Saturday, May 02, 2009
A Fistful of Doll Hairs - The Ramblings of a Man on Family Leave
As I struggle with balky blog templates and a new laptop that just doesn’t “do” firefox anymore and oh good Jesse’s crying again - how the hell did he gash his forehead while IN HIS CRIB?, it seemed to me that it’s been a while since I tried a good old-fashioned improvisational post about a bunch of crap that got stuck between my ears. It’s been several days since I’ve even been able to update the blog, despite having actually written all this crap out quite a while ago. Consider this, then, a vigorous application of mental floss.
Hematite! It was just a few short months ago that I wound up taking Z to the new science museum for a very short visit - just to hit the gift shop to get a holiday present for a young friend, and then to expend what was left of about an hour in the myriad amazing museum exhibits. So, once we finished shopping, did we hit the living roof? The indoor rain forest? The enormous aquariums? The planetarium, the Galapagos exhibit, the Hall of Taxidermy (the meter’s still running on that one), or the living-scientists-doing-dissections-behind-glass? You know as well as I that the answer was not so much “um, no” as “HELL no.” We just stayed in the gift shop, where Z had discovered JISHAKU! This is a game featuring 18 highly-polished hematite magnets, which players take turns depositing into regular shallow indentations in a foam playing surface. If the magnet attracts others, you pull them all off the board and play them again. First one out of magnets, wins. It’s a quick and fun game, and Z was entranced by it for as long as I let him stand in front of the display. Of course, I had to get it for him. And also of course, I waited several months before getting around to it - by which time the damn thing was no longer on the shelves. I puffed up my manly courage as much as I could and confronted the teenage countermeister to demand (well, inquire) whether the game was available at all. They had only one left, as it turns out, and it was “downstairs” (ominous, eh?) - apparently as a result of parents complaining after feeding 18 highly-polished hematite magnets to their tender offspring. And who could blame them? They’re so tasty-looking, like little silver erasers or the eyes of evil aliens. (Nice aliens have bronze-tone eyes. Don’t you even pay attention to the news?) So here I am, bringing home the Jishaku (and don’t confuse it with Jinshaku, which apparently is actually an imaginary tiny pig that messes up your internal balance if you are a gullible 17th century japanese person). And Zach could not care less, but anyway the game is a lot of fun for me and to hell with him if he won’t play along. I’ll just sit in the dark by myself and study the official stragedy sheets, which include wisdom such as this: “A Player using this method will seek to methodically place their stone in multiple holes, rotating the stone as they do so.” Are you wondering which method they mean? Like I’m even gonna tell you. Just watch out for me rotating my stone in your multiple holes, buddy. The best games basically replicate real life.
Birthday Presents! I’m not a big birthday present whore but this year I did get a handful of really thoughtful items that I will gladly share with you all. (In writing, I mean. The actual stuff is mine.) The nucular fam got me a spiffy baseball-type cap in classic SF brown, with orange stitched letters on the front that read “38 Geary.” A hat for my bus! A bus hat! Or “bushat!” But not a “bu shat.” That would be gross. The only drawback is that it matches my beloved brown “Inner Richmond” hoodie, which would just be too much local color (brown) to wear all at once. However, the hat does look great with my new t-shirt from Simon - a very classy high-quality casual garment with a graphic of a big grinning roundheaded doofus on the front, just like one Mick Jagger wore in the early seventies. It’s very much the nicest T I’ve ever owned - silky fabric, great fit, and understated off-brown color. It’s a pleasure to wear. Which puts me in mind of Night Owl, who had to get into his super-duds (in The Watchmen) to feel like a “real man” - and my very dear friend LL sent me a fully articulated (well, mostly fully articulated) action figure of him for home display and roleplaying purposes. The boys love him, and so do I! Yay Night Owl! Yay funky “Crazy World Ain’t It” t-shirt! Yay Geary 38 hat! Upon special application, a photograph may be obtained of me with these three items. Whether I am wearing anything else will depend on the particulars of the request and requester, but let’s not rule anything out prematurely.
Eggplant? Yes, for some it’s nothing more than a gluey purple mess, but for others, it’s a delightful gourmet treat. I fall somewhere in the middle, for which I need to see an inner-ear specialist. Meantime, Kel did bring some of that good auberginey goodness home a while ago and I had no idea what to do with it, so I invented a delicious meal I will now describe to you in paltry detail. I cooked up some ground turkey, taking care to ensure it was properly spiced and didn’t fry up into big chewy chunks. Thereto, I added frozen spinach. Separately, I diced up the “plant d’eouf” in little teeny dice and tossed it in a beaten egg (okay, egg beaters, but they worked fine anyway) and then in bread crumbs. These I then fried up in hot oil till crispy but not till they fell the hell apart like eggplant so often does, and mixed it all together. It freaking ROCKED, especially with my favorite Mae Ploy Thai Sweet Chili Sauce. In fact, I’ve generally been rocking the kitchen action lately, but I’m keeping the rest of it to myself. I just found out that an old friend from grade school is the Director of Hell’s Kitchen and I need to keep something in reserve for when Gordon Ramsey shows up here to berate me.
Nightlight: After years - yes, years! - of saying that we needed nightlights but being rebuffed by the domestic powerstructure, Zach mentioned that he didn’t like using the bathroom at night because he can’t reach the light and it’s too dark in there to see if he’s watering the floortiles and within two days Kel had ordered and received a little lamp to redress that problem. It’s a clear plastic rod that lights up in a rotating series of colors when plugged in and left in the dark. I really enjoy watching it illuminate - the cheerful teal, the verdant green, the infernal red, the jaundiced yellow. Only complaint: No blacklight function!. What good is a nightlight that won’t make my psychadelic posters leap right off the flocked cardstock into the depths of my visual cortex? Oh and Z still doesn’t use the bathroom at night. I’m considering installing a hallway catheter (for the whole family, and guests as they might desire), but I do have to keep in mind, he’s got a lot on his mind and he’s barely 4 years old. There’s only so much you can ask a nightlight to do for a fellow, and I think “mind-bending visuals” is about the limit. Z has a damn good grip on plenty of stuff without pressuring him into nocturnal continence with some flashy electric plinth.
Family Leave: I just want to say that this has been a really freaking intense process, having been off work for two weeks already just to “be there” for the kids. Mostly it’s been a fairly full house - Kel was home the first week; Zach has been here for most of the second - but there has actually been one day when it was just Jesse and me. I went into his room that morning to get him out of the crib and discovered that the poop fairy had frolicked in his undergarments. Up till then that had always meant that the diaper had to get changed ASAP so we could get on with the rest of a busy daily agenda, but this day there was no daily agenda beyond helping my boy feel happy and secure. I took my time, not rushing, keeping things quiet, being careful and thorough and communicative. It took just a little longer than usual, but the satisfaction and gratification of being there in that moment, that diaper-changing, crap-stained moment, was startlingly fulfilling. It was one of those “be here now” moments. But with poo.
I think that’s probably all I need to say about that, and all I’m going to say about anything else right now. I’ll try to keep writing and posting as opportunities arise, but things have been sketchy and hectic (skechtic, I guess), so no promises. Except that I’ll be changing more diapers soon. Watch for the You Tube featurette!
