Fishing

For a while today i was alone at work with three kids. They wanted to go fishing, and in Wedgwood's giant renovating process, they built a pond. They use the water to sprinkle the lawn, and it has a little pier, and they stocked it with fish. So they let the kids fish from it.

The kids are too squeamish to find worms. They're too squeamish to put the worms on the hooks. They're way too squeamish to pull the hooks out of the fish's mouths, since that involves touching a live fish. But me! I'm not squeamish at ALL. But i'm empathetic! The worms getting jammed on hooks! OW! They writhe exactly as though they're in pain. And the fish getting yanked out of their homes by a hook! I can rationally accept the whole process, because a worm's and a fish's pain is not the same experience i have... and stuff... But i did feel sick when putting the worms on the hooks. And i tried to get the fish to feel loved when i was extracting the hooks from their jaws. Plus, bluegills and sunfish have fascinating mouths -- there's rows of teeth things in there. And if you tilt the fish to the left and right, their eyes tilt to compensate, keeping aligned to the horizon. How in the world can fish do that? They have no inner ear! Especially in air where their swim bladder has no buoyancy. Wow, i can't believe i spelled buoyancy right. So i sent very loving thoughts to them, and tossed them back.

Also, Houston, Katrina and Zane love me! And they're so cute! I took them to the store today, and Houston wanted very much to dress up weird. He wore one sock with one of his Crocs, and a sock, slipper, and MY Crocs style shoe on his other foot. And an adult-size-M shirt, inside out. What a goofball. Zane calls fireworks "Thundercrackers", which is the most descriptive term i've ever heard them called. Astonishing.

A post to keep my weblog from feeling lonely

Today i let Karen sleep in. And sleeeeep she did, since she was awake until absurdly late working on a picture book documenting our trip to NYC. She's doing it on the computer, so it'll be a bound book from Snapfish (their layouts are kind of horrible, and their quality could be better, but Karen's doing most of the layouts on the computer anyway).

While she was snoozing, i took the kids shopping. While we were there, we got to the sample area, and there were treats! This is a big deal for the kids -- they thrill at eating quarter muffins for FREE! Halfway through the noshing, Houston suddenly started crying heartfelt tears. "Waaaaahhh!" he said, fat tears rolling down his cheeks. Surprised, i asked him what was up, and he said mournfully "My tooth!!!" There was one of his teeth kind of bent out of socket. I hugged him and got him a napkin to soothe himself, and after a minute it kind of popped out. Then Houston was back to normal. Except he told me "I feel sorry for my tooth." And then, "I think it will feel lonely now that it fell out." Cute kid, anthropomorphizing his teeth.

Hilarious Houston

Today Houston suggested that for dinner tonight we eat "puss" -- like, the cat... not pus the body fluid. I didn't know how to respond so i made some inquisitive noise, and Houston explained: "We'd take an octopus and cut off all the octos!" I laughed so hard. It's from a book, but still, it surprised me, and Houston was very pleased to have made me laugh a lot with one of his jokes. Also, that video of him is completely awesome.

I led ZUMBA! tonight, and i think it was an awesome class. There's only ever, like, ten people there, but it's a small room, and there's mirrors on the front and back walls, so with the infinite reflections, it looks like quite a crowd. But holy cow it kicked my butt. I felt like i felt the first class i attended. Because... i have three new routines that i made up the choreography for. Plus three other songs i've made up. And it turns out that the dances i made up are HARD! Tons of leg strength moves, jumping around, and my new one has twirls. Hee hee.

On the plus side, it's still so much fun. And it's good to get exercise, with the whole gradually getting more fit thing. And more confident in leading the class, which is a big factor in how enjoyable a class is. And i want my class to be enjoyable!

Ugh.

Today at work i had to physically manage two kids who were being unsafe, and one of them dislocated his shoulder! I let that kid go right away because my other staff were holding back a kid who wanted to pull me off this first kid... well it was really chaotic and confused.

But our new building has security cameras, and i just found out today that we can watch the feeds from the past whenever we want! So i examined the footage very closely to see what had happened from another perspective. The grossest thing was watching the first kid stand up like a zombie with his arm sticking out at a horrible angle, and fling it over his head, and pop it back in place! It was really creepy, one of my coworkers said it looked like something out of The Exorcist. And then he rushed staff again.... Out Of Control.

It was really interesting watching myself handle a crisis. I was quick, decisive, and did the physical stuff almost exactly as we're trained. Once the kids calmed down, you could even see my "warmth, empathy and respect" for the kids. In conclusion: i'm good at my job.

Empty house. Lots of work.

Karen went to Ohio to visit family. Zane went with her, but i don't think they'll let him drive. Houston and Katrina went for a weekend visit to Linda and Andrew's house. According to the website called "Twitter", the two kids are doing... okay. With Katrina being typically needy after bed time. Sigh.

But me? I'm going to work. I pretty much NEVER pick up overtime, but an overnight shift when my family's out of the house is a completely perfect scenario. There's no reason for me to be home, and i can make extra money! Whee. I discovered a new author -- Tony Ballantyne. Maybe i can read a whole book! Or half of it -- these hard sci-fi books tend to be thick. Metaphorically, of course, since they're really just a few hundred kilobytes of data in my Palm Pilot.

Okay, off to work!

HORROR!!!

I am outraged. Well, outraged as much as possible considering that it's outrage over... candy. Which is somewhere between not being able to find my keys in the first place i look and having Graham lick my face when it's really hot. Here it is. Prepare to share my outrage.

Brach's Malted Milk Balls are no longer covered in chocolate.

You may come back to continue reading when you've recovered. Recovered? Okay... Whoppers candy has always been covered with carob, which is kind of chocolate like, and uses some other fat, usually palm oil. Whoppers have a giant segment of the malted milk ball market all wrapped up, with their inexpensive price and whimsical milk-box packaging. Brach's candies have always been covered in proper chocolate -- cocoa powder and cocoa butter with sugar and other ingredients -- and have been delicious, and likewise more costly. But the bag of malted milk balls i recently purchased was not chocolate. Cocoa powder was on the list, but the fat was palm oil. Palm oil is trans fat free, and is finding its way into more and more products now that partially hydrogenated vegetable oil has fortunately become outre.

I plan on thinking about writing a strongly worded letter, and telling at least one other person about this outrage, and then i'll just forget about it until i'm in the store and i'll check the ingredient list to see if my complete lack of action has magically changed the recipe back to what it was.

Also, Michael Jackson died yesterday. Wow. I can't help but compare him to Elvis, with their stratospheric fame and descend into a kind of sad weirdness. And then to die of being weird.

Mmm, my own computer.

It's really nice to have a proper keyboard and mouse to use! Relief! Plus, my computer doesn't burn my thighs or wrists. Not that our laptop is particularly hot, but add the heat of the processor and spinning hard drive to the heat we're experiencing anyway, and it gets uncomfortable.

Hot: according to The Internet, the temperatures around here were either 90° or 96°. 96° ties for the record set back in 1901. Our house was just two years old when it was this hot on this date. It's so hot that we've been turning off our computers (gasp!!!), so i can't post a picture because they're on Karen's computer which is off the network. Tomorrow. But today it was a perfect day to lounge around in the pool and drive the scooter to work. So that's what we did. Except "we" didn't scoot to work, just me.

Also: i posted a picture.

Fixing stuff...

Yesterday morning, after i donned my only suit and my "got jesus?" t-shirt, i hopped in our KIA to zoom to my job interview for the Young Life Camp leader position. This job i've done seven times in the past... and there were only two applicants for the two positions... but Wedgwood says you gotta make openings available to all and interview applicants. Usually that's a good rule but not this time.

The instant before i turned the key to start the car i wondered, "It's been nearly two weeks since this car was started. How will it do?" It started hard, and there was fan belt squeak. Actually, no new cars have actual fan belts, since the fan is always powered by an electric motor and the belt which used to run the fan now spins the water pump, alternator, power steering pump and A/C compressor. No fans. But anyway, the (ahem) accessory belt squeaked mightily, and revving the engine didn't fix it. Thick smoke began pouring from the engine compartment. As the smoke coiled snake-like from every exit, i decided to drive the car around front so i'd have somewhere with room to fix it after my interview. It wouldn't go. Okay, it would go, but only with the left rear wheel locked up. Sigh. By the time i got out of the garage, the belt had burned through and broken, so at least it wasn't squealing anymore, but then driving around the block produced a whole new source of squealing. Now there's a black ribbon of skid mark leading from the garage in the alley, around the side of our block, and right to where we park the KIA. I feel like it's a giant finger of accusation saying "THIS CAR! THIS CAR!"

So anyway, after i interviewed for (and, hick-doi, got) the job, we went and fetched our valuables from Karen's parent's house, and i bought a new alternator. See, the garage was very moist while we were on vacation, and parts of the car corroded. I'm surprised that the alternator was so completely seized up, but it was. The rear brake was no big deal -- i took off the tire and whacked the brake drum with a big hammer. That knocked the shoes back into place, no is problem! And i did eventually replace the alternator. I'm much rather work on little 4 cylinder engines than V6es, except that they put the alternator and starter behind the engine where you can only get to it once you've covered your hands in engine grease and your own blood.

Yeah.

So then i put my computer into the gaudy yellow case i got in Kentucky, and foolishly didn't bother to note which hard drive was plugged into which port, so now my computer has no idea where Windows is. See, i reinstall frequently enough, that the last time i did it, my root Windows drive was F:\ (usually it's C:\), because the first hard drive the computer tried to boot to said "Hey! Windows is over on that other hard drive!" and the other hard drive said ", not me! Try that third one!" and the third one was like *romantic music* "United at last!!!" and booted. Well, there's eight combinations of plugs-into-those-three-ports i could try, but i'm not entirely sure it was those three. There's four ports. So that increases the combinations to... 32. But there's also eight combinations of the order in which the computer hardware sees the hard drives, which makes 256 combinations. Easier to reinstall Windows. Easier to pick up a few dozen overtime shifts at work to pay for a whole new computer!

Other news: it's hot. I led ZUMBA! with Karine (who pronounces it "Kareena", and is French) who had me improvise choreography for a new song i'd never even heard. Jeez. Challenging, but fun. And our poor class -- i thanked them for being patient, and they seemed to like it.

Two words:

More, actually. Two devices made our vacation a lot more enjoyable. The first was a GPS navigation system. When we were driving through the Appalachian mountains and around the twisty interstates and back roads of New York, i could look around at the magnificent vistas, the cloud filled vales! The majestic river gorges! The posh German cars! People outside of Michigan drive really nice cars. I saw a Lamborghini, three Maseratis, a Ferrari, and other cars which are very far removed from what Michiganders think is a nice ride (gag).

Speaking of which, i never realized i am a typography geek. But i never liked Where the Wild Things Are because of the font. And lack of punctuation. I was... six? when introduced to that book. And i spent my whole training a week from last Wednesday trying to remember the name of the font with the horrible lower case a. It's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gill_Sans">Gill Sans.

Okay, the other word is about the leashes we took to New York City. I had heard of kid-leashes, of course, and pretty much mocked parents who felt they needed them. "Get some parental authority", i muttered derisively to myself. I now apologize for my derisive mutterings. With the leashes, we could wander the city with our eyes pinned to the tops of all the buildings, in true, unashamed tourist fashion. And as long as we held on to the kids' leashes, we were fine! They could stare at the ground trying to pick up candy wrappers and stomp in puddles as kids always do, tourist or local. Our enjoyment of the city was much greater with the convenience of knowing our kids were safe by our sides. When we let them run around at the store, we can hardly find ramen noodles.

So i recommend both GPS navigation systems and child leashes if you visit New York City.

Okay, deep breath!

Whew! Day eight of our vacation was spent in the rain, or indoors. The two most memorable things we saw outside: Peace and a glass cube. The glass cube was The Apple Store, which is in front of FAO Schwartz, and is... a cube of glass, crystal clear and sparkling clean. There's a spiral staircase leading into the immaculately gleaming interior, and a clear, apparently unsupported circular elevator platform with circular glass (possibly acrylic) walls. Unreal. A fitting monument to Apple's commitment to extravagant, attractivly tasteful overdesign (but needless). We didn't go inside.

The other memorable thing was a sculpture named Peace. It featured a winged archangel Michael, soaring amid cavorting giraffes, with his robes flapping along the top shell of a perfectly circular crab. Also on the crab's back was a large disc, with a sun-like face smiling beatifically into the sky. Michael's left hand held a long cruel sword pointing toward his victim, whom he was holding with his right arm. His victim was Satan, whose feet were bound somehow up near Michael's shoulder, and whose legs and torso were stretched agonizingly with cords of muscle and sinew shown in drastic relief. His shoulders and neck were right down near the feet of one of the cavorting giraffes, and the crab (upon whose back Michael was standing) had Satan's head hanging from one of its claws, swinging by some gristle. Okay....... PEACE???? And this was in a children's garden! I mean, i know this is all symbolic and stuff, but it's undeniably the most violent bit of sculpture i've ever seen.

Since we were rained out on Thursday, we spent Friday in Central Park. I recommend at least one day spent in Central Park for anyone visiting New York -- it's incredible. I know the "nature" seen there is very managed, and a lot of it is pretty threadbare. But it is nature, with trees and grass and water and flowers. And bedrock poking through in many places. In Michigan, there isn't much bedrock to speak of -- it's all glacially deposited gravel, boulders or sand. My favorite things in Central Park were seeing the street performers. We saw Thoth, who didn't do anything interesting while we were looking besides kick his dance platform millimeter by millimeter into perfect alignment. Oh -- he also looked pretty weird. I guess there was a documentary about him in 2002. Also we saw AFRObats, whose act was a mix of acrobatics (i thought "BLACKrobats" would have been a better name) and fairly racial humor. Hollered in unison: "White people. You have nothing to be afraid of. There's only three of us. We can't hurt all of you!" It was all in the irreverent spirit of New York, as was the rude language. One lady was indignant: "It was NOT a family friendly show", and... yes, there were three or four swear words, but you are in New York, and people swear. It's okay.

Um... then we drove to Karen's friend Karen's house in Pittsburgh. It's quiet. It's peaceful. It's lovely. But i'll always remember fondly the bustle and rumble of tightly packed humanity of New York. And when we get a different license plate, we'll be able to visit again.