Superpower: Destruction!

We have many nicknames for the boy. My favorite lately is Destructo, though Nibbler is equally apt.

The thing is, we have no right to call him this without first owning up, right here in front of the ENTIRE UNIVERSE to our own sordid, ruinous pasts.

Jonathan will go first. Because I'm the one typing, that's why.

He was 16. He was riding around town with friends, and they were in a boy kind of mood. One of them had a bat? I really don't know the details. Who carries a bat? Unless he's on a sports team, and he wasn't. What were they thinking? They hit the mailbox of friends of J's parents! Friends! Hahahahahaha.

I was 5. I was actually the one counting down as the little Camaro approached and then I let my arm down like a flagger in Indianapolis while RJ threw the rocks. The driver- a complete head of butt who was the jerk of the neighborhood- saw and assumed I was doing the throwing. Within minutes (minutes spent running full-tilt across our yard into the house) Mr. Dukes-of-Hazzard's evil cousin had called our parents and convened an inquisition. Spankings all around. C'mon, though. He deserved it, right. For being a jerk, for driving too fast, he was the next car around that corner. Right? We were simply the five-year-old hand of Gawd. Right?

We won't discuss the grasshopper incident of '78, or any other various events that may or may not have occurred.

How about you? Tales of destruction lurk in your past? Let it go, clear your conscience. Comments are officially.... OPEN!

Daily...

Questions for eternity.

If you had recently seen some innane car commercial about them (it's "they" again!) hiding a key somewhere and if you find it you win the car, you wouldn't think twice about getting out of your car at a drive-through to pick up what turns out to be just a used gold foil chocolate box from the Lexus dealer, right?

Also if you, due to a set of circumstances that are totally sucky, were forced to drive a white (!) chrysler (!) minivan (!!) that smelled of and may indeed be powered by a herd of hamsters, that would NOT make you an instant soccer-mom, would it?

Has your husband ever been arrested?

-2.85 ounces

Dad's 80 grams (roughly 2.85 oz) lighter tonight, and if you had a group of men in a line and said, "Everyone with a prostate take a step forward", you could then say, "Not so fast, Mike."

He's doing fine. He looked like we all do after general anesthesia; like we've pulled several all-nighters while subsisting on nothing but pork rinds and PBR. He looks like an athlete even when reclining atop a bed with wheels, though.

The results from the pathology tests will be back Friday and then we can really party. For some reason when Mom was describing how they make slices of frozen sections of lymph node and examine them I couldn't stop thinking of the ginger I keep in the freezer and the way it's slicable only until it thaws.

Not sure why this is green, but I thought it was the most interesting image on google.

Dishpan hands= WHoooerdome

Surely it is moderate to say that the dishwashing for a family of five takes half an hour a day; with ten hours as a day's work, it takes, therefore, half a million able-bodied persons – mostly women to do the dishwashing of the country. And note that this is most filthy and deadening and brutalizing work; that it is a cause of anemia, nervousness, ugliness, and ill-temper; of prostitution, suicide, and insanity; of drunken husbands and degenerate children – for all of which things the community has naturally to pay.

Amen, Upton Sinclair, you commy pinko you. Amen.

...but click on over here if you might enjoy a little capitalism with your morning cup of sarcasm.

Toothsome days

Last night we watched a recently graduated dentist get a tooth tattooed on her ankle on Inked, and I sniped that within five years she'd be a little over the career honeymoon. Jonathan was way more sympathetic and argued that she probably just really likes her job. I like my job (all 10 of them) but I can't imagine tattooing a body part on another body part. Although, wouldn't it be incredibly geek funny to tattoo an arm-bone over a leg-bone? Or for a violist to get a violin? HI-larious, life of the party stuff.

Speaking of teeth, Toby has 6 1/2 too many. Today he was having a snack and something in the angle was off and I sucked in my breath and he totally CRIED. But yesterday I was all but shouting NO in my best voice of doom as he tucked into my arm, shoulder, sweater... and he just blinked at me and kept on trucking. I think he bit me or my sweater at least 5 times, and there was just about nothing I could do. He's Winning, and he still hasn't even been out as long as he was in. Guess I shouldn't have Craigslisted that wireless dog collar last month...

This morning my saintly parents came up to watch Nibbler while I went to get my face fixed. My molar, specifically, had a cavity. I know. I'm a dirty girl and a floss fake. Why is it that your face feels enormous and full of hot sand while it's actually just damp and numb? Am I drooling?


I like this because it shows that Toby is possessed and also demonstrates Simon's favorite place. I can almost hear him snoring...

Plug the Pastor

Our pastor Rick McKinley just finished a book titled This Beautiful Mess and you can find it here. I liked his other book, Jesus in the Margins, and have heard this one's better.

Don't forget if you're curious you can also listen to him on the Imago Dei website for free.

Dear Dr. Phil-

I was that girl smiling (you may have though leering, but I was just smiling and it got stuck because you are from the TV) on the street today in front of the Heathman. Don't worry, I'm not homeless and my husband doesn't yell at me like the cretins on your show.

Anyway, what I was trying to tell you with nothing but my knowing smile (stopping you and talking just seemed too common) was that I actually used to think you were an interesting human. But of course I realize you can't say "used to" like that to somebody such as yourself without coming off as a creepy non-fan which I clearly am not. I'm a semi-past luke-warm fan who may like your wife better except she has questionable taste in clothes.

So, just thought you'd want to know I like your early work. The recent springer-esque overtones imply you are having trouble snagging guests with IQs any higher than Wisconsin temps in February, and are a bit much for my delicate sensibilities. Could you go back to making me skinnier? That'd be as cool as a redneck in the freezer aisle.

So, uh, thanks.

PS. Which room were you in, because I totally stayed in the same hotel once. Did you have the fois gras? Or have you yupped out of that one? What would Oprah do?

Title Man

Sometimes when people find out I'm into classical music they wanna know if I have a favorite composer. Because I'm a fickle-easy-shallow thing the answer changes constantly.

Right now I'm so into Janacek (YAWN-uh-check).

First of all, check out these titles:
Intimate Letters (quartet)
The Cunning Little Vixen (opera + orchestral suite)
From the House of the Dead (opera on Dostoevsky)
Glagolitic Mass (it means slavic, basically, but "glagolitic"- ahh!)

He did that classical artist thing where he was inspired for years by a woman he couldn't have. (Here she is in Wiki.) Sad that he had a wife, but still, it's romantic through the veil of elapsed time.

Plus, I get to play Cunning Little Vixen with the oregon symphony this week, and I am inhaling it. The musicians, the conductor, the repertoire, I am enjoying all of it.

There are parts that sound like Cage or Adams- I don't know the critical writing on Janacek, but to my ear he is a very melodic minimalist. The way he composes in little repetitive patches, tied up with fantastic (both in the sense of the good and the fantasia) motives gets in the ear, rattles around and improves with each addictive listening. There is such a subtle, modern aroma to his works.

And I can't even name my little posts without hemming and hawing- this man had the knack is all I'm saying.

Wish it wasn't so...

For several days I've been debating what to say about the past week here. Lots has happened. In general, I write here because I like writing and because I'm thinking of people who read it and it's a form of chatting where I'm in charge and I like to be in charge. Another thing about blogging, though, is that when I describe something I tend to believe things are the way they come out on the screen. Like they get set in some kind of internet amber.

Here's what I wrote this Saturday:
*******
What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have
done for others and the world remains and is immortal.
-Albert Pike

Simon died today having done everything he could for me all the seven years of his life. He was the sweetest thing in my life in Baltimore, hiked all over Aspen summer after summer, charmed all my students & relatives, and helped me choose Jonathan. Toby learned his name first- they had a deal where Simon would give me a guilt trip with his puppy-dog eyes if the baby cried too long and in exchange Toby would spit up near him as often as possible.

Did you ever see how he could jump through my arms? Or the one where he would wait until you gave him a signal to eat a treat off his own foot? Or where he'd sort of play dead with his tail wagging when you shot him Bang! with your finger? He rocked at those.

I can't believe it ended the way it did, and I think not putting him down sooner may just be one of the worst mistakes I have ever made. There was no way to know, but there it is.
****

So there was that.

Then the audition was Tuesday, and though I didn't win or even advance it was okay. No one really won and they only advanced 2. It was great seeing friends (Yi-ping advanced to the next round and wants to date Toby in 20 Joan Crawfordly years.), mostly. I saw a friend I've apparently been "not speaking" to. I didn't know we had anything official like that, but that's cool. She seemed well and I can honestly say I'd be happy for her getting the job. Whatev, I've got a cute baby and a hot sugar daddy.

Uhh-hmmmmmm.
So then there's also my Dad's prostate surgery was supposed to be Monday but suddenly we'll have to wait just a bit longer while the docs triple check some stuff, duplicate results, get a coffee and a doughnut, etc. Delays suck. But then no one wants a sloppy doctor, so I suppose I have to be patient. The actual patient is. Patient. That is.
******

Also, an alien gnome came in the night and afflicted all but my big plant with Slowly Withering for No Reason disease. That's right- the senseless heartbreak of SWNRD. At least indoor plants are cheap. And on that note...

Music for one apartment and six drummers

Just watch. A work in four movements. Turn up your speakers and Play.