to whip up grub for unexpected company.

Doom regrets extending a standing invitation to the Red Skull and his accursed family at the 2008 VillainCon. Doom was distracted by his stately reflection in the armor of his Doombot security cordon and lost track of how many Latveria Mountain Ales consumed by Doom during the VillainCon's annual awards banquet. Doom is a friendly drunk. Doom had just won his 58th consecutive Best Doom Award (sponsored by the kind chairmen of the Latveria University) , and, in his giddy largess, Doom offered to cook for that crimson-visaged buffoon and all his damnable brood.

By the Stones of Wundagore, is Skull attempting to sire the Fourth Reich by himself? Are these the Germanic Duggars? Doom pities the tortured Mrs. Skull for the horde of towheaded monsters she now watches over day and night while Red Skull slips out nightly tries to buy rounds of Weizenbock with Nazi gold.

But Doom's word is bond, and Doom shall feed that mob, and then Doom shall give them the Boot of Shoo to their collective Aryan asses. Doom's shows are on. Doom's feet demand attention from the manicurebots.

Tonight's Dish: Steak au poivre

For this delight, Doom commands you to prepare the following (recipe reduced for two people):

1 pound of top loin or beef tenderloin
1/2 cup of beef broth
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon cracked black pepper
2 teaspoons dijon mustard
2 tablespoons butter

Doom commands you to press the pepper into the steaks on both sides of each cut.

Doom commands you to melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat and apply the steaks. They must cook for 10-13 minutes depending on thickness. Turn them once in this timespan.

When the steaks are finished, Doom commands you to remove steaks from skillet. Keep the drippings in the skillet, filthy cur.

Doom commands you to add the broth to drippings and scrape up the crusty bits which are delicious. Then you shall add the cream and mustard. Under punishment of disintegration, you will bring to a boil and continue to gently boil for 5 minutes or until sauce has reduced by a 1/2 cup.

Doom permits you to choose the preferred side for the meal. Doom this day has chosen jasmati rice, and he drizzles the sauce upon the steak and rice as he deems proper. Doom also prepares a small loaf of bread with which to sop up the remaining sauce for it is as delectable as Doom's reflection.

Doom commands you to savor. And Doom commands Red Skull's personal herd to get to steppin'.

P.S. Fuck Richards.

Planning Ahead

We're looking at daycare options in both towns. Your Industrious Sister visited one prospect yesterday morning, and I met her to visit the second during my lunch break. That one is a church daycare, which isn't as big a deal for me as it could be. They seem to shy away from religious teaching and focus on manners and maturity. We got a quick walkthrough during their naptime. We saw the kitchen, the playground, the toddler room. The options seemed nice, and it's within two miles of Your Parents' house. That's certainly convenient for me and for them, if they had to fetch him.

In our rushed visit, I asked two questions: Who dispenses medicine (the teachers, according to parent instructions) and how do you punish (with redirection and removal from the specific trouble). This place seemed like a sure thing for us whenever we decide to enroll him. When I got home, Your Exacting Sister said the two other daycares she visited impressed her more. At least one of them is also in Asheville. I don't see that happening this year, but Your Anxious Sister may get the itch to do more school stuff before next fall.

I have mostly fond memories of my daycare days, but the distance from his house and his potential friends may be a problem. He couldn't attend many get-togethers on the weekends. But, as I think of it, I didn't see any of my daycare buddies after hours.

Your Crestfallen Sister is wrestling with the possibility that the mancub now demands more milk than she can produce in one feeding. We're not positive of this, however, and I try to reassure her. His unhappiness after nursing may be due to the new Vitamin D medicine or too much caffeine in her coffee. She took it personally but was buoyed by a handful of M&Ms.

One of the school's science teachers put out a call for lumber. We donated heaps of empty baby-gift boxes to him a few months back, and it seems both materials are going to school garden projects. If we give him the wood taken from our deck as it's remodeled, we could get a tax deduction.

I have reserved a table at next year's Fanaticon. I also have thrown in my hat for the collector card experiment. Convention artists are submitting art for cards that will be distributed throughout the town. I think it sounds cool. I'm excited to do it.

I ran for the first time in a long time. It was a cheat; I only did the military boot camp jog, but I did make it two miles.

Picture of the Day
This meal is getting butter all the time.

An Objective Look

We took advantage of a cooler summer evening to plop the mancub in his stroller and travel the new bike path. The relative quiet gave us a chance to unpack some tensions before a late supper. While Your Organized Sister has managed to keep pace with her teacher workshop material and steer a new AP teacher through the pre-semester jitters, she's still locked in a house with a sporadic eating machine. She gets frayed. And it cycles through me and back to her, and we need to clear the air sometimes. We got that last night. All is good.

She did admit as we collapsed into bed that she hasn't yet told the boy she loves him. She said this with some concern, and I assured her that he has yet to earn it. I was slightly joking. We, of course, still beleive in this experiment, and in many ways he is only a catalyst. We react to what he does, try to find a pattern, and establish schemes to turn off the crying alarm. She has a greater degree of exposure, and she develops the routines, and I maintain them as best I can.

Regardless of the traces of personality we see, he's still a cypher. He speaks a different language. He has no common experience to share. He is need manifest. We can only respond and placate. In other words, there's not a lot to love about this guy yet. We'll get there when he can bring more to the party. We serve parental duties, but I don't feel like a parent yet. A janitor, perhaps.

His gooey eye remains so, and I learned this weekend I had the exact same problem as a baby.

In other news, the school carpentry teacher came by the house. We asked him a few months back about using his students to rebuild our deck. He said it would be no problem. His kids need something to make between housing projects. They'd also like to build a new workshed if we're happy with the deck. Hopefully, this can be done before the annual jack o'lantern party.

Picture of the Day
See, I'm thinking only people who do have dinosaurs need a sign saying so.

On the Road

To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the public wedding, we met up with Travis and Kathy at one of the ice cream stands outside the national forest.

Quick sidebar: Lauren's bachelorette party was almost exactly five years after she helped us throw our wingding.

Bizarre combinations of creams were devoured. Their children were delighted, and we could tell that their parenting styles had loosened with the second daughter. The first child sat on the bench, eating from a cone without spilling a drop. Neat as a pin. The youngest, newest child sat on the table and plastered in chocolate ice cream. Our man-cub stayed in his baby seat atop the table and slept, much to our relief. We met some former students who cooed over him and caught us up on their college plans.

The next morning, we drove to Spartanburg so My Mom could show off the deputy. And she did. The neighbor lady rushed over and didn't even acknowledge me as she scooped him out of my arms. I was a conduit for old-lady glee. We took a bottle with us so Mom could feed him, and she observed my diapering skills. She showed off her new pool, but lingering rain kept us of it. I'm not sure the deputy could handle chlorinated water anyway. We drove home in the afternoon and stopped by the pub for dinner. The car seat does not breathe, and any ride leaves him sweaty and cranky. We soothe him the best we can. Wipes cool him down a bit. Before we got out of the parking garage, we were semi-swarmed by students eager to view the baby. Once inside, the wait staff swarmed to see the baby. Fellow teachers came by and took in the baby. He's quite the conversation piece. I again see why motherhood is an attractive notion to outcast teenage girls: Babies bring the people to you.

We carried him to the store the next day, and his growth was made clear. He's a totally different body in that front carrier now. It's comforting to him to get that proximity, where he usually fidgets and chirps when otherwise held. That contraption is soothing somehow. I talk to him in it constantly so he can feel my conversation through my ribs. I sound like a moron as I move through the store. Again, people set a low orbit around him. He slept as we ate brunch downtown. Even before we began trying for a baby, we agreed that we'd drag a crying child out of a public venue. We see -- and hear, oy -- too many kids allowed to bur themselves out in stores and restaurants, and we shan't have that. Twice he made noise this weekend at restaurants, and we thankfully calmed him down before we needed to remove him. We could finish our meals in peace. Sunday night, he sat on the table again under a tree canopy and dozed while we scarfed bar food. He loves watching outdoor movements. He's also noticing the TV, and who can blame him? It's five times as big as him, and its hi-def. I think our neighbors can watch our TV.

We gave him his first tag team bath that night. We first washed his head at the kitchen sink and then bathed him in a tub seat in her bathroom. He managed it fine until he was out of the water and getting cold. He got lots of parent face time this weekend, and we felt more like adoring parents and less like caretakers and nurses. I'm growing to love him more as he develops a personality. Your Concerned Sister is a mite fearful of his long-off days of riding schoolbuses and facing bullies. I assured her we'll raise him differently than I was; he'll be taught to punch back and shown where to hit when he cannot avoid a bully. If he must go down, he'll go down singing, and I'll gladly tell any tut-tutting principal that he'll do so if no teacher or bus driver can prevent the bullying.

Also Your Squeamish Sister continually asserts that I will talk to the boy about sex, and I contend that getting the female POV will do him good too. I certainly could have used it in my clueless teen years.

Lots of hypotheticals fly around in our house. We hope to prepare ourselves as much as him. But we know we'll get blindsided by something. We gird. We joke. I quietly continue to think I do too little.

Picture of the Day
Oh, hi, America. Welcome to PBS's new show, Freakish Delights of the Netherworld. I'm your host, Donovan Alleyskulker. I'm a wereshark.

Thinning and Weeding and Working

The boy has grown. As I put him on my lap for a feeding, he seemed much heavier and much longer. His proportions are completely off, as if he walked out of a mannerist painting. His torso is about twice as long, and his head seems tiny. His spurt is in full flower. He chirps so much now we call him a mouse droid. Soon, he will be a jawa.

I emailed the derby contact to see what's going on with the logo entry, and she said the logo would soon make the rounds with the team for feedback. I'm content with the confirmation that the logos made it through email.

New webcomics are up here.

Your Relieved Sister presented her workshop yesterday and spent many an hour talking to the teacher now manning her AP class. School starts next week, but the first home football game of the season is tonight. We may drop by the stadium to see the first band performance. She loves watching them. I wasn't in band when I was in school, but the majority of my friends were. I can appreciate watching the performances, but I don't have the same visceral thrill. She's also supporting her former/future students, and I'm for that. When the band held a car-washing fundraiser a few years back, the kids didn't pack any food. This was right outside a local grocery store, and I bought them lunch and snacks so the money they raised wouldn't be split for food costs. I like to think they saw it as indirect help from Your Supportive Sister. To celebrate making it to this side of the workshop, we're hoping to grab ice cream inside the forest. Yes, our trees ooze dairy instead of sap. Children gnaw on the branches like desperate vampires.

The garden is on its last legs. The larger tomatoes are cracking from the excessive rainfall, bu they aren't quite ripe enough to pick. The carrot plants yielded nothing despite my best efforts to keep them separate from the creeping grass. The squash vines withered. The pepper plants, however, may outlive us all, and the cherry tomatoes are turning red. I sincerely have to prevent myself from eating them straight off the vine. I save them for salads and pizza toppings.

Picture of the Day
"And now I shall perform Van Halen's Eruption. You may want to step back."

Right. Star Wars Stuff

Catch them before they're gone.

Here's the newly unveiled scene from Return of the Jedi. As of this morning, this link worked. It's possible the blog-embedding code was deactivated, so here's the direct link.

As promised, here are the Bigg scenes removed from Star Wars.

and

For those of us who bought the official Marvel Comics adaptation after seeing the movie, we knew about this scene.


It was in the comic. So was the Jabba scene with Han. Marvel apparently worked from a script and reference photos of the film prior to the final edit. Also, it seems the reference pictures were black and white. Look at how they colored this rebel trooper.

And Jabba's appearance was apparently made up in Marvel's office. None of the cantina aliens looks like this.


The comics were the only way we kids who lived across town from the movie theatre could relive the film with any degree of fidelity. Seeing a movie more than once in a theatre was, pardon the pun, an alien concept to me.

So we don't leave out Empire, here's a scene cut from that film.

I remember a scene from Return where Jabba made Leia drink from his mug on the barge. That scene was cut before the movie made it to cable and then the networks.

So, So Much.

The first piece of news from this weekend is from Lucasfilm: Star Wars will move to Blu-Ray. Lucas himself says the new format films will be the special editions released in the late '90s. The originals, he said, would cost too much to polish. But, the new versions will include scenes deleted from the theatrical releases, meaning there are bits in these Blu-Rays that we have never seen. Things like this from the beginning of Return:

An unusually brain-taxing day at work left me dead from the neck up, but we began the birthday celebrations with pizza and wings. There must have also been beer because I don't remember much else.

On Saturday, Your Sis arranged for two babysitters for our two planned events. That morning we fled to the Highway 25 to see the earliest showing of Scott Pilgrim. But, first, I had to salvage the garden from a massive thunderstorm. Vines and plants were askew and akimbo and a-fucked up. The ground is saturated to the point the stakes can't stay upright. The garden soil has gone full Dagobah. I fixed what I could before the first sitter arrived. She is a former student of Your Sister's; in fact, she arranged the Voldemort cake. We have the short training lecture down pat and were out the door in a flash.

Your Sis went berzonkers when she saw the Dunkin Donuts near the movie theatre. We hit a lot of them during our Boston trips, and they're coffee won me over to the dark-drink side. We bought our tickets at the theatre and went back to grab coffee and doughnuts. They were snuck in along with our regular movie food. It wasn't difficult at all. I'm not sure the employees cared. Let me establish this now and forever more: Dunkin Donuts is missing a GOLDMINE by not selling inside theatres. It really works with buttered popcorn. Truly, truly decadent. Also the movie was a blast. Your Sister -- who never laughs at comedies -- laughed out loud. See it on a big screen while you can; the box-office was poor. The film ends differently than the comics, but it's not a significant difference.

That evening we jaunted to the Music Center for a live performance of Prairie Home Companion. It was not broadcast, but we assume it was taped. We ordered our seats early to guarantee we would not get lawn seats. We lucked out with those at the last show we went to. Sure enough, as soon as we checked the weather on our superspy phones, the clouds opened up, and it poured for more than an hour. Those with lawn seats had nowhere to go, and many people had no rain provisions. Unlike the radio show, this performance was three hours long, a possibility we warned the second sitter about. We got home before midnight, and I drove her back home. Both sitters said our notes were fine and the baby is cute.

Your Sister felt dizzy Sunday and stayed indoors. I ran the errands and did laundry. I enjoyed the memory of the previous days' coffee and ordered a cuppa from Starbucks. It was not the same. Not even close. I found out that there was a Scott Pilgrim video game from the magical PlayStation 3 servers, and I bought it and played it. It's very fun, and it's designed to look like the late-80s arcade fight games Scott would have grown up playing. It's made for multiple players to play at one time, so we can save you a seat in front of the console when you next visit.

As I tried to hush the house for Your Sleeping Sister, we of course got a phone call. It was the theatre again asking me to join the show. They baited the offer well: I was told they had a one-scene part with a lot of laugh lines. And I was told the theatre knew that I had chosen to "help [Your Sister] to care for the baby." And that's when the sales pitch crashed and burned again. I understand it's a generational thing, but I'm not "helping her" care for the bay. It's our baby. I just as responsible for making sure he doesn't burst into flames. This isn't a hobby I'm encouraging her in. It;s our child-ling. It's my fucking son. So now, I shan't prance about at the legion hall while Your Sister loses more sleep and decent eating habits. I hope this will be the last call on this matter.

I restored the garden after the previous evening's storm. We sat down to watch the ultimate cut of Watchmen, and we gave up with about an hour to go. It's a long, long version, superior to the theatrical version, but when the boy goes to sleep at night, we do too. We get our sleep while we can.

This morning, I again had to fix the garden after another storm. We're supposed to be drenched all week.

The Stump, She Is Gone

The stump finally fell off. He's wireless.

We had Kathy and Travis over for dessert Tuesday night. They are living in a hotel while their kitchen is being suddenly remodeled. They discovered a pipe that had never been capped inside their walls, and it leaked for what I assume is a year. The kitchen is a ruin. I made blueberry cobbler from a mix given by a coworker a few weeks back. They cooed over the baby, and he ate up the attention. He's also eating much more milk now. His scheduled growth spurt is right on time. He's only going to get heavier, and I really want to start a running regimen again to get in shape.

Still waiting for hear about the derby logo.

We started a service contract with a local air conditioner service, and the first inspection went great. That's pretty impressive for a machine that's run almost every day without any maintenance for five years. My notion for starting this contract is an extension of the nesting instinct, I'm sure. I made a to-do list of things to minimize sudden replacements like the clothes dryer last month.

I was contacted by the theatre again about auditioning for the latest show. Actually, I was told there was a part right up my alley, suggesting I wouldn't need to audition. I could show up, commit to the show, and get cracking. I passed. Twice within an hour. I was left a voicemail, and I declined over their voicemail. I was called back and given the live sales pitch, and I said I'm holed up with the youngin. But break a leg and have fun without me. See you when I see you. Also, in a shock to no one, this show replaces the originally advertised production.

Picture of the Day
We may have found a sidecar for the baby.

Face Glue

The boy developed an eye problem. We were told early on to express the tear ducts if they become blocked, and we've stayed on top of it, we thought. On Saturday, however, he woke up with an eye crusted over, and it threatens to seal up each time he sleeps. His eye itself isn't irritated; they both remain wet and clear. We clean the gunk away and clear out the duct. It seems to be getting slightly better. Maybe it was a sinus blockage.

I've had the same problem for about ten years now. I get gunk inside my eye, and it adheres my lid to my eyeball. I can hear myself blink. The docs say it's allergies. It's a mere inconvenience to me, but I worry it's a small trauma for the deputy. He seems more bothered by our ministrations than the gunk.

A lack of beef broth and the presence of some sort of moth in our rice bowl made me change dinner plans and make emergency alfredo. We fell into food comas and went to bed early.

Yesterday's massive rain shower was exactly what my new grass patch needed. I take it as karmic congratulations for much work done well.

Picture of the Day
Behold the many faces of the boy. It's uncanny.

The "you're not funny" face.

+ + +

The "gooned on milk" face.

Skip to the End

I am beat up.

I spent many a day this past week and weekend catching up on yardwork. Your Sis usually manages the flower beds in the front yard, and they've been neglected for about a year. We noticed all the trouble visitors had using the front walk and even navigating the wild branches between the first true bed and the front walk. Because we've settled the boy into something resembling a routine, I was able to get outside and hack away at the overgrowth. The front yard looks spindly now. My back feels spindly now. But one cannot deny the results of a workout routine that includes lugging around a ten-pound baby, hedge trimmer, and weedeater within an hour. I celebrated the end of the chore with a Throwback Pepsi.

Side note: Throwback Pepsis were advertised this winter as a limited release, but we saw a new stack of them yesterday and bought two cases. We'll ration them as best we can; Your Sis needs the caffeine some days.

We experimented with the Deputy's disposition and took him out twice this weekend. He was very popular with the ladies. He sleeps most of the time, and now he's able to sit quietly for long stretches. We turned on the sound monitor and had him sleep in his nursery Saturday night. It went fine. He wasn't in the crib; we'll work him up to that soon. But he did sleep much longer that night.

His umbilical stump is holding on only by a thin strand. It's coming off any time. His navel looks fine underneath. We started placing him on his stomach for ten minutes to help him build his torso muscles. We're trying to establish nighttime routines to prepare him for deep sleep. We use a zippered blanket sack and dim the house lights. Also, I feed him before we go to bed. He's gobbling a lot more milk at one time, and we rotate between feeding him from milk cubes, frozen milk bags, bottles, and the tap.

I met with the two derby reps Friday at an Asheville coffeeshop. Their notes on the logo were few and reasonable. I suspect they were nervous about asking for the adjustments, but I assured them I was happy to work with them and see the logo through to the final version. I miss collaboration like this. The biggest change involves color. While they admit they initially didn't want to restrict logo suggestions, they now want the logo to be closer to teh blue used for the first team. That's easily done. We met for maybe twenty minutes, and I surprised them by saying I could have the changes done by Monday. They're eager to get the logo out into the world to recruit new members and brand the team. Maybe it will debut before Friday.

Your Sister will go to a Pampered Chef party Thursday. We seem to have come out the otehr side of her "nursing cave" phase, and we can take turns heading out at night. We're planning his first road trip in to weekends to see My Mom. She's impatient to see the boy again and wants to show him off to the neighbors.

The ants are not completely gone, and Your Sis is on a slow boil about Terminex fixing the problem on their third try. I still haven't put in the ceiling fan, but I'd like to have that done before September.

Moving Pictures of the Day
Can I interest you in the official Lost epilogue?

OMFG It's The Official Lost Epilogue

Aunt(ie) Maimed

The Terminex man arrived Monday morning and smote the ants along our baseboards and house perimeter. But he did not smite the attic ants, and we remained sore afflicted. We called the office and asked him to come back the next morning, but we had a small window: Your Sis had jury duty, and I was taking Deputy Awesome to work. But, in a tribute to small-town customer service, he made that window exactly on time. Upon seeing photos of the corpse piles under the skylights, he visited the attic and found two nests. He blasted them with his magic Ghostbuster ant-zapper voodoo, and not one bug has been seen since. Victory.

Your Sis was able to leave on time for the courthouse and was sent home almost immediately. When asked if there was any reason she could not serve, she lifted the breast pump above her head and screamed "I'm made of milk, and my skin suit has holes."* She was excused for another three months but not before being asked if she would have the same milk problem then. Your Sis said she honestly didn't know. Over coffee, she called a longtime friend who also has kids and was told yes, she would still be nursing in November. So who knows? At least one day in November, I'll bring the kid to work again. Hmm, unless Your Parents are back in town. Or maybe I could telecommute. Again: Hmm.

* I lie.

Our day at the office was merely alright. I cheated and overfed him, inducing milk comas twice. He did indeed sleep, and I was able to get some work done. He was a bit distracting, I admit, but now that I've seen he can handle the new environs, I can drop my guard with him.

Our garden does well. We have plucked many a tomato and pepper, and Your Sister cleaned out my squash vines for a soup experiment. I didn't know that when I checked the garden, and I thought we had been veggie-robbed. I mowed.

I have not yet heard from the roller derby rep. I'm not concerned.

Picture of the Day
I retire to my library, Watson.

A Drama Weekend

As soon as I walked in the door Friday evening, Your Sister announced we again have an ant problem. Each summer, we discover a cloud of dying bugs in the kitchen and her bathroom. We usually respond with fresh traps in the cabinetry hidden from the cat(s). Among the normal ant representatives are flying ones. I always suspect they are termites, but Google searches show wings much larger than what we're seeing. She called an exterminator for an estimate, and he assured her we don't have termites. We decided to see how bad they got before we asked him to spray the house.

I put out feelers for a roller derby gang for Saturday night, and we went to Asheville that afternoon for baby shopping. The boy did well. He got his first car feeding and changing in the mall parking lot and slept for the majority of the outing. I wore him on the chest pack and discovered the old axiom about men with puppies and babies is true. Your Sister noticed this too and kept close.

We split up as the derby approached, and I heard from my usual fellow spectator. He brought one of his sons, and the two immediately quizzed me on the alter egos of comic characters. My name was announced at the civic center as the winner of the logo contest, and that was fun. Watching the bout was not. The opposing team was the derby equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters, and they destroyed our team. That team, the Texas Hell Marys, was in the derby movie Whip It, and many people came out to see them, including teams hailing from cities hours away.

Sunday morning, I was still groggy from the evening (and the $5 beers) when Your Sister said the ants were back and she was keeping the baby away from them. I quickly dressed and drove to Lowe's to buy brand-name ant traps. I stopped in the store to ask for help about the ceiling fan, and here comes a little story detour.

To install a fan, you need to nestle the fan motor into an outlet box in the ceiling. My workshop already has an electrical outlet in my ceiling (probably to power a removed garage door), which means I don't have to run additional wiring. The existing outlet wiring will work fine. However, the outlet box is too small to house the fan. Replacing that box is easy enough, as is attaching the wiring to the fan. The problem is with the fan's weight. An outlet box by itself can't carry it; the box must be braced by an additional structure.

There are two kinds of bracing you can buy, either for new construction or old. New-construction kits are for unfinished roofs. You put in the kit and then nail up your ceiling from below. That won't work. I know this because I bought such a kit Sunday morning and tried it. I bought it out of frustration with my talk to the Lowe's employee who answered my help summons. He tried to talk me into an answer involving carpentry. I bristled as I don't have woodworking tools. Don't I have neighbors who can cut wood for you, he asked. I mentally asked why he didn't suggest his own store, which used to cut wood to specs. After about ten minutes of suggesting many overly complicated measures, he admitted he didn't work in the lighting department (I'm gonna guess he works in lumber.). It was then that I bought the kit and drove home much later than I had expected.

I put the traps in the kitchen and bathroom. The skylights were abuzz with flying and crawling ants. The last time we saw ants, they were swarming in my workshop, huddled in my lights for warmth, and I put traps in the attic and in the workshop. After I placed the traps this morning, I realized the bugs weren't streaming from the baseboards or the drains. They were coming from the skylight. Maybe the light seals were bad. I went on the roof and couldn't find any bugs outside the windows. I put a few traps up there anyway, but I was certain now that the ants were spilling out of the attic skylight seams and down into the house. Not two hours later, the bug numbers seemed to increase, and Your Sister announced her displeasure. Back to Lowe's I went. I bought spray and hanging traps and more of what I bought earlier. I raced home and slipped into the attic. I sprayed the skylight frames and placed traps throughout the attic.

An attic in August is a joy. It was a hot box of wood and fuzzy insulation, and I added to this a fog of chemicals. Also, I was a bit hungover from the derby, and I hadn't eaten anything. I tried the fan kit and proved to myself it wouldn't work. I may have to use the employee's carpentry notion after all, dammit. Anyway, the traps were set, and the numbers of bugs drastically declined throughout the day. We did see more silverfish, and we suspect my attic work drove them into the house where they quickly were squished. Still, the exterminator will be asked to go over our house Monday to ant-proof it.

When this drama was dwindling, Your Sister shuffled out of the nursery crying and whispering that she was in intense pain. I sat her down and called the OB/GYN. Because it was Sunday, the call went to the birthing center, and I gave them the info. We affirmed we were successfully breastfeeding and were told the doctor would call us back. He did so very quickly and told her to take Advil and see if it diminished. It did, but it spooked her. It hasn't come back as of this posting. She stayed home to let the medicine work while I went to the grocery store.

Her jury duty appointment was pushed back to Tuesday, and she will have the tree frog all day. I will take him to work Tuesday, and we're all curious about how that will go.

Picture of the Day
Toast defibrillator.

Struggles

On two consecutive days, Your Sister and Nephew have ventured beyond the driveway. She visited the OB/GYN to acquire the equipment to prevent another deputy. She's planning a trip to the airport shopping center Saturday as we fill in the missing items for the lone sidekick. He's become more frenzied lately, and a struggle has blossomed to get him to sleep. He now needs to be fully swaddled or he keeps himself awake by moving his arms. He hates having his arms bundled, and he protests mightily. He burns himself out crying and falls asleep. It's a little cruel, but it's for his benefit. And ours. If we try to placate him by sending him into a food coma, he plows through too much milk and encourages him to only sleep full. That will make a fat baby and will empty our stores of precious mom water.

I do worry about developing behaviors that we'll have to fight later on. If he would lose the stump, we'd have more options for exercise, and he can wear himself out that way. My trick now is to bundle him up and wander through the house. Within a half hours, he's usually out cold. But it does a number on my back. Carrying around nine pounds of hot infant is a toil. Doing this for nine months sounds abysmal.

I haven't heard anything about people going to roller derby. I think I'm flying solo. If so, I'm sitting on the floor near the rink.

The garden is exploding with tomatoes, requiring me to find more recipes to use them up. I don't want to be the guy who foists produce on the neighbors -- it smacks of ad planning -- but I don't want them to go to waste. maybe I can set up a curbside tomato juice stand.

Picture of the Day
Southern lights seen from the space station.

Chomp

Another day, another free meal. This was a giant salad with chicken, and we inhaled it as soon as the benefactor departed. She also delivered a bag of toys and a new baby bath with instructions to donate some items if they're unwanted. We sorted the toys that evening. We saved one electronic noise-maker, a stack of floppy book, and a maraca.

The boy handled the babysitter well, but his appetite has exploded. He slept last night only after a two-hour feeding session, and it knocked him out for almost six hours.

I investigated ceiling fans for the workshop which is now roasting since I fixed the wonky fluorescent. I think I figured the dimensions right to install a fan, and it will just miss clipping one of the lights. It will require some attic work, and I think I can handle that.

Picture of the Day
The strategies of Rock Paper Scissors.

Check Up

The Deputy is just fine, according to the doctor. He is in the 25-50 percentile for height, and he's gained two pounds in two weeks. The remaining umbilical stump is no cause for alarm, we were told, and it will fling itself to the ground at any time. He got a vaccine booster shot that left him groggy and cranky the rest of the day. We fed him a little earlier in the evening than normal and put him down, and I stayed up assuming he'd wake up before midnight. No. He slept for five hours, and I should have slept when he did. I am dead today.

We received another teacher meal, and it was fabulous. We inhaled it. The teacher came by with her two kids, and they were eager to see (and pet) the baby. My Mom asked me over the phone if our relatively happy experience with Your Nephew encouraged us to have another. My blunt answer made her laugh aloud. We may have changed our minds on having a child, but we won't reconsider having more than that. Every time we hang out with people who have more than one child, we're confident we can only handle the Deputy.

I spent the afternoon after the doctor's visit fixing a light in my workshop. It required two trips to the hardware store to buy a wire cutter, lamp clips, wire caps, and a light battery, which is confusingly called a ballast. I'm thinking of putting a ceiling fan in my workshop, and that will require more electrical homework.

Picture of the Day
Awesome costumes from last weekend's Comic Con.

Saying Little

Teacher buddies are using a message board to schedule who will bring us meals. It's a nice gesture, and sometimes it's a lifesaver. If Your Sister is dead dog tired, and I need to watch Your Nephew for a few hours, dinner might be whatever we find in the pantry. We planned for this. We bought some quick-heat meals. One was a Stouffer's lasagna that uses the sweet tomato sauce Your Sister despises. She mentioned that she prefers my recipe, and I noted that for a near-future meal. The garden has just delivered the first ripe tomatoes, and there are enough to make lasagna. I'll make it Monday evening after the baby's doctor visit.

But back to teacher meals. Another was dropped off Friday, and the teacher who provided it stayed for the meal and chat.

But first a confession: This teacher is a nice, friendly family man. I've met him. I like him. Still, he was alone with Your Sister when I got home, and that made me uncomfortable. I'm ashamed to say this. I trust her completely. I especially trust her completely when she's still gingerly walking. And yet, there it was: a flood of stupid feelings. I tried to counter them by remembering the times I was alone with someone's gal as she prepared a party or something and came up blank. I'm sure it's happened, but I can't remember. Still, I'm confident I did the same as he and was likewise a gentleman. I think maturity is a crafted filter that checks our dumbest thoughts and actions, and I chalk up my silence on the matter to whatever I have that approximates maturity.

Anyway, we all had a great talk about past jobs and art and Washington DC attractions. We drank Newcastle. He brought cupcakes. But he also brought quiche, a dish I don't enjoy because it is spinach and eggs. Never my favorite ingredients. But as we've done whenever someone has taken the time to prepare and deliver a meal, I ate it with a smile. Again, my pseudo-maturity was put to work.

Your Sister went out Saturday night to see a local musical, and I watched the Deputy. He slept most of the time. I spent the afternoon researching fluorescent lighting. One light in my workshop is wonky, and I hoped it would be an easy fix. It is, if you know how these lights work, and I didn't. But after reverse-engineering the wiring and talking to a guy at Lowe's (countering the bad experience with that store over the new dryer), I think I know how to fix it, and it will involve only a little scary electrical work. I hope to have it done by the weekend.

I've put out invites for roller derby without telling anyone about the contest. I'd like to have small posse hang out for the bout (And watch me win? Yes. See, it's only pseudo-maturity.).

We took him out again for groceries and lunch and he stayed comatose for it all. We have gonna up a size in diapers and onesies, but he appears to be a small boy. Maybe he takes after Your Mother's family.

Picture of the Day
I found deputy clothing at Gymboree, but I won't buy them. I don't want to brand the child with a gimmick. The nickname is good enough.

Victory

I won the derby logo contest. I just got the email. I am ecstatic. And relieved. I put some hours into that thing.

They want to tweak it a tad to guarantee reproduction, and that's fine. I'll meet with the team's artist-player after next week's bout, and we'll schedule a time. But that bout will feature the unveiling of the logo as it stands now for the whole town to see.

I don't know if I should say something on FB yet or not. I wanted to take friends with me, and I think I'd like to keep them in the dark until the logo flashes on the big screen/scoreboard.

But, for now, I do the Snoopy dance of joy.

An Excuse to Post Videos

why yes, that's the moro reflex when infants throw out their arms as if to catch hold of something when they feel as if their falling. a pediatrician at the hospital here calls it the monkey reflex.

I'm shattered. I thought I had invented something. A maneuver, maybe. And that reminds me ...

I continue to work in the garden. I bought new stakes to which I lashed tomato plants. I also picked squash and peppers. The squashes are quite huge, and I don't know how that happened. Also, the pepper plants are twice the height of last year's. I don't think I changed the fertilizer or compost ratios that much.

The success isn't universal in my patch; there is one lone lettuce sprout out there, and the carrots could be nuggets as far as I can tell. I worked the garden while listening to Gogol Bordello. Some friends of mine love them, and I downloaded an NPR Tiny Desk Concert of them, and I liked it. They're a "gypsy punk band."

Much pruning ensued.

The evenings have settled into a definite routine. We eat supper and snack before Your Sister soaks in the tub. Years of advocacy have finally convinced her to read in the bath, and I encourage her to vanish for as long she wants. The deputy wakes up around 10, and I feed him a grande bottle of mama water while watching cooking shows.

Food Network recently spun off a channel devoted to actual cooking; the original channel is focused on game-show programming -- who can launch a restaurant overnight, who will get their own show, who can make a theme cake in eight hours -- and I just want to watch people talk and chop. Thankfully, the new channel also has the original Iron Chef. Yes, it's a game show, but it's an awesome game show in Japanese and French. I feed and watch, and Your Sister reemerges from her own soup to pump milk before we go to bed.

I'm very eager for her to go hang out with people Saturday night. I am also starting to get anxious about the derby logo. I've heard nothing. It looks like they'll tell no one beforehand what to expect before they unveil the winning entry next Saturday. This weekend is Bele Chere, and I will happily avoid all that fuss.

All Is Well

The child yet lives so yesterday was a success. According to our continuing journal (yes, the same notepad from the labor weekend) , he was fed hourly while we were away. That's a bit much, but he doesn't seem adversely affected. Your Mom sent me an email later in the day suggesting my morning crankiness was due to my concerns of being a good dad. And maybe so. They'll visit again Friday before their trip. I'll be at work.

I think we're gonna have to cut the stump off. I hope it's gone before we see the doctor Monday. It would be embarrassing. Among his few activities is staring out windows and a game I call Freefall. I grab his hands and hold them in front of him at his arms' length. After three seconds, I let go. Every time, he throws his arms wide open and waves them around. It distracts him from crying sometimes.

Picture of the Day
ComicCon, the nation's biggest pop-culture convention, starts tomorrow. It started as a comic show and has since ballooned into a massive festival that's mandatory for marketing genre movies and TV shows. Behold the San Diego Hilton:


Your Sister and I considered attending the Atlanta convention again this year, but the deputy's too young for that. Maybe next year. And he'll be in costume too.

A Polite Venting

Your Mom is watching the boy this morning, and she's keeping her distance from me. She got the hint Saturday that I'm not happy with her managerial skills. Oh, I have no concerns about her watching the boy; I'm sure she'll do fine with him. But what cranks me up is when she asks us how we handle something -- milk management, bottle sterilization, etc -- and immediately suggests how to do it differently.

We know we're new at this. We know she handled three kids, often on her own. I'm not questioning her maternal bona fides. What I bristle at is this:

Me: We do it like this.
Her: OK. But, you know, what about if I do it like that?
Me: We do it like this. This works.
Her: OK. Good. Right. Or you know I could do it like this and such.
Me: [grinds teeth]

I'm sure my wiring is to blame. But when I'm asked my preference and then steered away from it, it's hard not be insulted. My preferences aren't based on thoughtless whim. I put some brain toil into it. There's a reason I or we do things the way we do. She wants to help. And she is. But being helpful also means maintaining procedures, not trying to improve all of them. I'll say no more. Except that her babysitting is very convenient today.

Picture of the Day
Promo images are popping up online for the next big Marvel movie, Thor. The throne room of Thor's dad Odin looks apporpriately extravagant. Thor is Marvel's fantasy superhero franchise, the rare epic setting distinct from the dozens of other city-bound hero titles. What pleases me here is the inclusion of Odin's ravens on the throne. That's a detail I appreciate.

Slow Growth

Your Parents came over Saturday to officially visit with the deputy before their vacation. Your Mom will sit with him tomorrow while Your Sister goes to a school meeting. Even though she is not teaching this year, she still organizes the statewide teacher workshop materials on behalf of the district.

To test the deputy's resolve, we took him to two restaurants yesterday in addition to his second trip to the grocery store. he slept through virtually all of it, and I wore the papoose for the grocery trip. Our weekly trip to Starbucks may have backfired; he seemed wired later that day. We weighed the risk of passing along caffeine and noted that he wasn't more awake than normal. But he flailed more when he was awake. And it was flailing, not random baby movements. I gardened Saturday morning and used my own caffeinated antsiness for a short run. Minding a baby and schlepping his equipment is a decent workout.

He may be developing happiness. He seems to smile now, and we think he's laughing at funny faces. A personality could be on display here. His belly stump remains, but it's looking like it might fall off any time. It's withering.

When I'm not hovering over the manchild, I'm plowing through new comic readings. A neighbor lent me his copy of a gigantic Dickens biography, and I'll start that as soon as I finish this Japanese comic series I discovered recently. It's a true Japanese comic, not merely a comic made in that style. You have to read if from right to left and everything. Your Sister assures me I'm pulling my weight, and I continue to wonder about that. I printed out the photos she picked for the grandparents' baby books, and I think that qualifies as specialized baby duty along the lines of her nursing activities. We've got about four trays of milk in the freezer now, and I'll probably use some of that this weekend as she goes out with friends.

The house has a new balance to it as we're down a cat, but it feels comfortable. I almost prefer it this way. He's becoming more interested in the baby each day.

Picture of the Day
James Bond Boba Fett

Rough Night

Kathy and Travis visited us in shifts last night. She brought a chicken dinner and hung out while he watched their kids at home. Then they switched. He was invited for cigars and beer, and chairs were set up on the deck for us. He declined a cigar when he arrived, so I smoked while he drank. And much shit shooting ensued. That will be my last cigar for a good while; I'm smoked out.

The boy skunked both of us last night by rousing us with noises and then falling back to sleep. I woke up just after midnight to his cooing noises, usually a warning that he's about to go full wail. I sat up with him for more than two hours before he fully awoke to drink. I caught up on late-night TV, including Craig Ferguson, NBC's poker show, and some House, before putting him to bed right before 3 a.m. Your Sister got out of bed in reply to his noises at 4, and he didn't wake up until 6. We are dragging this morning. He, on the other hand, has learned how to smile and stay awake.

She hasn't filled me in on the vet visit, but she did clear away all the items of the girl cat. The other cat knows something's up, and he seems lonely. I know we'll get a new cat before the end of the year. I think we decided last year to maintain a two-cat home.

Picture of the Day
Whee.

Rough Morning

Your Sister decided it was time to put down the younger cat (the girl, the one with the tail) this morning. She was eating less and refusing her medicine. It was becoming increasingly difficult to get her settled, and it appeared she had found a place to hide and fade away. Your Sister made an appointment for this morning and took the cat while I stayed home and watched the deputy. She returned about an hour later with an empty cat carrier.

Even though we knew this was coming, it's hitting Your Sister hard. The boy is a good distraction. She hasn't told me the details yet. I'll hear about it this evening. We may have friends coming by to deliver a meal, and that will help her get through the day too. I might have another cigar with the husband of the couple to amuse her.

Light 'Em Up

I have new lenses in my old frames. I can now see through dimensions. This new clarity is a little nauseous making. I may have to increase my monitor resolutions to shrink the type. It all looks enormous today.

I wish the daily activities could be made more interesting, but we have a distinct pattern these days. When I got home, Your Sis asked immediately if we could take a walk. Out we walked. The baby is a lady magnet; a passer-by turned around to peek into the stroller. I'm pretty sure it was the wife of an actor from two of my recent plays. I was also stopped this weekend by a motorist I didn't recognize. It was only when I saw his car parked next door that I realized he was my neighbor, the trooper who saved my bacon during the first bad snowstorm. I am dumb. This cannot be blamed on a lack of sleep. I'm not missing that much compared to her. She gets up more often because she has to pump anyway, and she argues she might as well feed the baby. I will have to pull my weight in other ways.

After a meal of leftovers eaten hurriedly between baby feedings, I cracked open a box of cigars. A coworker gave them to me yesterday on my return to the office. I hadn't smoked anything for years, and I never smoked a cigar. Your Sister has never smoked period. I walked her through it, and we posed for pictures. I hadn't realized how much of a chore it is to smoke a whole cigar. My brain never connected the relative girth of a stogie to a cigarette and the effort required to go through one quickly. We didn't finish ours. They are now in the compost bucket waiting to soon spoil our already coffee-addled compost worms. Maybe my twinges of nausea are a cigar hangover.

We continue to get lots and lots and lots of free formula mixes, and we add each new parcel to the formula ziggurat in the nursery.

Picture of the Day
Early German battlefield communications. They put their faith on backpack dreamcatchers and wonder why they lost two wars.

New Tricks

We used the Snuggi for the first time to visit the grocery store. He resisted it at first but acclimated within a few minutes and slept through almost all the store trip. The former student/cashiers went crazy for him and called to Heidi in whispered coos.

We are now carrying a bottle of instant formula in the diaper bag. It's an emergency drink. We gave him a pre-mixed 2-ounce bottle last night to judge his reaction. He took to it immediately, and there didn't seem to be any digestion problems. Again, this is a back-up option at best. We have eight ounces of milk in the fridge every day, and we have milk in the freezer. Your Sister will hang out with longtime pals on an upcoming weekend, and I'll have plenty of drink options for him. The following weekend, I'll catch roller derby and learn if my logo entry won.

The 11 pm feeding goes well. He nurses around 9 and gets a top-off at 11 and sleeps for a good while. We might have figured him out. Your Sister has taken to reading to him to help him sleep. I prefer the pacifier. Both methods appear to work.

Two teachers brought us dinners Friday and Saturday, and we've made plans to make dinners throughout the week. We think we're managing the boy well enough to plan for this.

I'm now back to working at the office, and I hope she isn't insane when I get back home.

Picture of the Day
The Periodic Table of Swearing

Strangle That Salesman

The plan was for the Lowe's folks to call us before they showed up with the new dryer. I say this was the plan because that is what we were told by whom I now know is an Exuberant Salesman. They did not call. They arrived at the crack of fuck-thirty, and we were in chaos. I hadn't yet moved the washer out of the way. I hadn't even gotten out of bed yet. That call was to be my alarm clock.

Your Sister came into the room clutching a nursing baby with word of their arrival. I staggered out to the garage and watched as they put the dryer in the carport. I was then told that they would come back to get the old dryer; they had to wait for the installation guy to disconnect it from the gas line.

Lowe's was already pissing me off. The coordination between the store and the installer was nil. He called me first to ask if the store had set up a time yet. Then he asked what Exuberant Salesman had told me about any installation kits. ES said the installer would provide them. The installer told me they were not free; I had to pay for them. I decided to let them hash it out, and apparently the store decided not to charge me because of ES's claims.

Later, I realized that the dryer they delivered didn't look like the floor model. The doors were different. I called the store and talked to someone who wasn't Exuberant Salesman, saying I didn't know what else might be different. I was assured the dryers were deemed comparable. I let whoever answered the phone hear all about my retail frustrations. I told them I wasn't looking for anything but confidence that my significant purchase was given its due attention. I also suggested they rein in the salesperson.

Between delivery and installation, Your Sister and I each saw the eye doctor and were given many drops to make our eyes go wonky. I stopped by Lowe's right after my appointment and took a picture of the floor model in the now fading intention to send a multimedia complaint letter. The installer showed up on time and quickly discovered that our gas outlet was a relic. It took him a long time to get the connection set up for the new dryer, proving that the installation fee was well worth it. There's no way Your Sis and I could have managed the new connection on our own. The machine was in place within a half hour, and the installer gave me his card for his plumbing business. I put it right on the fridge, and I will call him when we need help. He struck me as a decent fella.

We used the new dryer within an hour of his departure. The old dryer was taken away by him and his assistant who knows someone in the junk metal business. The new dryer is much quieter and quicker. We still have no idea how old its predecessor was.

We're trying a new trick with the boy: A bottle feeding before our bedtime. The hope is that he'll be comatose longer, and we can sleep more. Last night didn't work so well as he took forever to sleep. We see the doctor today for a follow-up, and I'm sure our baby sponge will wigh significantly more.

Also, we have both tried her milk. Eh. It's milk. It tastes like milk. It's milky in all the milkish ways.

Picture of the Day will return soon.

And So.

The common question for new parents concerns sleep. How often does the baby wake you up, I hear. He wakes up about twice a night for milk and changing, but that's not the real problem. No, what really affects you are these: the paranoia over every sound he makes, and the inability to fall back to sleep.

It's rare for him to sleep quietly. He wheezes. He snores. He clears his throat. All that mixes with my intention to get him to a bottle before the crying begins. My ears are cocked for the start of an outburst, and every chirp rouses me. Your Sister has it worse; she reacts to imaginary sounds. I'm at least dealing with real ones. But I can't drift asleep as easily as she can, as apparently all you people can. Half of my bedtime is spent trying to get unconscious. That's what racks up the damage.

Yesterday was a drama. Your Sister's younger cat was given a terminal diagnosis. It's an intestinal tumor, and the vet said she maybe has a few weeks. We'll keep her comfortable here and put her out of her misery when she inevitably can no longer eat. Also, our dryer gave out, and I rushed out to buy a new one. We hope it's delivered before the weekend. Fortunately, this nice weather let us sun-dry all the wet laundry.

We watched the semifinal World Cup match, and that first Netherlands goal may be my favorite of the tournament.


We visited a teacher friend Monday night and gave her the pineapple cake. We continue to savor the bakery cake ourselves.

Hard To Swallow

Literally overnight, his schedule changed. He's now much hungrier and sleeping less. Taking in thicker milk in such larger quantities would suggest he'd take longer to sleep it off. Nope. Also his diaper action has shifted dramatically. Your Sister wonders if a medicine recommended to her is also hitting him. That might explain his digestion problems and greater unhappiness. He might actually be a crankypants.

We called the same state trooper who set up our car-seat boots to come back for a second look. We didn't like how The Deputy's head lolled forward so much. The officer apologized for setting it wrong, but he was working without a baby to check the setting. He had it fixed in no time. The Deputy now lies flatter in the seat.

Your Sis is beat. She doesn't want to use the bottled milk because she fears she won't make enough to replace it. That means she's doing all the feeding and getting the least sleep of all three of us. I do what I can to help. I rub shoulders. I make meals. I may have trained the boy to take a pacifier to tide him over until he's genuinely hungry.

The families want to come by Saturday, and we still don't think we can host a 10-person party. Not tomorrow. We're reduced to simple words between each other. We can't be witty. And we can't chase nieces. We'll try to make a cake for everyone, but I'd like to send them all out for a meal.

We just got a call from a teacher who's going to bring a meal tonight. That will be our first charity dinner. She'll also be the first co-worker to see the boy.

Picture of the Day
This is my stop.

A Little Later

His schedule holds: He sleeps, he eats, he hates having his diaper changed. He's prone to hiccups. He wakes up about three times a night.

I might be able to bottle feed him tonight. If so, we can start trading off when he cries in the night. The lack of sleep has made her a bit fuzzy in the head, but it's sharpened me. I'm wired and more forthright. I don't mean I'm blunt or rude, but I've misplaced my habitual polite deferment and equivocation.

Your Sister's production has changed from a cheesy film to a thick white fluid closer in semblance to milk. He's exhibiting some of my family traits already. He sleeps with one arm thrown up next to his head, and he has my exact ears.

We saw the doctor today for what was a very quick checkup. He's two ounces lighter than his birth weight, which was considered good. There's no sign of jaundice or spine problems. It was at the doctor's office that his diaper product changed significantly; no longer did we see jet black with green flecks. This was yellow brown and thin. That suggests less meconium and more proper digestion.

There has been no request for my family medical history, and we'll eventually have to tell some doctor that his grandma has acute intermittent porferia (a word spellcheck doesn't like).

I was not aware that an umbilical stump resembled a crusty wick. I call it belly bacon. His circumcision looks OK. It gets plenty of oil and jelly.

We're hoping to get a second counseling on the carseat. It seems to force his head down and forward too much.

Retro Link of the Day
Phone messages read by five of the Empire actors as promotion for the movie's original release.

The First Days

I'm gonna try to remember the first two days without notes. The parents left together once dark clouds snuck in overhead, and the three of us just hung out.

Despite the advice of the murses, the Deputy does not cotton to a two-hour eating cycle with 15-minute meals. Instead, he prefers eating every four hours for about an hour each time. and then he sleeps like the fucking dead.

Sunday night was quite horrible for us. He stayed up for hours crying and eating. I could hear his stomach room roiling across the room, and suspect he is adjusting to milk meals and digesting that instead of amniotic fluid. That indigestion may have been what kept him up all night. Not long after, he was taken away for a PKU test and his circumcision. And then he slept hard. Then again, a long meal and heavy sleep. This is fine, as long as we can time it to feed him right before we go to bed. we can, for a short time anyway, get him sleeping for longer at night.

We left the hospital at about 3:15. I had to clean out about 80 Hotmail copies of Facebook comments and send pics to the family. Also, my office wanted pictures (to prove the birth, maybe?) we set up a bassinet in the TV room, and there he sits as I type. asleep and bundled.

Even as Your Sister was disintegrating into emotion after he was born, I wondered if I had lost my brains. That voice of panic -- an advocate for convenience and habit -- is drowned out by pride in Your Sister for delivering him so well and handling parenthood with genuine panache, I want to rise to her level. I want to do my wife and boy proud.

So far, I'm the diaper-person, and I don't mind. I have no aversion at all, despite my initial worries. I get my boy tied up and dry. That desire shouts louder than worry and laziness. But not louder than a hungry deputy.

Your Sister is walking gingerly, and over-the-counter drugs are helping her move. We're both thrilled to have the birthing center to ourselves for much of the stay, and we feel armed for battle after listening to the nurses' counsel. So we're home. We'll see how much we retain. of course, we were told we can call for advice, and we will if we need to. But I think most of what we do will be to follow his schedule while trying to nudge him to our convenience. Which I guess is parenting in one sentence.

I realized today I haven't slept in a bed since Thursday night. I look forward to tonight's sleep aware that it might not last long.

Twiddling Our Thumbs

Your Parents came into town Saturday to help us clean out Your Sister's classroom. She discovered another teacher has already begun pilfering her teaching notes, and she was determined to take as much home as possible. It took us about three hours, and we used Your Sister's newish truck vehicle to schlep the stuff home. It's piled up neatly in the storage room. We took them out for lunch and ended their visit with a Father's Day cake for Your Dad and me. They liked the nursery.

During the cake eating, I got yet another collection-agency call looking for my ex, and I traded notes with the operator. Whatever she's doing these days, she's doing it with a trail of financial debris streaming behind her.

Now that school and the comics are done, we don't know what to do with ourselves. She attended to the nursery, and I played my new game. World Cup is on the TV by default. We caught the A-Team movie Saturday night. She loved it. She was a bigger fan of the show than I was, but it's good brainless fun.

We spent Sunday in a simmering expectation of a Roo appearance, but we got nothing. We walked in the evening and talked to my Mom. The students who work at the grocery store hound Your Sister about baby details. Everyone wants the name.

I tended to our garden before work on Monday. Your Sis will run errands Monday and might be in Asheville while I'm at the office.

I have reestablished my trade with a Wisconsin comic guy. I send him sweet tea, and he sends cheese curds.

School's Out. For a Year.

Grades are due noon on Friday. Your Sister stayed up late stamping FAIL onto all her papers and got up early this morning to input the numbers on her school computer. I got up early to drive here there and walk back home. I had my phone and Pandora to accompany me. It fed me Lil Kim and Def Leppard. I can simultaneously easily and never get used to this.

She was at school when I got home Thursday evening, and I spent at last an hour cleaning the garden. It's again growing kelp because of more and more rain. I also staked the tomato plants. One of them is a behemoth with four thick stalks branching out everywhere. I may have to buy tomato cages. Your Sis brought me a bag of worm castings (read: poo), and I'll add them to soil mounds I'll build around the stalk plants.

There are no signs that Roo is planning to leave the cave. All is the same.

Moving Picture of the Day
I have it under good authority that this recent ad features Andre 3000 covering The Beatles.

And Now: Whining.

The (hopefully) last weekly OB/GYN appointment went smoothly. All the signs for Your Sister are fine. We asked to peek at Roo with the scanner one last time, and we saw a mushy face. If pressed to say, I'd guess he looks like a mushy baby. We were left in a corner office for a time, and the nurses had turned off the Musak. We passed the time listening to Pandora on our new phones.

We have both admitted that we sometimes forget we're pregnant. We're so accustomed to thinking of ourselves as a two-man tag team. The notion of having a child sneaks up on us when we're distracted with other things. My mind retains the habitual anti-baby thoughts, and they like to whisper that we're bonkers for ruining a good thing. I remind that residue of why we're doing this and why we feel so strongly about it, and the ghosts of old thinking fade again. I agree with those who say they don't want babies, the world doesn't need more babies, and babies are icky. Yes. We said the same things many a time. But we turned a corner after repeated conversations, and we'll have our roommate any day now. I don't know if I'll become overly affectionate. I refer to him as a deputy, a bear monster, and a wet bag of limbs. But I get lightheaded when I see him on the ultrasound, and the abstract becomes concrete. Is that lightness fear? Is it joy? I dunno.

Either way, there will only be one. Your Sister cannot fathom women who become addicted to being pregnant. She doesn't feel like she's reached the peak of feminine existence. She feels like a creaky battleship. I suspect some of that alleged pregnancy glamor is actually the glee of being the center of attention. Case in point: Virtually every FaceBook message this week is a variant on "is it here yet?" I'm getting them because people know Your Sis gets on FB about as often as Abraham Lincoln. She's busy with work, but she also doesn't want that spotlight, despite everyone's good and kind intentions.

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After she did some stuff in her classroom, we walked around the football field. This was after a day of heavy storms. Another day, I should say. I took this with the new phone camera, and I think that contraption is better than the camera I bought last year.

Boring.

Unless we perceive the usual summer storms as a foreshadowing for the arrival of an adorable antichrist, we have no signs that labor is imminent. Because Roo dropped, he has more room to roll, and he does. A lot. Instead of nesting in a pod, he's now in a slack bag, and his movements are dramatic.

Your Sister has made the house an icebox, and she seem more comfortable. She drops things more often and can't decide if it's because countertops are now farther away or her hands are clumsy. Whenever I hear something hit the floor, I rush over to pick it up. I try to keep her from kneeling or bending. We'll save that for the labor. Otherwise, she grades, she eats, she sleeps, and we both wait.

We jimmy with our new phones and trade discoveries. I'm surprised there is no Blogger Droid app. I can access the site through the phone browser.

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Technology!

39 Weeks

We have two new arrivals at the house: Droid phones. As a joint Jailhouse-iversary, we bought each other the phones and data plans. Our old phones are from 2006, and they were antiquated yak boxes even then. These phones are intuitive but deep, and much fiddling is required. It took an hour to set them up in the store, but we got a good deal for the devices, and Your Sis was keen on the sliding QWERTY board.

It was a busy weekend for Your Sister. She attended a graduation party with teachers Friday night and stayed out much later than usual. I handed out copies of the comic and encouraged everyone to draw their monsters and send them to me as a secondary concern. I want them, yes, but I want more that they draw. I woke up early the next morning to donate blood. The Red Cross is responding to slow lines and instituted a faster processing pace. It was pretty obvious; the nurses seemed caffeinated. But it worked. I was done in a half hour, a record. It helps that I bleed easy. They eye my veins with something akin to Twilight lust. I always forget that donating leaves me with an upset stomach, and I was dying by that evening's birthday party. This was for a teacher's son, and we ate cookout food and Korean rice, made by the teacher's mom-in-law. Holy moley cow cookies, that was good stuff. We did not stay long as Your Sis was reeling from the festivities. She flopped on the couch, and we watched TV and fed her cold snacks.

We got the phones Sunday, and we took turns playing with them and grading papers. I eschewed the basketball game to watch the Tony's. Despite the hard push by the ceremony for American Idiot, other musicals won the big prizes. I can see why: Idiot is embarrassingly simple. Good vocal arrangements, yes, but the two song pieces I've seen from it are weak. Your Sis still wants to see the show when it tours, and we try, Roo willing. He, by the way, is not quite so antic, but he nudges and rolls to let us know he's still there. Your Sis is hurting from his weight growth.

We watched the U.S./England game Saturday, and it was a blast to watch. That keeper botch was so awkward that one suspects he was on the take. We learned watching soccer from South Africa is more fun when you also eat candy from South Africa.

The cats are back to their normal selves, and we suspect a new bottle of cat treats did them dirty. It's been chucked.

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Mini A-Team!