Happy Halloween!

I really like the creativity we get to see and take part in every Halloween. Getting all dressed up in fun homemade clothes is totally what it's all about. Since our kids have been getting involved, we've had Houston be Darth Vader, Spiderman, and now a fireman. Katrina is just getting into the costumes, so she wanted to be Tinkerbell. Whom she adorably calls Twinkerbell. Awwww, Twinkerbell!

This year i made a costume for myself! Yeah! I took my helmet, taped four antennae to it, pointed mostly backwards, on as close to equidistant upon a diameter of the spheroid perpendicular to "forward" as i would be walking. Then i covered the helmet with tin foil. Any guesses as to what i was? Anyone? YES!!! I was Sputnik!!! With Zane being a Saturn V rocket, we were like space race twins. Sputnik started the space race, and Saturn V kind of ended it in a typically American way, by utterly destroying any chance anyone else would have of building anything bigger or more powerful. It remains a record holder in all the macho chest thumping categories, like, you know, length, payload... thrust. How American.

Anyway, i was eager to wear my costume to see who recognized it. Eric, my brother-in-law, instantly knew what i was. Ashley got it. Karen got it just from my description, although she'd heard me mention the idea before, she says. But NOBODY ELSE got it! Even with big hints. I told a group of kids "I'm Sputnik!!!" and they walked by hurriedly, avoiding eye contact. I told the kids at The Really Scary House Which Gives Out Full Sized Candy Bars (doesn't every neighborhood have one?) to guess what i was. "Alien!" they gushed, "Robot!" so i was like... no. "Space ship!" they enthused. Close. "Probe?" they queried. I said "Sputnik!" and they looked nonplussed. "The first artificial satellite? Soviet Russia? Grapefruit sized? Mid fifties?" Nope. Never heard of it. One lady nearly destroyed all hopes i have in humanity by being about fifty, and saying "Sputnik? Who's that?" and then when i told her, she said "Well, I'm kind of old for that..." Um, lady, you were around for the whole space race thing, i'm pretty sure.

Anyway, one guy said "Oh yeah, it's Sputnik's fifty year anniversary!" and i was like "Totally." And Karen's dad is quite the knowledgeable guy, and helped out other guessers: "Think 1957." Smarty pants.

Trick or treating was marred by rain, and the fact that Zane combined being heavy with flinging himself backwards and sideways every couple seconds trying to reach his candy. My biceps still hurt. But it was still super fun. And as i get older, i don't get as excited about sweets. The first to go was ice cream. I could probably never eat ice cream again and be totally fine. I never EVER drink sugar filled pop anymore. Now it's candy. I can tolerate a couple "fun sized" bars, but they i feel simply done. Weird.

We're planning next year's costumes already. Karen had the idea of making an alligator looking like it's eating Katrina -- maybe her feet could be the alligator's front legs, and the rest of the animal could trail behind. Maybe with prosthetic Katrina-like legs poking out of the mouth too? Whatever happens, i'm sure it will be awesome.

Hey!

Right. So i was totally super excited to get my motherboard from our super awesome friendly cool guy UPS driver (i think there's some kind of Pavlovian response thing going on here), but after building the system, it still refuses to run. Rats. I am happy only because i have actually saved money in this whole transaction. Maybe my buddy Franks and Beans (a name which he adopted on the same night i adopted "Ghetto Booty Lag") will help me out with troubleshooting. Tomorrow?

Also, i went shopping today with all three kids. It's weird how a 20 minute jaunt to the store defies the laws of space-time, and takes an hour and a half. It still seems fun... i enjoy the chaos of handling all three kids, and the looks of mixed admiration and horror i get from passers by. And the inevitable "Got your hands full!" I wonder, do they ever say that to MOMS??? If they don't: darn them.

Mostly just a picture

Today we all met our newest (by two hours) relative! He's named Benjamin, and he was born two hours after his cousin Thomas. In Germany! What are the chances? Both of them are really really cute. Babies... they're little. And noisy. And they smell bad sometimes. But hoo boy, are they adorable!

Pumpkin Sunday

Since it's coming up on Halloween, we figured we'd carve pumpkins, and happily, the cousins and their parents could come over and join us! It was cool, besides the fact that we had JUST sat ourselves down to eat when they arrived, and we had to furtively cram store-cooked chicken into our mouths while they sat in the other room talking about the funny smell. Or whatever people usually do in other people's houses. That's what we do, at least.

Oh yeah, and while we were at it, our neighbor kid Corbyn came over. I think he thinks we live in a sitcom, because he's always dropping over like neighbors always do in sitcoms. Except nothing funny happens when he comes over. Except this time, he kind of did something poignantly sad and funny. See, last week, their house got broken into. Corbyn said "They must have been crackheads, because they didn't take the TV." I think he meant literal crackheads, and not figurative crackheads like how i mean it when i call the kids at work crackheads. Like, "Do your chores, you crackheads" or "Hey you crackheads, quit calling each other names!"

It turns out that the only things the thieves took were Corbyn's Sony Playstation 2 and all his games, and their DVD player. So today Corbyn came over, said hi, and since we were all occupied carving pumpkins, he went into the living room and started playing dejectedly with the Little People toys we have over there. "Hey Corbyn," i said, "did you know that you're fourteen?" He acknowledged as much, and then i showed how i can be a really insensitive jerk sometimes by saying "Oh, i get it, the PS2 is gone, so you gotta play with little kid toys." Ack. I really am a jerk. One time, Travis totally kicked our butts at the Leapfrog Globe game thing we have, and when it was reporting our scores, i reset it right when it got to Travis's score. I still feel bad about that one. And now i'm gonna feel bad about that comment to Corbyn too. Rats.

Um, anyway, Houston drew his own design for his pumpkin, which turned out really cute. The rectangles above the eyes are his hair. Katrina wanted "square eyes, with a loud mouth". Karen did the actual producing. I carved the words JACK O LANTERN into the grown up pumpkin. Later, Karen suggested "ZANE O LANTERN" which would have been superb, because Zane, like Jack, is a permutation of John. Humph. Wikipedia doesn't list Zane as a variant of John, but other places do. That's a lot of names which mean John, isn't it? Hansel? Dang.
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Rocket Baby

There's Zane in his costume. He was really tolerant of the Saturn V rocket outfit, since it had "boning" (that's stiff springly plastic things which gives the costume its round shape) hoops, elastic right around his calves, and just doesn't seem very comfortable. I'm happy with the way it turned out.

We went to a Halloween party today (Karen went to two!) so the kids got all dressed up. Karen dressed up as an '80s teenager, complete with the side ponytail, and blue eye shadow. Katrina gasped; "Momma, why did your eyes TURN BLUE?????" Katrina was Tinkerbell, and Houston was a fireman. I panicked and put on a gross old gray suit and wore flip-flops with socks, because maybe that's what Borat would do.

But mostly i was tired today. Sleep. Need sleep. I'm gonna go to bed now. Oh yeah, and i put a laptop on ebay, after taking the following funny picture of it.

Spooky face of milkshake

Spooky Face of Milkshake sounds like a Korean teeny-bopper band, but it's not. See, that pallid ghoulish face staring up at you from a stainless steel sink is actually frozen milkshake, courtesy of one of my coworkers. Weird stuff happens at work. I think tonight was the full moon. That probably explains it all.

I'm really relieved that i FINALLY got a picture up there. Yes! But now i have to go finish making a firehose for Houston. I made Houston's firehose out of a ridiculously cumbersome three inch diameter polyvinyl something ribbed flex pipe and some other stuff. Katrina's Tinkerbell dress is from a properly green plus size turtleneck which Karen chopped up mercilessly. I spent most of my stay-up-stupidly-late time this evening making Zane's costume. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but as a hint: he's going to be something that Tyrone Slothrop was, for a bit. I hope it fits him.

Boring. Do not read.

I seriously need to take a picture. I should draw a picture or something to put here. But i can't, see. I'm obsessively comparison shopping.

I sent my bad motherboard back, and Newegg told me that they don't have that one in stock anymore. They'll have to send me a different motherboard, or issue a refund. They've offered to send one which has quite a few more features, and is actually more expensive than my board originally was. But if i say "Nah, that's a'ight, slap a refund on me", they'll give me enough to buy a more modern board, with money to spare.

Now that i write that down, it seems like i should do the thing which saves us money. We don't have money pouring out of our ears, you know. In fact, sometimes it seems like money must be pouring into my ears. I can't detect it, though.

Funny kids. Plus, i use all the words recommended by high school English teachers.

In introduction, i've just been reading about how George W Bush was talking about World War III last week, and feeling full of despair thinking about the way we humans are behaving, and wondering how significant it is that after leading the most powerful country in the world for so long, our current president still can't be bothered to pronounce "nuclear" correctly.

Additionally, to draw myself out of my funk, i'll describe a cute thing about each of our kids.

Furthermore, Houston: when he's excited about anything, whether running to the bathroom, running to hug me when i get home, or whatever, he'll take really short steps and hold his arms like he's a penguin or something.

Also, Katrina: when she jumps up for me to hug her, she curls up so her shins lie against my chest, and she winds up perched with her center of gravity about level with my neck. Then she moves her legs down, to wrap them around me, and nestles her head against my neck. Awww!

On the other hand, Zane: he's totally loving walking everywhere. Today we watched him totally correct himself as he nearly fell down forward. He gets really proud of himself when he's doing well.

In conclusion, Houston's hair grew in all over, in bushy curls. His first haircut was a heartbreaking affair, because his straw colored locks were just so cute! But he really did look like a baby girl. Katrina's hair has always been a stylish little shag. Now it's just long, so we're steeling ourselves for her first haircut. "We" being Karen and i, since Katrina says cheerfully, whenever it's mentioned, that "Tomorrow i will get my hair cut." Zane's hair, to sum up, is growing in well right on top, with very short sides and back. He's got the White Guy Taper Haircut. I don't imagine he'll keep that.

More-a Pandora

Hey, if anyone is a user of Pandora Radio, i'd be totally fascinated to hear about your experience. I've been wondering how a station would develop for a user with more eclectic listening desires, but i don't have a ton of free listening time to experiment. So my favorite station was started with Shpongle as a foundation, and i've only nixed a couple songs (ever hear of "drone" music? It's exactly what you'd expect) and added a couple other artists. You can listen to my station there. I think. It plays songs because, for instance, "it features electronica roots, use of modal harmonies, a variety of synth sounds, a wet recording sound and many other similarities identified in the music genome project." So there you have it. Choose your Christmas shopping list accordingly.

Karen's back!

Houston as Spidercowboyman. He loves the Spiderman costume, which makes me very happy. And he likes the silly hat too... and they don't really go together, do they?

Yesterday i took a bunch of pictures at the park, and of course, my version of The GIMP crashes all the time and this laptop is slow! So i waited until today to edit a couple more pictures. Sorry for being boring just now. :( Okay, so here's Katrina sliding. Here's Zane climbing up the very very tall slide ladder. I don't think he properly appreciates how much potential energy he's adding to himself! Ten meters per second per second, boy!!! But he only scared himself once, and was a little hesitant to actually go down the slide, since it looks like instant death.

So Karen's back! Yay! Houston and Katrina and i were all demonstrably pleased to see her, with hugs and kisses and stuff. Well, Zane said "ma ma ma ma ma" when he saw her, but when she came in, he was a little stand-offish. Like, Mom, you LEFT ME for TWO WHOLE DAYS... But he warmed up after a bit. She had lots of fun.

Quiet time!

I probably will post two posts today! Wassup widdat?

Well, the kids are upstairs quiet, and i don't have anything better to do, besides fold laundry or do the lunch dishes... this is more fun.

Let's chat about Spartan Brand Products. Years ago, i came to loathe everything under the Spartan banner. Every purchase disappointed me! When Houston was deep in his Cheerios enthusiast stage, i bought some Spartan brand, um, toasted oat circlets, or whatever they're called. They tasted like fuel. I took them back, and the store employees hassled me about returning them, since i'd tossed the receipt. Finally, they let me walk out of the store carrying an identically priced block of cheese, with a brusque "GO!" and a dismissive shoo of the hand. Good grief.

One time i bought Spartan Brand clam chowder. It was suspiciously, blindingly white, because chowder is supposed to be, you know, white. I thought "eww, titanium dioxide", and sure enough, near the bottom of the list of ingredients was that ubiquitous colorer of all things white, titanium dioxide. It's utterly safe, biologically inert and all that, but still, why?

However, for the last couple of years, Spartan Brand Products has been improving drastically. I won't buy oat ring cereal that's not Cheerios anymore, because Cheerios are seriously the best, plus, we can get them with WIC... but i will buy practically anything else Spartan. I even got another can of clam chowder, since the only colorant was beta carotene, which is actually food... and it was great! The ingredients: water, (duh) potatoes, clams, yada yada yada, beta carotene. Awesome.

Speaking of Awesome, please, please, please check out Pandora Radio. I know there's dozens, perhaps millions of websites clamoring for your attention, with sources of music numbering so high you've started using scientific notation -- i know i have -- but this one is really amazing. I've been listening to this 0.1x10¹ source of music exclusively since it (finally) came to my attention.

The basic idea is that you tell the little applet to let you listen to a particular song or artist, and it tailors the next tracks to be similar. It uses your feedback to learn what kind of music you like, and feed that to your ears! Oh, and it's free. And there's an unauthorized standalone player that's a little more convenient than leaving a browser window open all the time.

My first day alone with all three kids.

This is the first day i've single-parented-it for a whole day, with Zane around. So lemme document the whole day.

It started out horrible. Zane came to a screaming wakefulness at 6:30am. By trial and error, i discovered that his screaming meant "I'm so tired i can't bear it, and i want to lie down and go back to sleep", which is odd since he was, you know, in bed to begin with. After half an hour of errors, he did fall asleep next to me, which coincided perfectly with Katrina deciding to come to bed, which is okay usually. Just not directly on top of Zane. So he screamed again, which probably woke Katrina up enough to keep her from falling asleep again, and she can't help but whisper, sit up, or stroke Zane's face, which kept him up too. So by seven thirty, i was convinced that it was going to be a disastrous day.

But after i gave up at eight and we all came downstairs, everything became sunny and pleasant. Houston and Katrina got along! Zane was cute! The two older kids decided that vacuuming was probably more fun that smoking crack, so they cleaned up the living room and took turns vacuuming. When Katrina stepped up for her turn, she knew precisely how to get the vacuum handle down and how to turn it on. She's really good with machines. But she wasn't strong or heavy enough to be able to do that stuff without help.

Naptime found us with a clean-ish house, and three well fed, happy kids! After naptime, we walked to the park, played, took pictures and video, and came home. Then we ate sweet and sour sausage (a recipe Karen invented), watched some of a movie, read books, and went to bed. Katrina and Houston didn't even come downstairs after bedtime. I like my kids! And i miss my honey wifey!

Oregonian day!

I love days like today. All day it rained, drizzled, sprinkled, and was cool and overcast. Mmmmm, that reminds me of Oregon! Perfect weather for staying inside and doing little. When i was picking Houston up from school, i espied him from afar, and he "accidentally" fell over from the wind. He was sure to tell me about that, with a pathetic whimper in his voice to make sure I'd noticed. You know, in case i was about to offer candy or gum or cash as compensation for him falling over. Sheesh.

Karen's off for the weekend, gallivanting across the ULP (Upper Lower Peninsula for the non-Michiganders out there) so i was Mister Daddy for the whole day. I really enjoy that. We listened to dance music and ate beef stroganoff, two things Karen doesn't like... i guess i'm hanging in there. I really wish i had taken a picture today. Houston picked out his own clothes today, and did a great job, as usual, Katrina looked so cute, and Zane woke up from his nap covered in sleep lines. I don't know the mechanism behind sleep lines, probably subdued dermal circulation or something, but they're so funny. I love sleep lines.

Zane has figured out how to tongue click, which he thinks is hilarious. That video, of course, is Snoop Dogg, "Drop it Like", and even though i watched only twenty seconds or so with Houston, i had to explain how Snoop is not a good role model. He's kind of naughty, in fact. Like the people who scratched "NORTH BLOODZ" in our car after putting nails under the tires.

Houston got a joke!!!

Okay, so here's the old joke about the wide mouthed frog:

Wide Mouthed Frog: (walking through the field, finds a spider) HI, I'M A WIDE MOUTHED FROG, AND I LIKE TO EAT FLIES! WHAT DO YOU EAT???
Spider: Um, I eat flies too.
WMF: OH WOW, THAT'S GREAT!!!!!
WMF: (meets a cow) HI, I'M A WIDE MOUTHED FROG, AND I LIKE TO EAT FLIES! WHAT DO YOU EAT?
Cow: Um, I eat grass.
WMF: OH WOW, THAT'S GREAT!!!!!!
WMF: (meets a snake) HI, I'M A WIDE MOUTHED FROG, AND I LIKE TO EAT FLIES! WHAT DO YOU EAT?
Snake: Um, I eat wide mouthed frogs.
WMF: (with mouth pinched almost shut) oh wow, that's great.

I told that joke, and exactly at the punchline, Houston totally laughed in delight. Surprised, i asked him why he laughed, and he explained, because it's funny, Daddy. He talked like that because he didn't want to get eaten.

Totally awesome. Not that that joke is particularly esoteric, but it's definitely not a little kid's joke. And Houston totally got it! I told the joke here at work, and three kids didn't get it. Three teenagers. You know, i shouldn't compare my kids to the kids at work, but sometimes it actually helps. Some of my clients at work have the emotional intelligence of Houston and Katrina, sometimes Zane.

Our old Jetta.

Houston and Katrina and Zane are absurdly cute. And my computer keeps resetting for no understandable reason. So i'm going to make this post super short.

Or maybe i'll keep posting, and discard whatever gets erased due to random Resets Of Death.

We had an '84 VW Jetta one time, which was the worst designed car ever. The windshield was held in with a large rubber gasket which wrapped around the edge of the glass, and then squeezed into the metal frame of the front window. When it was exposed to, say, eight years of UV light and freeze/thaw, it would crack. Dirty, acidic rain water would drip directly onto the fuse/relay box, which was filled with about a hundred brass stampings, which would corrode, short, and cause total random problems. And the dome switch light was designed where "OFF" was the center of the switch. One side was "ON WHEN THE DOOR IS OPEN" and one side was "ON ALWAYS", and of course, the switch was unlabeled. So, if the light was off when you opened the door, you'd be like "huh?" and fiddle with the switch. And half the time, you'd accidentally switch it to stay on when you shut the door, and your battery would die. The headlights turned off with the ignition switch, leaving the parking lamps on. And there was no buzzer or warning. So that killed the battery all the time too.

We had that car for less than a year. I rescued Karen at least six times. She rescued me a bunch of times too, but usually i drove the VW Bus, which was less nigglingly problematic. It would just blow holes in pistons if you attempted the ludicrous task of driving for more than forty minutes at a time.

One of the main reasons Karen and i moved to Korea was that Jetta. Seriously.

Mean, and Iceland.

Yesterday i mentioned how brilliant Houston can be. But sometimes he can be mean. Like, he and Katrina will be in a room, i'll step into the kitchen to, i dunno, stir the oatmeal. And suddenly Katrina squeals in pain/horror/sorrow. I pop my head out, and Houston will be across the room looking at me innocently, saying "It was an accident." So yesterday i had a long conversation about how statistically, accidents will happen proportionately to the ratio of me observing him or not observing him. I don't think Houston understood the concept, but he got that being mean is bad, and he should do nice things for Katrina now. Today, i'm happy to report, Houston did at least five extremely nice things for Katrina, including helping her put together a Strawberry Shortcake puzzle.

Zane is cuter than, approximately, everything.

Videos: let me begin by heartily recommending Firefox for all your browsing needs. Then, install this extension, named DownloadHelper, which will allow you to download videos from YouTube and other sites of that ilk (what the heck is up with that word? Ilk? Seriously?) to your very own computer hard drive. Then, to view them, use this handy media player, which will play, approximately, everything. Even DVD's. Or .vob files ripped from DVD. Or, most significantly, the .flv files that will utterly confound every other media player, unless you [geekspeak geekspeak blah blah blah]*.

Sorry. So lemme share a couple videos, which you'll find embedded after the break.

*If you really want to know how to get your computer to play .flv files without VLC Player, lemme know.
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Free Willy!

I'm fighting off a nasty sinus infection that makes me feel like my breath smells horrible. Yuck yuck. So i slept a lot. Like, seven hours last night, and six hours today.

So anyway, today Houston was in the bathroom, and he yelled to me "How come God makes people think bad things?" And thus started the conversation about free will and predestination, emphasis on free agency. Houston and Katrina were asking for grilled cheese sandwiches today, and that was kind of okay with me, but the kids' other two meals were bread-heavy... including a breakfast of... um... bread. Yeah, that was my bad.

Yesterday we bought some hamburger, which is weird, but i thought i'd make goulash instead of the ever popular GCS. But did God know we'd be eating goulash? Did God know that even though we'd been planning to eat grilled cheese? Yes, we agreed. But did we choose, freely, that we'd be eating goulash instead? Again, yes, but if God knew, and even foreordained, that on October 15th, we'd be eating goulash for supper, do we really have free will? Herein, gentle reader, lies the paradox of free agency and predestination. Then we talked about geese. While geese are nesting, they'll pull eggs which roll out of their nest back under them. But if you somehow snatch the egg away after the goose starts the retrieval motion, it will complete the motion as though it's a robot. And if you put something which looks kind of like a goose egg in front of the goose, it'll do the same thing, even if it's actual eggs get destroyed as a result. So what looks like a nurturing act of love, via free will, is actually a fairly automatic response to stimuli. Houston and i agreed that we can reject the idea that humans act automatically in response to stimuli, since i really do have thoughts and feelings, but it still bears contemplation. And even if i was fully automatic, i wouldn't possibly be able to realize it.

Houston also came up with his own examples of Aristotle's law of noncontradiction, including him saying "Daddy, i can't say i'm looking at the milk jug and also look away at the same time." He's brilliant. Later we'll talk about whether the law of non-contradiction is something which constrains even God... or whether it simply limits our minds, indeed, our entire universe. I believe that one.

Weekend

We just had a very fun weekend with Karen's parents. We went to a "Holidome" -- has anyone ever heard of those? I guess it's a Holiday Inn with a "dome" covering a swimming pool and miniature golf course and all kinds of fun things to do. Like, a hotel which is also a destination, which it was, i guess. It's great how silly we can all be. Like, we had a piggyback relay race. And people took thousands of digital pictures. Thousands! We went swimming, we played ping-pong, we ate pie...

Oh yeah, the pie. I made the pie crust with the Kitchenaid, and i stupidly used a totally different recipe, but it turned out extremely good. Karen said it's the best crust so far. Yeah, it's two sticks of butter, four cups of flour, a quarter cup of sugar and milk, with a teaspoon of salt.

Karen's preparing a long, detailed post, with probably even a gallery. And i'm really tired and not writing very well. So i'll quit writing for tonight.

Kitchenaid!

Tomorrow we're gonna spend some time with Karen's family, so we thought it would be nice to make a pie. Did you know that Italian for pie is pizza? Well it is. Right, so i looked up a recipe for pie crust made with butter, because my crusts so far have used simple canola oil for the fat in the crust because canola is so good for you it's almost like eating organically grown broccoli stems. So anyway, as unwise as it is to change more than one variable at a time, i used a new recipe, which goes the way of so many American recipes and adds SUGAR... (lettuce salad? Add sugar! Pizza sauce? Add sugar!!! Beer??? Add high fructose corn syrup!!!!11!!) but i tried it anyway.

The other variable i added was using our new 1975 Kitchenaid mixer! It mixes so thoroughly! It's strong! It's fun! The pie crust turned out smooth and (because of the stupid sugar, i bet) a little sticky. It's in the freezer, ready to fill and bake tomorrow morning before the Family Get Together. Awesome.

Oh, and i should brag about the little chunk of counter there. It's from an old bowling alley floor. I cut it to size, routed the edges very inexpertly, and spent hours sanding and sanding off the potentially lead based finish, down to bare wood. I then finished it with pure mineral oil. It's great.

Graham

I never write about our dog, Graham. He's a good dog. Mostly. Besides the peeing on the carpet, whining incessantly for no human-understandable reason, and stuff like that. He's not nipped at anyone for many months. I was worried we were going to have to give him away for a while, but i guess it was anxiety because of Zane being born, and our new baby being more important that Graham... again.

So today i gave Graham a bath. He doesn't get many baths. But he gets enough to know that he doesn't like them. The easiest way to get him all wet is for me to grab his legs, and pull them from under him, gently, with him leaning up against the side of the bathtub. Well, he's not a fan of being upside down in the water, but usually i can do it without him freaking out. This time, when it was time to rinse him off, i did the upside down thing, and he started thrashing around a little. I'm pretty sure his head went under a few times.

When i finally got all of his legs firmly held, so he was all stable, he looked at me with this really cute, very heart-wrenching scared look. I didn't know dogs could look scared. But his eyes were really wide, his nostrils were flared, and his mouth was kind of pulled back, not in a snarl or smile (he smiles too) but in a little grimace of fright. Poor dog. He was totally holding eye contact with me, looking so frightened, and pleading with me to keep him safe. Awwww.

When we lived in Korea, we bought a puppy from some lady on the street. We missed our friend Ben, and thought Ben would be a cute name for a dog. So we named the puppy Ben. Ben had distemper, and he died after about four days. Then we really felt like crap.

Besides Ben, Graham is the only dog we've ever had. And he's a good dog. Annoying, inconvenient, and obnoxious sometimes. But we do love him... i guess. He loves us unconditionally and with abundant enthusiasm, so i guess we should love him back, just a little bit. And his birthday was September 28th. Happy birthday, dog. I think he's eight.

Karen and my first fight:

Our friends Keith and Karla just had their first fight, reportedly, over what some music video meant. So i figured it was about time Karen and i had a fight.

Here's what it was about: Houston's first name has two letter O's in it. And our last name, Moore, has two O's in it. So obviously, two times two is the easiest way to figure out how many O's there are, in total. I pointed that out to Houston, who's currently working hard on making his O's start at the top. "How much is two times two?" Houston doesn't know multiplication yet, but that's about as easy as it gets,... two words with two O's each... equals four! He got it.

Karen said something like "Actually, that's two PLUS two." Correct, but i think the best approach is multiplication. Karen said addition: if one word had three O's, it wouldn't be two times three. Duh, i said, but since there's identical quantities in all units, multiplication is clearly the best choice. After we got back from the ER and cleaned up all the broken plates, we had awesome make-up-sex... no wait, that didn't really happen.

In other news, sometimes i think i'm depressed. But that always happens on days (often on Wednesdays) when i'm deathly tired. So then i remember that i'm not depressed, just tired. So i'm gonna go to bed soon. Yay, bed.

Area Baby Draws On Self

That's what Zane did to himself first thing yesterday morning. Katrina wanted to be helpful, so she went and got a big hand towel wet and started to wash it off. Houston knew i wanted to take a picture, so he snatched the towel away and yelled "STOP!" Katrina screamed angrily, and Houston broke down weeping, and Zane looked around like "What's going on?" That's the dynamic in our house. Lots of times.

Today, i got to take a kid to have a -- lemme see if i can remember the word -- endovideostroboscopy i think, which (whatever it's really called) was SUPER INTERESTING. The lady put a scope in this kid's mouth, made him go "Eeee, eeee, eeee" and i got to see his vocal cords do their thing. Really weird. And kind of creepy in an alien, mucous like way. Everytime you go "eeee" these weird pink, knobby poky things lever together, and fleshy curtains slither across your windpipe and vibrate. Eugh. The lady also made the kid say "aaah" for as long as he could, which was a rather sad 16 seconds or so. I tried myself, and got 43 seconds, man. Heck yes.

Another think i can do is balance on one foot with my eyes closed. I read in Reader's Digest that the average forty year old can balance for about thirty seconds with their eyes closed. But Karen and i can do it indefinitely. Until we wear out, i suppose. I was doing it and showing off, asking Karen if she thinks it's impressive that i can do this with my eyes closed. She was like, "I don't think that's the same thing."

Sweltering.

It was really hot today. October 8th, 2007, right? And when i looked at the thermometer down the street, it read 10*8+07. Freaky, huh? 87 degrees Fahrenheit. Sweating while sitting still is fourth of July weather, not coming up on Halloween weather. Now it's raining, of course.

Okay, so i don't read a lot of weblogs, besides people i actually know in real life. But check out Blogger Play. It's pictures that people are uploading to Blogger's weblog service RIGHT NOW! Neat. Addicting.

But now i have to go. A dishwasher full of clean dishes is calling me. Then Mister Nivens (i'm addicted to Ringworld) and then Karen will get home from watching a movie with Beth. Fun.

Roof 66 hundredths done, carnivals trashy.

Also, i saw a big accident mere minutes after it happened, on the way home. There was a Pontiac Firebird, a convertible Ford Mustang, and a Ford Expedition involved. The Pontiac was dented, the Mustang's frame was badly twisted, but the Expedition was UPSIDE DOWN!!! On Division Avenue! Oddly, i had ridden behind the Mustang just the other day right on that road. And the driver was sitting outside of his car with a very bloody nose, perhaps broken. Poor kid. I don't think anyone else was hurt, but that's because even though huge, top-heavy SUVs tend to flip over when people do crazy things like "turn a corner", at least they have sturdy roofs.

Speaking of roofs, ours is all waterproof and shingled, until i start tearing off the final third. Oh man, that'll be a lot of work. After i'm done, does anyone want to have a shingle shoveling party? With a couple trailers to pull to the dump? Anyone? I'll make toaster waffles!

And today, between almost finishing the section of roof and actually finishing the roof section, we all went to the carnival which is visiting. Carnies are so awesomely scuzzy. They're all incredibly tan. Most are missing teeth, some spectacularly so. Most of them aren't very fat. And they paradoxically manage to be approachable and friendly, while somehow looking and sounding like how an ashtray filled with cigarette butts and stale American beer smells. It's like magic. Trashy magic. Carnival trashy magic.

Unintended consequences.

There's a law of unintended consequences, i gather from my conversations with my sociologist professor father, which makes life a lot less predictable. I'm sure the law is a rehash of the premises put forth by complexity /slash/ chaos theory... Like, an unintended consequence of current US tax laws is that poor people sometimes have lots of kids, on purpose. Crazy.

The major unintended consequence of Operation Tan Guy is that Karen and i miss each other. I miss the kids too, and they miss me. All spare minutes of daylight have been spent working on the roof. Big bummer. A less depressing unintended consequence is that having dreadlocks allows me to rubber band my mp3 player into my hair, and wind the excess headphone cord around the "bun" and stick the plugs in my ears. Awesome. But the other one isn't so awesome. I think the front third of our roof will be done with only a couple more hours of labor, and then i will make a concerted effort to spend quality time with my Karen and our kids. Probably not all at once. That's not how it works, you know.

Jumping Juanito!!!

I stinking LOVE jumping pictures. Some of my favorite pictures feature me or my loved ones jumping up, jumping up in the ay-uh, waving their respective hands like they just don't cay-uh. Having me in a new jumping picture makes me happy. I'll explain why.

My butt is sore from sitting on the floor. I still have to shovel a few trash bags full of shingles for the trash tomorrow morning, and there's dishes from PB&J dinner which aren't gonna do themselves. And i'm sleeeepy, partially due to the weird habit Houston and Katrina have picked up of coming into our bed every single night, which keeps our sleep from being as profound as it might. Plus, last night was windy, and there's only tar paper on part of our roof, so for 1.5 hours, i lay awake listening to the wind, and thumps and rattles echoing through our neighborhood, thinking about tar paper ripping out of the staples and flying off in search of, i dunno, a hot lady chunk of tar paper. And of course, there's absolutely nothing, NOTHING i could do at one thirty in the morning to ensure that the roof stays relatively waterproof, so i had to distract my brain. I'm good at that, but then my ear was still filled with water from swimming Sunday, and fiberglass hairlets from roofing were still irritating my hands and shins, i was sore, and of course Katrina was next to me wiggling and clutching her blanket. Sigh.

Okay, i'll completely stop whining now. Jeez, what a tool i am.

Oh wait, so what makes me happy about jumping? It's the fact that even though i'm tired, i'm going to bed early, and i'm acting all diligent and responsible, i can still do something totally, completely ME.

Also today's Austin's birthday. No, you don't know who Austin is, because he's just our two year old neighborhood kid. His brother's name is Orlando. Their friend's name is Trenton. We really want Austin, Orlando, Trenton and Houston to get together and take a picture of all the city names we have on our block. I bet there's a Madison or a Gary or an Albuquerque somewhere nearby too. Houston suggested that we go visit Austin, and give him a present. So we quickly drew a birthday card and walked down to his house, where his mom came out to see if we people had anything to do with the cops driving through a minute earlier. Yeah... our neighborhood is getting sadly not-as-good. Anyway, Austin's mom was smoking. First, before she came out, Houston said "It smells bad." I said yeah, some people smoke in their house, and that's what it smells like. Then she came out and politely held her cigarette behind her and blew smoke off the porch. But Houston still stifled a little cough. We chatted for a minute, while Houston faded into the background. When we left, he let out a hearty cough, and said "I didn't like that. It made me cough!" I asked Katrina why people smoked, and she said "They take some paper, roll it, fill it with smoke and blow on it." But why, i asked. Do they like the smell? "No." she declared. "Maybe they like the taste?" she said. Aww, bless her heart. Later, i'll tell her about Demon Nicotine and how it makes people eat kittens and levitate in their sleep. And tip better.

It's coming along...

I was up this morning early early, worked, recovered hundreds of pictures which were deleted from a memory card, and worked on the roof. So there's not much of a story to tell today. I miss my family! I only saw Katrina and Zane from atop the roof today. They looked even shorter than normal.

Zane moseys.

Zane took his first real walk today! One time he even walked a few steps, took a little sideways step to regain his balance, and continued on. It was awesome. Weirdly enough, we didn't take any pictures. I guess there's something to be said for living "in the moment". As opposed to living after the fact through digital images and video.

Also, our neighbor lady Chris who moved several months ago gave us a KitchenAid mixer. Made by Hobart. The kind which tilts up. She said "It's broken, and I have no idea what's wrong with it." I fixed it by plugging it in. Probably when Karen was banging it around, cleaning up our front porch, she fixed it for real. We ordered a bowl from Ebay, and when it comes, i'm sure we'll use it to make the next batch of apple pies, and cookies, and bread, and tiramisu... the possibilities are endless!!! I wonder if you could use it to make an incendiary device.