Suspicious Packages

There was slight running around Saturday as she searched for scrapbook albums. We do have such a store in town, and she went there twice within hours for the perfect covers. A trip to the consignment shop was cut short when she couldn't stomach the racist babblings of an older customer. She said the poor clerk behind the counter was agreeing quietly in hopes the jerk would eventually leave. I spent the afternoon straightening the workshop in preparation for some small art projects coming up. I don't know when I'll put up the ceiling fan in there. I ran that morning and was caught in a shower.

The boy was back in the bowling ally Sunday. We were invited to a kids birthday party, and there he was again on a table near the chicken wraps while his parents be-bopped around in rented shoes. Your Mindful Sister mentioned that he's now only waking in the night for diaper changing, not for feedings.

Earlier in the day, she attended a local Anglican service with a newish congregation while I minded the sidekick. He and I spent much more time together than is usual, and his patterns were obvious by nightfall. He's easily overstimulated when he needs to sleep, and he must be wrestled into dozing. Most babies, I assume, use a pacifier to keep mum. We use his to distract him into sleeping.

Your Industrious Sister was up baking snacks for Monday's visit with Your Parents and Aunt. She's nervous about being in mom mode around them. I assure her that she's doing fine, and anyone3suggesting otherwise can find the door.

+ + +

As I mailed off some comics to Wisconsin, as one must from time to time, I experienced an aggressive assistance program in the Asheville post office. I intended to use one of the flat-rate boxes for my books and box up the books there. As I prepared to fold up such a box fresh from the shelf, a manager approached and asked if I needed help. She saw how much I was attempting to mail and suggested a smaller, variable rate package. I was baffled. The USPS has pushed these flat rate deals for a year now, and her desire to redirect me to another plan was suspect. It had to be a scam. She suggested I not pack the books before the clerk called me up to the counter, and that person would weigh my books and put them in the cheaper package. I argued that this would pack up the line behind me. She insisted. I consented, and indeed I saved $2. The manager was helping other folks in line in simialr ways, and I thanked her as I left.

This was a good thing, a genuinely helpful retail experience, and yet I still feel hornswaggled. It won't subside until the package arrives and appeases the Midwest comic phantasms who demand tribute.

Picture of the Day
Still considering Halloween race costumes.


One Last Thought
I've avoided news rants lately to avoid riling myself up over comments made by poopy heads, but I don't want to ignore good material. The president held a QnA with the media Friday and ended the conference by talking about the Islamic center in New York City. He was asked about it directly, and he replied in what I assume to be extemporaneous remarks, but I'm positive he at least outlined his thoughts beforehand. Look at this:

REPORTER: I wonder if I can get you to weigh in on the wisdom of building a mosque a couple of blocks from Ground Zero. We know that the organizers have the constitutional right. What would it say about this country if they were somehow talked out of doing that? And hasn’t the Florida minister’s threat to burn a couple hundred copies of the Koran, hasn’t the threat itself put American lives in danger, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, on the second -- on your second question, there’s no doubt that when someone goes out of their way to be provocative in ways that we know can inflame the passions of over a billion Muslims around the world, at a time when we’ve got our troops in a lot of Muslim countries, that's a problem. And it has made life a lot more difficult for our men and women in uniform who already have a very difficult job.

With respect to the mosque in New York, I think I’ve been pretty clear on my position here, and that is, is that this country stands for the proposition that all men and women are created equal; that they have certain inalienable rights -- one of those inalienable rights is to practice their religion freely. And what that means is that if you could build a church on a site, you could build a synagogue on a site, if you could build a Hindu temple on a site, then you should be able to build a mosque on the site.

Now, I recognize the extraordinary sensitivities around 9/11. I’ve met with families of 9/11 victims in the past. I can only imagine the continuing pain and anguish and sense of loss that they may go through. And tomorrow we as Americans are going to be joining them in prayer and remembrance. But I go back to what I said earlier: We are not at war against Islam. We are at war against terrorist organizations that have distorted Islam or falsely used the banner of Islam to engage in their destructive acts.

And we’ve got to be clear about that. We’ve got to be clear about that because if we’re going to deal with the problems that Ed Henry was talking about, if we’re going to successfully reduce the terrorist threat, then we need all the allies we can get. The folks who are most interested in a war between the United States or the West and Islam are al Qaeda. That’s what they’ve been banking on.

And fortunately, the overwhelming majority of Muslims around the world are peace-loving, are interested in the same things that you and I are interested in: How do I make sure I can get a good job? How can I make sure that my kids get a decent education? How can I make sure I’m safe? How can I improve my lot in life? And so they have rejected this violent ideology for the most part -- overwhelmingly.

And so from a national security interest, we want to be clear about who the enemy is here. It’s a handful, a tiny minority of people who are engaging in horrific acts, and have killed Muslims more than anybody else.

The other reason it’s important for us to remember that is because we’ve got millions of Muslim Americans, our fellow citizens, in this country. They’re going to school with our kids. They’re our neighbors. They’re our friends. They’re our coworkers. And when we start acting as if their religion is somehow offensive, what are we saying to them?

I’ve got Muslims who are fighting in Afghanistan in the uniform of the United States armed services. They’re out there putting their lives on the line for us. And we’ve got to make sure that we are crystal-clear for our sakes and their sakes they are Americans and we honor their service. And part of honoring their service is making sure that they understand that we don’t differentiate between them and us. It’s just us.

And that is a principle that I think is going to be very important for us to sustain. And I think tomorrow is an excellent time for us to reflect on that.

If that's all spontaneous, he's a smarter cookie than I thought. It's as perfect a comment on the matter as I'm likely to encounter.

And of course, our local backwoods apocalypse radio preacher denounced the president for "praising the wisdom" of building a "ground zero" mosque. Because he is a carny huckster desperate to terrify his hillbilly congregation.

Settling Down

I now have a Starbucks card because of your shining (gold) example. I should have done this a couple of hundred dollars ago. Speaking of coffee, my tum-tum is mucho better now. I was worried my childhood ulcer had flared up, but I'm back to fried food with no distress.

The deck progress is slower now as the boys hopefully measure twice before cutting once. Our yard is under sawhorses and scrap, and that's a fine excuse for me to avoid cutting the lawn for another few days.

A week of medicine doesn't seem to have fixed up the boy yet. But I have noticed he sleeps quieter when he's flat on his back. He dozed off yesterday after I got home, and he snored not once. This morning, I checked him before I left, and no snores erupted from his crib as he lay flat as a plank. Maybe this problem of his is easily corrected. The only time I remember snoring -- and I mean "woke myself up by snoring" -- was when I napped in a tub ten years back. My head was in a similar position to his while in the bassinet. I'll test this over the weekend.

Your Motivated Sister took an impromptu walk with Kathy last night, and they discussed school matters. I intend to run this weekend and maybe shed a few pounds of water and dessert before the reunions.

Your Parents and Aunt are planning to visit the house Monday while I'm at work.

Your Scheming Sister and I have made our official preseason NFL bet:

Her Picks
AFC
Indianapolis Colts
Pittsburgh Steelers

NFC
Atlanta Falcons
Green Bay Packers

My Picks
AFC
New England Patriots
Baltimore Ravens

NFC
Carolina Panthers
Green Bay Packers

Picture of the Day
Not a ringing endorsement.

1,000 Posts

Yes, really.

We started this Feb. 12 of 2006, and since then I've typed approximately 48 words. Obviously, I've babbled about the daily doings at Chez Debacle, but I branched off into theatre journals, recipe gags, and now-rare news commentary. Also, Pictures of the Day most all the time.

The stack of fake lumber was waiting for me when I got home. The class should arrive today, weather permitting, to start the assembly.

We finally thawed some of the leftover garden produce to make spaghetti, and it was nice. We also gobbled half of Your Sister's homemade blueberry pie.

Because the sidekick hates the taste of the Vitamin D supplement in his milk, I tried dropping it directly into his mouth before a feeding. There was no reaction at all. I think the cold temperature hid the taste. Clearly this is the way to go.

We're still getting credit-card solicits for my ex, but the collection calls have stopped. Thankfully.

Picture of the Day
Can it last? Well, the do both hate fire.

A Revelation

I am suffering for the variety of eats I done et. My stomach is noisy and bloated. I think I drank too much of that Sunday coffee. I discovered that both our bottles of Pepto-Bismal were out of date, and I've swilled some Alka-Seltzer.

Your Sister took The Deputy to welcome Your Parents at the airport only to learn the plane arrived early, and they had already gone home. They didn't know she would be there.

We spent Monday watching the original trilogy, and I noticed something: The droids are on Tattooine to escape the empire. Ben and Luke are on the run from the stormtroopers and hoping to take the droids off-planet to Leia. In Mos Eisley, Luke and Ben avoid a trooper confrontation by using the force. They then go to the cantina to find a pilot. This cantina won't allow droids inside, so Luke -- a redneck idiot -- tells the droids to WAIT OUTSIDE. Where there are troopers looking for them. Troopers who could avoid the destruction of the Death Star simply by nabbing the droids.

Sure, Leia could still get rescued, but only if Ben decides to nudge Luke into fighting the empire (and his dad, but because Lucas hadn't written that yet, Ben doesn't know it). Otherwise, if they have no droids and no secret plans, why visit Leia? They don't know she's been captured yet. Threepio and R2 didn't seem to know that.

Picture of the Day
Sample costumes from Atlanta's DragonCon, held every Labor Day weekend. We plan to go next year.

Oh, Hi There

I ran into a sometime actor with the local theatre. She was in that courtroom play from Fall 2007. "Sometime" sounds dismissive, and I don't mean that. She took time off to be married and see her son off to college. She joined the show cuurently in rehearsals, the show I was twice asked to join and twice I declined so I could "help" raise the sidekick. She and I got along great after an initial adjustment period in the early courtroom rehearsals, and we caught up yesterday as she was getting coffee before rehearsal.

I had hopped into the store to buy cookies and ice cream (no, we're not pregnant again), and she was leaving, but we stopped to chat for a while. She's nervous about the show because of her commute and new family and the rehearsal schedule. She doesn't have her lines yet. Most of this show worked together before on a show prior to our courtroom show, and I assured her it's too good a gang to leave her hanging.

She'll be fine. She was also nervous about her work in our play. She was the widow of the rich man found flattened at the foot of a skyscraper, and she had her lines well before we had an audience, if I recall right. Anyway, she frets, but I contend that fretting can be productive if it drives you to work harder. Same thing with the seven deadly sins. As motivators, they can't be beat.

She asked about our new parenthood. I babbled for a while. And off she ran to rehearse, and off I strolled to the freezer aisle.

The deck is down to the joists. The kids are scheduled to clean the concrete foundation before the weekend, leaving only the assembly of the new lumber. The teacher objected to the original construction stairs, and he'll show the kids the right way to attach them to the deck.

We received the deputy's social security card. He's officially official.

Get over here and veg out on the couch.

Picture of the Day
Outta here.

Sudden Destruction

I arrived home to find the deck half disassembled. The carpentry teacher realized that his class needn't wait until the composite lumber arrived to remove the old stuff. The iron railing art was stacked, the wood rails are gone, and a third of the flooring is removed. The joists will remain, I'm told, as they are deemed healthy. They look discolored to me, but apparently, they are fine. I expect to go home today and find everything but the support skeleton removed. The new stuff arrives Tuesday, and the whole thing should be finished by next weekend. There will be no work done while you are visiting us, I'm positive.

Something I realized only recently is that the composite lumber should rebuff all the carpenter bees that burrowed into our old railings. I'll no longer have to fight them off with WD-40. Our new deck, happily, won't be a potential firebomb.

The attention for the cooking sub-blog has died down, but that short-lived basking was fun. The stats are impressive. Google added blog stats in June, so the blog records are few, but there was an obvious propulsion in numbers based on the Doom links.

Check this out. These are the top ten countries represented by blog visitors :

Those figures wallop the June and July numbers combined. Also? Asia is in the house.

Picture of the Day
Our child's feet. Not to scale.

Internet Famous

I intended to post last night's coq au vin recipe. I was to use it for Cooking With Villainy and employ the Doom voice. The whole schmear. But I ruined the dish, and I can't pass along to anyone the right way to cook it.

The autopsy of the meal suggests that I should have used a heavy iron skillet instead of a large sauce pan. The meat and veggies are to simmer in a thick glaze of wine, broth, mushrooms, carrots, and spices. My sauce was soup. I also overcooked the noodles and undercooked the bacon. The recipe is sound. My execution was lacking. I'll try again next month, and Doom will do it up right.

And here's irony: I ruined the dish for the latest entry right after I become internet famous. Cooking With Villainy was linked here, and the blog's stats went haywire.

UPDATE: The links have spread here. And here. And FINLAND.

Picture of the Day
Young Sigourney from Alien and the cat that failed to save anyone on the doomed salvage ship.

Saturday Night Fevers

As if we didn't already appreciate vaccines, the sidekick's constantly goopy eye cleared up completely. We cheer and breathe sighs of relief and sell our stocks in cotton-ball companies even as we agree that this could be a symptom of an energized immune system. The goop could return.

We thought he had a fever Saturday morning, and we responded with a Keystone Kops series of incompetent actions.

Here's some petroleum jelly for the rectal thermometer. The directions say we can't use that.
What do we use? Is there any Crisco?*
The reading says 98.9. What's the temperature supposed to be for babies? I don't know.
And how many books on babies have we read in the last year?

Meanwhile he's screaming loud enough that My Dad could hear him. We got him settled down and agreed he had no fever. I tried to put lotion on him to cool him down, and that annoyed him. Now he was screaming and slippery. He's become so averse to sleeping lately that we resort to wrestling him into oblivion with sleeper holds. Yes, we admit it: We use submission maneuvers on our baby. I have claimed his cruiserweight championship belt.

We took him to a teacher party Saturday night and took turns wearing him like Flavor Flav's clock. Your Dispensing Sister took a time-out to nurse him while I guarded the door against insistent preschoolers. In efforts to reclaim her normalcy, she followed up on wine recommendations from a magazine and bought two bottles of new flavors yesterday. We cracked one bottle open and enjoyed half of it, saving the rest for tonight. I don't think I've had muscadine wine before, and this was nice. Not too sweet, but very fruity. It goes great with spicy food.

I'm trying more elaborate recipes lately, and I'll add this week's efforts to the Cooking With Villainy entries. Your Sister made a great curry dish Friday with material you gave us from South Africa. That stuff doesn't diffuse.

She walked with a teacher buddy yesterday while I watched the deputy sleep finally, at last and unaware that he was no longer a champion. He stayed awake during the Sunday outing for lunch and groceries, and much cooing followed him everywhere.

We got an estimate for the new decking, and we agreed to it despite the hefty cost. If nothing else, we are increasing the house's value each year with out little projects. We see news reports on housing values and are amazed at the people who thought the aberrant high prices from the early half of the decade were the norm. One ABC News report showed a three-bedroom ranch in the Northeast going for less than $130,000, and the owner couldn't sell it. He based that price on the highest price from the housing bubble, not what he paid for it nor its current value. And he was shocked and dismayed he couldn't get a buyer. Your Savvy Sister and I just stared at each other, wondering if we were hearing right.

I made arrangements with My Mom to watch the former champion during my reunion next month. Your Parents might watch him during Your Sister's.

Her Cat was so inspired by the documentary on lions last night that he played fetch with a catnip mouse. I'm not sure it's safe for us to let him watch those on the big TV anymore. He might regress.

*No, not really.

Picture of the Day
Let us send our best and brightest and mane-iest to Mars.

Two Months Now

The deputy had his second-month check-up yesterday. He's now completely average in height and weight, but that right eye worries the doctor. Combined with the snoring (which surprised him even more once he heard the video on my camera of the boy sleeping), he thinks the eye goop could be a sign of sinus problems. He doesn't see any septum issues, but he did note "small nostrils." He's setting up an appointment with a ear-nose-and-throat specialist to see if anything is up.

The visit ended with three vaccination doses: one oral and two needles, and he didn't like those at all. He was doped to the gills for the remainder of the day and slept for seven hours. We woke him to check the diaper and feed him. His long nap gave us some rare downtime, and of course we spent most of it doing laundry. I played video games after folding basketfulls. Your Literate Sister read maritime fiction as she is wont to do.

The doc said new studies behoove us to abstain from giving him anything for a fever if the live-virus vaccinations make him ill. A fever suppressant like Children's Tylenol can hamper the immune system's development. We're fine with that. We'll feed the mancub some Slurpees. There's a teacher party this weekend, and I worry that he might make some kids sick if those viruses are still active.

Your Energized Sister worries that her caffeine intake is affecting the baby, but the doctor said she would have to throw back a lot of coffee to really bother the boy. But after four hours, anything she drinks should be processed through her system enough to leave her milk safe.

I noticed the he's smitten with Your Adoring Sister and lights up when he sees her. I have earned no such reaction.

Toyota announced a recall on 2006-2008 Matrixes, but the specific engine model will determine if we're affected. We await notification.

Picture of the Day
There's hope for us all.

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