Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Treats and Tricks

OK. Here's the deal. I got pictures. Adorable kidlet Halloween trick-or-treat pictures. That's the treat. The trick is to see 'em you gotta work through one of these blog "memes" forwarded to me by Beeb over at Moonbeam. Thanks, Beeb!

This thing is called the "Johnny's Gargantuan Rolling Meme of Doooommmmm". Um. Somebody's been playin' waaaaay to much "World of Warcraft", is what I think. Anyway, here's the "rules":

1) Read the meme that was dumped assigned to you. Answer the questions.
2) Add TWO new questions to the list. Answer those questions.
3) Dump Forward this onto the next victim blogger (and list their name and link to their blog).
4) This series will conclude when we get 50 questions - so yes, it’s 25 bloggers in the chain.
5) Please make sure that the next victim in the “link” doesn’t have a password protected blog.
[Optional 6] Update the links so people can follow along (this is similar to the method I used in the Why China series).
[Optional 7] When you see an update, down the chain, update your own page with the new questions and answers.
[Optional 8] Copy these micromanaging instructions into the top of your meme post.

1. What secret/surprising/personal goal (that is realistically achievable within the next 15 years) would you like to fulfill?
Hmmmm. The problem with questions like this at fifty is that you’ve either a) achieved said goal (for example, raising a child or children), or b) declared or stated/started working towards that goal, so it’s no longer secret or surprising, or c) gotten to the point where the goal is just not reasonably compassable – much as I may want to summit Mt. Hood my knees do not.

That said: to be elected to the Oregon State House of Representatives as the Democratic member for North Portland.
2. Can you list an event in which you made a last minute decision or guess that significantly changed the path of your life?
This is a hard question because you can play this sort of “what if..?” game forever. What if the New World horses hadn’t become extinct at the end of the Pleistocene? What if Katherine of Aragon had had a living son? What if Britney Spears had…never mind.

The only thing I can think of offhand occurred back in the spring of 1980. I was a young soldier trying to make it through Phase 1 of the U. S. Army Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC). In retrospect it wasn’t really that difficult, but I was a complete cherry, right out of my basic training and AIT, and we were learning things like combat patrolling that really advanced infantryman skills. Anyway, late in the patrolling phase I was put in charge of the group of trainees and told to complete a very simple mission: move to a “patrol base”, hide and wait until morning. The move went fine, we got to the PB site and I set the guys in place. We were all very hungry and tired and I should have taken special efforts to ensure everyone stayed awake. I didn’t – I HAD to sleep. I turned the patrol over to my assistant, who fell asleep, the entire class fell asleep and were “attacked” and overrun. I failed my second graded patrol, was “recycled”, lost my motivation, dropped out of the course and ended up in the 82nd Airborne instead.

The thing is even with this there’s no way to know if I would have passed Phase 1, or passed the rest of the course, or managed to get on and stay on a team. But assuming all of these breaks fell the right way: I get into SF and stay in the Army for 20. I don’t go to the 82nd, don’t go to Panama, don’t get out in ’86, meet my first wife, move with her to Oregon, get divorced, marry Mojo, have the Peeper and adopt Little Missy. My entire life is different.

Maybe. Who knows? I hate questions like this because it assumes you can KNOW what would have happened if you went back and took a different path (see question 7, below).

3. What is one unrealistic goal (but your total secret dream) that you would love to come true, but are pretty sure it won’t ever happen?
I play in goal for Newcastle United during our league- and cup-winning Premiership season, culminating in the 1996 UEFA Champions League Final where I keep a clean sheet and am Man of the Match and voted European goalkeeper of the Year.

4. Who has had the most influence on your life and what did they teach you?
Several people, but primarily my father, who taught me to work hard, answer straight and keep my promises and my mother, who taught me to love unreservedly and to read ALL the signs along the road.
5. You are on a deserted island. You are stranded with someone from any point in time for 2 months (they are coming to rescue you but are busy right now). Other then family/friends/naval engineers, who is it?
Are we talking fantasy here? ‘Cause if we are, I’m taking Janeane Garofalo in a sarong. Or maybe Susan Hayward circa 1957.

6. Name and describe 3 things on your mind lately. Is there any particular reason why you’re thinking about a particular thing?
a. What the fuck is wrong with the American public? Can we really have American politicians, American leaders, who publicly say they don’t think there’s something wrong with Americans using torture invented by the Spanish Inquisition, and the American public isn’t coming to get them with rope, torch and pitchfork?
b. How the hell do you convince an eighteen-month-old to sleep through the night? (Why do YOU think I’m thinking about this?)
c. Is a public high school education as crap as it seems, and what the heck am I going to do when it comes time for OUR kids to go to high school?

7. If you could go back to one moment in time and change it, what would the moment be and what would you change it from and to?
This is the same sort of “what if” question we dealt with back in question #2. I’ve never killed a man, so that’s not an issue…and if I were to choose, say, the failure of my first marriage…well, what about the wife I love now, and our children? So, no. No changes. The past is past, and as any good sci-fi reader will tell you, you fuck with the past at your peril.

8. What is your biggest pet peeve and is there anything that you can do or not do to stop other people from doing it?
People who get into the passing lane and then putz along at 5 miles below the speed limit. Slower traffic keep right, numbnuts. Sure there’s something I could do, but the amount of time I’d spend in the Oregon State Correctional Institution for Men for using an RPG-7 on other Portland drivers makes the solution not worth the cost.

9. Who has been the most influential teacher in your life and why did he or she have such an impact on you? Have you sent them a note?
I’ve been blessed with an entire life full of undistinguished teachers. Perhaps the only instructors of worth I’ve ever had have been in grad school: Dr. Burns, Dr. Cummings and especially the late Dr. Marvin Beeson, all of Portland State University. Good professors all. But I’m in regular contact with Dr. Burns, Dr. Cummings isn’t really a “note” kind of person and it’s a little late to try and contact Dr. Beeson except perhaps through the Amazing Kreskin.

10. What three things do you regret not learning to do?
a. Ballroom dancing (not the silly competition kind, just regular tango-and-foxtrot kind to go dancing with my wife)
b. Speak Japanese
c. Draw at a professional level

11. What is your biggest fear?
Leaving the house without my pants on. Other than that, the usual: nuclear war, peak oil, pandemic influenza. Seriously, my biggest fear? For the lives and happiness of my wife and children, of course.

12. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
My eating habits. God, I eat crap, and my girlish figure has suffered for it.

13. What is the answer to life, the universe, everything?
42

14. If you knew, beforehand, that the wait for your child from China would take this long and drastic a time frame, would you still go through with it or would you choose another country.
Over, done deal, got the kid. Now ask me if, had I known what would happen along the way, would I still have gone through with it? Mmmmmaybe. But maybe not.

15. What is one food that most people like that you do not like at all?
Christ, I eat and enjoy fried pork skins! The stuff I don’t like (beets, head cheese, raw turnips) most other sane people don’t like, either.

16. Name one place in the world you would love to spend at least one month visiting? Is there anywhere on earth that is so repulsive to you that there is no amount of money that could convince you to visit it?
a) I gotta pick one? OK – Hawaii, but thats gotta include at least Maui, the Big Island AND the waters between them.
b) downtown Detroit. It’s like Baghdad only with more firearms.

17. What book have you just finished reading and why did you pick it up? Would you recommend it to others?
The Sky People” by S.M. Stirling. Ehhhh…depends. It’s junk sci-fi, a 21st Century “John Carter of Mars”. Fun, fast read, disposable. You like? Read.
18. Share a relatively quick and easy recipe for Fall. One pot/dish recipes given extra credit.
Feijoada Completa Brazilian 140mins

Ingredients
225g/8oz Salt Pork, cut into 2.5cm/1-inch cubes
1 tbsp Vegetable Oil
1 Onion, chopped
2 Garlic Cloves, crushed
400g/14oz dried Black Beans, soaked overnight
450g/1lb Portuguese sausage (Linguiça)
225g/8oz Lean Smoked Ham Hock
Salt and Black Pepper
2 Bay Leaves
1 small Orange, washed and cut in half
960ml/32fl.oz. Water (approx)
450g/1lb Corned Beef, cut into 5cm/ 2-inch cubes
2 Oranges, peeled and sliced to garnish

Instructions
1. Place the salt pork in a saucepan of cold water, bring to the boil and continue to boil for 5 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large saucepan add the onion and garlic and sauté until light golden brown.
3. Drain the beans and salt pork and add to the onion mixture together with the sausage, ham hock, salt, black pepper, bay leaves, halved-orange and water.
4. Mix well, bring to simmering point then cover and simmer for 1 hour or until the beans are tender, stirring from time to time and adding more water if necessary.
5. Add the corned beef, mix well and continue to cook for a further 1 hour, adding more water if necessary.
6. Serve hot with the sliced oranges and accompanied with rice and/or toasted manioc meal.

19. Would you rather be financially well off, but unhappy, or a happy person who is always in need of money?
One of Dickens’ characters says (I think its Mr. Micawber, but, whatever): “Income twenty pounds, expenses nineteen pounds, nineteen shillings and sixpence, result; happiness. Expenditures, twenty pounds, sixpence, result; misery." One of the biggest loads of crap foisted on the world is the idea of “poor but happy”. Poverty – real poverty – is a grinding, daily misery of avoiding creditors, dodging eviction and scratching to find a way to survive until the end of the month.
So are we talking real poverty? Then, no, I’ll take the Donald, thanks.
But I’d be willing to go shy half a slug as long as I have my home and family around me. Come to think of it, I already have.

20. What is the most comforting sound in the world to you and why?
The sound of my children’s happy voices, and my wife’s contented silence. Why do you think?

21. What is your all time favorite book? If you aren’t a reader, what is your favorite movie? And why?
Too many to list, and for too many different reasons. You might as well ask if I have a favorite star in the sky. I will say that I have some popular authors I love that aren’t widely “popular”; I think Donald Barr was a great and underappreciated writer, and I really enjoy the work of Jack Hunter, Lois McMaster Bujold, Richard Adams, and Judith Merkle Riley. Pretty much everything of Carl Hiiasen’s makes me laugh my ass off. George McDonald Fraser has written some terrific stuff. I can’t honestly pick one book in particular from these writers. It’s the body of work that is so much fun.

Movie? Have to be either “Buckaroo Banzai across the Eighth Dimension” or “The Lady Eve”.
22. Share one of your most cherished childhood memories.
Can’t say that I can recall a particular moment. I remember stuff like the sound of cicadas and the smell of new-cut grass on a sunny Chicago summer day, Pennsylvania hills under a thick blanket of snow, the sound of dry leaves underfoot and the crisp chill of autumn under the elms of Glen Ellyn.

23. What are you paranoid about?
The usual kid stuff – injuries, illness to the littlies. Losing my job.

24. What trait of yours do you MOST hope your children will carry on?
My ‘saitiable curiousity.

25. What’s your guilty pleasure?
Comic books, especially the work of Richard Moore, Rod Espinosa and Frank Cho.

26. What would you buy if you had a thousand dollars to spend n yourself? The only catch is that it has to be a totally selfish purchase, just for you. No paying bills or buying a year’s supply of wet wipes.
A week birding the cloud forest of Costa Rica, or June in Churchill. A birding trip, basically.

27. Help me update my iPod...name your favorite artists, and then your favorite song that they perform.
Benny Goodman “Swing, Swing, Swing”. Billie Holiday’s “God Bles The Chile’”. Of all people, Queen Latifah has an album of blues, jazz and pop with one song that’s getting airplay: “A Little Sugar for my Bowl” that kicks ass. Suzanne Vega rocks, though picking one song would be hard. “If You Were in my Movie” maybe? Or the title track from “Songs in Red and Gray”? Laura Love’s “Shum Ticky”, or pretty much anything off “Pangaea”. Tom Petty’s “Last Dance With Maryjane”? Joni Mitchell “Paprika Plains”, Barenaked Ladies “Light Up My Room” or “When You Dream”, The Eagles “Those Shoes” and “Life in the Fast Lane” (and Don Henley’s “Driving With You Eyes Closed”).

28. What is your favorite charity?
The Old Soldier’s Home in Dayton, Ohio

29. In The Shadow of the Wind, there is a beautiful passage that says “few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart.” Do you think this is true, and if so what is your “first” book and why.
No. I have no idea which book first “made it’s way into my heart” but it was probably a bit of popular junk fiction I read as a kid. That I have long since forgotten. I’ve read and enjoyed many different authors and genres, for many different pleasures. I love books and reading, but if you have one single book that has captured your heart it either means something to you for reasons other than its literary merit or you need to read more.

30. What is your favorite wilderness hike and why? (You knew I was going to ask this-if you aren’t a hiker, you can modify it to drive by landscapes or whatever speaks to you.)
Patrol route 3-5b up Wadi el Fortaga in the southeastern Sinai mountains. A little-visited spot of great and desolate beauty.

31. What were/are your nicknames? Do you like them?
Johnnie, as a child, not particularly like or dislike. A friend in college called me “Red”, which was OK – I had red hair at the time. In the service I was “Doc”, which I treasured.

32. What was your first concert? Your most recent?
Far too long ago to recall. Most recent was, I think, probably the Welsh choir that sang at the Portland Episcopal Cathedral last fall. Lovely fellas, really. Mojo hated it.

33. Have you ever done someone the dirty? I mean really, foully, badly wrong. And would you do it again, and why, or why not?
Yes: we abandoned a little brain-damaged girl in China to a life of want and hopelessness. And yes, I would, because I believed it was a choice of her needs and the health and life of our marriage and our family. But it could well have been pure selfishness. I've always believed that one of the most important things to know about yourself is the degree to which you can be a right bastard. I can. And have been. I'm not proud of it, but the evil and darkness is part of me as much as the good and kindness is. Helps keep me humble AND on the lookout for the times when I'm tempted by the Dark Side.

34. If you found out that the universe HAD been created, and you could ask the Creator one question, what would it be?
How could you create sunrises, Goya, painted buntings and chocolate malteds, and smallpox, Dick Cheney, peanut butter cereal and “From Justin To Kelly”?
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35. What were your dreams as a child? Are you kidding? Do YOU remember what you were doing 45 years ago? C'mon...I can barely recall what I did last week. My parents tell me that I dreamed of rhinos. I do remember a recurring dream of running and hiding from some unseeable but terrifying thing.
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36. What can you do better than most people? I have a head full of useless trivia, which I can recall almost at will. And I can classify soils.
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37. What is your favorite bird and why? Two: the American crow and the common raven, for reasons I explain here.
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38. When did you last go camping? Memorial Day, 2007. Read all about it.
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39. Is there something that you feel you should love doing with your kids but you really don't enjoy at all? Not so much any specific thing, but my patience is much less limited than theirs for almost everything. Playing with the kids always reminds me of the old joke about playing catch with a dog: you will get tired of it looooong before the dog.
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40. What home improvement project is next on your list? Finishing the basement for a third bedroom.
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41. Which season is your favorite? Autumn; the early part where it's cool and sunny, the wild geese overhead are calling and the leaves are turning color. I've loved fall ever since I was a kid but those autumns were midwestern and northeastern - the crisp weather continued until snowfall. Late fall here is a nasty wet mess, and you can keep it.
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42. MAC or PC? I know that I'm supposed to be all about how great Apple products are - and they are - but frankly, the incompatibility between them and PCs is a PITA. Apple made a monster boo-boo when they went after the schools and left the businesses to Microsoft and the Windows Mafia. I had to use a MAC when I taught high school and I was impressed but not THAT impressed. I have a Dell laptop at home and a tower at work. PC all the way, baby...
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43. If you had to name the best thing about getting older, what would you say it is? The senior discount? I suppose it's something related to experience...but there's always the bargain expressed best as: s1 jeunesse savait, si viellesse pouvait.
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44. If you were to name the most comforting thing for you to hold in your hands, what would it be and why? The warm, softly breathing little slumbering five-year old who should have been my first child, Bryn Rose, who died stillborn. Figure out the why.
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45. What is the most surprising thing you've learned about the blog world (and you CAN'T say "I've made such great friends". We all have, so we know that already! lol...). The amount of good writing out there that isn't being published.
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46. If you had to choose one actress to play you in a movie, who would it be? Kath Bates. She kinda looks like me, except for the beard thing.
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47. What are you currently watching on TV... and don't give me the I'm a smarty pants, I only watch current event shows type answer... what's you guilty pleasure TV show? Currently? Go Diego Go "The Wolf Pup Rescue" for the fourthzillionth freaking time - yeah, welcome to parenthood. My "guilty pleasure' would have to be MXC except fucking Spike doesn't show it anymore - like the world needed more cage fighting, Spike? Jackass.
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48. What is your favorite Holiday and Why? Whichever one gets me the most days off work. Seriously, I could care less about holidays - I have no religion and the civic holidays have lost their savor during the Bush Epoch. Sorry. Ugly, but there it is. If you forced me, maybe Thanksgiving, because I like turkey and stuffing.
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49. What is your favorite scent and why? Don't have one. For sexy, give me chlorine on warm skin - dunno why but I suspect it has to with early pubescent lifeguard fantasies. For calm, ponderosa pine needles and the clean sage smell of the high desert. For excitement, the drift of harsh propellant smoke that makes me think of the thunder of the guns under my control and feeling like the God of War. For peace, warm cotton sheets and hot coffee on a crisp morning...
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50.How did you meet your best friend? She walked into my old workplace and announced that she was the new permit specialist. It took a long time, and a very winding road, but, eventually...I married her.
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That's all!
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Next victim? I tag Millicent of Different Dirt - YOUR kid sleeps through the night so what are you wasting your time doing if not blog memes??!!
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Where'd this thing come from?
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Red Hot n' Rollin': Johnny(1,2) -> Our Journey to China (3,4)-> 3D’s Adoption Journey (5,6)->Waiting for Pumpkin (7,8)->Two Kayaks (9,10)->Watch Our Family Grow (11,12)-> Our Journey to Little Maple and Back (13,14)-> American Family (15,16)-> Chicago Mama (17,18)-> The Further Adventures of Spacemom (19,20)-> Mrs. Figby (21,22)-> Mortimer’s Mom (23,24)-> Mimiboo (25, 26) -> Sopapilla (27, 28)->Jiangli (29, 30)->Beeb (31,32)-> FD Chief (33,34) -> The Daily Grind (35, 36) -> Different Dirt (37, 38)-> Two Ladybugs (39, 40) ->Forks and Chopsticks (41, 42)->)-> The Mad Race for Macey (43,44)-> Digging a Hole to China (45,46)->The Sense in It All (47,48)-> Elena, r u? (49, 50)

Monday, October 29, 2007

Sunday Pictures

Well, I told you I'd have some pictures...!

I'm not quite as good at letting the pictures speak for theselves as some, but I'll try. This one does need a bit of explanation: it's Missy's crib in the back hall closet. Did I mention that some aspects of our child rearing are...ummm...well...kinda ghetto?
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Fact: she sleeps in it just fine, and we get our house back. We are gonna have to do something to get her a room of her own...someday.
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Where sleeping happens. Sometimes.

Missy the Wichita Lineman. These are the Peeper's beloved fireman boots.
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Now there's a happy face.
The reason for this frowning...?

Part 1: Missy finds some of Sheadon's toys

Part 2: Sheadon finds Missy finding his toys.
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Wash, rinse, repeat.
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This get's really old really fast. Friday evening there was a LOT of frowning.

Shea the Builder
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This is Daddy Sunday morning on the way to "the coffee store" (Starbucks), by Shea
Shea, by Daddy
The Peep took the camera in the car and shot off about six pictures of his little sister. This is number six, the one where she realizes that the paparazzi are just not going to leave her alone.

Cathedral Park, St. Johns
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Little Missy sees The Gull. For the soundtrack, point and repeat over and over "Bird. Bird. That's a bird. Bird. Do you see the bird? Bird. That's a bird. OK, it's a gull. Bird."

Those damn paparazzi again. But this time she's ready for her close-up.

Mom and Peep are looking for skipping stones, while Little Missy is doing just fine sifting sand.









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Ah! Found it! The motherlode!
See you Wednesday!

Eyeless in Gaza* (at the mill with friends)

Sorry no pictures today, but I can't find where we put the camera, can't turn on the light and don't want to wake Little Missy creeping about in a dark house with toys on the creaky wood floor. I'll throw up some pictures when I get home tonight.

We had a sort of white-black weekend: Saturday was bad...Missy woke about seven times Friday night, I was sleep-deprived and cranky, the kids were pissy (Peep was an utter PILL and woke Missy when she was napping twice), and Mojo was harrassed. So let's give Saturday a pass.

I should add a quick note here: I've been calling our second child Shaomei on the blog, which is, in fact, her middle name. Mojo pointed out that her first name is Maxine, and we should figure out a name we like and use it until she is old enough to make up her own mind. But I don't want to break my rule about not using our real first names online. So, for security's sake, and convenience, here our daughter will go by "Missy" or "Little Missy", which is our nickname for her.
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Sorry. Back to business...
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So Saturday sucked pipe. But Sunday? Nice. Missy slept almost all the way through the night Saturday and late into Sunday morning, which gave the Peep his own time to come in and cuddle with Daddy and Mommy. I have to say that I miss that Peeper time a lot...and so does he, I think. That used to be our weekend morning routine, a cuddle in bed followed by couch-time with Thomas the Train, Bob or Fireman Sam. Now Little Missy is usually up by seven, which means that the Peeper has to get his cuddles where and when he can. I think it makes him demanding and cranky, poor guy.
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So we got our Sunday cuddle, Missy woke up and we got out of the house and down to our St, John's Starbucks for coffee and a pricey egg-mcmuffin (or chocolate milk and a chocolate donut, you can see where's the Peeper's going with THAT...). Then down to Cathedral Park to play on the little beach under the bridge in the brilliant sunshine. We skipped stones, dug our hands into the sand (Missy), wrote names in the sand (Mom and Peep) and marvelled at a huge Herring Gull stalking earthworms in the park lawn (Missy and I).
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After a stop off at home and a failed attempt at napping for Little Miss we saddled up the Honda and rode down to Columbia Pool for a nice splash and giggle. Our little girl loves to paddle her hands and feet in the water, and can kick like Esther Williams! I gave the Peep multiple pool-floatie-spin rides, which he loved, and we got out before Mommy and Missy so we shared a secret ice cream sandwich...all the more delicious for being stolen and illicit (Daddy sometimes gives sugary treats that we know that Mommy wouldn't approve of...bad Daddy! but happy Peeper!)
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On the way down the street Little Missy fell asleep, so we parked at the Lombard Goodwill and went inside - got Missy her own plastic Halloween pumpkin, Peeper a fire truck and Daddy and Mommy some books. Then it was back in the car and on the road to Millicent, Floyd and Nola's place!
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These lovely folks have been - camping, basically - on the first floor of their gorgeous Victorian house as the upstairs is completed. Now the upstairs is done - OMFG, it's delightful, Millie promises that she'll blog again soon, and I'm sure you will see it then over at Different Dirt - and we moved up a bunch of heavy furniture including the God of Television (note: simulated picture of GoT - actual GoT too large for blog bandwidth).
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While Floyd and I moved, the distaff halves of each partnership played in the yard with the littlies - a tougher job, I assure you - and tried to pull the glass shards and other inappropriate toys out of little fingers before they went in little mouths. Peeper was a big help, and even Little Missy opened up and played. What was really adorable was that once the heavy lifting was done and we all retired to the back yard, at one point Nola decided to give her guest a tour of the charcoal mulch. She grasped Missy's small hand and towed her around the playset, into the dirt and back to the paving! I can't begin to tell you how cute that was. Gives me hope that these two can get to be friends once they grasp the whole "playing well with others" concept. I understand - not a given. Much of the Bush Administration is living proof of that. But, still...
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Of course, there was also some tussling over toy animals (compete with crying), some sippy-sipping and banana-eating (Nola loves her some nini, that girl, and so does Missy, so they split it), and lots of good dirty fun as the two little girls (who really look nothing alike) disgused their differences with some North Mississippi Day Spa topsoil-and-charcoal facial masks.
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After going our way we stopped at Sal's for a genuinely pleasant dinner: both children were playful but within limits, friendly and cooperative. To such small limits are our child-rearing horizons bounded!
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Then home to HotWheels video, congee, tub (for Little Missy, the waterbaby) and bed. A delightful Sunday, and much needed.
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* Note: Normally I revel in the obscurity of my blog post titles, but I wanted in this case to explain that I am ONLY referring to the lack of visual stimulation in this post. I am not in any form comparing the work of shifting the God of Television to Samson, blinded, at the mill with slaves.
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Pictures tonight, I promise!

Saturday, October 27, 2007

No Clue

I tried to pull together something big to talk about Friday - there seems like a lot going on around the world. And yet, I just can't seem to find anything new to say. Immunity for telecoms? Where's the issue? Seems like a no-brainer to me.
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Edging towards war with Iran? What the hell could I say that doesn't come down to "Are you really that fucking stupid?"
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I want to talk about the big picture implications of our national slide towards end-of-empire fiscal and social irresponsibility, but that will take a while and a bit more thinking.
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So what I'm saying is...I don't have an "issue" post for today. So...enjoy you're weekend.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Pica

This is Millicent. She's a busy new mommy now, with a husband starting a new job and a little girl starting a whole new life. I know that makes it hard to blog...but I'm jonesin' for some Different Dirt, me. I miss Millicent's cool-but-not-too-cool, funny, wise and just a little twisted take on Life, the Universe and Everything.
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Won't you help me beg her to give us a little sugar? G'wan over there and add a comment or three onto her last post and ask her for some of the Good Stuff. The ones she keeps behind the Kayro Syrup in the cabinet above the new gas stove. Maybe she'll whip us up a smokin' hot batch of Nawth Mississippi Luuuuvve.
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Y'think?
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Millie, I swear. I'm not going to sleep until you blog again.
No shit. Seriously.
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UPDATE 10/28: Talked to Millie today - we're going over to help them "move upstairs" (I'll explain later) and she said 1) that she already had a terrific post in her head, and 2) their internet connection was restored at home and she's ragin' to blog. So it looks like us Different Dirt fans will get us our heaping helping of the Good Earth. Yaaaayyy!!!

聪明的女孩!

What a smart girl!

The EI folks left the Fire Direction Center yesterday full of good words for our Little Missy. They found her "right on track" for social interaction and even above average for physical skills. Their only question mark was her verbal abilities: they couldn't get a good handle on whether her Silence was the result of developmental delay or simple language transition. But they were pretty confident that she has the basic hearing and speaking skills to catch up quickly.

What's funny is that over the last couple of days we really have seen changes in her, both verbally and emotionally. She is babbling much more openly as well as being much more active and engaged. She starts playing with toys more quickly. She will pull you over to where she wants you, throws tantrums when she can't get what she wants. And she loves the cats.
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This is not an especially good thing...for the cats. Let's just say that Little Missy believes in Tough Love, if toughness is expressed as the ability of the cat in question to take punishment. No matter how often Mojo, Peeper and I shout "NO!", take her hands and try to impress on her the proper cat-petting etiquette, what the wants to do is pull tails, slap heads and grab legs. I have been giving Miss Lily extra rations of the really stinkily loathsome cat food she adores for putting up with this behavior without slashing.
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And I should add that although she doesn't have actual words yet she does have a sound - an ear-splitting shriek - that signifies "cat" although it might as well be translated as "mobile object that gives me pleasure to abuse". Last night she was toddling about, we heard "the shriek" and raced into the kitchen to find her with poor Lily in a osaekomi-waza, 押込技, a pinning hold, with the poor cat looking like a Gitmo detainee awaiting the arrival of Dick Cheney and his personal waterboarding assistant. We freed the poor cat, admonished the girl and carried both to the furthest parts of the house only to come running again within two minutes to find the torturer had the torturee by the tail and was swinging like an adorable Asian toddler pole dancer doing a frantic routine down at the Viewpoint.
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I'm not sure if it's heroic or just stupid, but the cat (who flinches when Shaomei screams at her) refuses to run away. Her hope (generally unfulfilled) of cat food overcomes her sense (usually accurate) of self-preservation. Sigh. Foolish cat. Hope is not a plan. Miss Nitty has the right idea: when the daughter gets Tough, even the tough cat Beats Cheeks.
Speaking of foolish things, I ran across something strange but funny. I'll bet that at some point you've come across the sort of "motivational" posters like the one above. Some offices are nuts about them. some aren't, but they've become like those old "Baby On Board" signs used to be, a semi-permanent fixture of office culture.
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I've always hated the things, as much for the implication that my job performance is malleable by something as ridiculous as one of these silly posters as by the fortune-cookie "wisdom" of the posters themselves.
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Apparently I'm not the only one. The good people at "Despair, Inc." have assembled the reply: "anti-motivational" posters which typically contain a similarly brief but much more pointed aphorism that describes an alternate reality to the feel-good philosophy of the mainstream version.
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And some of the images are the best part of the joke. Of the examples I've seen, I have to nominate the "Ambition" poster below as the very best. Admittedly hard to attribute emotions to a fish, but you can almost see the last little thought balloon of anguished surprise over the salmon's head...
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"What The..!!??"
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Indeed.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Forget It, Jake...

Sometimes I really irritate myself. On the way into work today I had the coolest idea for a post. I could even picture it on the ugly green-y GFT template - the Greg Ryan story below this great post full of clever, thoughtful writing that would get this terrific discussion going in the "comments" section.

And then I lost it.

I mean as in completely gone. Disappeared, vanished without a mental trace. My mind as empty and serene as a cloudless summer's day.
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WTF!!?? How the hell can that happen? I must be losing my fucking mind. It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. An American tragedy - brain-dead at 50. Jesus wept.
Big excitement around the Fire Direction Center today: the "Early Intervention" people are there looking over our Little Missy. I haven't heard from Mojo so I'm not sure what they did or what they found, and I'm a mixture of excited and nervous. I hope they have a cunning plan to help Shaomei become the best actress-brain surgeon-astronaut she can be...!

Those of you who read this blog know that I really like to cartoon and cartooning. Tooling around on the web I ran into this site - WARNING: NOT WORK SAFE! (which means there's nekkid girly pitchures here!). I have to say - I love the artist's delightfully curvy, and extra-curvy, women. I've always suspected that many of us guys aren't all that thrilled at the stick-insect women that are pushed at us as "beautiful". Certainly I can remember thinking back when "Ally McBeal" was such a big hit: "Damn but that woman is scary-skinny..."
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I'm not saying that you have to be as anti-thin as "Fat Actress". But, dammit, the thing that makes a woman womanly is the curvy bits. If you're skinny, fine. But if you have a little bit more curvy in the curvy parts...mmmm. That, I like. And apparently so does "W. Means".
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I know some people living in the San Fernando Valley - which means that I've been watching the fires on the news with some concern. After all the loud noise we've had through the past seven years over war and terror and government malfeasance...wouldn't it be odd to think that in a decade we might well be thinking back on the Bush Years as the beginning of the time we seriously worried about climate change? Will events like Katrina, and now this, seem more critical than all the snooping and spying?
Coming this Friday the last word for Portland schoolboy soccer: Lincoln H.S. at Grant H.S., with the undefeated season for Grant on the line.
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In the interests of full disclosure I have to admit that I coached at Benson Polytechnic between 2001 and 2003 and loathed Grant's coach for the thuggish tactics he taught (or at least encouraged) among his players during that time. But as a former, temporary, unpaid PIL coach, I'd love to see a PIL school take the state schoolboy soccer title. It's never been done.
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But...I have to say this. When the PIL was nine high schools is made some sort of sense to give Portland four playoff spots. But now that the OSAA has divided the PIL into 6A and 5A? Giving three spots to the PIL 6A schools is nuts. If Benson beats Wilson Thursday night Wilson will go to state 3-4-1. That's messed up. C'mon, OSAA, get real.
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And speaking of messed up stuff...note the map below. This is the official City of Portland "landslide hazard" map. The darker brown area? That's what the City considers it's "lanslide hazard zone". It's the whole freaking West Hills!
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I don't mind making money, but...c'mon! I went to look at a site today that barely had enough landscape to hide a gopher. This is just laziness, Portland. You don't have enough time, or money, to actually go out and try and figure out where the really steep parts are, so you just throw the whole thing in a bag and make the poor landowner figure it out. That ain't right.
I know that siblings are supposed to be all snippy with each other but...it's different when you're the mommy and daddy. I have a lot of sympathy for my little guy, but I swear if I hear another "STOP IT MEI-MEI!!" when Little Missy is just doing what a toddler does...
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The other interesting thing is how the whole "older-kid-regresses" thing works out. So far with the Peeper it's just 1) he wants his milk in a bottle instead of a sippy and 2) he's WAY needy - wants to be picked up and held, etc., etc...
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Mojo says that the little neighbor girl had a different approach. She wanted to go back in diapers - and announced when her parents refused that she'd just damn well poop in her pants, then.
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Call me a Bad Daddy but my reaction? "Okay, honey, but I'll bet the other kids at school won't want to play with you when the poop-smell from your pants gets really strong..."

Finished "Empire of Ivory" yesterday out at T-6 (see below). Good stuff. The author is taking this series in an interesting, dark direction that wasn't obvious in the first two "Hornblower on dragonback" books of the set.
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One aspect that I enjoy about this is the writing, which is a cut above the usual genre fiction. Novik has done some work among the period writers and has a nice feel for early 19th Century dialogue. One of the problems I have with historical fiction is that the characters often talk and act like contemporaries in period costumes. Novik's "Temeraire" characters are recognizably Regency people with attitudes and attributes more in common with their time than ours. And that's the real fun of historical fiction - not just the fiction part, but the sense of getting a glimpse of a time gone past and into the minds and hearts of people long dead.

My friend Meghan sent me a long e-mail full of bullshit from the people opposing Oregon ballot measure 49. This didn't shock me - I'm used to raging against the Lying of the Right. It's just another reminder that the term "conservative" has become synonymous with "traitor". 21st Century "conservatism" has come to stand for a mean, grasping, small-minded hatred of everything not white, male, profitable and Anglo-Saxon.
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A lot of my work comes from land development, and I can't pretend that I'm particularly green myself. But this brutal, greedy "It's my land and I'll do what I want because I want to" ethic is just too much. I hope this ballot measure passes by a whopping margin.
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Am I a Bad Daddy to buy the 12-year-old son of a family friend (the family of Oscar the Ginormous Fish) an Airsoft M4A1 rifle?
She was a synchronized swimmer before synchro was cool. She was famously so tall that Gene Kelly was mean to her on the set of "Take Me Out To The Ball Game". Her boyfriend Jeff Chandler liked to dress in women's clothes. And right now she's not feeling so well. So a big "Get Well Soon" to one of the Chief's favorite classic Hollywood actresses, Esther Williams. Hope you're back in the pool soon, Es.

Damn. I wish I could remember that idea for a blog post. Oh, well, I guess I just don't have anything to say.

Gone, Baby, Gone

So it looks like Sunil Gulati agrees with me: Greg Ryan had to go, so "Ryan's Hope" won't be renewed after the contract runs out at the end of the year.
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Ryan, with the egotistical "its-all-about-me-ism" that has typified his attitude towards the USWNT, went public today with a classic fired coach's "I'm proud of what my team did" presser. My distaste of the man's style aside it was only to be expected, not only because that's what fired coaches do; it was entirely in the man's character to do it. This self-exculpation is ugly but not shocking. And, really, it's not the point. The question is now: where does the USWNT go from here?
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One thing that U.S. Soccer needs to deal with is the ugly, archaic style of play that Ryan installed. If you read these soccer posts you know I've complained about this before (and even before that...) Now it seems like no-one hesitates to talk about the decay of the U.S. midfield. Here's Swedish team captain Svensson on the 2007 WWC edition of the USWNT: "Six or seven years ago, with Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy in the team, they would try to play the ball on the ground a lot more and pull teams apart that way. Now they just try to bang it up to Abby (Wambach)."
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One of the things I love about soccer is that it is - and traditionally always has been - a player's game. Soccer is still resisting the "coaching culture" that has made so many other sports so deadly, with team after team looking and playing alike as their coaches try and avoid the unusual and different so as to avoid being slammed for disregarding convention. Some of the sport's greatest players - players like Garrincha and Georgie Best - have been described as "uncoachable". One problem I have with the Ryan USWNT is that his team lacked it's own character. I believe he wanted a team that was an extension of himself. He got what he wanted. And when the team got in trouble on the field - the place in soccer where the coach can't go - the U.S. gals lacked the ability to take the game and make it their own.
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This, in turn, points a troubling finger at the captains. I've always respected Kristine Lilly as a player. But what happened, Kristine, when your coach made possible the most boneheaded decision a USWNT coach has ever made? Where were you? And after the first own-goal against Brazil? You were the field leader at a time when your team most needed leadership. Why didn't you give it?
Add to this whole nasty mess the last act of the farce: the pathetic punch-the-dummy post-WWC US-Mexico road show. If the USWNT had won the Big Prize in China it would still have been a trifle tacky but excusable victory lap. With the actual result and the team's disarray it seemed really tasteless, an "I-coulda-been-a-contenda" Globetrotter sideshow complete with Washington Generals stand-in, Mexico. To my immense pleasure the Mexican gals - mostly U.S. college players from Mexico - found it in them to slam a tired-looking U.S. squad with a 1-1 draw to end the kabuki play, with the U.S. midfield again gone missing and the American gals reduced to playing ugly Route 1 hoof-and-hope.
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The American team needs to look into itself. Regardless of who the next coach is - it doesn't really matter who the coach is - this team needs to find its own heart and soul. The rest of the world isn't going to play dead for the U.S. anymore. Our gals are going to have to get out there and kill for themselves. A great team has inside it the steely heart and focused mind of a killer. The 91ers had it. This team needs to find it for itself.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Blue Sunday

I should probably start out with the conclusion of this post: I'm struggling more than a little with all this child-rearing. It's not that I don't love my kids. I do. Or I don't love spending time with my family. I love my family and spending time together. It's just that I wish we could spend some time doing things less...juvenile. So I've been down-at-mouth and kinda blue this Sunday.
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I know, I know...what else do you expect when they're 4 (and a half! he'd want to be sure I added) and eighteen months? Intellectually I understand that it may very well several months before I can expect my son to discuss the constitutional implications of the military tribunal system erected for Gitmo or my daughter to appreciate the subtlety of a Marta backheel or sit quietly with me on the porch and watch geese punctuate the gray palimpsest overhead. But viscerally? I want to roll over and drum my heels like my own kids, wailing "I want my adult life back!!!"
Now occasionally we do get a break. We had a nice one yesterday when our friends the Ravas were back (here's a little account of their visit in July) - that's them (with Miss Shaomei looking on curiously) at the top.
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Mama Rava was all agog at the laminate floor - she actually got down and caressed it, she was lusting after such a floor. Sadly this snapshot has more of a "Kimchi Squat" look to it. And I was hoping to make a name as the "Ansel Adams of Domestic Photography". Well, damn, there's another chance at glory shot to hell.
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I have to admit that sometimes the Ravas are...overwhelming. They're fun, loud and active, and I always feel very timid and retiring when they arrive. This is a bit of a jape, as anyone who knows me will volunteer that I am usually considered a bit of a lout; loud-voiced, less than suave and a trifle louche'. Saturday's visit was the perfect power level, though: fun and energetic without ever getting too far over the top. Here's our Little Missy with Etzion Rava, two divas in the making if ever I saw them. Don't they have great smiles?
So everyone played with everyone, admired the home improvement, and - wonder of wonders - the Ravas offered to sit our two littlies for an hour so we could go out and have a nice dinner.

So we did! Nothing fancy, just wandered over to North Denver, not too far from the Peeper's beloved Kelli's house, for some mighty damn fine Korean sushi at Ukiyoe - better known up here in North Portland as the "Teriyaki Steakhouse" with dimmer lights and some tarted-up decor. But the sake' was hot, the sushi cold and the conversation delightfully...adult...shall we say? Okay, innuendo aside, it was nice to actually get to look my bride in the eyes for more than a moment!
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The really amazing thing is that we got back to find our little girl....(you remember her, the poor little orphan child who can't go a moment without her mommy or daddy right there? Whose entire raison d'etre is "Stranger Danger"?)...asleep on Mama Rava's chest. I mean, I knew that they'd played and had fun and generally gotten on pretty wall...but...wow. This is a good sign. I hope this means that our little girl is starting to feel more loved and secure. That would be a Good Thing...
Oh, and just in case you haven't looked at a calendar lately...

It's getting to be awful Halloweeny...
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My understanding from the critter on the left is that the Peeper is a dinosaur, not a dragon. He is quite insistent on that point. Peeposaurus is going to need so serious pinning/sewing if he doesn't want to come out of his costume on Halloween night.
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Miss Rava's ensemble is a stunning creation of La Salon du Peep, that is to say, it's his LAST year's H-ween costume. I like it with a feminine twist, I must say...
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So anyway, that was a fun end to a busy Saturday (we also went to the Truck Petting Zoo at the Children's Museum - at least Peep and Mojo did; I sat inside the Honda in the rain and read Naomi Novik's latest Alternative Napoleonic dragon-tale Empire of Ivory with a sleeping mei-mei in the back). So today was always going to start as a bit of an anticlimax...
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Peep enjoyed his scrambled egg (since Shaomei had one he had to have one, too)


Little Miss carefully inspected the newly-rearranged toys (since the Peep objects to her playing with his stuff we've had to move the boy-toys into his room, leaving only the unisex playthings in the front bookcase)...we had already been up at 5, back to sleep until 7, up again and then out to our St. John's Starbucks for a latte' (for Daddy), a steamer (for Missy) and the sunday papers, then back home by 9. And they used to say that the Army "did more before 8 in the morning"...

Mommy sprawled in a chair, somewhat exhausted already from refereeing the Peeper-and-Mei-mei Championship Fight all morning. Poor woman - she's looking at a week alone with these two little terrors...I go back to work full time tomorrow.








And the Daddy, seen here, attempts to put the notion of quiet, adult conversation and life without diapers deep in a locked closet at the back of his mind.







And Miss Lily is starting to wonder is there is a Cat Exchange Program that would enable her to spend the next several years as a convent cat in a Cistercian abbey in Dorset.

Bad kitty! Bad, naughty kitty! Bad, naughty, EVIL kitty! (And don't look at me in that tone of voice...)

I should add that we did have a bit of a nice interlude - went for a rather chilly, rainy walk down at Smith & Bybee Lakes and met two very lovely couples, all four from Taiwan, one pair at the penultimate point of having their first child (she was bloomingly pregnant with a month still to go!), the other couple adopting a child from Taiwan. I had heard elsewhere in the IA community that Taiwanese adoption involves presenting your (the adoptive parent's) "case" for adoption to a judge, which frankly sounded quite difficult and potentially risky to me. The couple - presently in the early stages of paperchasing - seemed to feel very confident about their process. Very cool. Foolishly, we didn't get names or contact info - they seemed like very good people and I wish we had a way to find out if we could become better aquainted with them. A pox on these missed opportunities!

Oh, well. A childish life it is for me. Have a nice week - I'll try and be back on schedule with another post Wednesday!