The Adopted and Doomed

Our family just grew by 50% this afternoon. L and N went to a birthday party up the street and came home with roommates: two teeny, tiny goldfish in Styrofoam cups. I didn't go to the party so when L came bounding back into the house and shoved her cup in my face shouting "Look!," I almost had me a fish shooter, thinking she had brought me back some punch or something. Had it not been for that flash of gold that caught my eye and stayed my hand, I might have had to put my daughter in therapy early.

N came in shortly thereafter with another, particularly parched looking fish, most of his water having been sloshed out on the four-house run down the sidewalk. He immediately wanted to feed it. My mind raced with visions of fishbowls chocked with cheerios and cupcakes and water blood-red from a 50% Kool-Ade solution. We explained to the would-be caregivers that unlike other members of the Perkins family, fish don't particularly like a lot of food, and, facing the facts about a fish's life expectancy in our house, we tried to communicate that even when properly fed, they don't generally last all that long.

"Why not?" asked L. "Do they go away? Do they disappear?"

"Well, if Mommy or Daddy notice them before you do, then yes," I answered.

The naming ceremony was short and to the point. No deliberation needed; L already had completed the task: Ariel and McQueen. (Since L has an obsession with Ariel from the Little Mermaid, she's decided that N needs a subject for compulsive behavior of his own, so she's decided that he idolizes McQueen from the Cars movie. N good-naturedly goes along with it, but truth be told, I think he just humors her.) L, of her own accord, wrote out some labels so the fish would know their names.

Neither fish looks particularly Arielish or McQueenesque to me, though one of the two fish does seem to shared some personality traits with N. When startled it tends to lead with its head, slamming repeatedly it's little gold cranium into any and all barriers (not that there is a plethora to choose from). So I guess on any given day the fish beating itself into the wall will be McQueen, and the more passive (and quiet) of the two, Ariel. I expect they'll probably switch names back and forth every other day, but I'm not too concerned since I strongly doubt there will be all that many days to worry about it.


Yes, I do believe that is abject terror in that poor fish's eye.

3/4/2009 Update: It's Wednesday night and, surprisingly "Ariel" and "McQueen" are still swimming with the fishes, which in this case is a good thing.

As a reward we found them a considerably bigger bowl. They're moving on up. I even swung by an aquarium store after work and got them some purple rock gravel and a stunningly beautiful $2 plastic piece of seaweed. Nothing but the best for our fishy friends.

Mimi's All Grown Up!

We were driving with L this morning and she had a somewhat random question.

"How old is Mimi?" she asked.

"Mimi is ##^* years old," I answered.

"She's ##?!?" blurted L, quite amazed. "Wow! She's really getting big!"

^* Age withheld to protect the ancient.

Of Taxe$, Trees, Chicken and Waffles

Today was tax day in our household. Larry, a long-time friend of Stacy's family, helps us file our taxes; he works out in the Valley, so we generally schedule our meeting to be on a Saturday morning and we'll shoot over to Burbank afterwards to visit Stacy's grandparents while we're in the general vicinity. (If you consider 18 miles away the "general vicinity.") I'll be getting a refund this year. Better enjoy it while I have it; next year won't be so pretty. Anything Mr. Obama gives me back next year, Mr. Schwarzenegger will certainly take away again.

Once taxes were filed and we got to Burbank the kids and I played in GGPa and GGMa's backyard while Stacy visited with them inside. There is a tree in the dead center of their backyard that is an iconic fixture to Stacy. She loves that the kids play on and around it like she did growing up. She has pictures of her Dad playing in that backyard too, through I think that might have been pre-tree.

And since we were in the vicinity (again, very loose term), we decided to bop over the hills to Hollywood for lunch, where we took L and N to one of Mommy and Daddy's former favorites, Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. Two waffles and a drumstick later N was complaining all the way home how hungry he was.

I've never seen such a day / In Beverly Hills LA.

California may run out of money, but it never depletes its stock of irony. On Thursday L's preschool, I suppose in an attempt to demonstrate how "the other half" lives, has a snow day. Now for all you in the winter war-torn climes of our planet, that would imply the kiddies staying home and drinking hot cocoa because the world is just too ferocious. Not so. A snow day in So Cal is much more Hollywood than that! The kids bundle up like they're off to visit Sarah Palin and drive through the brutal 70º weather to the preschool so they can run around and play in the half dozen mounds of "snow" generated by hauled-in snow blowing equipment. (Equipment they probably dragged down from Century City where they're filming Dr. Zhivago II or something.)

Needless to say, L plunged full steam ahead, and N was invited to join the frostivities for part of the play period. Then, when all the kiddos were suitably frostbitten and crying because of the inevitable snowballs down the backs of their jackets, they all went inside and had that hot cocoa while Mother Nature cleaned up outside.

Meanwhile Stacy took N home—with the air conditioner turned on.

I guess it doesn't take a Johns Hopkins specialist to tie the morning's events to those that happened later that night.

I wonder what next week will bring? World-wide Pandemic Day, where they all get to paint their faces green with little white infectious dots? No wait, that was later that night too.

All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm Ready for My Close-up

L's school shoots family portraits for their directory and tonight was the night for our session. I got home from work to find everyone dressed and (relatively) ready, but L seemed fussy and out-of-sorts. She was hot. She was cold. Her tummy hurt. We pushed her into the car and drove her amid her gripes and complaints to her school. N, on the other hand, was all excited about the prospect of saying "cheese" on command.

We got to the school, filled out all the paper work and went out in the fresh air to await our turn in front of the bright lights, all the while listening to L's overdraw moans and histrionics. Until, of course, that fateful moment when she decided to prove once and for all that she wasn't dramatizing. She stood stock still, her eyes got big and then, with a sudden head-bob, she let it rip. Pink pasta-laden projectile spewed all over the patio, all over her shoes, and all over her dress. In one fell instant she pretty much obliterated all family fashion color coordination efforts.

We sheepishly told the photographers we'd have to reschedule, found a bathroom and did what we could to clean up L, who was now chit-chatting away about her ralphing as though it was just another day's adventure. We summoned a janitor to once again make up for our environmental obscenities and took off for home. About half way there we pulled up to some innocent Torrancian resident's house to leave a separate gastric present in front of their curb. I'm happy to say that by thus inflicting our indignities on unsuspecting exteriors, we managed to keep our own car spiffy clean! (Though Stacy's shoes did take a mortal blow.)

As we pulled into the driveway L was whimpering softly and N was sobbing loudly. "We didn't take our picture! We didn't take our picture!" The only consolation to be had was in an improptu photoshoot in our hallway. Good thing they haven't developed digital scratch and sniff pictures yet.

Genetic Reverb

Going through some of Stacy's old pictures I was struck by how much N resembles his Uncle Kyle.

The Perkins Stash

Our neighbor, Grandpa Wayne, is convinced we're keeping gold doubloons in our garage.

Pointless Facts and Data

There seems to be a "25 random things about me" kick going around on Facebook lately. I've seen 8 billion of them in the last two weeks. Stacy stressed out for two days coming up with hers.

I have not devised such a list for myself, but in honor of Valentine's Day, here's my version of:

25 Random Things about Stacy.

1) Stacy has no sense of direction. I think we've gotten lost going to every one of her family members' houses for the first time. But she always insists she knows where they live.

2) Stacy makes a killer "Stuffed French Toast" - a baked breakfast bread pudding with eggs and butter and blueberries and cream cheese and maple syrup. I'm pretty sure you'll die if you eat it twice in a row, but you'll die happy.

3) Stacy has a nice singing voice, though she doesn't believe it when I say it.

4) Stacy likes it when I read books to her, especially when I read different characters with their own voices.

5) Stacy has a disturbing ability to remember trivia associated with specific dates. "Did you know that eight years ago today was the day you drove me to Aunt Wendy's?"

6) Stacy is far more patient and disciplined with the children than I am.

7) Stacy feels guilty if she charges for piano lessons.

8) Stacy has the right approach to scrapbooking. The decorations she makes for her albums accentuate the photos rather than overwhelm them.

9) Stacy believes in writing thank-you notes - something I never did myself, but something I admire in her.

10) Stacy watches more television than I do, and spends less time on the computer.

11) Stacy is devoted to her grandparents.

12) Stacy is a beach person who is slowly being converted over to a woods and mountain person.

13) Stacy's appreciation for classical music and ragtime piano make up for her past fondness for heavy metal and cheesy Christian music.

14) Stacy is terrified of flying, but has only been so since she became an adult.

15) Stacy genuinely loves her in-laws. And they love her.

16) Stacy has a way with older people. Most of her best friends are over 70.

17) Stacy's hair is her glory, but it looks best on the short side.

18) Stacy incorrectly believes she is a blond.

19) Stacy's Swedish is amazingly good for her never getting to practice it.

20) Stacy is a recovered vegan. She is fully recovered, thank goodness, and once again appreciates the wonder that is bacon.

21) Stacy is a good cook, but she's an especially good baker. (See item #2.)

22) Stacy inherited a slight hypochondria streak from her father. She's recovering from that too.

23) Stacy's mixed metaphors are an endless source of pleasure for me. She really did say, "Never kick a dead horse in the mouth." I kid you not.

24) Stacy tends to sit bolt upright in bed in the middle of the night and scream at the top of her lungs. Her nightmares usually involve spiders or a mythical disembodied head with a huge bulbous nose.

25) Stacy is a wife of noble character who is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks for nothing.

Blood, Fret and Tears

There's a reason I went into engineering and not medicine.

My patient this evening nipped her finger on one of those sets of kiddie scissors - you know, the kind designed to cut nothing at all, but still seem quite able to maim and disfigure. I examined the wound and noted it was a fairly benign injury, but it did have the unfortunate little dot of blood that triggered a far more serious loss of bodily fluid via tears. I took L to the bathroom and washed off the blood and dried the finger with a clean tissue. Of course it was soon dabbled with blotches of scarlet, the sight of which set off another round of sobs. I managed to triage things as best as I could with the colorful Kleenex, having L pinch it on her fingertip while I rummaged for a band-aid. When I passed up a box of general-sized "Little Mermaid" band-aids in favor of a non-printed fingertip one, a new wave of lamenting ensued.

The fingertip band-aid was, of course, designed for significantly larger fingers, so once applied it looked more like a frilly, flesh-colored mushroom growing spookily on her finger than a balm of healing. I took some scotch tape and smoothed out the flaps and she was quickly good to go. For about five minutes anyway. That's when she noticed Daddy's skill as a trauma center first responder was a little substandard. Soon that determined little drop of blood had found its way out of the formerly-billowing, now-taped down mushroom band-aid and was making a rather nauseating splotch on the inside of the tape barrier. The patient once again began to approach a semi-hysterical state until remembering my bedside manner, I reminded her that her brother would find the sight of a mangled finger horrific. She immediately forgot all fear of death and drama and set off to chase her brother around the house with her fell digit of terror.

What Is Thy Only Comfort?

L and N are memorizing the Heidelberg Catechism in Sunday school. The first question is my favorite and they're getting it down pretty well.
(Thanks to Mr. Lockyear, for putting it to music to help us!)

Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?

Answer. That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, hath fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.

Beside the Wine-Dark Sea

N doing his best King Lear.

We finally had our much needed rain front come through Southern California. It poured last night and it's pouring again tonight, but there was a bit of a break midday. Stacy and the kids were up in the Hermosa Beach area for something-or-other this morning and took advantage of the break in the weather to go see the storm-churned surf up close and personal.

In the Iliad Homer refers to "the wine-dark sea." That imagery has always captured my imagination and I thought of it again when Stacy showed me these pictures.

L practicing her Tae Bo.

Everything was just fine until that lifeguard in the dune buggy
bounded over the hill and squashed the children.

Gee Whiz!

I got home from painting class tonight to find an unexpected box from Amazon sitting on the dinning room table. I opened it to find my very own copy of Infinite Jest, the 1000 page book I foolishly decided to attempt to read in the two weeks the L.A. library was willing to lend it to me. I've been having anxiety attacks for the last three days, stewing over how to accomplish the Herculean task.

What brings such an honor to my doorstep? It appears that L and N's adopted Grandma Gee in Olympia felt it important to keep me well-stocked in literature:

A book worth reading is a book worth owning! And reading at your leisure! If it's not worth keeping, you can always donate it to the local library.     Gee :)

Thank you, Gee! You're the infinite best!

Homemade Lasagna/A Mermaid Is On Ya

I was a little under the weather today and there's nothing in all the world that brightens an under-weather day like lasagna. All that cheesy love and tomatoey encouragement sends the sore throat viri packing - or at least encourages them to 3-hour ceasefire while much needed humanitarian supplies are delivered down the esophageal highway. (I think I have the Gaza strep...)

L was instrumental in the laborious task of noodle making. She took great delight in guiding each noodle through the noodle mill, squealing as it flattened and elongated. I could see her mind racing, considering all the other toys and household items she could run through the press. (Needless to say it got disassembled and put away quickly after we were done.)

And no, we don't usually sit around the house making pasta from scratch. I was bored.

While I was under-the-weather, yesterday L was evidently under-the-water. She came back from a friend's birthday party and had a mermaid attached to her cheek like a barnacle, or maybe one of those sucker fish that latch on to sharks. N was at the same party and seemed to come home with nothing but the azure of the sea itself clinging to his face.

By the way, Stacy wanted me to point out that:
1. SHE painted the mermaid on L's cheek, and
2. She thinks my post title is atrocious.