New York (the state)

Once again I've let the blog get behind and have a ton of things to write.

Last week we got back from a two week vacation in New York (the state). Our flight home got in about 9 PM and we got home about 1 AM. I don't know how Mark managed to get into work the next day.

Arthur was the best child on the plane both ways. On the way back there was a particularly insane child three rows ahead of us, so in contrast every other child on the plane was a veritable angel.

The Dwyers are doing well; we managed to spend time with all of Mark's brothers and sisters. We flew into Newark Airport and then rented a car so we could drive to Suffern, New York, where Mark's mother, Mary, and two sisters, Melora and Melissa live. Suffern was our home base. Everyone was quite excited to see Arthur, especially Kristina, Melissa's daughter. We got (somewhat) adjusted to the time zone in time to drive to Buffalo July First.

While we were in the air flying to Suffern, the bank was trying to reach us. They'd forgotten to have us sign some piece of paper and they wondered if we could pop in and sign it. We'd only been telling them for about two weeks that we were going on vacation. So there was an afternoon of frantic FAXing. Everything got straightened out, but at one point Mark was considering flying back to Oregon to sign everything.

July First we drove to the wedding celebration. Driving to Buffalo was somewhat entertaining as it was the July Fourth weekend and just a few days before many of the roads in New York (the state) had been flooded out by torrential rains. Arthur traveled well, and we had a nice stop on the Erie Canal where we saw some old stonework and various unattractive joggers.

Mark's oldest brother, Michael, lives in Buffalo with his family. Laura, one of Michael's daughters, had a large wedding celebration with tiki torches, inflatable totem poles, faux grass skirts, and lots and lots of games. The Dwyers took up most of a wing of a local Mariot. Mark's sister, Maria, and her family; and Mark's other brother, Matthew, and his family came up for the celebration. I'm afraid I only saw it on tape, but during the celebration the three brothers did an improvised tiki torch dance that was pretty funny (think Ooompa-loompas in grass skirts).

July 3rd, several of us went to Ontario to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. It was obligatory that we ride the Maid of the Mists to get as close as possible to the falls. Arthur was great in the line to the boat, and then slept through the entire twenty minute aquatic adventure. The falls were pretty; it's amazing how much water flows over them.

While we were in Ontario, we got a chance to visit a butterfly conservatory. I got a some really good shots of butterflies up close. Even though we stayed much, much later than we had initially imagined we would, Arthur was a real trouper through it all.

July 4th, we had a nice breakfast and visit with Michael and Karen (and Christian and Patrick) before setting out to visit Amy and Sharon in Ithaca.

Ithaca and Cornell were interesting. It's always fun for me to see buildings that are older than my grandmother (a building in Oregon is old if it was built in 1910). Amy and Sharon fed us wonderful meals and took us on a great tour of Cornell. Amy, Mark and Arthur listened while Sharon and I went up into the bell tower near the Ash Chapel with a chime mistress to see the chimes played. She let Sharon and I sound the noon carillon.

We sped off from Cornell July 5th to visit Mark's sister, Megan, at the Joseph Campbell Center for Symbolic Studies in New Paltz. Megan, her husband, Morgan, and their two boys, Marly and Masio, were all at trapeze camp (which Megan teaches). Megan's class wrapped up and we visited their cabin before finishing our travels back at Mary's in Suffern. Since we were leaving after dark, we stopped back at the trapezes to see all the fireflies. There were lot, they were in the meadow and up in the trees -- it was the most fireflies I have ever seen in once place.

July 6th we hopped into the car again to visit with Lime Green Larry in the City. I actually asked Mark, "So, if people from Oregon are Oregonians, and people from California are Californians, people from New York are ..."

"New Yorkers."

"But," I continued, "people from New York City are..."

"From the city."

Anyway, we got into the city a little early, so we went on a photo outing of the city, and wound up at the Museum of Natural History. It was funny; I love their astronomy section, but it's all astronomy 101 stuff. So after about a half-hour looking at suns and planets and the spiral of time, we went into the dinosaur exhibits. The taxonomy is exhausting, but I always feel like I'm learning something new. Mark decided that Arthur needed to have all the dinosaur's feet pointed out to him. Judging from the photographs, I think he might have been looking at their teeth instead.

We met Larry at the Rockafeller Center for a trip to the Top of the Rock. The elevator ride up was really cool; the ceiling went clear so you could see the blue LEDs in the elevator shaft, and they had a timeline of TV playing as you ascended. The view was great. The sun was setting and the sky was very clear. Arthur liked the light fixtures.

Larry had to leave us to our own devices, so July 7th was Metropolitan Museum of Art day. Arthur handled it pretty well, but the MET really isn't very infant friendly beyond the Temple of Dendur. Luckily he fell asleep for most of it, and Mark continued to perform the lion's share of child care duties. I think the most interesting object this visit was one of Hatshepsut's sphinxes. The face was more or less in one piece, and the eyes still held a mesmerizing power.

After the Egyptian exhibits, Mark wanted to see the Rembrants -- various pieces that had once been united as an alter were reassembled for the first time in many years. I think of the Rembrant exhibit the most interesting piece was the top where God and some angels were posing with a sphere or two; the angels had these sort of petulant expressions on their faces.

I'm afraid most portraits don't speak to me jewelry, sculpture and architecture do. I'd say that the most fun painting we saw was one by William Blake that was the parable of the Virgins with the Oil: the foolish virgins lamenting was so over the top it was great. There was also an interesting picture of King David and another one of a kind of flower angel emerging from the mouth of a serpent.

Outside of the museum, on a park and bubble break for Arthur, we saw Cleopatria's Needle (where I met a new best friend who insisted that I try absolutely everything in my and my camera's power to photograph it).

On July 9 we (Mark, myself, Arthur, Mary, Melora, Veronica, Melissa and Kristina) went to the Bronx Zoo. We saw the gorillas, giraffes, African dogs, various rodents, buffalo, wallabies, tortoises, goats, chickens, geese, peacocks, alligators, and prarie dogs. Probably the most funny event was when Arthur, who had been exposed to a battery-powered dancing rodent that sang "Girl, You Really Got Me Now", signed to us (by reaching out and making a pinching motion) that he wanted us to turn on the wallabies -- presumably so they would start gyrating and singing old seventies rock songs.

What I found fascinating was the gorilla exhibit. It was pretty slow for a while, but then a mother gorilla started to express her milk, lick it off of her hand, and then regurgitate it. It looked like she had eaten some grass or other plant material as well. She would repeat this process -- expressing, licking, regurgitating -- and I'm guessing that she was working on creating a kind of semi-digested paste for her infant. What was intriguing was that she would stand on her legs and then sort of bend over like she was one of those glass drinking birds to regurgitate. Her legs seemed engineered to accommodate her large belly as she swiveled at the hip. Then she'd essentially barf up into her hand while the homo sapiens on the other side of the glass said things like eeuw! They eeuws were louder when she licked it all up again. I couldn't help thinking about all the pagan imagery of the Sacred Mother's milk and in my mind I could hear my friend Gra saying, "Ha! Where is your Goddess Now?"

July 10th we (Mark, Arthur, Mary, Melora and myself) visited a lake with Megan and her boys. Arthur really liked the lake and wanted to play in the water for a really long time. It's a good thing he seems to like cold water because that's what he'll get when we visit the Oregon coast. This was our last day in New York (the state), and we had racked up about 1500 miles in travelling.

July 11th was the day we journeyed back to Oregon. It was a long day, but fairly easy -- we got back to Eugene around 1 AM.

Now we're back and we own a house. We're in the throes of repainting and we'll have to pack up everything we own in about three weeks -- stay tuned.

Summer Solstice

The weather I hate is back. It's currently 83 F inside the house and 95 F outside. The house typically lags about ten degrees F behind the outside. If it reaches 100 F today (and it did), the house won't cool down to 80 F until about ten o'clock tonight (and it did).

I wish it would rain. A lot. (At least Tuesday it's only 85 F.)

Arthur has generalized his sign language again. Mark is now "the bubble dad" and I'm "the harp dad." He requests bubbles and harping on an hourly basis. Just now he asked for the harp (over Cheerioes) so he could fall asleep.

He is getting a little perfunctory with the sign for more, too; I'm not so sure about this sign-language thing -- Arthur seems to think he's at some sort of spa.

Sunday the Unitarians let me do a presentation on neo-paganism and Wicca with a Wicca-style ritual as a part of their Sunday worship service. A woman named Martha was the day's worship associate (a kind of lay minister). She was introduced to Wicca about the same time I was, so we split up ritual duties. The lecture was humorous, and the curious got information out of it. The Tree of Life guided meditation went well, and the mystics had a numinous moment (at least I did, sort of). And everyone thought the spiral dance at the end was fun (although I did think I was going to drop my harp in the middle).

The service went very well. No one has set a question mark on fire in front of my lawn. With any luck, as a result, a Covenent of Unitarian Universalist Pagans group will start up at the church.

Let's see. We closed on the new house. We signed a zillion papers last Wednesday (the Solstice) I think it gets recorded Wednesday (tomorrow), at which point we'll be the official owners. The sellers fixed many of the problems, and all of the ones that were safety issues (like making sure the wall outlets were properly grounded). Before we move in the house will need to be cleaned, and we'll probably repaint.

I think the kitchen is ... well... oppressively uninspired, cheap, and institutional. And it doesn't match the rest of the house (neither does the bathroom). Mark thinks we should sand down all the cabinets and see what kind of wood they're made out of -- if it's nice wood, we could stain it to match the floors. And the kitchen's (and bedrooms') light fixtures have to be sent back to Tragicistan. Although I'm not usually a big fan of exposed wire track lights, I think they would do well in the kitchen in a retro kind of way.

I'm sure Mark and I will have many things (colors, lights, stencils, shrubbery, finance) to discuss over the next few weeks.

Signs of June

I don't know why everything in the universe has to happen during the solstice. In December we're running around buying gifts for everyone and going to a zillion family events. In June, ... we're running around buying gifts for everyone and going to a zillion family events. Why do Fathers' Day, pride events, the Solstice, weddings, The Writers of the Future deadline, and birthdays all have to happen in the last half of June?

June 11 was Arthur's first birthday. He enjoyed himself very much. One of his favorite presents was given by Evil Cousin Patrick, a plastic MegaBlock Wizard of Oz play set. It lights up and plays music. His other favorite present is a plastic pug.

Mark doesn't remember if Arthur started feeding the plastic pug spontaneously or if Mark did it first. But Arthur continues to feed the plastic pug. He also feeds us sometimes; but more often he takes back his food.

We've also closed on the house. We'll probably get the keys in a few days.

Arthur is signing like crazy. The other day I made up a sign for harp -- today he demanded a harp concert. Arthur really likes the harp; he likes to play it and he likes to be harped to sleep.

He learned the sign for flower at the beginning of the week. He's also making up his own signs. When he puts his hand to his nose like he's got hay fever, that's the sign for Mark. All this signing has led to his first poem (well, at least that's the way I interpreted it). Yesterday, when I was changing into a cooler shirt (the weather has gotten hot here), Arthur pointed to my nipple and then signed "flower". I'm guessing this is half of some haiku, and that we'll get the other half sometime in the future

         Daddy's nipple 
         is a flower.

I think this deserves some sort of Robert Bly Award. I don't know why Arthur thinks my left nipple is a flower -- he didn't smell it. I suppose my aureole looks like a blossom, but the hairs growing out of it don't look a thing like petals. Actually, now that I think about it more, I hope he wasn't calling me a pansy.

The Potential New House

We met with our relator and an inspector yesterday to go over the house. The oral report was good and we'll know more tomorrow. Seeing the house again was interesting; we'd remembered things slightly differently (i.e. larger), but we're still happy with the house.

My Kid's a Geek

A couple of days ago I had a eye doctor's appointment. Mark and Arthur came with me. As we were waiting, Arthur noticed the toys in the corner. One of them was a kid's laptop.

Mark sat Arthur down at the small desk. Arthur straightened his posture, curled his fingers ergonomically, and began to type on the lower keys. My and Mark's mouths dropped open. Arthur then grabbed the mouse and began to wiggle it while continuing to type with the other hand.

"Oh my god!" we both said, covering our mouths.

Arthur's not even one year old yet.

Mark says that while I was getting my eyes checked, Arthur picked up the mouse and threw it at the screen and grunted in frustration.

In other monkey-see-monkey-do news, Arthur and Muriel have been holding secret conferences or something because Arthur managed to lunge right in front of me the other day and I tripped over him.

Useless creature; the least she could have done would have been to teach Arthur to catch mice. With our luck, Arthur will be jumping up onto the counters looking for food.

Eeek, The Next Step

We've seen the inside of the house. It's a charming 1950's style layout. The front door opens up into a living room with a fireplace tucked into one corner. Two bedrooms and a very narrow bathroom are to the right of the living room. In the back is a dining area and the kitchen (also very narrow).

At the end of the kitchen is the door to the very large one-car garage. The garage loft could be used to store a lot of things (like the Bromley Horns, the Christmas stuff, the anti-valentines, the Renaissance clothing, the twenty-plus drafts of all the stories I've ever had critiqued, the fake antique gilt angels, etc.) Or it could be a very rustic office space. Or a indoor tree house for Arthur (if we caged it to prevent ten foot falls onto concrete).

If we have any money left after purchasing the house, we'll use it to replace the macroscopic sink in the microscopic bathroom and to install a dishwasher somewhere in the kitchen.

The back yard is small but nice. It's completely fenced in by a five foot tall chain link fence. There's lots of room for us to do things with it. Or not. We'll have to buy a lawn mower.

Almost everyone we've shown pictures of the front to has decided that we should rip out the overgrown bushes. I wouldn't mind sculpting the boxwood into castle crenelations.

The house is located on "College Slopes"; it's within easy walking distance to a park, a used book store, a super market, and other services.

Our friend, Ed the Out-Of-Retirement Contractor, looked at the house and gave it very good marks. The worst thing he could say about it was that the plumbing and electrical were old. But everything else was great. Juel, our realtor, tried to seduce him into part-time jobs; but he managed to resist her advances.

Now we get the house inspected and see if they find deadly wiring problems or ravenous termite infestations. If the house passes inspection, we go forward to closing on the house.

Eeek!

We're starting a scary ride. Our realtor found us a house we can afford (barely) in a neighborhood we actually like. So now we start the roller coaster ride.

• We make a bid. This involves offering a little more than the asking price so that...
• The Seller accepts our bid, and
• No other potential buyers out bids us.
• Then we walk through the house (yes, at this point we've only seen the outside) and have two hours to decide
  • the house should be condemned and we'd be crazy to buy it (and we keep looking for a house), or
  • the house is something we like enough to live in.
• If we like the house, we have it inspected.
• If the inspector likes the house, we close on the house and owe a lending institution lots and lots of money. And we never buy anything else except beans and oatmeal for the next five years.
• If the inspector kind of hates the house, we negotiate with the Seller to cover some of the closing costs.
• If the inspector really hates the house, our housing loan falls through and we start all over (minus the costs of the inspection).
• We sign our lives (and incomes) away in exchange for house keys, a deed, and an obligation to pay the sewer hookup.

We've done the first three steps, and we're actually first in line to walk though the house. All we know about the house is that it's in a great location; it's 863 square feet; it has two bedrooms and one bathroom; it has an attached garage; and it was built in 1953. More sometime Sunday.

Shopping With The Boys

We've had a long day here visiting with our friends Mark and Dario. Mark and Dario, have a fabulous home near the Capitol Hill area of Seattle. They have a lovely collection of objects de art and pictures that they've tastefully arranged. I am slightly envious and I'll have to take pictures of what they've done to see if I can apply it to our home. I really like the way that they've decorated their second story bathroom; it's very rustic, and it features cute little crow paintings Dario has done.

We've managed to wear out the kid shopping. Luckily, Arthur loves shopping.

We visited an antique store that had a lovely Welsh armoire and lots of old stain glass church windows (the sort that you would hang behind your entry windows). The Armoire was fun, it had a lot of grotesques on it, and clawed feet. I would have used it for jewelry and fun clothes.

Next it was an Asian shop called Distant Lands. They had a lot of fun stuff from China; I really liked a little hare hare stone mastaba they had... I'm not sure where they got it from. The proprietor thought it might have been carved from basalt.

We also visited the Stonington Art Gallery. I'm currently working on a story set in a glass art gallery and I wanted to see how many details I'd gotten right (and which ones I'd missed). The art was fun; I particularly like the works of Susan A. Point. I also like the works of Thomas Stream and thought that his work might be the sort of thing we could hang in the nursery (in a kind of idealized, if we had money to afford a house with a nursery with nice art in it kind of house), but Mark thought his work was like a kind of bland greeting card.

We had lunch in Mark H. and Dario's favorite noodle restaurant. I had a nice chicken noodle soup. I forget what Mark had. Arthur was relatively well behaved. He had rice and avocado. We listened to this one really loud white guy and spoke amongst ourselves about loud Americans. He was probably my age; very opinionated, and slightly racist.

There was one odd moment when a shop keeper managed to scoop Arthur out of Mark's arms. It was probably a good thin that Mark had Arthur and not me because I would have tried to Judo-chop the shop keeper and there's a chance that the shop keeper would have known real live Judo (as opposed to my movie-inspired John-Judo). After a minute Mark mentioned that Arthur had just eaten and so there were no guarantees about Arthur urping up on the shopkeeper.

We also visited a cute little store filled with benches, cafe tables, and sinks. Everything was made out of plate glass or plastic. It was lots of fun; my favorite chair was fashioned like a giant leopard print stiletto-heel shoe. Lots of the glass tables were priced under $150, so we wondered if there was something wrong with them and if they would crack down the middle in a month or three after purchase.

Arthur had his first boat ride today. We took a harbor taxi from the Seattle riverfront (hmmm, OK. Most of Seattle is riverfront) to a bunch of beaches that start with B. I will admit that I was the classic fearful parent and checked out where all the child life jackets were. I also wondered briefly about which exits I would take in the event that the boat flipped over in the water. Is it something about being a parent that makes you imagine a ferry flipping over in perfectly calm and sunny weather and imagining what it would be like to unstrap an infant out of a pram under water?

We saw a little Statue of Liberty that was pretty awful. The Statue had lost the little barbs on her crown, and she looked like she had been modeled off of someone's blonde niece instead of the actual Statue in New York Harbor. And the beaches -- well, I suppose the strips of gravel could be called beaches at a stretch. On the ride back we saw sea lions.

---

I've made a discovery. It's much easier to read The Quangle Wangle's Hat by Edward Lear with great abandon (and rolling R's) after drinking a Cosmopolitan. I'd never really gotten into the story or the syntax of the poem until after a Cosmo. I think part of the problem is the way that the poem is broken up in the edition of the book we have. Edward Lear (the guy who wrote The Owl and the Pussycat) has a structure that gets hidden in the book illustrated by Louise Voce. I think part of the problem with The Quangle Wangle is that the format of a children's' book breaks the poem down on too fine a level; the structure of the poem is lost in a line-by-line illustration.

If you have a children's book that you'd like to appreciate, here's the recipe for a Cosmopolitan

1 2/3 oz Vodka
1/2 oz Cointreau
1/2 oz cranberry juice
1/2/ oz fresh lime juice

Of course, now that I've typed this in, I see that I've somehow managed to confuse the instructions in the book (they also list measurements in centiletres) and I've mixed a very strong drink. Ooops. I thought I was a cheap date, but I see it's more a case of I shouldn't be my own bartender.

These Aren't the Gods You're Looking For

OK.

Let's see. On the Arthur front. He's started to sign for things, mostly food. He'll knock his knuckles together, the sign for "more" [food]. He'll bring his index finger and thumb together in a circle for "Ohs" (Cheerios). He made up his own sign, bringing his hand up by his ears and opening and closing his fist for "Stop fooling around with that spoon and give it to me!" He can also wave good-bye. He hasn't learned the sign for cat, yet.

Arthur occasionally wants to feed us. I used to think this was because he wanted to share his food. Now I think it's an excuse for him to get his hands inside our mouths so he can pull on our tongues and teeth.

Last week we gave into our pediatrician and filled a subscription for amoxilian to treat an infected ear Arthur keeps having whenever he's sick. We gave him a dose last Wednesday night and Thursday morning. By Thursday afternoon his back was covered with little tiny red dots. It was like he had chicken pox. "Hey, wait a minute," I thought, and read the little fact sheet the pharmacist gave me with the antibiotic. There, rash was listed as one of the symptoms where you should seek immediate medical attention. Of course it was 4:30PM when I made this discovery. I managed to make an emergency visit with another doctor in our pediatrician's practice (we'd visited her before) and it was off to the other side of town. There's nothing like a child with a rash to focus one's aggressive driving skills.

Of course the City of Eugene responded. There were the two stupid college girls riding their bikes down 13th street -- a really busy street -- with no safety helmets, dragging a dog on a leash behind them as they rode against traffic lights. There were the really slow drivers in the lanes I needed. There was the idiot salesman in a jacked-up truck, obviously lost and spreading his attention between a cell phone and a map. And we mustn't forget the city busses.

With a judicious use of The Force, I managed to get to the doctor's office with about five minutes to spare. In the ten minutes it had taken to get Arthur to the doctor's the rash had spread from his back to his front. It turns out this sort of rash is a reaction to amoxilin, but not an allergic reaction to amoxilin. The rash went away a day later. They really need to make a distinction on those list of symptoms and distinguish between "seek immediate medical attention because this could be a problem" and "seek immediate medical attention because you could die."

Oh yes... during all this driving, I managed to rush out of the house without my wallet, which includes my driver's license. By some miracle, I had the joint credit card in my pocket. I suppose if I had been pulled over I could have explained to the nice officer that (exhibit A) my child did have a rash and (exhibit B) it was caused by an antibiotic prescription. Then I would have said, "These aren't the 'droids you're looking for. I can go about my business."

---

The weather I hate is here. I hope it goes away. Monday it was in the low nineties. Tuesday (yesterday) and today it's been in the high eighties. I want it to rain and go back to being in the sixties and seventies. I suppose I did have a kind of hiatus, though; there's a gastrointestinal bug going around Eugene (Mark had it first) and the accompanying fever had me feeling cold Monday.

---

A new god has entered Arthur's pantheon. The Big Red Kitchen Aid Mixer. It came out of its corner when we made a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and chocolate mouse filling for Mother's Day. It (the mixer) elicited a look of awe and an "ooh" from Arthur. With all this love of household appliances (and the toilet), maybe Arthur will be a domestic mantis.

And speaking of new gods on Mother's day, my Mom has been telling all her friends that I've returned to regular church service. I'm pretty sure that she's been leaving out that it's a Unitarian Church that has the last half of Doreen Valantie's Charge of the Goddess in its hymnal. Mom (and Mom's friends): I'll be leading a service on Wicca at the Unitarian Church this June 25 -- we'll use the hymnal to chant pagan chants, and we'll be celebrating the first new moon of Summer. Sooner or later, someone will probably want to talk about Asherah and bake cakes for the Queen of Heaven. Don't tell the Pope, he already doesn't approve.

On other fronts -- I've got two stories in the mail. I expect to hear about one around the end of June. I'm not sure when I'll hear about the other one, although it's made at least the first cut. Before everyone got sick I was writing about two hours a night for a while.

I've also discovered a cute little Macintosh Application called Voodoo Pad. It allows you to make your own little Wikipedia on your Macintosh. I intend to use it to make author and subject cards for my library and cross index some of my essays. What I really want is something like the Star Trek holodeck; I'd display pages of a book in a column, and arrange the book columns on a timeline and then put glowing links between references in the books. Then I'd add things like "The Sorcerer of Trois-Frères," a Paleolithic cave drawing that bares only vague resemblance to its original reproduction by Abbé Henri Breuil. Then I'd make all the glowing links to "bad" or "suspect" research red. This would do some bad things to Margaret Murry's God of the Witches and the effect would cascade downwards. At this point, one of my writer friends, Grá, will intrude on my research fantasy to accuse me of shouting, "Hah! Where is your Goddess now?" next.

"Where is Your Goddess Now" will probably be the title of the service at the Unitarian Church once the atheists get organized.

And Let This Be A Sign Unto You

We think, but we're not entirely sure, that Arthur has learned to say more. In sign. Only he's using the sign for 'together.' I know the baby sign book says to be forgiving, but it means our conversations go something like this.

John (holding spoon): Arthur, would you like more (signs 'more') food (signs 'food')?

Arthur: (Repeatedly signs 'together' and opens mouth) ha da!

We also think that he's making distinctions between the two of us by saying "DA-dah!" and "da-DAH!"

On a different note, we are sure that Arthur thinks the vacuum cleaner is a kind of god. He worships the closet where the vacuum cleaner lives, and when it comes out to clean the carpet Arthur goes kind of crazy, crawls all over the room, and squeals with delight.

He also tries to eat the electrical cord.

Arthur also worships the toilet. It's something he really really wants to get close to. We have to make sure the door is always closed.

I guess I'm okay with it, but I'll be really worried if I come out of the bathroom and Arthur is signing for more.

Easter at Mr. McGregor's Garden

OK.

Let's see. Lots has happened and I've been too busy to post.

Mark's mother, Mary, and his sister, Melora, visited us from the east coast earlier this month. Mary is Arthur's great-grandmother and Melora is Arthur's grandma. We had a good time visiting with them and eating out. We went to the beach around Cook's Chasm and collected driftwood. Driftwood sticks are now Arthur's favorite toy, and I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before all sorts of things become cudgeled.

Oh yeah. I cut my hair. Just like I did in 2001. I'd been contemplating the cut for a month or two. I realized that I was spending a lot of time combing, washing, untangling, tying back, brushing, and cleaning up after my hair. I was also wearing it tied back so much of the time I figured, "Why bother?" And when I had it tied back in a pony tail it gave me headaches, and if I drove anywhere, the ponytail would poke into the back of my neck. I could also say, "Daddy's hair is not a toy!" way too quickly.

When I went to Unitarian Church the very next day, so very few people recognized me that I had to go up during the candle lighting and sharing section of the service to announce who I was and light a candle for my hair. The minister did a double-take. "I'm lighting this candle for my hair," I said, "which I will miss... the same way one would miss a useless pet."

Spring is trying to come to the Willamette Valley. So the worms are mating (see picture). Worms are hermaphrodites. I'm not sure what's going on with the rubber band in the lower-left-hand corner of this picture, and I'm not sure I want to know.

---

Mark was singing a song to Arthur.

Every day you should be kissed by a duck.
Every day get a kiss for luck.
A kiss by a duck is very sweet.
And maybe he'll even kiss your feet.

Every day you should be kissed by a duck.
And it only costs a buck.
Oh duck prostitution is rampant now
And watch out for those painted cows --

(at this point I scowled at Mark)
"Well, said Mark. "Fischer-Price told me to make up songs..."

---

It's happened. Arthur is crawling. On all fours, not the zombie-army crawl he's been doing. Last Friday (April 15), I was craving some Newman's Fish. It's bad, it's evil, and the healthiest thing about it is that it's salmon. I also got a bright blue paper cup full of Evil Pepsi. I've actually been quite good lately, and the last two weeks I've cut my Pepsi intake down to about twenty-four ounces a week.

Anyway, Mark came home, saw I was jonesing for some fish, and sent me off. When I got back with my fish and chips (and Pepsi) Mark and Arthur were playing on Sarah and Gretchen's front garden area. So I sat down on their steps.

Arthur saw The Blue Cup of Evil and started crawling. Real fast. Before you could say "pesticide-free organic baby food," Arthur had chased me up all six of Sarah and Gretchen's front porch steps. I never did manage to get a bite of my salmon. Mark laughed and laughed. "He knows the logo," he said as I retreated inside to our house to the dining room table.

Easter Sunday I went to the Unitarian Church Service. Now in case some of you are wondering, this Sunday is the first time in about three months the name "Jesus" has been mentioned, and the first hymn we sung was a chant to the Goddess. I was sitting right next to an older, conservative looking man, one who sends old-fashioned jokes to e-mail lists, and he belted out "We are one with the Goddess." And he wasn't even wearing patchouli.

Later we had our annual Easter Bunny Nuke. This year we had an overabundance of Peeps. So Mark made Peep S'mores. We also made grapes arc in the microwave (which was difficult to do this year for some reason). Mark W and his daughters were in attendance, and they brought a chocolate Nascar. Other friends brought a chocolate fountain (filled with really good chocolate, not that crappy oily brown stuff).

We had a couple of folks new to Bunny Nuking. One in particular -- a friend of Sarah and Gretchen's (and incidentally a Unitarian) -- was introduced to Easter Microwave Fun AND the results of several years of Anti-Valentine's in one short afternoon. I thought we might have frightened him off for a moment. But a minute later he was back. With fireworks. From his car. For the chocolate bunnies.

Wow, Unitarians learn fast!

---

Today Arthur picked imaginary nits off of Mark when he came home.

Mark got him back. As he was tying his shoes he said the following:

Criss-cross Apple Sauce.
Then the bunny goes around the tree and through
the whole and then gets tied up in the barbed wire and strangles.  
And that's how you tie a shoe.  (Mr. McGregor Style)

Afterwards, as we were coming back from an evening at the library, Mark wanted to know what Arthur had eaten today.

Mark: What did you feed Arthur today?

John: Well, we had cheese chunks and formula and carrots and broccoli and those organic white carrots.

Mark: Organic? White? Those weren't carrots! Those were parsnips!

John: They were with the carrots. I thought they were some kind of funky organic white carrots you bought at the Kiva.

Mark: 'White Carrots' sounds like a perfume for Liz Taylor. Did you taste the food you made for Arthur?

John: No!

Mark: If you didn't know what food they were, why did you feed them to the baby?

John: I thought they were white carrots!

Mark: There's no such thing as white carrots! 'I don't know what this food is, I think I'll feed it to the baby' should not be a thought process that goes through your head!

John: They were in the same place as the carrots. Given the context of being next to real carrots, my brain was primed for them to be carrots.

Mark: Am I going to have to put 'Mr. Yuck' stickers on things?

John: They were in the 'fridge.

Mark: So was the burrito!

John: But I made the burrito, so I knew what that was!

Mark: Some people need culinary literacy tests.


So here: Since I'm not Mr. McGregor, I have a picture. If you saw those vegetables, wouldn't you think the white thing was some kind of white carrot?

Daedalus House

Mark and I have put the finishing touches on some partitions. A little glue, scissors, and some fabric and paper (OK, and a poster of a Perugino Madonna) and voila! Baby safety on a shoestring budget. We use them to keep Arthur away from the baseboard heaters. And the computer cords. And the bookcase. And the CD rack. We've come to the conclusion that cardboard is our friend, and that we can build baby furniture out of it at a fraction of the cost that it would be if we purchased plastic baby furniture. I think a collection of cardboard panels and arches could make an effective labyrinth.

Arthur has decided that the bathroom is his favorite forbidden place to explore. I'm not sure if under the sink, in the bath tub, the toilet or the kitty litter box is the shining treasure that makes him squeal with delight when the bathroom door is opened. Mark insists that Arthur is fascinated by watching us urinate. When I use the bathroom, Arthur bangs against the door, and his little fingers push through the gap between the door and the floor. All I know is that it's like being in a zombie movie.

Arthur does like his baby gate, though -- to climb up on. The other day he managed to push it over. It fell with him still clinging to it. I think he might have invented a new kind of carnival ride. At least he landed on it and not the other way around.

I've found a new secret vice: the iTunes store. I can download songs straight to my mini iPod. Bad songs. Naughty, evil, wicked songs. Songs that I would never, ever play on the stereo in front of Arthur. And I can't. There's no CD -- just evil wickedness from a business card sized chunk of white plastic straight into my ears. And possibly the best thing about it is that I can listen in front of Arthur and he doesn't really care.

I think Mark might be grateful. I happen to like Juno Reactor, a techno-dance group. On a good day, Mark says that they're boring. On a less good day, he calls the general corpus of their songs "music to do drugs by," and two in particular the "Mommie, why is the bad man chasing us" song and the "It's not 'Who Died,' it's 'Who's Going To Die.'" song. Can I help it if the only place to dance in Eugene closed several years ago and Eugene has never recovered?

I just happen to own one of their CD's, Labyrinth. Maybe I'll have to play it for Arthur when he's playing with the cardboard panels we've decorated. Naw. I'll just give him some puppets to play with and put on some David Bowie.

Driven to Drink Poetry

Nothing is safe.

The other day I found Arthur. He was hanging by his fingertips from the table. He had pulled himself up using a chair and from there it was just a short stretch to the table. The only trouble was, he couldn't figure out how to get down. So there he hung until I helped him.

The table incident gave me a new understanding. I understand why your parents want you to push chairs in when you're finished with them. I understand why parents pick up things off of the floor and vacuum a lot. And I think I understand how it is that the parents who achieve satori are able to make a sandwich and end the motion with a sponge swipe across the counter.

If they don't, they'll have some interesting explanations to make to the doctor (or at least some large bills).

Cat safety.

Something has happened to Muriel. First some background. Several years ago, Muriel developed a lump. We called her "Lumpina." Before we took her to the vet, Mark was examining the lump, which was on her back leg. He did something she didn't like because she reared up on her hind legs, batted at his hands with her claws, bit him, made eye contact, and bit him again.

When we took Lumpina to the vet, we heard strange noises in the back examining room, after which Dr. Ron rushed back into the waiting room and said, "Um, Muriel is giving us a little attitude about her lump, so we're going to sedate her."

So, some sort of miracle of personality has happened. Last night, Arthur decided it would be great fun to measure the mass of Muriel's tail by squeezing it in his little viselike fist and shaking it back and forth. Muriel turned to shred him to ribbons, saw who it was, and stopped. Anyone else would have been left with a bloody stump. I'm not making this up; there were witnesses.

She still insists on sleeping on our heads and using her powers of gravity control for Evil, though.

Where's Dad?

Arthur has a new game (OK, he's been playing this one for a couple of weeks). If you give him a blanket, point at him and say, "There's Arthur!" three out of five times he'll pull the blanket over his head and wait (sort of) for you to ask, "Where's Arthur?" If you put the blanket over your head and ask, "Where's Dad?" he'll pull the blanket off your face.

The down side of Arthur's object permanence is that he gets mad if you take something away from him (like a stick or dead leaf that someone tracked in on the newly vacuumed floor). He also gets made at the baby gate. Mark says he scowls (I'm waiting for the comparison).

But is it art?

OK. Although it goes against my resolutions of what kind of person I would become when I became a parent... apparently an earlier poem I wrote and shared was intensely popular. It wasn't a poem when I wrote it, exactly; it was more like a cry for help. Thankfully, Mark recognized it for what it was and came home after a visit to the liquor store. I give it to you here, with a new title.

Tribute to a Young Judith Viorst (Bring Tequila)

Arthur.
Clever fingers.
Undone diaper.
Loose fecal matter.
New rival for Mother of God on our rug.
Unwholesome snack.
Baby prison.
Call FEMA.
Bring tequila.

One critic even went so far as to suggest that my poetry was improving. Oh well; you take complements where ever you can.

Notes from the Revolution

We're ready for the revolution. We've just come back from a weekend staying with my folks in central Oregon and they had some toilet paper they didn't need. A lot. The collection of rolls is larger than a child. Of course it's in a plastic bag Arthur wants to play with.

While we were staying with them, I drank too much English Breakfast tea. As I lay quivering in my bed, I dreamt I time-travelled back to 1920 London where I found an old abandoned chapel that had been used by Black Magicians. It was surrounded by a marshy fen. The Magicians had thrown a lot of rings into the fen, and the folks I was with kept finding the rings in the swamp. Then there was the dream the next night later where Mark and I transformed ourselves into owls and were flying over the skies of Eugene. Thank goodness for home, where I returned to the usual dream of finding a secret star base in the Star Trek universe.

Arthur is still on the cusp of crawling. He does a lot of the zombie-crawl, but occasionally he'll go up on his hands and knees. Usually when he wants something, like a deadly wisteria pod, to put into his mouth.

My folks have a cable feed, so I got to watch more of the Discovery Channel. There, I learned you can start a fire with

• ice carved into a lens
• a highly polished soda can bottom
• a battery and steel wool

I also learned that you can make weapons out of a surprising range of everyday household items, and that if you're famous enough you can be filmed trying to capture your own farts underwater (if only I had been famous back in 1974). I suppose it's a good thing for Arthur that we don't have a TV at home.

Arthur visited his first wading pool. He really likes water. He can sort of swim, but he doesn't realize he needs to kick while he paddles his arms. I'm also not quite sure he knows all the differences between breathing water and air.

In writing news; I just got word that I made Quarter Finalist in Writers of the Future for a story about a werewolf and a nun. It means that the story made the top 10-15% of all the stories submitted, so I'm guessing that it was somewhere in the top 500 stories. My next Writers of the Future submission (due in four days) is about virginal alien bugs. I waiting to hear from Polyphony about the Colossus of Rhodes, a fantasy story set in an alternate history earth. If that gets rejected, then I'll need to evaluate how I'm going about my writing career -- I keep getting all these near misses, which means my writing isn't good enough or else my marketing isn't. Or both.

Ah well. Back to editing.

Safety is White

This morning, Mark saw Arthur crawl into the bathroom and pull himself up on the side of the bathtub.

So Mark went to Jerry's and now I am looking at a Safety 1st Cover Clamp Toilet Lock. It's sitting in its packaging on my desk. The picture shows a white man's hand locking down a white toilet set on a white toilet with a white plastic lock. We own a piece of plastic that will show up every speck of dirt and we're supposed to lock it on our toilet. Couldn't they have at least made the lock black?

The warning on the box says, "Never leave a child unattended in the bathroom. This product is only a deterrent. It is not a substitute for proper adult supervision. Discontinue use when child becomes old enough to defeat it." This warning sounds like something that should come with internet connections. Luckily, the toilet lock *doesn't* come with an internet connection.

Supposedly our new toilet lock is easy for adults to use. I'll bet the same people who designed childproof caps for medicine are the same people who designed the Toilet Lock. When I was a child, I used to open my folk's childproof medicine containers for them. Arthur sleeps through the night, and I don't want to have to wake him up at 4 in the morning just so I can pee. Maybe that internet connection wouldn't be such a bad thing after all. As long as it doesn't come with a web cam.

If I were designing a lock, I'd simply embed electromagnets into the bowl and lid. That way you could switch the lock on or off and nothing white would have to be cleaned. Hmmm. Electricity in the toilet bowl; probably a bad idea. Oh well. ("Oh, they make those," says Mark. "But they're more expensive.")

Mark also got a bunch of locks for the kitchen cabinets. And the 'fridge. We're supposed to leave one cabinet unlocked as the "fun cabinet." I guess we'll put all our plastic storage bins there so Arthur can have a tupperware party. All of our cabinets connect, so I'm not sure how we're supposed to have only one be the fun cabinet. Also, I'm pretty sure the cabinets contain secret passages to the insides of the kitchen walls. I know Jerry's makes stud finders, but I don't think there's such a thing as a baby finder. Maybe we can get a web cam for the insides of the walls.

On a completely different subject, when we went for a walk on the Willamette River this morning, we're pretty sure that we saw a juvenile bald eagle. It sat in a tree for a very long time. Mark thought it looked a little mechanical, and hypothesized that it was actually a spying device so the government could keep an eye on the antiwar protest happening in Eugene.

That's it; we can get a mechanical bald eagle to train a web cam on Arthur's every move. There must be a metaphor in there, somewhere.