Tire and Ice

Just so our snowed in relations don't disown us completely, I'm posting some pictures taken when Mimi and Grampy came out between Christmas and New Years. We had a cold snap around then and there was a lot of snow up in the San Bernardino mountains. We took a day trip with Mimi and Grampy out to the city of San Bernardino to visit Mimi's aunt who lives there, and while they visited Stacy and I took the squirrelly kids 20 minutes up the mountain and played in the snow. Although I'm sure she doesn't remember it, L had been in the snow in Maine before; for N, I think this was a frozen first.

It was an altogether enjoyable experience, other than making a wrong turn and venturing down a particularly steep, narrow, ice-covered road in a large minivan with no snow tires. After about fifteen minutes of slip-sliding, wheel-whipping, and horizontal shimmying, we managed to extract ourselves from our icy tomb by employing what I have termed the "blast-off" technique: Sink further down the mountain until you can find a sufficiently large patch of ice-free ground, and position yourself at the very end of it, then gun it to get from 0 to 60 in the 10 feet you have (imagine a 747 taking off on a driveway) and pray the momentum takes you far enough up the mountain until you hit another dirt patch. In the jostling moments when you are whizzing over ice between traction spots, stabilize and steer your car through the power of fervent prayer and the cheers of your toddlers.

It appears Stacy, in general, disapproves of such methods.

Intimidating Jest

For two and a half months now I've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the book Infinite Jest. I've been wanting to read it for ages, ever since my buddy Dave in Seattle (OK, Tacoma, same thing), recommended it. I put a hold on it at the Los Angeles public library in mid-November. I was a little shocked to realize I was #98 on the waiting list. I knew it was supposed to be a good book, but wasn't expecting it to be so much in demand, especially since it was published in 1996. I'd never been on a waiting list for an LAPL book, ever. So while I was waiting I did some research on the book and found out the author committed suicide on September 12.

Hence the wait.

But it arrived finally at our local branch and I picked it up on my way home from work. It's a monster! 981 pages, plus another 98 pages of "Notes and Errata." I am a painfully slow reader and I usually have to renew a checked out book two or three times before I can finish it. I don't believe LAPL lets you extend a check-out if there are others waiting for it, so I might be in a tough spot. Now I'm just staring at it sitting there on my chair, apprehensive and somewhat at a loss. Do I dare start what I won't stand a chance of finishing? I circle it like a dog checking out a new neighborhood canine, not sure if it will be friend or foe. I waited two and a half months to get Infinite Jest and it appears the joke is on me.

If You Live in Maine, Skip This Post

OK. I warned you.

Stacy had an eye-doctor appointment in Hermosa Beach this morning. (Tough practice there, I'm sure. His office is probably 50 feet from the sand.) After she squinted and blinked on cue for her allocated 20 minutes, she took the kids over to the beach. It was a true So. Cal winter's day - absolutely gorgeous. You could see Santa Catalina crystal clear. The kids built sandcastles near the waves and got rather frustrated with the arrogance of the ocean when an errant wave would sneak a little further ashore and take out their architecture.

I don't have kids; I have goats.

Hope everything's well Down East... ;-)

The Ten Commandments and Pigs-in-Blankets

Stacy had a "room mother" function tonight at L's preschool, so I had kiddie dinner duty. Rather than try to destroy the kitchen while the youngsters destroyed the rest of the house, I decided to inflict our brand of terrorism on some hapless commercial establishment. And since Mommy wasn't there to lay down all these bummer ideals about nutrition and well-balanced food pyramids and the like, we threw caution to the wind and went wild and crazy - yes, we went to IHOP! Pancakes for dinner?!? Daddy is brilliant!

On the way there I mentioned that I probably needed to stop at the bank ATM to get some cash. L asked why. I told her we would need to pay for dinner; we couldn't just eat and leave without paying. That would be stealing. Just like we read in church every Sunday: "Thou shall not steal."

At that, N's head popped up: "That's Pastor Greg words!" he said.

L chimed in: "That's right. Thou shall not steal, AND you shouldn't take someone's donkey! Or their cows or Aunt Claudia's two birdies." An interesting take on covetousness, I must admit.

The kids were actually unnaturally humane in the restaurant. I had this sneaking suspicion that I was flirting with disaster with the whole idea, but I actually pulled it off rather handily. L, of course, did need to go potty as soon as we got there, so I had to drag both of them to the bathroom and deny L her request for "privacy, please." N assured me he didn't need to go. Ten minutes after we got back to the table, however, N realized the floodgates were opening after all, so we three made the trek back to the men's room for round two. (At least he did go.)

N ordered strawberry waffles which came with whipped cream; L had blueberry pancakes with a gallon of blue syrup. I wrestled with the grueling choice between pigs-in-blankets and an international omelet. (The piggies won.) Once everything arrived, it was all doused even more liberally with the 17 different syrups at the table, and we dug in. N's waffle was larger than his head and he polished it off. I grew teary with pride. L ate all the blueberries and syrup off hers and was done. By the end of our meal we looked like a human French flag: N on my left was strawberry red from head to toe; L on my right was a giant, sticky, blueberry mess. Liberté, égalité, fraternité! After we paid the bill it took a third trip to the bathroom to do a sucrose purging of all exposed body parts.

...And yes, we did pay the bill. And we did not sneak off with any donkeys-in-blankets either.

Sweet Mushroomy Goodness

Stacy's Aunt Wendy and Uncle Don live out in Ventura County near a lot of really good produce stands and farmer's markets. Whenever we go out there or they come down here to visit they are always thoughtful and have a much-prized gift pack of local mushrooms for us. We were out there last weekend for Don's birthday, and not surprisingly, we got the better gifts! This time Wendy put a recipe list in the bag and one of them jumped out at us. (A recipe, not a mushroom. They're fresh, but not that fresh.) Sausage and Mushroom Soup. We tried it tonight and it was incredible. Even L and N liked it, and lately they won't give thumbs-up to anything but macaroni and cheese. I've included the recipe below.

Sausage and Mushroom Soup

2 tbsp. olive oil
1-1/4 lb. mild Italian sausages
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. white mushrooms, sliced
7 c. chicken broth or stock
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 tsp dried red-pepper flakes
4 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
1-3/4 tsp salt
1/4 lb. angel hair pasta
1/8 tsp. fresh-ground black pepper

Directions

1. In a large pot, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over moderate heat. Add the sausages and cook, turning occasionally, until browned and cooked through, about 10 minutes. Remove. When cool enough to handle, cut the sausages into 1/8-inch slices.

2. Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil in the pot over moderately low heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook until golden, 5 to 10 minutes.

3. Add the broth, thyme, red-pepper flakes, 2 tablespoons of the parsley and the salt to the pot. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 15 minutes. Stir in the sausages and bring back to a boil. Add the pasta, reduce the heat, and simmer until just done, about 3 minutes. Stir in the remaining 2 tablespoons parsley and the black pepper.

Horror in Harbor City

Stacy went off to a tea party with some of her lady friends this afternoon and I was put in charge of keeping the roof on the building. Luckily it was nap time for most of my tour of duty, but toward the end L was up and about and demanding attention. She had a new bathtub toy and asked if she could play with it in the tub. Thinking that was a reasonably good way of keeping her confined, I agreed on the condition that she not turn on the water; she went off, happily playing, while I continued to go through bills and junk mail in my office. A little while later N woke up and toddled off into the bathroom to play with L. I could hear the two chit-chatting away, playing together nicely. Two kids suitably occupied for the price of one! Woo-hoo!

I clearly should have known better.

About 45 minutes later L came over to me and said, "Daddy, look what N's doing." I jumped up and bolted to the bathroom and, on flinging open the door, reeled in horror as I realized that I'd been transported into an Alfred Hitchcock movie.



From floor to ceiling... OK, from floor to half-way to the ceiling... were the sanguine signs of a horrific trauma. The cabinets, the walls, the toilet, the shower curtain - all caked with what could only be Mommy's lipstick or the dried blood of a thousand screaming victims. The bath towels were pasty; the floor was slick; N's Tonka toy dump truck (which was also in the bathroom, as it often is, for reasons I long ago stopped trying to uncover) looked like it had witnessed an industrial accident of appalling proportions. Charles Manson was a neater house guest.

Then my disbelieving gaze fell upon the only two apparent survivors of this ghastly holocaust. L slid a little further behind N and muttered that she'd told him not to do it. She then realized that her ruby hands were showing and quickly pulled them behind her back.

As I gathered my breath and let the room stop spinning, the "EEEEK! EEEEK! EEEEK!" of the shrieking violins gradually faded into the background. I thought I'd better count to ten, but by 4.5 I realized I was already calling down fire and brimstone at the top of my lungs. But by 8.4, however, the ludicrousness of the situation finally settled in and I was forced to struggle valiantly to keep my angry-face on and maintain that hint of murder in my voice. But to no avail; I ended up breaking down into pathetically suppressed laughter that immediately handed the battle to the kids on a silver platter. Having lost all authoritarian terror in their eyes, they immediately began to further smear the walls. I regrouped, yelled a little more for good measure, scrubbed their hands to the exact same shade of red, and packed them off to their room for a time out.

I stood back to assess the damage and smiled again. Kids, I chuckled. It was at that moment that a different mental image floated in front of my brain: a vision of Stacy pulling up in the driveway and discovering the fruits of her baby-sitting trust in me. I screamed like Janet Leigh.

The next 45 minutes were spent in frantic scrubbing with rags, hot water, and every caustic chemical we owned. All I can say is, thank goodness for Simple Green^®.

Tips for Good Picture Taking

I've been working on restoring some of Stacy's old family pictures. I was working on one of her grandparents when L came up behind me. "Is that Grandma Ann?" she asked.

"Yes, it is," I answered.

"Is she still died?"

"Yes, she is still dead."

"Is that picture from when she wasn't died?" she asked.

"Indeed," I responded.

"Good thing we got that picture when she wasn't dead."

"That's the best time to take them," I agreed.

Wedding Rehearsals and Male Pattern Baldness

L decided this morning that it was high time to start practicing getting married. She rummaged through Stacy's linen closet while no one was looking and emerged into the living room in full regalia. All she was missing was a groom.

Not to be thwarted, N was quickly called into willing service, allowing for some pictures that will surely haunt and humiliate him for many, many years to come...

Gifts (cash preferred) can be sent in care of Steve and Stacy Perkins.

In other news, I was quizzing N on his catechism today as we were in the car on an errand. We got to the line "and not a hair shall fall from my head" and he stopped me. "My hairs don't fall out, Daddy," he informed me. "They stay on!"

"Let's have this conversation in another 20 years," I said.

Barbershop Duet

For some reason it seems today was a day focused on the subjugation of hair. First Poppa came over and much to L and N's amazement and excitement, trimmed off his beard right while they watched and applauded. Then I came home from work, and not knowing of the day's earlier scalping, sat N down for a good, much-needed hacking.

(Stacy made me promise to go gentle on him, which I feel I can say that I did, at least relatively speaking.)

Poppa before.

Poppa after.

N before.

N after.

Not wanting to be left out of the act, I went and trimmed my bushy eyebrows - my "Einsteins" as Stacy calls them. Does that count?

I Miss My Wookie.

1/21/2009 UPDATE: The video is back up! Woo-Hoo! Our pointless life now has, if not a point, at least a soft round nub again!

* * * * *

Curses! The Moosebutter video has been taken off of You-Tube for "terms of use" violations. What will we do? L, N and I are huddling in a small group humming the Indian Jones theme song softly to ourselves, but it is slight comfort.

Stacy seems obnoxiously giddy right now. I can't wait until "the man" starts burning all the copies of "Little House On the Prairie" and we'll see who's laughing then.

At least I have the MP3 version on my iPod...

Another Hair-raising Tale

Sometimes I'm simply at a loss to explain things. L came up to me this morning to show her new hair accouterments. "She braided me these before she died," she told me. "She maded them long."

"I don't follow," I said, confused, "Who made those?"

"Mommy."

"Mommy died?"

"Yes. She's never coming back. She's already got another child."

I can't even begin to guess where Freud would take this...

Meanwhile Stacy wishes to assure everyone that reports of her passing have been greatly exaggerated.

Plane-ly a Disaster

I think they've figured out what got sucked into those Airbus engines the other day...

(N has to claim the rats living in his hair as carry-on luggage.)

A Light in the Darkness

L came running up to me this morning all excited. "Daddy! Daddy! My Ariel cup glows in the dark!"

"Really?" I said, suspicious. "Let's go in the hall and turn out all the lights and see it."

We did. Total darkness.

"No wait," said L, "Turn on the lights and you can see it better."

John Williams Is the Man!

I generally avoid posting outside content on this webpage. I would rather keep the posts focused on things that transpire here with the kids or on things that affect my family. That precludes adding links to most news events or passing along every vapid internet joke, etc. Sometimes, however, that line is blurred and the outside world comes over like a bully and beats up those of us hiding out in the inside world. Sometimes there's something that goes on out there that gets absorbed and in-grained and grafted-in to what's going on in here.

I'm an engineer by training and trade and therefore a little less socially adept than most. I wouldn't go so far as to say "nerdy;" I perfer to think of it as cool-challenged. And so when I first saw this video on You-Tube, unlike many of you, I thought it was absolutely fantastic. It made my day. I found I was playing it all the time. (I'm not even remotely a Star Wars fanatic, though I will admit to having a man-crush on John Williams.) Soon, every time I turned it on there would be a scampering of little feet and L and N would soon be on my lap watching with me. Each time Stacy would roll her eyes and I could tell she would be having that mental "You knew this about him when you married him" conversation with herself.

So here it is — a musical tribute to John Williams and Star Wars by the a-capella comedy troupe Moosebutter:

I came to realize the full impact of the video on our family the other day when I walked past N's room an noticed him sitting on his floor playing with his blocks singing "Kiss a wookie, kick a droid," softly to himself.

Friday Night and All is Well

It's Friday evening - the tenderloin of the weekend. I have a moral obligation to make the most out of it by wasting it. It's 10:15, it's been a brutal week, the kids are asleep, and I'm thoroughly exhausted; I have nothing in particular that I have to do, yet I just have to do something. Stacy is already in bed, but that is not an option for me. To go to bed now would be essentially criminal; it would be wasting a night set aside for wasting, but wasting it in the worst possible way to waste something: unappreciatively. You see: its Friday. If I go to bed it will very quickly become Saturday, and we all know that Saturday gives rise to Sunday and in the blinking of an eye (im nächsten Augenblick as the Germans would say), it will be Monday again and my life will sink once more into chaos and despondency. Friday night is this rare ephemeral, transitory spot that is neither weekday or weekend. It is a gift — a gift that must be spent foolishly, though introspectively.

On Saturday there will be things to get done, jobs to complete. I will want to be productive, efficient, competent, thorough. But Friday night is a different animal. Friday night is subversive, selfish; it is to be squandered greedily, but with intent and purpose and filled with self-awareness. It is to be flagrant and flaunting, yet solipsistic and self-conscious. On Friday nights you have to regularly stop what ever you are doing to waste the time and say to yourself: It's Friday and I'm enjoying wasting it. You have to put these little mental chalk marks on the night; these little reminders to yourself that you were there and experienced it. Markers of the time.

I have to consciously indulge in each little moment. Each ticking of the clock is to be thought of as a little pearl, a little poem. It says "I - don't - have - to - go - to - work - for - two - whole - days!" And the best part is that since it's still only Friday night, I haven't really even started! I don't have to be depressed yet at how quickly the weekend's flying by because it's still FRIDAY and it doesn't count! It's not borrowed time, its stolen time! It's like playing the quarters you win from a slot machine: it wasn't really yours to start with, so you can spend it extravagantly! - you can waste it! - but you've got to waste it with a sweet savoring of every little coin. It's like maple syrup - you don't need much, just one night, just one little drip, but you'd dang well better lick the plate clean.

What will I do to savor this fillet mignon of time off? Easy: Surf You-Tube and Wikipedia! And with each click of the mouse I will think: I didn't waste a bit of my weekend vegging on the computer, because it's still Friday, and the weekend hasn't really started yet!

Late Night Pneu-moon-ia

I'm fairly convinced that interesting astrological phenomena are always scheduled for when it's 20º below zero outside. Take Maine, for example. On a good night where my folks live the skies are so clear you can pick out the rust spots on the unidentified flying objects. (As opposed to the LA basin where on a clear night I can almost make out the street light at the end of my driveway.) Whenever I visit my folks in Maine I try to hit the backyard one night and go sightseeing. The nebula in Orion is particularly clear, and with a modest set of binoculars you can get a pretty decent view of the Andromeda galaxy. But unfortunately both Orion and Andromeda are winter constellations, and in my opinion, the winter sky in general is the far more interesting and worthwhile sky to peruse. This means, of course, that if you want a good night of star-gazing, you have to put up with temperatures that mimic my stock returns.

But even the summers are frustrating. My best summer sky hunting is up in the mountains on camping trips. But what happens after sunset in the mountains? That's right, it gets bleeping cold.

I thought last night I'd found an exception to the rule. Last night (January 10^th) the moon was at perigee, which means it's at it's closest spot to earth in it's orbit. That and other astro-physical considerations that I don't really claim to understand contributed to the full moon being the largest and brightest it would look in all of 2009. It was expected to be something like 14% wider and 30% brighter than usual. (Thanks, Wayne for the tip off!)

Given a noteworthy celestial event over sunny Southern California (OK, maybe "sunny" would be the wrong term for star-gazing...), I thought I'd found an exception to my cold conclusion. Not so. Being too busy to catch things in the early evening, I got up and went out this morning before the moon set. Yup. It was pretty miserable. But I did get the following picture snapped before my trigger finger seized up. (Yes, I know: without any context in which to judge its size and brightness it looks like... well, a picture of the moon - and a fairly out-of-focus one as well. Big deal.)

And I know any of my family members in Maine reading this now are giving me the "poor baby" taunt I so love giving my own children. "Brave Steve, you had to endure the chilly night air!" they say, dripping with sarcasm. "What a trooper! A true hero!" People from Maine generally aren't too sympathetic when you whine about how cold you are...

Child Warfare

It's been a long day with the kids and as a result Stacy and I have been doing some soul searching. Every year thousands of children are adopted from China, Romania, Vietnam and other far and distant lands. After the day we've had with ours today Stacy and I have concluded that we owe it to our country to even out the trade deficit. We will shortly be putting our children up for adoption to the furthest bidder.

We had considered shipping them off in a box with airholes to Mimi and Grampy in Maine, but as a kid I read The Incredible Journey and have an irrational fear that they would find their way back. And besides, we like Mimi and Grampy. China certainly seems like worthy choice. Uzbekistan looks like another good option.

Of course the new Obama administration probably doesn't want yet another international crisis to deal with at the moment; it's hard to imagine such a transfer would not inevitably be viewed by the recipient nation as a hostile threat against their national security.

Do military schools have preschool and kindergarten options?

Late Night Book Worm

Ever get a book you just can't put down, and read and read until you drop?

Richard Scarry sure does write page-turners!

A Man of Few Words

So much for the strong, silent type. N used to be the poster child for thoughtful reserve, for pensive introspection. You could say that his actions spoke louder than his words—that's mainly because he tended to like to bang on anything loudly, but my point still stands.

Not so any more. Over the last month some internal switch closed and verbosity ensued. He's been talking for 9 or 10 months now in a little stream of mismatched nouns and verbs, but what we have now is a verbal flash flood. It is ceaseless. If the eyes are open, the tongue is wagging.

I am generally a man of few words; if there ever is a large outpouring, it's usually written down rather than spoken. I had relished the thought that one of my children would actually allow a thought to brew in their heads long enough to have discernible content and poignancy before being blathered out, but alas, N seems to have followed in his sister's "speak first, think later" modus.

Notice how careful I am being to not say where our children may have picked up this trait. Notice how I have gone way out of my way to avoid suggesting that perhaps it might be due to one side of the family rather than the other. As you might imagine, it is typical of my character (and far wiser) for me to ponder my thoughts on this matter privately and simply not say them...

More Thoughts on Leaving

Stacy and I had a disturbing realization yesterday. We were driving surface streets across the South Bay to a particular store we wanted to go to that was about 15 miles away. As we drove we started noticing and noting all the businesses that were closed or closing. There seemed to be one or two on every block. While the "economic crisis" has been all the buzz on the news of late, it hadn't actually seemed to make it too far into daily life in L.A. At least I hadn't noticed. Sure, business has been a little slower at work these days, and the shopping centers did seem less chaotic over the holidays, but it didn't strike me as real until yesterday.

It was a rather sobering introduction into 2009. Here's hope and prayers that all the dire predictions of the news buzz will be shown to be overstated.

New Year's Leave

Mimi and Grampy left for home on Dec 30^th. They made it back to Maine safely, though not necessarily smoothly. I could go into all the dreary details, but that would be exceedingly boring and serve no purpose—it wouldn't even be a satisfying vent session for me. I'll suffice it to say that they made it home 40 hours after they set out for the LA airport.

L and N are somewhat at a loss without Mimi and Grampy around; their sugar intake remains high with no targets around on which to expulse it. And Stacy and I notice the house getting progressively more cluttered with dirty dishes and strewn-about toys. Oh, that's right - we have to do that now that Mimi's gone! Bummer.

We really enjoyed having them around, not only for the kiddie-diversions and the kitchen elves that seemed to emerge once Stacy and I went to bed, but just because they are fun and relaxing; the ideal no-stress guests. Stacy was crying when I got back from taking them to the airport, "I already miss them so much."

One of the highlights of the visit for the kids was the decorating of an architectually challenged gingerbread house. It looked a little like it had been through a hurricane or a 7.0 tembler when it was done, but it was nevertheless an object of beauty to the contruction crew.





It must have been built in a bad neighborhood because with every day that would pass we'd notice that someone had stolen another shingle or window pane.




L also took the opportunity to show Mimi and Grampy how grown up she has gotten and that she will soon be able to go to work like Daddy.
(Says Daddy: "Knock yourself out, kid.")

In olden days Mark Antony may have had Cleopatra lazily feed him grapes. In our local version of Egypt, Mimipatra substitutes grapefruit for her N-tony.

There was plenty of time for education with Grampy on the couch. Who knew FOX news could be so captivating to a two-year-old?

A visit from Grandma Flo.

Three generations of Perkins.

L and N will miss Mimi and Grampy, but at least they are comforted knowing they'll be back again soon. They are planning on coming out again in March and this time they'll be bringing Auntie Sue, Uncle Victor and their cousins Aubrey and Garrett for an extended family vacation at Disneyland. (Daddy can hardly wait...)