Learning the Lingo

N's quite the talkative chap, and sometimes the novice listener may be left in the linguistic dust. For those requiring a reliable bilingual dictionary, I submit the following:

• Dah-Eee - n. male parent; father.
  <Dah-eee go work! Dah-eee go work!>
  
  
• Mah-mee - n. female parent; mother.
  <Mah-mee home! Mah-mee home!>
  
  
• Gra-Eee - n. A jolly older male who occasionally visits from Maine. He looks an awful lot like Dah-Eee.
  <Gra-Eee phone! Gra-Eee phone!>
  
  
• Mi-mi - n. A jolly older female who also occasionally visits from Maine. Seems to travel in tandem with Gra-Eee. Come to think of it, she looks an awful lot like Dah-Eee too.
  <Mi-mi, Gra-Eee bye-bye!>
  
  
• Cla-cla - n. A much-loved aunt who frequently accompanies L and N on adventures.
  <Cla-cla train!>
  
  
• collie - n. A long tubular food made of semolina flour, often served boiled with tomato sauce. A dinner favorite of both N and L.
  <More more! More collie!>
  
  
• nie-nie - n. or adv. N's final act of the day, or the location in which it is performed.
  <No go nie-nie!>
  
  
• al-mine-eey - adj. Supremely powerful. Unsurpassed in strength.
  <God a fah-er al-mine-eey!>
  
  
• annas - n. A tropical fruit imported from Central and South America. A breakfast staple.
  <More more! More annas!>
  
  
• pah-ohl - n. A game or toy made from interlocking wooden or cardboard shapes. Typically forms a picture when properly assembled.
  <Dah-Eee pah-ohl hep!>
  
  
• lye-ee - n. A florescent or incandescent glass globe or tube, typically found on the ceiling. Endless fun to activate and deactivate.
  <Mah-mee lye-ee on!>
  
  
• Doh-doh-doh - p.n. A Rogers and Hammerstein song often sung in the Austrian Alps. Extols the virtues of deer, sunlight, and hot drinks one partakes with jam and bread.
  <...Bring us bah to Doh-doh-doh-doh!>
  
  
• Ay-dah-why - p.n. Another Rogers and Hammerstein song. (N's into show tunes.) Celebrates a small European meadow flower,evidently known for its friendliness.
  <Ay-dah-why, Ay-dah-why, Ev-ee moh-ni you gree me.>
  

Training in the Marshal Arts

It was a beautiful morning today, so Stacy and I took the kids to the Madrona Marsh Preserve in Torrance. Although I'd driven by it for 10+ years, I'd never actually been before. It looks small and a little sad from the road, so I didn't expect much, but once you get inside you realize its a pretty big place (43 acres!) with quite a few surprises.

We took the 10am nature walk and our volunteer tour guide Bill, a retired aerospace worker, seemed to love his job. He showed us the native plant gardens with all their wispy grasses and the sage and mallow and milkweed; then we went into the marsh proper. Its a "vernal" marsh, which will dry up completely by the end of the summer, and reappear in the winter with the seasonal rains. Nevertheless the place teems with critters. We saw a number of birds I'd never seen before: A red Phoebe, swooping down to snatch bugs in mid-flight, some white egrets, and a blue-bill duck hiding in the water under a poplar tree. We also saw a very furry white rabbit that seemed to be struggling in the heat. The guide informed us that fuzzy white rabbits were not indigenous to the marsh, but that we were likely seeing an unfortunate Easter present that proved more than its recipient could handle. Evidently they get dumped in the marsh fairly often and rarely live very long.

As we walked around the marsh the docent pointed out a pretty rare bird that had taken up residence there a couple of weeks ago, a white-face ibis. (Can you tell which is the picture I took, and which I stole from Wikipedia?)

As the tour went on it got to be quite hot, but there were frequent spots of shade, a few scattered benches and a well-placed water fountain. L was fascinated by all the flowers and birds and was always frustrated trying to spot frogs before they vanished into the bog. N couldn't decide whether he wanted to run free, ride in the stroller, on Daddy's shoulders, or in Mommy's arms - it ended up being Mommy's arms, which Mommy wasn't too thrilled about.

One particularly memorable event from the hike was an unprovoked attack by two rather evil looking black ducks. Evidently they were bad eggs (pun intended) who had muzzled their way into the marsh from Wilson Park, where they had grown accustomed to extorting bread crusts from innocent passersby. Had you been there around 12:30 you would have had the no-doubt amusing opportunity of seeing me run like a terrified girl from the two satanic creatures.

(OK, so maybe I fudged with Photoshop a little
bit on this last one, but they really were evil!)

Eggceptional Cuisine

L has taken to the culinary arts and she seems to be gravitating toward the morning specialties. Last weekend she decided that the family was going to have eggs for breakfast.

With minimal help from Mommy (probably should have been more, from the looks of the kitchen), L cracked, mixed and scrambled her own mini-meal. Alas, there turned out to be only enough for her and a bite for her brother (who will tolerate no consumption in which he cannot partake). But I'll bet they were still the best tasting eggs ever to emerge from the nether region of a chicken!

---

This morning I dragged myself into the kitchen after getting showered and dressed for work and found a big soggy bowl of cereal sitting on the kitchen table, assembled all for me by my junior chef. It was a proprietary blend of Cheerios, Honey Chexs and probably a number of other secret ingredients that cannot (or rather should not) be revealed.

---

Tonight when I got home from work L got to show off more of her handiwork: a mighty fine, homemade mini yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

(I was very relieved to learn that it was leftover chocolate frosting I found smeared over N from head to toe.)

I'm sure it was a tremendous treat despite the fact that it was essentially a very yellow, very sweet, and very crunchy toast-like rock. (The kind of stuff I could imagine Hansel and Gretel's witch using to frame up her graham cracker roof.) She crunched through it quite happily after reluctantly agreeing to the 25% food tax levied by her never-sated brother.

Rambling with Another Wreck

I had the good fortune of hooking up with an old college buddy of mine last night. Jim Lewis, another former Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket, is on the short list of my favorite people. We were roommates together for way more years than either of us can justify trying to get out of that collegiate penitentiary. Jim had (has) a deep and penetrating love of all things cultural and earthy. My current appreciation of good beer, blue grass music, and Southern hospitality owes much of what it is due to Jim's influence and example. A connoisseur of Negra Modelo, pork products (in large quantities), smoking mandolin playing, and a Calvin commentary or two, Jim and I had very little risk of not hitting it off. Many a what-were-we-thinking adventure was undertaken over those years. (Ask me about all the alligator-fraught canoe-camping trips in the Okefenokee!)

Jim was returning home to North Carolina and his wife Vicki and four beautiful kids after spending weeks and weeks on a business trip in Malaysia. He flew through Los Angeles International (LAX - so named, I'm sure, for its security division) and had a wicked 10+ hour layover. It worked to my advantage, however, because Stacy and the kids were able to drive up to El Segundo and meet me at work, then we all drove to the airport and picked up Jim.

We had a dinner at a local Smell Segundo sports bar and then went to a nearby park so the kids could energy dump while Jim and Stacy and I hung out. L was all blushes and reservation, but N was typically fearless and social.

"Hi!, Hi!, Hi!, Hi!, Hi!,..."

It was great to see Jim and catch up with things on his side of the continent, and he got to meet our young-uns for the first time. Wish we could have spent some time with his wife Vicki and their troop.

Purging of the Child

Had a rough night last night. L had been complaining about an "owwy tummy" all day yesterday, and the chickens came home to roost around midnight. She was up off-and-on until about 2AM throwing up and having bouts of diarrhea. She was pretty miserable.

This is probably the first time she's thrown up and been self-aware enough to "experience" it. It was pretty tough to watch the rising panic in her eyes as she would convulse, not understanding what her body was doing, realizing all of a sudden that she had no control over it. She was terrified and desperately wanted us to fix it, but with any stomach flu, there is really nothing a parent can do but hold her and tell her she'd feel better later.

Now is later and she is indeed feeling better and pretty much her old self. But while she experienced what everyone of us went through at some point, I can't help but think that, to some small extent, our little girl lost another little bit of childhood innocence and trust last night.

A Room with a Vista

(With apologies to E. M. Forster)

Stacy became a computer widow today. Actually, she became a widow at about 4:45 yesterday afternoon when I drove home and met the very nice DHL dude who delivered my new Dell. I finally broke down last week and sprang for a computer upgrade. I got tired of waiting for two minutes every time I'd hit "save" in Word, or (heaven forbid), switched back or forth between Word and Internet Explorer. It was the random 30 second pauses that occurred every two or three minutes, apparently uncorrelated to anything I would be doing, that would drive me into a silent fury.

The new box is pretty heavy duty - I decided I wanted something that would be usable for five to seven years, so I nudged a couple of features up on the performance scale. It has Vista on it instead of XP, so I was concerned that I might just be taking a step backward, but so far all my previously used software has loaded fine and there have been no show-stoppers.

I spent all night and all day loading drivers, transferring files, updating software and trying to get my bearings. I'm not even remotely close to being done. I have that vaguely nauseated, slug-like feeling of the all-nighter technogeek hangover - that letdown of a night of Coke, Snickers and wasabi pea snack mix. I'm groggy and entombed in tunnel vision. I think I have children because I keep getting slimy pokes with what I think are fingers, but I've really not made much effort to pull away from my primary focus to verify.

Before I get lots of scolding emails, I should tell you that Stacy had a scrapbooking class on Thursday night - the night before VC day (Victory over my Computer Day), and I stayed home with the kids. While Stacy was out scrapping (or whatever you call it), I washed all the dishes, polished the stove top, vacuumed the carpets, doused the kids, and reclaimed the floor of the living room. Sure, it was simply to score brownie points to cash in today, but it worked like a charm.

Chaulking Up Another Pratchett

The first couple of Terry Pratchett books I read I read simply to assess the general style and character so I could tell the friends who recommended them that, unlike my normal modus operandi, I did actually follow their advice. I didn't set out to become a devotee. But after five books, Going Postal being the most recent, I've read enough of Terry Pratchett's books now to be beyond the "getting the feel of them" stage. I think it's safe (and time) to admit that I've become quite a fan.

The five that I've read (Soul Music, The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Equal Rites, in that order, and now Going Postal) have been all over the map in terms of when they were written and the characters they've incorporated (though they've all been in the Discworld series), so I wouldn't have been surprised to have found the strengths and weaknesses shifting and varying among them. But I've found them, rather, to be all very consistent and even - clever satire and humor, and both in good portions. While they are on one hand light and silly and funny, they are nevertheless very dense in terms of allusion and innuendo - practically every sentence makes you stop and try to figure out just what was being poked at or obliquely referenced. You can pretty much count on each having some target, though it may well be something obscure or too "British" to be readily identifiable to we Yanks. In fact, his books are so loaded that there seem to actually be people willing to devote large amounts of time researching and cataloging exhaustive lists of all the references and satires found within the books. Sort of running commentary on the in-line commentary. One such website I like to visit (so I understand just how many jokes went over my head) is The Annotated Pratchett. It's like reading Cliff Notes on that other less well-known English writer, Shakespeare.

I've read somewhere that medical issues may keep Pratchett from writing too many more books, but I'm happy to know that there are probably twenty-plus books already out there that I have yet to look forward too.

Chocolate Fondon't

Stacy has an admirable dedication to our children's nutritional health and welfare. She is amazingly creative at concocting things that the pickiest of pint-sized critics will devour. Sometimes, however, some of her ideas are..., well, a little disturbing. No, I can't leave it at that. There's really no other way of putting it: they're downright nasty, horrifying, and quite possibly criminal. Take, for example, the dessert proffered this evening. Cleverly marketed as chocolate fondue, it certainly looks appealing at first glance. But the second glance is what does you in. Note the picture of the stove top.


What about the pan contents don't seem to align with a traditional chocolate fondue? Could it be the puréed carrots? Maybe its the mashed up avocado? Yes, that really is a cup of powdered sugar being added to that vegetable mush. And it's about to be followed by an equal amount of cocoa powder. Makes you shudder, doesn't it?

The saddest thing of all is the unwitting victims subjected to it. L ate about three bites and was quite done. Our son, however, who would find dryer lint palatable, polished off his atrocity without much fuss.

I don't think Switzerland is likely to stay neutral over this. What next?
Brussel Sprout Cheesecake?
Tuna/Liver brownies?


(But how could I not still love anyone who looks this cute eating chocolate vegetable pudding?)

Of Manipulation and Vox Dei

Occasionally Stacy and I like to wage our little bouts of repartee via our children. We're confident that such blatant manipulation and pawnmanship builds their character and a strong, healthy sense of "sink or swim". For example this evening I had grilled some steaks for dinner:

L:	Daddy, can I have more steak?
Daddy:	Of course! Do you want nice, red, bloody steak like Daddy has, or nasty, dried-up, bad steak like Mommy eats?
Mommy:	Steve!
L:	Nice bloody steak!

In other news:

Stacy was out running errands today with the kids and had to swing by church to pick up something. As they were getting back into the car L asked, "Is Pastor Greg our pastor?"

"Yes," responded Stacy.

"Then Pastor Greg is like God."

Obviously she is referring to the whole representative office of Minister of the Word and his priestly role as mouthpiece of God. L is very into nuanced theology.

...These Are the Days of Our Lives

I'm sure this is exactly what Stacy had in mind when she insisted on setting up the sandbox.

In other news, Stacy and L were working on the flowerbeds in front of our house, getting them ready for planting gladiolas. L said to Stacy, "I am very conscious of weeds."

I have no idea where that came from. Other than the occasional spirited debate on Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy, L and I rarely discuss the mechanics of cognitive self- or herb-awareness. (And L has always argued for a more Heideggrian Dasein approach anyway.)

N, however, fully ascribes to the philosophic mantra "cogito ergo devoro"

Auditioning for the Blue Man Group

Who'da ever thought Mommy's
Creative Memories® stamp sets
would be so dad-gummed tasty!?!

Dastardly Daddy Deceptions

I got home from work today and after the initial greetings and hugs I noticed L standing sheepishly and Stacy prodding her with a "What do you want to tell him?" Eventually she stepped forward and 'fessed up.


"My skin turned purple," she said.

Concerned, I began looking for exposed bruises and wondering what excuse I was going to have to come up with for child protective services. Then Stacy prodded her surreptitiously again, "What do you want to tell him now?"

L grinned broadly, "Happy Fool's Day!!!"

Pwnd by a 3-year-old.