Monday, January 30, 2006

the embiggening

Last year some of Kel’s students gave her a massage as a thank-you gift when they left the school.  The masseur was a former student of hers, a professional massage therapist.  But Kel figured he might come back sometime for a brushup at the school and she didn’t want to complicate their pedagogic relationship with any taint of carnal overfamiliarity.  It just makes for a less effective teaching relationship when your student asks you in the middle of traffic testing, “so are you still clenching your left shoulder?  Did you do those exercises I gave you?”

I could understand her position.  I was especially understanding because it meant that I got the massage instead, and I really needed it.  All the yoga had made me hyper-aware of muscles that didn’t move, fists and knots that never unclenched.  I had craved bodywork for months with flesh-taunting specificity.  This was one re-gift that was right on target.  And if it helped Kel preserve the teacher-student relationship I was willing to jump on that grenade for her.  I’m all about respecting the bounds of tutelage. 

So I wound up with a certificate for a 90 minute massage from some guy I had never heard of, who works out of his home in San Rafael.  I didn’t know what to expect, but I had a brooding Zatoichi premonition.  This was not borne out by reality, which followed more the mold of a charming retired baker (with commensurately powerful forearms), severely visually impaired since early childhood, who lives in a cozy victorian and performs a special rare form of massage therapy called integration or gerrymandering or some damn thing.  I really don’t know what it was.  All I now for sure was that he worked me over but good and I was noticeable taller when he was done. 

And those knots and fists buried deep in my muscles, and the deep-seated misalignments of sinew and bone, he found and explained for me, even when they were not amenable to his ministrations within the short time we had.  He considers me a candidate for long-term treatment, which makes me inexplicably proud of myself.  But the thing I found most noteworthy was the embiggening.

At one point he was working on my calves.  He’d spent some time on one and then moved to the other, but expressed immediate surprise at the difference in their size.  His hand wrapped around the new calf but barely covered the back of the first one.  The calf he had yet to massage was about one-third smaller than the one he’d worked on.  We wasted a few minutes wondering how I’d accomplished such an unbalanced physique and then he just stopped fretting about it and laid into the second, atrophied calf. 

When he was ready to move on to massage me somewhere else, I asked him to re-check and confirm that my left calf was still so much bigger than my right.  It wasn’t.  The right side had swollen up to match the left.  I was bilaterally symmetrical again, and anyone who knows me well knows how much that means to me.

I was relieved that my body parts had evened out, and even the therapist said he’d never encountered anyone who expanded quite like I had on his table.  I wasn’t sure what it meant or what, if anything, it indicated about me.  I just thought that it was probably a good thing that I’d gotten myself enbiggened.  It’s strange how you can just shrivel up sometimes, but I’m glad that it’s possible to reverse the process too.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

All She’s Got

Here’s a little poem I wrote for Connie, my stepmom.  I’m sharing it here because I want it to generate as much positive energy as possible so it can all bounce back to her.  She could use the boost these days, I think.

All You’ve Got

Keep it rolling - don’t you let that engine falter
Just keep rolling - this time you’ll nail it to the altar
Rolling forward - throw your weight into the halter
To the pillars of Gibraltar
Now it’s forward that you’ll roll.

Keep on pushing - till your sinew turns to granite
Push it forward - till you split the pomegranate
Don’t stop pushing - you can change the course of planets
Your inferno’s lit so fan it
For it’s forward you must push.

You are a flaming arrow and the world’s a bale of hay
You’re a bunker buster and the world is bombs away
It’s the universal story of the power and the glory
You’re the infinite quiescence when there’s nothing left to say

Don’t stop trying - though your fingers shake and fumble
Keep on trying - though your voice is just a mumble
One more try now - though the trail makes you stumble
Your resolve will never crumble
When you give it all you’ve got.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

TMI

We’ve got one of those whistling teakettles.  It’s nothing fancy but it suffices to heat our water to 212 (100 celcius, or 3.2 hectares) reasonably efficiently.  I claim only “reasonable” efficiency, however, because the system has a gaping hole that is only sometimes adequately plugged.  To wit:

The kettle has a spout, naturally, which, when opened, allows water to be poured forth, and, when closed, forces built-up steam to escape through a sonorous pipe. The kettle also has, at the apex of its upthrust hemispherical design, a nice round hole fitted with a tight-fitting lid.  Remove the lid; fill the kettle.  Replace the lid and cover the spout with the whistling cap, and you’ve got a nice closed pressurization system.  The water, expanding as it boils and turns to vapor, builds up inside the envelope of air enclosed within the kettle, and forces piping-hot air ever more vigorously out the pipe at the spout.  This is your official notice that the water is hot enough to brew your tea, and sets the entire steeping process into motion.  It’s like the starter’s pistol for me on some bleary mornings, and there have been plenty of those lately - I hear the whistle and spring (or, rather, lurch) into action. 

Here’s the tricky bit, though: you’ve got to get the lid on properly for this to work.  Any significant breach of the air-seals at the top of the teakettle will divert so much of the escaping steam, that the interior pressure will only very slowly, if ever, reach the point where the whistle goes off.  It’s easy to tell if I’ve left the spout cap open; it’s a metal plate that juts from the lip of the spout, defying gravity with its jaunty upthrust.  But sometimes I don’t get the lid on properly.  It’s, well, askew.  And it just doesn’t work so well that way.  And I can be standing next to it, rubbing my eyes and denying reality, waiting for that whistle to bring me out of my reverie and galvanize me into action, and the water in the kettle is clearly boiling as hard as it can, rocking the broadbottomed pot on the stove, making the lid (askew) shudder and jiggle with small silvery clinks, and steam rises from the small hole in the spout cap but without enough pressure behind it to sound the whistle, and I am insensate to it all.

Eventually, the fog in the room forming warmly around my head from the escaping steam arouses my suspicions and I realize that I’ve already boiled the water so excessively that it’s not worth using for brewing tea.  Eurgh.  Flat, deoxygenated tea.  What a pathetic gesture with which to start one’s morning.  No, at this point I bestir myself of my own accord and refill the kettle, restart the process from scratch.  I find that tea made as a result of this whole process playing itself out, tastes no better than ordinary one-kettle tea.  It’s just a goddamn waste of time.

MORAL: Close cover before striking.  Anything.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Jump-Start

Yesterday, Sunday, I was coming back from a vigorous and satisfying run when some people approached me for a jumpstart for their car.  I couldn’t help them myself but I was able to put them in touch with some folk from the church and it was all working out by the time I left them all so I could take a critical shower.  But it got me thinking when I woke up on monday, which is today.  About mondays, and jumpstarts. 

Mondays call for recognition, even when I’m not currently working, even when it’s a day my wife stays home too.  Losing track of the cycle is a luxury I can’t afford.  I really do go back to the office too soon, and regardless, there’s been a lot to take care of during this little phase of my life.  I’m really glad I haven’t had the office to contend with too.  Things have been heavy and intense, and continue to be so.  It’s all working out, as far as I can tell - things are hard but they’ve been a lot worse and we’ll forge through them as a family.  To my loved ones I send warm wishes for a joyous new homecoming, and heartfelt prayers for a swift recovery; and regarding myself, I convey any number of confused and divergent self-referential comments.  This is one of those times that maintaining a sharp focus has been particularly important, and particularly challenging.  And now it’s Monday.  I’ve got my nasal steroids working, there’s a houseful of things that need my attention, my week seems inappropriately stacked up already for a man of leisure such as myself, and I already seem to need a bit of a boost. 

And that’s what the internet is for, isn’t it, my friends?  A chance to reflect back on and share some poignant moments, and to foster disproductivity through the indulgence of whims and distractions?  Here, then, are some photos I took on few recent visits to the park, and at the Bay Area Discovery Museum:

Discovery Museum:

Zach watching bubbles burble from the plastic lips of model frogs submerged in latex cylinders of water:

An angle on the large cross-section of redwood trunk, sundered up the middle wide enough for kids to run through it:

Golden Gate Park:

Japanese Tea Gardens, entered for free since it was after 5 pm, and therefore all the more beautiful:

One of two carved sentinels at the eighth avenue gate to the park:

A few of the feral lilies that spring up everywhere:

Details of the pedestal of the Pioneer statue near Stow Lake:

My favorite little quirky thing in the park - the uphill stream.  Of course, I’ve messed with the color, because the architects already messed with YOUR HEAD - the water flows away from you, up the hill, as the path cruises down.  There’s a little waterfall at the end into Lloyd Lake across from the Portals of the Past.  You approach past the prayerbook cross waterfall, and the stream eddies along beside you, then cruises up the hill to fling itself joyfully down the cascade into the lake.  Dude, it’s so cool.

And since I really do need the extra energy this morning, here’s a freshly-minted meme that has entertained me for a few minutes as I completed it.  May it have the same effect on you, because it’s a virus and now you’re infected.  Post your answers or I’ll cancel Family Guy again.

FIVE FIVES

Five Bottle Openers: Two identical cheap wood and metal ones, one which I’ve decorated with orange puffypaint; one flat flimsy one with a tiki god on it and the opener between his legs, that’s mostly a magnetic fridge decoration; one on the end of a winged corkscrew; one on my leatherman micra. 

Five Childhood games and toys: Mastermind; caroms; vibro-football; Which Witch; SST cars (with the big heavy weighted wheel in the middle and the ripcord to get them going)

Five theme songs/jingles that are permanently stuck in my head: Theme to National Geographic specials; George of the Jungle; The Prisoner; Carter Country (a terrible mid-70’s sitcom); Sanford and Son.

Places I’ve Embarassed the Hell Out of Myself: assembly hall of my freshman dorm; KTVU morning wake-up show; women’s intimates section of a snooty department store in Sherman Oaks; trial advocacy training at Hastings Law School; Olivetto’s Restaurant, Oakland.

Celebrities to whom I’ve had some sort of momentary passing connection: Robert Guillame; Marilu Henner; Henry Kissinger; Phil Lesh; Mickey Dolenz.

That’s it for me.  From here, the week should just gain momentum till we’re all having a good old time.  Now it’s in your hands.  Don’t let me down.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

the night uncle gene saved christmas

I’ve sort of had a lot going on lately, emotionally and personally and such.  It’s been and continues to be a very dense and trying time.  I’m so glad I’m on leave while I go through it so I can concentrate on it and give it the attention it deserves.  It’s all made me go back to a story I wrote about seven years ago, which I guess is just a little out of synch now but when I read it, it made me feel better, so I’ll share it with you anyway.

THE NIGHT UNCLE GENE SAVED CHRISTMAS

So, who am I to care about Uncle Gene saving Christmas?  Because, actually, Uncle Gene and I may never have met.  I know I met his wife, Bea, a lovely woman, but Gene, I don’t recall meeting.  And Christmas?  I’m Jewish, as you might have figured already.  So Uncle Gene saved Christmas – and I’m the one who’s grateful.  It was a great thing he did and now I can never thank him for it personally.  So I’m doing the next best thing: I’m sharing the story so his mitzvah will live on.

to am, or not to am.  this is me kvetching.

It’s been fun listening to AM radio again.  I actually remember when I was a kid and my family relied on AM radio as the primary mode of infotainment.  Then FM had become king by the time I was old enough to get a clock radio; I still remember lying on my bed and listening to my brand new grown-up radio reproducing Glen Campbell’s “Southern Nights” with such clarity and fidelity that I remain infuriatingly fond of that song to this day. 

By the time I got to high school I’d passed through a brief 8-track phase and was wallowing in cassette tapes and LPs.  This collection grew while I was in college, trading tapes and cashing out at the Princeton Record Exchange’s annual vinyl extravaganza.  I hand-colored labels for my favorite cassettes.  But somewhere after college the LP collection stopped growing, and somewhere around law school, I got with the program and obtained a modest single-disk cd player.  We ran parallel collections for a long while, slowly building up more CDs with an occasional tape or two showing up from the discard pile of some techie freak going all-digital, but over time the number of CDs inexorably grew and that of viable tapes declined by attrition; and then everybody got CD burners and suddenly the number of CDs eclipsed tapes by such a great margin that, faced with a choice of scuttling a VCR or a dual audio tapedeck when TiVo needed to find a home in our media cabinet, we kept the VCR.  (The turntable had long since been relegated to a box, and more recently actually donated to a charity.  It was an archaic 20 years old, though it had not been much used in that time.)

Tapes now have next to no role in my music collection, but CDs have been additionally supplemented with an MP3 player that brings my entire collection of music with me and enables me to expand my musical horizons more easily and more selectively than ever before.  It’s a mindblower. I can select the most eclectic, offbeat item in my library, and chair-dance to it all the way to work.  Technology has taken me from the shackles of a weak car radio to the absolute freedom of the digital world. 

This necessarily means that the cycle is getting ready to run backwards - the pendulum is poised for a return trip.  I find now that I rely on FM bands when I play the ‘pod in the car through my dashboard rebroadcaster.  Sometimes that means my music fuzzes out when I hit interference from competing stations or metal structures like bridges.  There’s usually a work-around for these glitches, though - a free frequency somewhere.  And if I miss something, I can just back the track up and hear it all again.  The digital empowerment still triumphs.

More of a throwback is my revived love affair with the pig - KPIG radio, now broadcasting in my locality via a low-power AM band (and on line too, for subscribers - I recommend it to the entire tri-state region).  This station seems to take my whole music library - blues, jazz, country, jam, funk, comedy and etc. - as a jumping-off point.  They play a great variety of great music, much of it live or obscure, and more often than not they radically enlarge my tastes and interests, or even sometimes powerfully confirm them.  And, as you might surmise, I’m all about confirming the powerful enlargement. 

So now I am seeking out KPIG on radios all over my little world, bu they’ve got too small a signal for me to get them anywhere but in my car.  Therefore, I have made AM 1510 my default automotive listening option, even over and above the ‘pod. 

They payoff in a seemingly endless variety of great music, but there is a price: static.  Half the time, they’re washed out by stronger competing signals, stomping my gospel and indie rock with sportstalk and commercials and the other dreck that’s standard fare on the AM dial.  Even when they’re coming in well and without interference, overhead wires and tunnels often kill the signal.  Once again I find myself praying that I don’t miss an awesome chorus or jam when I drive under an overpass and get stuck at a redlight, or behind an electric bus. 

The irony, at such times, has a specific sound - a rising, whining rush of static with unctious, smarmy voices beneath it talking self-indulgently about sports when they’re not actively trying to sell me something.  It’s a tiresome station under the best of circumstances, but to have them come in stepping on my pig - that’s unacceptable.  So anyway, I hold them in great disdain, in a way that recalls for me my earliest years, when my mom could take me on a trip to the grocery store and leave me in the car with the keys so I could listen to the radio while she shopped, but wound up parking in the one place in the lot where there was no signal, leaving me straining to listen through static for 40 minutes till she returned.  It’s a clean, ancient disdain for me.  I can’t say that makes it any more palatable, but it does mean I’ve got some practice putting up with it.  Somehow it feels like I’ve come home, only to realize that nobody cleaned the place up while I was gone.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Why He’ll be Named Schwa

It’s been a while since I just sort of checked in and let you know that life is an endless chain of hilarity and delight.  Of course, with any chain, there are kinks along the way, but so often those are what make things interesting. 

This week has been full of hazard removal, latch installation, crib lowering (down to the lowest setting, and he’s still rather jauntily swinging his arm over the siderail like he’s ready to launch a crescent kick right out of the crib), and installation of mirrors on the nursery wall, which was cool because I think we’ve had those damn mirrors since late August.... We checked out day care for Zach, and had our last meeting with the social worker preparatory to finalization of the adoption in court.... and woven in among all these domestic benchmarks were so many random perfect or hilarious moments: going to Clement Street and getting a plate of “the most delicious noodles like these I’ve ever eaten,” in Kel’s inimitable words.  Or, when we saw that the local Round Table pizza had closed (no great loss in this ‘hood full of so many authentic and sophisticated pizzas), with a sign taped to the door that read “SCA meeting has been moved to (other location)”; I found this hilarious because if the best anachronism that the SCA can come up with is Round Table Pizza, they have bigger problems then finding a place to meet.  Or, when we went to Ft Point and walked the battlements, staring down a fresh breeze off the Pacific and marvelling at the depth of texture and color we found in the masonry (I’ll have to go back soon with the camera).  Or, when we went for a walk in the park and found ourselves pushing Zach in a swing right next to our friends Zoe (in swing) and Jackie (pushing her), and as we chatted Jackie mentioned that today was “local families free day” for the museums all over the city, including the Conservatory of Flowers, which was just a short stroll away and a great half-hour’s diversion, especially for free.  There were so many ordinary good times over the past week that I have serious trouble remembering them all.  But then there’s the other matter I thought I’d share with you.

I am not aware of how to make my keyboard make an umlaut, so I can’t really give you the proper spelling of an article of babygear I’ve been wearing more frequently lately - the Bjorn.  The “o” has two dots over it, in the original.  I’ve always liked the umlaut as a linguistic phenomenon, and frequently just pronouce words in the course of conversation as if umlauted.  “This is delicious s^oup,” for example, with the “^” taking the place of the umlaut, which I think is a decent work-around under the circumstances.  “Cr^uller.” “Hang^ov^er.” “Gl^utenp^o^open.” Anyway, I like umlauts but never really thought about what they represent ideographically.  Now, with the Bj^orn in my life, I have had to deal with umlauts on a daily basis and I think I now know that they’re actually representitive of orchids.  Castanets.  Nurts.  The umlaut is a pictoral image of testicles.  And the connection is the Bj^orn Ding-Dong maneuver. 

With the B-D-D, you start out wearing a bjorn baby carrier with a baby in it, while, simultaneously, carrying a standard scrotum in the typical infra-abdominal fashion.  Those are the two basic pieces of equipment.  You get the baby facing out, grinning and waving from the center of your chest like some kind of conjoined trans-generational quirk of heredity,and then you get him - or her, I’m sure - a bit excited about something (let’s say, a leaf), and he starts kicking his chunky little feet back and forth, and before you are even aware it’s coming he’s smashed each of his calcanei in quick succession right into your umlauts.  It’s a rapid procedure, left-right, so quick you don’t even have time to start cowering from the first concussive blow to your unsuspecting lefty teste, when, just as the awareness of impending, blinding pain dawns on you, but before that pain has even begun to wrack you, your right oyster gets whomped into nutbutter by a second swiftly-backdrawn heel. 

You can’t really collapse or scream - you’re holding a baby, for god’s sake, you can’t look weak in front of one of them or they’ll tell their friends and everyone will be making fun of you and whaling on your umlauts next time you go out.  You gotta represent.  So I just wince and find a wall to lean against for a few minutes, and then I stagger on along again.  That’s what fatherhood is about, I guess.  Wearing a dorky harness designed to get me kicked in the groinads by my own progeny.  It’s a metaphor of some sort but I think I prefer not to pursue it at the moment.  The wounds are still too fresh. 

And that’s why I have decided never to name a child of mine, “Umlaut.” However, I am still seriously considering “Schwa.” It’s suave and unique, and I don’t find it appearing on any scandanavian baby gear, either.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Meatbomb Squad: EMPANADAS, BABY!

Well I’ve wanted to get something else up here but I’ve been too busy lately to develop much content so I’m putting aside a few half-finished essays and making good with the empanadas.  These are pockets of savory stewed meat and onion that my sister in law Andie makes for us according to a traditional family recipe.  This year Andie showed up for NYE celebrations with all the empanada-fixin’s in store, so I tried to document the event and now I can ruin your newly-resolved dietary discipline with these shocking, unexpurgated photos.  Warning!! Crusty meatpockets ahead!

As with all old family recipes, the first thing is to get an old family.  In this case it’s the Palamins, and Andie’s mom kicked in with the savory meat filling.  I don’t know what-all went into this, but it’s amazing.

Then, get Andie.  Here we see her just starting to mash an egg -

into some flour.

She mixes it

and kneads it

till it’s elastic and consistent (much like myself).  Then she cuts off little chunks - a little bigger than a golf ball - and rolls them out.

She fills them with meat and a piece of hard-boiled egg

and folds them into a tringle shape, pinching the dough shut at the edges. 

They’re painted with egg, and then baked.

Cool briefly on racks, then scarf uncontrollably. 

There is no photographic evidence beyond this point.  Rest assured, they were delicious.  I’ll have something more substantial to post sometime soon.  And if it’s more substantial than one of these meatbombs, you know you’re gonna need a seltzer with that.

Monday, January 09, 2006

Hello Dolly

I wrote this last week, on my way home from work.  I offer it in honor and support of Connie, one of the most wonderful people in the world.  If it evokes anything positive in you at all, send some of it her way.  She’s going to need plenty of it, and no one deserves it more. 

Today was my last office day before hitting up the family leave gravytrain.  I know Zach’s going to be an absolute handful-and-a-half, and I’ve got all kinds of unrealistic goals for us and for me and for the house.  I’ll be exhausted by the time I go back to work in February, but damn, it will be so worth it to be in a dynamic duo with the Zakster. 

This wouldn’t be possible for me if California didn’t have paid family leave.  I’ll get half my salary for up to six weeks - time that I can split between bonding with a new kid or caring for an infirm relative.  It’s the closest thing we’ve got to Euro-style family support, and I’ll be taking full advantage of it. 

To which end: today I called up the State agency in charge of paying me my stipend, to confirm some numbers with them.  I’d called them last week to make sure I was filling out my paperwork correctly, and my bureaucratic contact, one “Dolly”, and I spoke for some time about the details of my claim.  She wanted to know my income so they could compensate me properly, and I promised to call her back with the exact figures.  She gave me her direct call-in number so I could take care of this detail a little more quickly.

Well, I screwed up and failed to call her the next day as I’d promised; the day after that I was already on the road on vacation, but I tried her number from the airport.  A machine answered for her, generically.  I left my message but lacked confidence that it would reach her.  I tried to call her a few more times while on the road but to no avail - the answering message was unchanged, and it also seemed to reference someone else’s phone number.  I was growing frustrated with this arm of the bureaucracy, even though it was so manifestly designed to operate to my advantage. 

I tried her one more time today as I was preparing to mail in my paperwork, and lo and behold, “Dolly” answered.  As before, hers was not a youthful or cheerful voice, but this time she sounded a bit more worn than she had in our previous conversation.  We chatted a bit and I mentioned my prior attempts to reach her.

“I’ve been out for a while.”

“Well, welcome back, I hope the new year is treating you right.”

“Hm.  Well, anyway. I’m not feeling too well.”

“What are you doing at work, then?  You should be at home, resting and getting healthy!”

“Oh, um, that’s not going to happen.  But anway, I couldn’t stand to be at home any longer.  It’s better to get out and think about something else after a while.  Help others if you can’t help yourself.”

My mouth flapped; no words came out of it.  Eventually I stammered something about building up strength by engaging with the world, but we both heard the hollowness of my enunciations.  Dolly steered me back to the purpose of my call.  I told her my gross income for two weeks and we decided to divide that by 14, then multiply by 30 to get a monthly figure.  We both did the math; she got it wrong the first time through so we tried it again.  As she recognized her error I could sense her rueful smile over the phone line.  She felt poorly and was messing up at work.  Still, it was better than staying at home and just waiting for whatever was happening to her to run its course.

We concluded our business and I said my farewells, grateful for her help in making it possible for me to stay home for five weeks with a small child so full of life that it overwhelms me every time I see him.  She accepted my thanks with a tired voice.  I told her to take care; she almost scoffed as she responded with “Goodbye.” It sounded like she really meant it. 

So this family leave period, I’ll be playing with an amazing, joyful, handsome and strong baby for 38 days straight.  But every so often, I’m going to remember Dolly, and send a little of that life her way too.  She’s made herself part of the process, and it just seems to me that turn about is fair play.

New Year’s Trip 2006: Too Cute to Impute

I’ve been home for the better part of a damn fine week, so it’s probably time to refresh my recollection of a wonderful trip to Maryland to visit my wonderful family with a few photos.  Here’s a selection from the top of the crop, to give you a tiny flavah of how the folks back home party in the new year:

Zach has a predeliction for grabbing fleshy protruberances in his iron little fist.  Sometimes this leads to photo ops:

and sometimes it’s just an excuse to beat up on my father in law.

We were a well-wired household.  At some points, laptops outnumbered partiers.  In such circumstances, it’s important to get the newcomers comfortable with the techno-centric focus of our new world.  Thus, here’s li’l Nate with a few babysitters; I’m in the back teaching some of the old-school “analoggers” how to play Fluxx.

New Year’s Eve supper was one of many gourmet delights I enjoyed while vacationing.  Here’s Pat and Paul, revelling in the anticipation of munching down on lobster tail.  The blur is Kel’s sister Karen, in “game mode.”

And how did Zach enjoy the party?  He tells me it was an orange-biting good time. 

That’s probably enough cuteness for right now.  I wouldn’t want to knock your insulin levels too far out of whack this early in the day.  Enjoy, and I’ll catch you later on with something further.  Or other.  Whatever, dude.  I’m off work for five weeks!

Friday, January 06, 2006

Sweeping Up After Earth Day

This is a big day for Chuckles – my last day at work before taking paternity leave for five weeks.  I’ve got loads of stuff to get through, but I’m also going to be thinking every step of the way about the changes this day represents – in my work, my career, my life.  This will be my last morning ride downtown for a while, and when I get back to the job in late February, things will look different.  I’ll have changed somewhat (and not just Zach’s diapers), but the scene will be physically different too.  I wonder with curiosity what changes I’ll notice, and which ones I’ll overlook completely.  And this curiosity leads me to post a little essay I wrote a few weeks ago about the short walk from the trans-bay terminal to my office – a walk that has always been noteworthy for me, but which is now changing on a daily basis.

I don’t know what my posting schedule will be like when I’m home wrangling the infant.  I’ll try to keep up with y’all, but if the spirit moves you, drop me a line and harass me.  I’ll take it in the spirit in which it’s intended.  Meantime, I’ve got to suit up for the home stretch.  Have a good Friday, a great weekend, and an uplifting walk around the block. 

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

My Neighbor Seat

Well hello again Blogland, and welcome to 2006.  My ’05 ended delightfully with a multi-day reunion party with the inlaws out here in Maryland, full of laughing children and healthful exercise and life-shortening meals and comfortable beds and beloved friends and entertaining movies and several excellent drunken games of Fluxx.  Beer, indeed, was consumed, and lobster was grilled, and gourmet marshmallows and poundcake were dipped into molten chocolate, and lo, all was fitting and fine.  Until, of course, today, when we were the last to leave the partyhouse and wound up getting to the airport only an hour and fifteen minutes ahead of our flight, which was not even enough time to work through the dreadful slowmoving line to check in.  We missed the flight, and now I’m back with the inlaws waiting to try again tomorrow.  This means an extra day of vacation burned and wasted, and a quiet opportunity to contemplate my recent experiences while the family watches Finding Nemo on tv. 

Recent experiences: great times with great kids.  A trip to the airport that turned out differently than I’d expected.  Several chance meetings with a very wide variety of gracious people, who were all doing their best under extremely adverse circumstances.  And all this brings to mind that I have yet to offer up a Transit Tale I wrote a few weeks ago.  Which further brings to mind the notion to post it now, in the hopes of inspiring in the universe a more positive outcome to my return trip to Dulles tomorrow. 

Therefore, without additional preface, I offer this recollection of a particular ride home from work.  May it find you in good health, and leave us both a bit better prepared for the opportunities with which 2006 will be presenting us.