Walk in the park

This morning we went to ZUMBA!, where i didn't lead a single song but it was fun anyway, and then we took a walk. Through the woods that are right by our house! Then we tried to clean the house, and then ate food. Now i'm making naan again.

Oh man, the kids were a handful today, except for that hour or two while we were walking. Houston was impulsive and moody, Katrina was whiney and too tired to tidy her room, and Zane kept hurting people by playing. But they're incredibly sweet and i love them so much i'd jump naked into a swimming pool filled with double edged razor blades for them.

Katrina is adorable, and Houston is really cool.

A picture

I will respond to the overwhelming outcry sweeping the universe for a picture on my weblog. Hmm, let me find my camera... okay i found it. Now lemme find the picture of (yet again) Hello Kitty that i drew... Nope. I could only find drawings by the kids. But Hello Kitty was carrying a giant assault rifle with a chainsaw bayonet. Oh wow. Such things exist... not to actually use, barring the apocalyptic rise of the undead. Even then, i would rather have a chainsaw and a rifle, not a chainsaw bolted to a rifle.

So instead of a picture drawn by me, please accept a picture drawn by Katrina, photoshopped by me. I have no idea what it represents. But it communicates something, right?

Today Houston had to turn in his House Project. He had to build a model shelter built in the rustic style Pioneers would have used. Houston chose a log cabin. He was supposed to build it, but i accidentally built it myself. Mostly (i tell myself) because the sharp stick cutters are dangerous, and Houston's level of patience with stacking logs while the glue is drying is not as vast as mine. But all i did was build the house. Houston designed it, he chose how big it would be, and he made some Sculpey accessories for it, like a person, and axe, and a pig. And he had to write the report. So he'll get a good score, and the score will be his. On Monday we go to his school for parent teacher conferences, so we'll get to see all the projects.

Katrina got a haircut!

I have been getting up every single morning early since last Friday. Okay, on Monday i got to sleep in until seven thirty, which was nice. But i'm just T I R E D. I'm sure i've said it before, but being permanently sleep deprived is part of being a parent of young kids.

Sigh. So when i got home today, i saw my little Katrina. Her hair has been growing out since she got her first haircut back in 2005. So it has been long. Fortunately, long hair is really cute on little girls. But i love bobs on little girls too. Today, Katrina has a bob. It's ADORABLE. And she hardly even cares. I made kind of a big deal about it, and she smiled and let me hold her, because she loves her daddy, but really was not impressed. But i love it.

It must be weird to be an adorable little girl. Everyone responds to you with warmth and attention. Katrina's living in a different world from the rest of us.

Stupid music!

I lost my mp3 player last Friday. Usually when i lose things, they kind of show up later, but this time i knew exactly when i'd had it last, and my path from there to where i knew i didn't have it was short and not complex, so i'm sure it's not in one of the dozens of random places i deposit things when my brain is otherwise occupied. By things like wondering how daddy long legs muscles manage to move those super long legs around. And can they see?

In fact i had a dream last night that i'd found my sturdy little toughened Sansa, which has served me so well. And which was cheap. I miss it. I think it fell out of my pocket between the YMCA and my home, or i left it in the YMCA building, and someone lifted it. Oh well.

So, i put my ZUMBA! tracks on my GPS, and made a playlist, and even tested out the first three songs. It worked well! The forth song, however, crashed. Crashed! So i had to lead the class with large gaps between numbers, and let my ZUMBA! addict homie Nicole lead a couple of the songs. I'm glad my class is patient with me. One of my regulars said "Hey, this is how Beto started out!" which is true -- Beto Perez got the idea for ZUMBA! when he was going to lead an aerobics class, and didn't have the proper music, so he just used whatever he had in his car -- a typically Columbian mix of salsa, merengue, reggaeton, cumbia, etc. It was a hit. My class, not so much.

So anyway, enough complaining. Next week my new (cheap!) mp3 player will hopefully be here, and i'll be back in business. I just hope it'll run Rockbox.

Area Morning Show Features ZUMBA!, Me

There's me on teevee! It's a local program, with a couple of the news desk people promoted to co-hosting a chatty upbeat morning show.

Now, i don't get much screen time, because the cameraman was a cameraman, and so he focused on the Hottie McHotster girls dancing behind me. Except i did have a line: "The salsa kick!" I am so proud. Karen pointed out that Tara (my fave instructor) didn't even have any camera time leading!

Yesterday we took family pictures, and they turned out really well. Thanks, Beth! Our family is cute cute. Unfortunately, i can't make Windows Networking work properly, so Karen's computer is not visible to my computer on the network. Some problem with my custom hot rodded WinXP install disks. All that to say that i can't post pictures, not without going over to her computer and moving the pictures from there. Not a bad idea -- it's been a bit of time since i did a proper backup.

Yum, Indian food and naan!

We don't get enough Indian food. And, we don't spend enough time eating at friends' houses. Tonight remedied both lacks! Thanks Andrew & Linda!

Last night i couldn't compose my thoughts, mainly because they were centered on going to bed and avoiding buying a new mp3 player because mine isn't in the first place i looked (and the exact one i'd love was for sale at Woot.com for $35). So i didn't buy anything, and went to bed. But now i'm at work where there's nothing like "going to bed" to keep me busy. All my morning responsibilities are complete besides doing bed checks to make sure everybody's where they're supposed to be.

At the dinner party ("party" for the kids, since they were running around being crazy, "dinner" for us, since we sat around conversing wittily) we wondered at how naan can be so yummy even though it's just flour, salt and yeast cooked in a hot pan. Linda cooked butter chicken, which tasted awesome, and much less lemon flavor than i'd expected, since for some reason i thought we were eating "lemon chicken". Andrew talked politics with conviction i've usually only seen from the other side of the political spectrum. The six children ran about the house generating chaos in their wake, which i guess somebody else cleaned up.

Okay, i'm going to go make coffee now. Thanks, guys!

My job...

I don't remember if i ever wrote about this: my workplace has changed!

Crossroads is the unit i've been working at for a few years, and it has always been one of the more successful programs in the agency. We've had a waiting list while other programs have been seeing their numbers drop. We left the Pine Rest campus about a year ago, because leasing their land and building was costing us like fifty grand a month. We moved into a building custom built just for us, and with the high census of our home, we necessarily had several rooms which were designed for three kids.

Now, as soon as i found out about THIS, i was disappointed. If we had a full house -- sixteen kids -- then nine, NINE, of them would need to be in triple rooms. Over half of our group trustworthy enough to be roommates? Really? We're going to have, so objected i, kids mistreating each other, sexually verbally, physically or otherwise, in their rooms. It will be obnoxious, retorted leadership, but we'll just have to deal with it. Now, one of the things about residential treatment which has always bothered me is the lack of emphasis on a SAFE milieu. If kids don't feel safe, they're not going to be ready to accept our help. So i felt that we were setting up our whole milieu to be disrupted by what's going on in kids' rooms -- their only space to be alone and really safe.

So anyway, for whatever reason we decided to mitose our unit into two units. One of them will have up to twelve kids and one will have up to eight. The eight bed unit will be more firmly scheduled and activity based, with the larger unit being more focused on cognitive therapy. I'm on the smaller unit, which suits me GREAT! My goal here is to provide these kids with a stable, safe environment, where they can finally take a deep breath and look at what their lives have become and realize that there can be a better way. For many of my kids here, this is the first time in their lives they've had that kind of stability and safety. They resist it, causing chaos and problems when they can, to recreate something familiar from their past. But it's pretty easy to remove that kid until he's feeling more cooperative.

Well... i am at work right now, and kids are getting up. So i guess i'll go out there and provide safety and stability.

I've been shot!

Shot for a TV program. If you watch TV, you might be aware that there are sort of morning shows on, where they talk about stuff and do little stories about local goings on. Well, one of the people who's a regular at my fave ZUMBA! class works at Wood TV, (and she's also in a local ad for an air conditioning company or something). So anyway, she works with Terri DeBoer, who's one of the meteorologists and the co-host of a morning magazine show called eightWest.

All this is a fog shrouded mystery to me. I am aware that there's this non-PBS television which is broadcast all the time, but it has no bearing on my life. Besides... no... no. It has no bearing on my life. Okay fine, on Monday nights, i try very hard to take over the kid responsibilities by eight so Karen can watch House.

Right. So Joy (the commercial actress) gushes about her ZUMBA! class, so Terri DeBoer must have smelled a story (and probably a freshly showered coworker) and decided to come shoot a story about us. I was invited while i was talking to "the cool kids" a couple weeks ago.

So Tara (my favorite ZUMBA! instructor) was going to teach Terri some moves, do an interview, shoot some footage, etc. The song we were doing is one i've been doing for a long time in my class, so Tara was like "Hey Juanito, you want to lead this song while I'm giving an interview?" and i was like "Duh, another step to my inevitable worldwide fame?" and did it. So we put the music on really quietly, and i led the song! And a song i'd never heard before! And then the same song again!

It was weird to hear mostly just the tap-tap-tap-tap of eight or so people salsa dancing on a hard wood floor.

I did post a video to the Face Book.

Whee! I'm still refining that dance. And it's a fun one!

Also, yesterday Karen said that she feels better! Woo the heck hoo!!!! I am really happy for her and for our poor household, which has been patiently tolerating my earnest attempts to take care of everything, and not doing a terribly good job... I think the house had reached a kind of balance of cleanliness and tidiness in various areas, with the front room, dining room, carpet room, and kitchen entering a kind of cycle of order. I'd need to cook, so the kitchen would get some attention. The laundry in the carpet room would threaten to swallow Graham, so it would get folded and "put away" (i don't know how Karen knows where folded clothes go. It's a mystery to me. My clothes are stacked, mostly randomly, on some shelves in the basement near the washing machine, which makes a great deal of sense to me).

I used a new technique of cleaning using mostly a broom. See, you start at one end of the house and start sweeping EVERYTHING into a pile. Discarded socks, facial tissues, books, coat hangers, crayons... the detritus of domesticity. Then the pile can be sorted, and much of it can be thrown away! And then your house is tolerably (to me) clean. It's like masking the task of cleaning house (which i'm not good at) as sweeping (which i am good at). I like sweeping. And mopping.

Our neighborhood

Yesterday (i don't remember why i didn't post... oh yeah, working on a computer) i took my kids on a walk "around the block". We didn't even make it around the block once. We stopped by some new neighbors' house, and hung out for about half an hour. They're cool! They listen to downtempo electronic music! So we'll be hanging out there from time to time.

And wow, i feel like i've been so busy. Poor Karen remains itchy and coughy and exhausted, so i'm trying to do as much of the stuff around the house as i can. Karen's being so gracious and thankful, and i hope she feels better soon!

Also, cats can be really cute.

Katrina in leaves

I've overheard people saying stuff like "Man, I have the money, i just don't got it now."

So i say "Man, i have the video, i just ain't got the upwards bandwidth to post it right now." I'll do it tomorrow when we don't have Hulu running.

Today's weather was absolutely perfect. So nice. I wish i had spent more time outside. Also, i made yummy food at home! At home!!! So that's good.

I took video of me ZUMBA!ing.

Yeah... i took the video, but left my card reader at work, and my camera's USB connectivity is pathetically slow, so... oh. Karen's card reader is right over there. But i would have to get up... and walk over to her desk... i'm looking at it....... Nope. Too much work.

So the video will go up later. Plus, i always think i look stupid on video. I mean, i know that's what i really really look like, but i guess i think i look cooler than i do.

But my Zumba class went so well. Two fellow instructors showed up, and they made it cray-zee. But even not counting those two, more than eleven people showed up. In fact, i bet it was twenty. May i say... YES!!! I've been hoping to get a lively group of people in my class, and as they all are learning my dances, and as they're showing up repeatedly, and dragging along their friends, it's getting more dope and more live and -- dare i say it? -- more fly. It was really good, and i'm kind of totally overjoyed, but now my bed is calling me.

And Karen, poor Karen, is still coughing and itchy. I will creep into bed like a guilty philanderer, to keep her from awakening enough to cough herself into insomnia.

The pants work. And i'm still not sick.

They work very well. The studio where i lead ZUMBA! has giant mirrors, and i'm so confident that the pants work, i didn't even ask anyone for their opinion. Because seriously, that's just fishing for compliments.

In other news, Zane doesn't seem sick, while Houston seems to be coming down with something. And Karen, who's been sickest longest, is kind of miserable. Big hacking coughs. Poor lady.

Okay. I'm going to pick up Beth now from the airport. She feels horrible too.

My dreadlocks

Today at the Young Men's Christian Association a guy on a workout machine randomly said to me "Hey, you got a minute?" I was like... "maybe?" because i don't want to, for instance, join in a multilevel marketing venture. I don't care how many times you "ran the numbers" -- those things just don't work for normal people like the kinds of people i know. Although if i ever DID get involved in an MLM, i would call everyone i know and say "Hey, i just got involved in an MLM, and it only works if i have lots of people on the level below me, and you can use this same pitch to get lots of people on the level below you, and if you do, you might make some money." None of this crap like "Hey! It's Philliam, the guy who lived across the hall from you at college! Could we get together for a chat over coffee to catch up on old times??? I'm buying!!!!!!exclamation point!!!!"

So the guy on the weight machine said "sure you do!" so i went over and he asked me "Do you know where dreadlocks came from?" I believe the first time they were called "dreadlocks" was in Jamaica, where the African immigrants rebelled against the white establishment, and started letting their hair go crazy just to piss off the silly English types, who called them "Dreadful locks of hair". The fellow told me about the nazarite vow from Numbers, and we had ourselves a nice little conversation about dreads. John the Baptist, Samson (a Nazarite for life), Elijah, these people may have had dreadlocks, although i'm sure they were called something else.

I'm really happy with my locks at this point. I used to spend hours working on the ends of the locks, trying to get them blunt and rounded. I'd even snip off the straight haired bits. But no longer! Now i'm leaving them to just get wispy, letting them partially fall out at the ends. I think it looks rad. And possibly a little more obviously clean. No Doritos stuck in my hair, thanks. Actually, the other day, somebody came up behind me and said "You have a feather in your hair", which was from my pillow, but we had a nice conversation about pet chickens, and now i have a contact in the pet chicken community.

Also, i made some pants today. They're specifically ZUMBA! teaching pants. This means they're loose enough to move freely, but not baggy enough so nobody can see my legs. And there's different color pockets on the knees and seat so, again, people can see what's going on. Which brings me again to the rather weird thought that when i lead class, people staring at my butt. Or at least paying attention to it. Again: weird. I guess i should put pictures up. Of the pants. Not my... uh... nevermind.

Happy All Hallows' Eve

Yesterday we carved pumpkins and built costumes. Today we finished up costumes, including trying on the bird cage, the wings, and the dog house, and went to a couple parties and went trick-or-treating. So we had a good Halloween. Problem: we're all a little under the weather from the aftereffects of some mild virus. Maybe the H0N0, since it wasn't nearly as bad as that other one. Karen got overwhelmingly itchy, the boys got a fever, Katrina got a tummyache, and i'm tired.

Zane was a dog in a big cardboard dog house. I put some straps in, anchored to the bottom and the sides, with a tie around the waist, to keep it steady. It was steady enough to wear, but awesomely top-heavy, and Zane's not a big guy, so he tottered and wobbled all over the place in the doghouse. We all laughed a lot. I'm so glad Zane also thought it was funny and was laughing too, because even if he'd gotten all sad that we were laughing at him, i don't think i would have been able to stop. It was awesome.

Katrina was a delicate flower. Karen made that costume, and it is cute and robust. It was also cumbersome, so she walked about the one party wearing a simple green outfit (green for the stem). And then she overheard somebody complimenting another kid on their costume, and she gazed up at Karen: "Can you go to the car and get my flower costume?" We ladle positive affirmations on that girl (and our sons) and she accepts it with natural ease, but that doesn't mean she doesn't love and crave it. "Notice me! Adore me!" Of course, i can't imagine not adoring her.

Houston was a bird in a bird cage. I made the cage out of straightened-out coat hangers (pro tip: free at any laundromat). Then he had wings and a hat i kind of made without planning, and they worked out great. I winged it. Har. Har. Houston originally said he wanted to be a bird in a bird house, but "bird house" in my brain got translated to "bird cage" every time i heard it. Thus, the bird cage. He was somewhat frustrated by his costume, especially the cage, so he only wore that while actually trick-or-treating. But people liked it.

Karen was someone who'd been dumped. A pint of ice cream. Bathrobe. Running mascara (except i don't think you can buy tear-soluble mascara anymore) and messy hair. It was cute.

I didn't notice many dads wearing costumes. When a father was dressed up, they'd always be something manly, like a cowboy or a hockey player. I didn't see a single adult male dressed as a nine year old girl. I didn't even see any nine year old girls dressed as nine year old girls. They were all fairies or princesses or soldiers or somehow affiliated with sports teams. Or a superhero -- young Ella was Superman. But i was bold and courageous, and carpe'd the diem, and dressed up like a nine year old girl. I was Pippi Longstocking, but since i'm a thirty seven year old dude, i was just Creepy Longstocking. Witness the power.