juliloquy

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know why

Thoughts for today:

I challenge you to find better 8 a.m. grocery store music than Barry White. Specifically "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe."

Dear peanut-butter- and caramel-filled Hershey's Kisses: You make me proud to be a Pennsylvanian. (I've lived here 5 years now. Am I a Pennsylvanian? Maybe a Philadelphian? This is bouncing around in my head as its own post. We'll see I ever get around to it.)

To JDS, aka Mr. Isoglossia - no, I haven't joined Twitter. Am resisting that and Facebook, thinking that they would become black holes for my scant spare time.

Cat hair is threatening to take over our house. Oh, did I mention that we took in a fourth cat? [Orange] Pekoe, formerly known as Sherbet, Mr. Sherbs, or Peaches and Sherb. He had been living in a box on our front porch. We resisted taking him in: He's neutered, see, so we thought he belonged to somebody. But then it got really cold, so we let him stay in our entryway for a few days. Now that he's been inside (for more than a month), he has shown absolutely no interest in going back out. He's the sweetest thing ever. So if any of you would like a cat, we have a couple to spare.

I have been able to search through flickr for my job for the last two days. Trying to find a good image of Cloud Gate to use for the Sept. 2008 cover of our journal. There are lots of great images, but it needs to work with our vertical format and have people in it, preferably people of diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Lorilea, I may be in touch.

Second post in March, wh-WHOO!

New rules! I'm going to try to post more than twice a month. This can only mean a drop to an all-time low in standards. Bulleted lists galore. A blog version of Twitter. Here we go.

Today

It is 45 degrees out, yet the ice cream truck has thrice driven by our house. The song it plays is "La Cucaracha." Not exactly what I want to hear in relation to ice cream.

Smart boy

The other day we were sitting around the table after dinner. Out of the blue, Shmooie said "Daddy, you're sirty-sree." We affirmed that Daddy is, indeed, 33. Then I said "How old am I, Shmoo?" He thought about it and said "you're twenty-six."

Book review

I finished What Is the What several weeks ago. My six-word review: "Please read this book. It's amazing." Got to go to the One Book, One Philadelphia finale last week. The entire crowd beamed when Valentino Achak Deng entered the room. Podcast is here.

How sleep-deprived parents amuse themselves

Part of Shmooie's lunch for tomorrow, customized by HPR.

HPR bought the thermometer below a couple of years ago, but we started to use an ear thermometer on Shmooie instead. Long story short, I busted out Bob L'Eponge* recently to take Roo's temperature. To take a baby's temperature. If you get my drift. Bob's expression was a bit disturbing to me considering the task at hand.

*Spongebob en français.

aromatherapy's drawback

Yesterday I brewed a cup of Trader Joe's Sencha Green Tea. Upon first sip I thought:

This tastes like soap. Why would it taste like soap? Did the dishwasher not rinse well? Did a dollop of dish soap land in my mug as I was filling it?

Then it dawned on me. Oh.

They'd better not start making whisky-scented hand lotion, is all I'm sayin.

The post about the baby

I hate it that I haven't updated in ages. As you can tell from HPR's recent post, every moment is full. By the time the momentum stops, zzzzzzzzzzzz . . .

Sorry, must have nodded off there. Where was I? Ah, yes, despite the drawback of no spare time, I am loving the two-kid gig. Shmooie's, um, adjustment behavior has evened out and Roo is set on the course of no-turning-back development, including a predictable schedule. Can I hear an amen?

Roo actually ept-slay through the ight-nay last night. I'm sure it was just a fluke, but it's nice to know that it's possible. Other Roo tidbits:

She is smiley, chatty, and sociable, but at the same time content to hang out by herself in her crib or kick around with some toys.
She is a thumb-sucker! Like both her parents were, but unlike her brother. I love the self-soothing component of thumb sucking, although feeding can be a challenge.

(We're not doing much more than tastes of solid foods at this point, despite the photo above.)

She is very sensitive to sound. Loves music, hates crowds.
Her favorite people are her dad and her brother. I'm lucky that I have the goods, otherwise I'd have no way to compete with the guys.
Speaking of the goods, Roo has nearly tripled her birth weight. Her jowls rival this guy's. Shmooie fondly calls her "Little Fat Face."
Her baby-pattern baldness is being replaced by downy platinum blond hair.
Her eye color has yet to be determined.

She still has prominent  "stork bites" on her nose and eyebrows. When we take her out, well-meaning strangers point out how cold she must be because of her red nose. We're going to start responding, "No, she's just drunk."

Her first week of daycare (four half-days) was a bit rough. Bothered by the cries of a couple of her contemporaries, she didn't sleep well. The second week went much better.

The second week of daycare was also exciting, in that I'm pretty sure she was given someone else's milk. A bottle mix-up. Her care provider denied it (worried about her job, I'm sure). I didn't make a big deal out of it, but the next day I put a note on the fridge requesting all parents label their bottles. We're about as earthy as they come, so we're not too upset about it as long as it doesn't happen again. And Roo got to do what few American babies these days get to do: sample another flavor. It will be fun to get to know the baby room parents better so we can have a good laugh.

Yes We Can

Thus saith da Shmoo

Woe unto them that serve me breaded morsels of fowl which hath been marred in appearance. The very peppercorns that adorn them shall be plucked asunder and cast into the fire.

Verily I say unto you: Let not the morsel of fowl in any manner touch the nectar of ketchup before the time at which I shall appoint. Saith the scripture: "And the flesh that toucheth any unclean thing shall not be eaten; it shall be burnt with fire. . . . Moreover the soul that shall touch any unclean thing, as the uncleanness of man, or any unclean beast, or any abominable unclean thing, and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which pertain unto the LORD, even that soul shall be cut off from his people" (Lev. 7:19-20).

Manservant and maidservant, present not unto me cereal bars fissured in nature, neither shalt thou bestow unto me crackers nor pretzel sticks unwhole or otherwise impure. Saith the scripture: "whatsoever hath a blemish, that shall ye not offer: for it shall not be acceptable for you" (Lev. 22:20). For my wrath shall be kindled against you and I shall smite you with great plagues.

"Ye shall keep my statutes. . . . thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed" (Lev. 19:19). Neither shall nourishment mingled of more than two ingredients come into me.

Herein ye have done foolishly: therefore from henceforth shall ye provoke my fury.

"To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence. . . . for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. For [da Shmoo] shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left" (Deut. 32: 35-36).

joiner

I finally finished the stupid book. I think I renewed my library copy 3 times. I had only about 50 pages left to go for the past month, but my entire family visited at the end of December; I set it aside and just now got back to it.

My summary? The catch-22 is that I spent hours reading it only to find it was a waste of my time. Too bad I have such a compulsion to finish books.

I read another WWII book in September/early October: In Harm's Way. Now that, my friends, is a book. It's about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, "The Worst Naval Disaster in U.S. History." It criticizes the military somewhat like Catch-22, but it's all true. I was riveted in part because my great uncle, Raymond Koppang, was one of the crew members who died in the disaster. We don't know how he died, but my hope is that he died immediately when the torpedo struck - did not survive to face the shark attacks, hypothermia, dehydration, and other hideous tortures of the open sea. Imagine the awful feeling of learning that life vests don't work after a couple of days because they get waterlogged. The delayed rescue, because of a series of oversights, cost hundreds of lives.

In Harm's Way was the book I was reading when Polly was in the NICU. Great, light fare for the post-partum mom! The nurses approved of HPR's book choice much more. (He would read aloud to the wee Roo.)

Despite my love of books and career in publishing, I have never belonged to a book group. Just haven't been able to commit to the time schedule. But on a recent breeze-through of the library, I noticed the One Book, One Philadelphia selection, What Is the What, right there on the shelf. I'm only on page 14 and I'm already devastated and hooked.

So, two group-y book things in the four months. Too sleepy to make a clever conclusion, so off to bed I go . . .

did not come from armless legless jokes

A friend pointed out how fitting the name Shelly is for Shmooie's imaginary mermaid friend, what with the marine-issue (har) shell bikini top. This opens up ample opportunity for other well-named friends.

Reed the bassoonist
Wade the clam-digger
Woody the lumberjack
Sue the lawyer
Mary the pastor
Jimmy the handy-man
Rock the sculptor
Drew the calligrapher
A team of botanists: Fern, Daisy, Rose . . .
A team of geologists: Opal, Jade . . .

Your turn.

splash

Big news in these parts is there is yet another new member of the household. No, not Earl, newer. Last week, we met Shmooie's new imaginary friend.

She is a mermaid, and they do everything together. She has blue skin and blue hair, but her tail changes colors (green, purple, pink, red). Her name is Shelly. Shmooie has informed us that he, too, is a girl mermaid with a tail that changes colors.

I welcomed Shelly with open arms. Shmooie has been acting out a lot at home lately, and Shelly seemed to be steering him away from the direct path to juvenile delinquency. She distracted him from his usual checklist of torturing the cats, wrenching the limbs of his little sister, and poking her in the face.

Here is an example of a conversation from early last week:

Me: Shmoo, time to wash your hands!
[What Shmooie hears]: "Mwuh mwah mwuhmwuh MWAH mwuh MWAH mwuh [Charlie Brown grownups sound]
Me: Is Shelly ready to wash her hands?
Shmoo: YES! [They swim over.]

Turns out, however, that Shelly was just kissing up to me temporarily. These days, she tunes me out just as readily as da Shmoo. [sigh.] But she'd better watch herself. It's a pretty heavy load giving them both a piggy-back ride to school in the morning. I might just "forget" her at the bus stop.