So, Monday.

The roofers started attacking the house yesterday. Your Sister moved the car out of the garage to give them access to the attic. She left the car windows down. It rained like hell. The car is a bathtub. I was told of this when Your Father came by the office from the second time that day.

The first visit was to drop off a tiller attachment for a weedeater. When he mentioned these last weekend, he offered them and implied they were his old ones. What he delivered were brand-new components, fresh off the store shelves. He came back later to give us a long-handle magnet to pick up nails left by the roofers. Nice idea, but it doesn't pick up nails used on the siding. He delighted in delivering the bad news of the rain possibly leaking through the roof and definitely filling the car in his usual language of vague pronouns, chuckles and eyebrow movements. He's also adamant that the gutter covers we ordered won't work.

Today, I sit in a car seat covered in paper towels. I left my sketchbook at home so id didn't get water damage, like the exact same type of sketchbook I had to replace because it got water damage in the fender bender.

Picture of the Day
There was so much beer last night.

Well Damn

I returned home yesterday to find the yard had been shorn. Your Sis hired a pruning service that also tackled underbrush. They cut back significantly the trees along the driveway, and they cleaned out the garden beds in the front yard. When they did the latter, they also completely removed my favorite part of our yard.

The second plateau of the yard ended in a small arboreal cul-de-sac. I loved that spot. I wanted to put in a porch swing there. Now it's gone. Your Sister didn't spell out for me just what she intended to remove nor did she have any idea how much I enjoyed that spot. Neither did I, frankly. I teared up when I saw it and quickly swallowed it. She went to some trouble to schedule this, and anything I said would only have sounded ungrateful.

She noticed my distress and suggested later that we recreate it. It would take, what, six years? I'm too deflated to pull the trigger on that right now. I still have to remove the stump of the tree. As I type this, it feels like a funeral.

This is home ownership. It stinks a little.

Picture of the Day
Here's my model for the DragonCon costume. I'm looking at costume pieces and props on Amazon.

Fourth of July

I found out at 3:30 Tuesday that I'd be off Wednesday. That didn't give a lot of time for planning. Your Sister and Nephew were going to meet the rest of Your Family for breakfast Wednesday morning before the Birmingham crew hit the road. I tagged along. Your Sister packed a whatever-bag for any notions that might have struck us while in Asheville. We ate at Shoney's and took lotsa pictures. The deputy can be distracted into eating new food if he's got something to twiddle with, like a kid's activity book. He did fine.

They had all visited the Asheville nature center the day before, and it was decided the boy should go back. I didn't remember a zoo being so close to my office, and it's a nice, quiet, woody walkthrough. Because it was hot, we didn't see some of the more popular animals: the bear, the deer. The wolves and foxes were sleeping, but we spotted them. He enjoyed watching the cougar pace its cage, and none of us noticed that it continued to follow him the length of its enclosure. We turned for one last look, and it was right there staring at the deputy. They have a tractor, and of course he pounced on that. He seemed to enjoy the whole day.

But he had a nightmare last night that seems to be related to the zoo. We heard him sobbing -- wrenching hitched, heaving cries -- and he had ruined his diapers. His legs were locked, and he was shaking. It was as close to a panic attack as I've seen. We got some water in him and took him into the shower, and he started talking about the wolves. It took about an hour to get him back down. He seems fine this morning.

We didn't even consider taking him to see fireworks last night. Maybe when he's a year older.

We showed him the cantina scene of Star Wars yesterday, and he was a tad mesmerized. He thinks Darth Vader's head is a car. He called the landspeeder an airplane and Chewbacca a dog. Speaking of whom ...

Picture of the Day
Director Irwin Kershner walks Chewbacca through the scene in Bespin City.

Holiday Weekend?

I had no idea this past weekend was the official July 4 weekend until maybe Saturday afternoon. The grocery store was packed. I normally go on Sunday, but the family was assembling at Chez Ass Smack that day, and I went early. It was a mob. As far as I know everything is still happening Wednesday -- the fireworks, the day off, flags galore. It seems like folks would want to start the holiday weekend the next day, Thursday, and stretch the holiday until Monday. I dunno. This is how I would run things.

The Sunday get-together was the usual collision of good intentions and awkward adjustments. Your Sister had to go to church early Sunday, and she asked Your Mom to come to our house not long after to take the deputy to church. Why I wasn't asked to take him and leave him there with Your Sis, I don't know. Your Mom comes over Sunday morning, about five minutes after I learn any of this, and she says she wants to sit in our car to get used to it. The plan, it seems, is for her to drive our baby-seat-equipped car to the church, and since she doesn't know our car, she wants to sit in it to take in its operations. Download it into her brain. Osmosis it, maybe. I veto this immediately. I know Your Mom can't work the baby seat. Your Sister can barely do it. So I say, no, I'll take him to church, and I'll stay through the service and drive him back home. (Again, why didn't Your Sis ask me to trade cars with her before church started? Still haven't got an answer.) Your Mom takes this veto badly and starts to cry.

Here's something you may not know about me: Argument tears raise my blast shields. They do the opposite of their intention. Instead of growing sympathetic to the crying person's stance, I get draconian. I've been through too many arguments over the decades where tears were deployed on purpose to win the argument. I've grown calloused. So Your Mom, whether she intended to or not, only made me more resolved to not let her leave the house alone with her grandson. And when she suggested, you know, she could maybe loosen the baby seat to make it easier for her, she may as well have dared me to go. I took them both, and I stayed through the service, and I drove them back home. If Your Mom came to our town solely to take him to church, then her trip was a waste.

The rest of the family (minus your aunt, who didn't want to risk a car breakdown in this heat) arrived about half an hour after we got home. Your Sister arrived with lunch maybe 20 minutes later. My Mom arrived almost 2 hours later (probably on purpose, she's going through a phase again where she wants to be home). Lunch went well, the nieces were deputy-crazy, and the adults got to chat. Your Sis hired a photographer for this late birthday party for the boy, and it was a good idea. The outdoor pictures were done quickly due to bug swarms, and it's possible they were pushed together into our yard by the giant storm that hit later that night. But before then we all ate at the second Tupelo Honey, and good golly that's good eats. Also, I spotted across the street a Five Guys Burgers and almost ordered a second supper there.

The visit went really well, thanks to Your Sister's party planning and the deputy's good nature. Also he was asleep for most of it, and the girls got to watch Monsters Inc., one of two DVDs we have that might be kid-friendly. (If you're wondering why we showed them a film with naked Halle Berry, that's Monster's Ball. Different film.) He got a giant bulldozer toy and a red bouncing ball. Your oldest niece almost snapped her ankle riding his scooter down the driveway (she's fine), and your other niece is a charming kid these days. The Birmingham family are in town until the 4th, and they'll spend some time today with Your Sis and Nephew, playing hooky from daycare. I'm at work. Shock. Your Mom got over her upset quickly. I think she was happy to see the boy and my mom.The big storm last night brought a lot of rain and noise but no damage.

I finally got my convention stuff unpacked and sorted. I'm now planning for the local October show. I probably will not make a full-sized comic for this, but I might make a very small minicomic for the occasion. I will solicit sketch commissions at large-ish sizes in the months beforehand. Those sell pretty well at conventions, and this might create a full artists interaction experience for those who can't go to to a bigger show.

Your Sister is investigating roofing companies for the house, and pitting them against each other for good estimates. Crafty wife scheming is taking place. We should get a new roof before she goes back to school. Our house is relatively simple and small; shouldn't take that long to slap on shingles and new gutters.

Picture of the Day
This is a page from the young-reader Spider-Man series during his Electric Company days. It's goofy stuff.

Do you remember those Spidey segments?

Two Years

The deputy turns 2 today. Seems like a little more has gone by since that Saturday night in the hospital. I could see a difference in his word use after just those four days at the convention. He can ID some letters and he's building the number chain between 1 and 10. I joke sometimes that I like him more the older he gets, but it's true. He's developing a personality. He wants to try everything. See everything. Not so much eat everything. But he knows that time-outs help him gather himself in a tantrum and decide what he really wants.

I also came home to an aggressive garden. The zucchini plants are as tall as my chest. The tomato vines look like shrubs. Your Sister wonders if it took this many years to properly alter the soil. She credits the compost. I credit crop rotation. One zucchini made three cups of shredded greens for zucchini bread.

Your Sister is using the summer to fix all the lingering yard aggravations. We're gonna replace the shingles and gutters, prune the big trees, mulch the front-yard beds, and maybe remove some dying trees.

I'm still dragging a bit from the convention, and last night's very late dinner didn't help. Your Sister is on her relaxed summer schedule, but I'm not. She likes to tarry with the boy in the morning, and I'm scooting him out the door for the commute. She also doesn't mind a 10pm supper, and I am both fading into oblivion and desperately clawing at the table in hunger.

Picture of the Day
A handy chart for all your travels.

Father's Day Weekend

As you may know, when summer hits, Your Sister likes to indulge by planning things. Parties, mostly. Sometimes travel. She's talked before of becoming an event planner when she retires, and she gets in her practice when she can. She digs it, it's her thing, and I won't begrudge her.

However, the weekend before I man a table for the first time at HeroesCon is a lousy window to plan Big Things on consecutive days. Because Your Parents will visit her and the deputy while I'm gone, Your Sister wanted to give My Mom equal time on Saturday. Heavy sighs for lots of reasons. Mom is coming up here in just two weekends when your family assembles. I put on a good face. I did not grumble, and when asked outright about the weekend scheduling, I tried to be subtle. I think I said "I'm a little anxious about the time to prepare for convention." What I wanted to say was "HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?!"

But I was able to burrow into the workshop to make my price displays and gather up some sketches to sell. I also mailed out thank-you copies to Danielle and Rebecca, my high-school friends who helped me with the comic's kickboxing scene.I also mailed out a 5-card row of robots to a customer in Seattle. (Trivia: He's closer to you than to me by 60 miles. I Googled.) I also played with color sketches, and I decided to also offer color face cards for $2 more. I'm working up a larger piece of art for the annual convention charity auction. I might color that too. Maybe.

The visit with Mom was fine, if short. We warned her that we would probably be able to only do lunch because the boy would nap immediately after. We ate at McDonald's because the food was ready quicker than at a real restaurant. He ate well and played on the smallest slide in the playground. He's becoming quite the climber. He can scale his changing table in both directions. As long as one of us is within arm's reach, I have no problem with this. He's building muscle and balance.

Mom balked initially at buying the comic 4-pack. She hasn't bought a comic in decades, and the prices are closer to $3 an issue than the 60 cents she may have paid when I was a kid. I sweetened the deal by offering two eclairs, and she denied that she initially balked. Oh, she balked. There was balkage.

She gave us a little Wal-Mart truck Pez dispenser for the boy. She said it was from her friend Ricky, and she once again declared they were only friends and would be only friends. When I mentioned this to Your Sister on the way home, she said that Mom would talk about him at the beach house when I left the room, and she was convinced that I didn't like the guy. I haven't met him. (Mom mentioned meeting him Saturday, but I said the window with the deputy was too small to be fair to either of them.) And I've told her repeatedly that whatever relationships she enters into now are entirely her business. As long as she seems a) happy; and b) treated well, I have no qualms. I'd much rather she be out and about than living as a hermit. When we left, I told her to thank the guy for the truck.

We picked up a glider bike (a toddler bike with no pedals) that morning, and Your Sister put it together that afternoon while I took him into town. He has to learn how to balance on the bike, and he moves very slowly on it. We fidget with the seat height constantly to make him comfortable. We ended the night by eating on the deck with the firepit all lit up. I engineered a new alfredo recipe that went over well, and I'll probably put it on the Doom blog today. We also ate on the deck Sunday night because why not? We only have to move the table 15 feet.

The second event she planned was a Father's Day/deputy birthday party with the neighbors. We picnicked and rode bikes or walked on the town trail. He wanted to ride the big slide, and I followed as he climbed the stairs. That was maybe ten feet up, and he did it repeatedly. No fear at all. He got a toy school bus from the neighbors, and he won't let it go. I'm not surprised. He had a cupcake. I have Father's Day Krispy Kremes that somehow have lasted since Saturday afternoon.

I think what I'm really feeling about convention is a reflexive panic. But I've done virtually everything already. I can relax. Maybe a little.

Picture of the Day
This is Liu Yang, China's first female astronaut. She went into space this weekend. 

One Week Out

This time next week, I'll be in Charlotte, checking into my hotel and wondering who to contact to set up my booth. I don't have much left to do. I need to make price signs and pack. That's really it. Buy some snack food. Grab some folding money. We're going to visit My Mom for Saturday, and I'm now feeling pinched for time to prepare for convention. It's Your Sister's idea, but I wish we could just wait to see her on July 1, when the Birmingham gang drive up.

We were invited to a bar trivia night for Tuesday, and I went. I declared that Your Sister would go the next time, but she's not into it. However, I did manage to shoo her to the local yoga class, which she has tried to get to for almost a year now. She's really winding down from summer. She wants to slowly release the deputy each morning to school, and I have to steer him toward the door and the car so I can get to work on time.

Bar-Trivia Trivia: I was told by a trivia teammate told that a third teacher is telling people Your Sister is about to move away. Like out of state. I responded by saying I had heard nothing about this. I'm not surprised by the gossip nor the source. That teacher, by the way, moved away. Like out of state. Seems like she's burning bridges behind her.

Picture of the Day
Almost time to pack.

Seven Year Itch

Your Sister is recovering slowly from the dental procedure, but the antibiotics are killing her.She's pounding down yogurt and ginger ale to keep her system working right. She was miserable last night.

The Deputy is suddenly much more verbal. He's aping words with relative ease and babbling sentences as he pretends to read aloud. He was apparently very helpful and communicative to the babysitter on Saturday. We were away to a friend's house; he wanted to show of his home theatre with our Star Wars blu-rays. I took him a 4-pack of comics, a gesture I can't do too often. Those things are too costly to hand out.

I'm very close to finishing the major convention chores. I need to assemble the rest of my four-packs (98 left; I sold one last weekend online). Both the babysitter and the Saturday host asked if my work is for sale at the local comic store. And it is. The store owner told me Sunday that he'll put my full-size comic on the shelf with the other comics. THE SHELF. I'm big-time. I'll do maybe two more sheets of cards and two more sketches to sell, and I'll be done with the big big stuff. I still need to make table displays & price cards and pack.

I continue to get chiropractic and legal mail following the crash. I'm glad they don't have my email. The body shop has the estimate and is ordering the parts.

Your Sister hoped to buy the boy a glider bike (a short bike frame with no pedals), but the store she went to sold their floor model the day before. They've ordered another, and he'll have one in time for his birthday.

Sunday was our jailhouse-a-versary. It seems unlikely, but there have been enough mile markers to make the time credible. The deputy's obviously the big one, but the theatre and volleyball and comics and Olympics all mark the span. If I hadn't kept that envelope in which she sent me the local paper's Halloween banner, and if she had moved in the time between that letter and the one I mailed her when I was suddenly alone a few year's later, none of this would have happened. I don't think the comics would have happened. I'd be a bachelor theatre stalwart in Greenville.

Picture of the Day
They started work on Iron Man 3. Should come out next year. I think.

Fetch the Popcorn

This nose/face thing seems to be fading finally. Your Sister is recovering from dental work that will severely limit her eating for about four days.We'll both get thinner.

Here's why I'm really posting: The first trailer for Tarantino's western, Django Unchained, is out. Django was a recurring character in Italian westerns in the '60s. Spaghetti Westerns were huge here during that time, their global heyday. Eastwood's tough cowboy image came from there in director Sergio Leone's "Dollars trilogy." This is another love letter to a film genre for Tarantino, and the cast looks solid.

About Time

Finally, a week after the crash, an insurance appraisers looked at the car. He provided an estimate to Your Sister and recommended a local body shop. I thought the Jim Barkley dealership could do the repairs, but no, they have no body shop. That stuns me. They always advertise as full-service. The estimate will got to the body shop this week, and the car will get there the 19th. Should be fixed in a week. That leaves Your Sister with no car while I'm in Charlotte, but we're covered for rental cars by the insurance.

I'm now putting sketches into my portfolio, hoping they'll sell at the convention. I already pre-sold five sketch cards just yesterday. 

+  +  +

Ray Bradbury has died. The 20th-century SF prose genre was PACKED with talent. Bradbury, Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, Niven, Anderson, Herbert, Le Quin. These are the people who inspired the radio dramas and movies and TV series. And Bradbury's body of work is gargantuan. I'm not sad he's gone; I'm too gobsmacked by everything he wrote.

I knew the Electric Grandmother story before I knew who wrote it. The Something Wicked This Way Comes movie scared the crap out of me before I knew who wrote it. I took at least one of his anthologies to the beach house last month.

Picture of the Day
All in a day's work.

The Checklist Is Shrinking

I picked up my comic reprints from OfficeMax this morning. They sat behind their shelves for longer than it took to print them. I got the call Friday afternoon, and I was already back home. It took them just two days to print about 110 comics. I spent Saturday in the workshop organizing my display materials from the previous shows, and I've got a little list to pad them out a tad. The only major expense left is the hotel room. I'm taking a lot of my work from sketchbooks to sell. I discovered I had, between the  Facebook Sketchtember and the theme art on heygregory.com, quite a bit of work that could sell. Most everything else I'll buy will come from a Michael's store.

We had a scare with the deputy last night. He asked to go to bed before supper, and he was flushed. Your Sister found he had a 102 fever, and gave him a warm shower to cool him down, which he did quickly. But he screamed and screamed for a half hour. I think he overheated outside. We should have changed his church shirt before he and I went downtown. He may also have dehydrated after the gelato. This morning he was fine; his temperature was the perfect 98.6.

Your Sister has begun cycling down from work. She spent the evening shopping online for summer clothes, and I approve of her relaxation. She has only a few school days left, and at least one of those is to make up for her missing school last week because I couldn't find a baby seat in town.

Picture of the Day
I need to practice drawing these guys for the convention.

I Take a Humble Bow

The response to the Arsenal page, including your link and tweeting, is overwhelming. It really felt like the tiniest of gestures as the months dragged on, but the premise surprises people. I asked his mom if I could put him in a comic, and I might very well make an Arsenal mini for the fall convention.

Yes, Asheville is gonna get a second convention. The unofficial Fanaticon replacement failed to wow folks, and they did not do a good job about getting the word out. This unrelated convention in October looks to the May show as an example, and I wouldn't be surprised if the they merge if they prove moderately successful in the coming years. I told the new show's organizers to sign me up for a table, and a new mini might not be impossible. A true mini, I mean, not another full-sized comic.

The Boston court ruling on DOMA is muy interesting. The argument over federal tax benefits gives this a booster rocket to the Supreme Court, and a conservative court, as I've argued for sometime, already leans toward individual sovereignty. This could cement the schism between political and social conservatism (the moral scolds). It won't be a factor in the November elections however.

P.S. During lunch, Arsenal's mom said bluntly, "you need to update Cooking With Villainy." So I did later in the day. 

Picture of the Day
This is the Dragon capsule from SpaceX, the commercial space enterprise. Dragon docked with the space station and returned without a hitch, moving us that much closer to a private company sending people into space. Wow.

Aches and Pains

I am sore. Not crippling sore. Not hobbled sore. But sore. Stiff. Like I did too many sit-ups. I can't torque my neck enough to crack it, but that's the extent of loss of quality of life. I walk OK. I sit and stand OK. I'm not taking anything for it although I do intend to have beer tonight.

I was informed via email yesterday that my comics are being mailed to me. Now I'm all atwitter over the fear that there's a giant mistake on the comic that will be immediately noticeable when I open the box. However this is tempered somewhat by the voice in my head yelling I MADE A GODDAMN COMIC! HOLY BUG BUTTS, BATMAN! Just this morning, I took my minicomic PDFs to OfficeMax to get more copies made to fill out the four-pack bundles.

Your Sister took her motorcycle to the shop. She borrowed some new gas from my lawnmower supply, and the shop suggested her carburetor is clogged. They may do the state inspection when they fix the bike. She won't admit this but the crash gave her a good reason to make the bike a daily vehicle. I had to chase down USAA to start my claim properly. I have yet to hear from my assigned adjustor, but she may not need to call now. Once I told USAA that I was talking to State Farm (the other driver's insurance), they snapped to work, recording my statement and walking me through the process. We have to wait a week to get an appraisal because we live so far from a certified USAA repair shop. I intend to take the car to the Toyota dealership. I bought a new car seat during my lunch break yesterday. We tried to find the exact model we had, but all we found was an expensive upgrade. That's fine; we're adding it to the insurance claim.

Picture of the Day
Here she comes! Here comes Speed Teacher!

The Crash

So here's what happened:

I picked up the deputy early from daycare because we had to go to Hendersonville to pick up a package at the UPS hub. They won't deliver wine without a signature, and we work. On the drive there, his big-boy water cup turned over in his lunchbox, and the water leaked in the passenger seat and all over my sketchbook. It was bulging with comics and prints and convention to-do items, and they were all soaked.

I got the address of the warehouse from the UPS site, and I knew roughly where that address is. But the hub isn't obvious from the street. I saw the UPS trucks in a gravel parking lot and a building I assumed was theirs. But the parking area was gated and locked, and there were no accessible doors. I parked near that building and schlepped the deputy to it. That's when I saw the tiny "AT&T" signage. Not our building. I walked to the UPS trucks and headed toward the back of that lot, still not seeing anything that looked like a public door.

Juggling the deputy and phone, I called the UPS hotline to at least confirm my package would be there and the place would be open. As I talked to them, I found a mechanic working on a truck, and he pointed me toward a door around yet another corner. We walked in, and there was no one. This was the slightest of public venues for UPS customers. It was an afterthought. Someone walked by the door and took care of us. The box was light enough to carry while the deputy walked beside, and back we went to the car as the rain started up again. Back home we went.

Five minutes later, I was stopped behind a car turning left. The rain made the road slick, and I made sure to leave space as I braked. I was at a full stop when I heard the squeal, and I knew immediately it was behind us. I braced my leg to keep the brake on, and we got hit. We slid and hit the car in front of us. When we stopped rolling, I turned off the engine and checked the rear-view mirror for the deputy. His seat was askew and the baby mirror was knocked over. I waited for oncoming traffic to clear before I moved to the back to check on him. He was surprised and teary, but OK. His face contorts when he's fighting a big cry, and it was on display. The driver of the truck that hit me was at the other passenger window asking if he was OK," and I yelled at him to wait. I was right mad. I wanted to clobber him. But yeah, the boy was OK. I kept him in the seat and called 911. I told them I was shaky, and I couldn't say definitively we were fine.

The firetrucks arrived first, and they confirmed everyone was OK. I think it was about that time the drive of the car I hit walked over to me. She had moved her car out of the main road and onto the street she had stopped for originally. She asked if I hadn't seen her signal. I said I had and was stopped and then I got hit. She hadn't seen the truck behind me and its damage, much less the back of my car. The deputy stayed in his seat, where he would stay for the rest of the time. His seat had been shoved forward and crammed against the front passenger seat, but otherwise it was fine, and that was the best place of the time being.

We moved the cars to the side street before the ambulance arrived, and an EMT checked out the deputy while I signed hospital waiver sheets. The EMT said the baby seat had to be replaced because it was in the accident, and I said the replacement price would be worth it. Cops arrived about ten minutes later, and they took the registrations and licenses. During all this the truck driver was anxious about the deputy. I assured him he was fine, and bullets were dodged. The car sounded OK when I drove it, and other folks who looked at the back tires said they seemed fine.

I had called Your Sister twice and left messages before reaching her. I told her to stay near her phone(s) in case we needed a ride home. The police officer gave us each contact and insurance info for our claims and ticketed the truck driver for hitting us. The car I hit was sent home because there was no damage to their car or my front half. I got home and called USAA, and the claims department is not winning me over. The phone agent says no one can look at the car until Tuesday. I can still drive the car until then I suppose. But that's a very long time. I may go back to GEICO when this is over.

You've had worse accidents. You've gone through all this. But GEICO spoiled me when I had my wreck in 2003. My car was in a shop within two hours.

Your Sister gave me Balcofen to stave off muscle soreness, but it did nothing last night. I have tightness, but nothing Advil cant handle.

Picture of the Day
Unleash the tooth demons upon our insurance company!

In Which It Might Be Nice to Breathe

I am baffled by the head flu. It has clogged me up entirely -- at times approximating the feeling of sleep apnea -- and neither decongestants, Dayquil, nor allergy medicines make a dent in it. It's better today but only by the slightest of increments. Your Sister's doubled-over coughing seems better, and the boy is recovering. It can't be allergies.

We sat him on the couch as Return of the Jedi played on TV. Some channel was running a marathon, and we caught the part of the movie where the rebels and Ewoks attack the Endor moon bunker while the Falcon leads the attack on the Imperial fleet. Normally, he watches TV with constant commentary, pointing out vehicles or animals. But as he watched these little teddy bears fight a machine that walks like a chicken, he was dead silent and utterly still. Mesmerized. As the scene switched to the space fight, he saw the TIE Fighters and made "helicopter" hand signs. When the scene changed to the Vader/Luke/Emperor scene, he got bored. Rightfully so. That bit goes on for days. That scene drove him from the couch, and out the door we went. So, yes, when he's old enough to watch the films, I think he'll be interested.

Your Sister graded the majority of the papers last night. She felt OK about those she didn't get to, and none were handed to me for simple proofing. I offered to help a lot, but she wanted to fly solo. OK. I'll watch TV.

 

My ad ran in the Blue Ridge Rollergirl program Saturday, to what might be the smallest audience they've hosted. It was Memorial Day Weekend, after all. The next home bout is during the July 4 Weekend, and that audience might not be any bigger. I'm still debating running the ad again. I got some page views but no orders. What was odd was one of the visiting team members is named Bat. L. Royale. She wasn't present, but I asked a teammate to let her know about the coincidence. I'm also now convinced that the next comic will have a roller girl heroine.

And this was the shirt I coulda sold for tens of dollars.

Exploring Possibilities

Your Sister is considering applying for another job at the school, a job with less classroom time. She'd still have an AP class, and she'd oversee the school paper, which is now an online-exclusive publication. But she'd also act as a gifted-student guidance counselor. She likes that in theory, but I noted it would mean dealing with parents petitioning for specific class placement, a headache she already despises in her current classes. This new position would see that annoyance magnified. That's all the job would involve. I suggested she ask the previous counselor what the job entailed. I understand why it sounds like a good package deal, but she needs to do her homework on this before moving into a job that sounds much more expendable if another budget crunch occurs.

In preparation for graduation, she took in her robe. A lot. 

The deputy can now name colors, and he discovered how to jump. He delivered a beaut of a head cold to the house, and I'll gladly suffer it now than a month from now in Charlotte.

Picture of the Day
She's ready for school to be over any minute now.

 

So This Needs to Be Cranked up Again Properly.

As the daycare was closed Friday, I stayed at home with the deputy. It was the rare weekday when we two are home and everything in town is open. The previous weekend, he visited the car dealership for a child safety event. Fingerprints were taken for us to hold onto to. He also registered for a raffle for an age-appropriate scooter, and he won. We picked it up Friday, and the dealership ladies cooed over him, and we both strolled the lot to stare at trucks. By happenstance they service center was working on two ambulances, and he was hyp-mo-tized.

We strolled downtown, and I took him to the fire station again. I discovered they had a chunk of I-beam from the WTC, and that gave me pause. The plaque dedicated the piece to firefighters, as one would expect at a firehouse. But that doesn't sit right with me. 9/11 resonates so strongly because it hit every demographic and profession. Firemen, EMTs, police, the full range of office professionals, government employees, military staff, airline employees, you name it. To claim the day and it's solemnity for one group of folks turns the memento into a trophy. If our town is gonna have this remnant (and that's shocking in itself), it should be in a public square, a venue representative of the full range of people taken away. Even the library would be nice. Might encourage visitors to read about the world beyond their gardens and hunting nests.

And all that flashed in my brains as I was also debating whether the boy could last another half hour in that diaper. I also found sweet potato vines at the hardware store a few doors down the street from the firehouse.

Later in the day, we hiked the forest, and I encouraged his obsession with throwing rocks into the river. He yells out "splash" just as he did at the beach. After Your Sister got off work, we visited the neighbors and talked about their garden. They spread hay over their unused soil, and that reminded me that we had hay bales left over from the Halloween party. The next morning, I planted the sweet potatoes along with leftover yellow potatoes to go where the first round of potatoes failed to sprout, and I spread those bales over the garden.  I forgot that my grandfather did the same thing for his garden to control weeds.Your Sister and Nephew visited Your Parents that morning while I was in the garden.

I took the kid downtown again later in the day, and we once more hit the gelato shop. I like having a spot that just he and I hit. Guy time.

The next morning I finally made my Power Jam shirt for the roller girls. I used the iron-on packet I bought to make your shirts. I can't use the same image for the local shirt shop because they can't print white ink. That's limiting, but I can make line art of the image and submit that. I did want one shirt that was a photo for the jam jar and label because I had used a similar image for a MetreoBEAT cover years ago. When I had my shift with the boy, we visited the buses at the school and did another tour of the grocery store in a cart car.

Last night, I took the teen neighbor comic-movie buddy to see Avengers. It works better on a second viewing, and I picked up a lot of little details I missed the first time. The DVD comes out in September.

I wish the weather was a little cooler so I could wear that OBGYN UPS shirt ...

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But it's too darn hot.

Settling Back In

The drive back wasn't bad at all. We drove through I-40 and ate an early lunch at Cracker Barrel. The deputy slept a little, and My Mom minded him almost the entire way home. She bought him a toy car at the Cracker Barrel store, and that placated him. When we stopped the second time, it was, by utter coincidence, at the same exit we took for supper on Friday. This time we stopped at Dunkin Donuts to let him walk around. We got home around 5:30, and Mom drove home immediately. Your Sister took the boy for a walk while I unpacked the car. He had broken the car by supper; the doors came off. No big deal.

However, he may have toilet trained himself. He asked for the toilet while in the bath, standing and pointing at it. I set him down, and we both thought nothing had happened. As it always does. I picked him up, and he had actually cleared out his belly. I yelled for Your Sis, and we applauded him. I don't think he knew what he had done. We're treating it as a fluke until it happens again.

My garden is mostly OK. Some plants are dead and gone already, probably from too much time in the store pots. But we had enough rain in our absence to power the rest of the plants to victory.

The printer tells me I'm still on track for the May 31 shipping date, and I can only hope that's so. I need to make a drawing for a friend's son, and I wanna finish up my t-shirt idea before next week,

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Loki plays around on the set of The Avengers. He nailed that role.

For You

I just found this online:

Planting the Seeds

The next-door neighbors and I had talked about starting our gardens since September. They wanted to start one but hadn't tried it before, and that made me the default garden expert. OK. We agreed we'd rent a tiller from the town rental shop. Turns out, though, that the new neighbor across the street (with the chickens) has a tiller, and our next-doors had asked him for it. This saves us a chunk of change and the hassle of taking the tiller back to the rental shop. Originally we agreed to use the tiller two weekends ago, but the next-doors weren't ready yet, and we decided we could do it this past weekend. Just sometime. Whenever.

I was awake for about 15 minutes Saturday when the next-doors called to say they had the machine and were ready when I was. Your Sister and Nephew were leaving for their Saturday morning outing (tailgate market, library, etc.), and I walked over with some coffee. The tiller is a beast. It's much bigger and stronger than the rental model I had used for years. The neighbor husband offered it to me first as they were heading out for Earth Day. I said I could start it up now and take it to my garden so he could watch, and we could work out the kinks. We did that, discovering the contraption's ins and outs, and he left for the family events while I finished up the tillin'. It was about half-an-hour after I woke up, I hadn't had my coffee yet, and I had the house to myself. I decided that momentum directed me to stick with this and get the garden started right.

I drove to the local Lowe's (despite the store's past efforts to drive me mad) and bought a stack of cow manure. I didn't know how much would fit in the car, so I stopped at eight bags, bought those, loaded them up, and went back to get more. That done, I went back home to toss the unopened bags onto the soil and see how much coverage I bought myself. I decided I needed more. Back I went, and more I bought. After two trips, I had bought 17 bags of manure. Those are 50 pounds each. I heaved each of the them onto the carts, into the car, out to the garden, and then cut them open and slung them about to spread the manure. I figure I lifted 2,600 pounds in an hour's time. I covered that with a bag of fertilizer and mixed all that into the dirt with the tiller. By this time, Your Sis and Neph were back, and he was eating lunch on the deck. He loves him some engines, and he was hypnotized by the tiller. I took the tiller back to the next-doors before going back inside.

I finished up just after he was put into bed, and I was fairly exhausted. It was getting too hot to keep going, and I needed a break. When I took the deputy out and about later in the day, I made sure to stop by to see if the next-doors had any luck. Their plot was tilled up, and they were unloading their truck of soil materials. They're going wholly organic, and we talked about that before he casually mentioned it was going to snow in a few days. I hadn't heard about this, but a quick check showed we were at least gonna freeze. That kept me from doing any garden work until, maybe, tonight. If I can get a chance to run outside after work, I might get the potatoes in the ground. The plantings I bought a two weekends back are getting too big for the pots. They gotta get in the soil soon.

Meanwhile, I'm just about done with the comic. I'm gonna send it to a real comic printer and hopefully get a real comic back. I only have to finalize the cover coloring and the inside cover text blocks. That's it. And it's not even May yet. I'm going to advertise in the next rollerderby home program; I already got a QR code for my website. I also designed a rollerderby t-shirt I hope to get printed by the store that stocks my shirt designs. Suddenly, things are coming together.

Using the address you emailed us yesterday, I was able to Google movie theatres. Emerald Isle has two, and I'm hoping the adults can watch the deputy while we three run off to see The Avengers. Even if we can't this trip will be a great way to cap off the comic effort over the past five months. And of course, your ECU tenure. Thanks again for putting this together. Mom's gonna want to pitch in on some expenses, even if it's stocking the house with food.

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HULK NEED MAGIC WATER!