Sacrifices were made to some other god at the musical we went to see iin .Manhattan. “Shrek”, now a stage musical, officially opens tomorrow. And it, as the Big Bad Wolf said in one ensemble set, is a hot tranny mess.

Yes. The Big Bad Wolf apparently watches Project Runway.

The musical was entertaining for Z. But at a time when we’re taking the discount shuttle to go to NY for a day trip because it’s the closest thing to a vacation we can afford, it would have been nice if it had been a bit better done. Some scenes worked, others were AWFUL. I guess we got our money’s worth just from the entertainment of watching things go awry.

I will leave the full review to the critcs, or at least until later as I am typing this on a crackberry while hurtling down I-95 …it was a good day on the whole, and there were some talented people getting a paycheck there, so I guess it was a win all around. But the show was best when it focused on the two leads, and worst when it broke out the puppets.–the Dragon in particular.

She was part of our family for 12 years, and a constant companion of mine. She would curl up on my feet while I worked, and would burrow into the crook of my arm at night. She would climb on my chest and rub her head against my bearded chin. She was our first pet as a family, but it was always clear that she was mine. My wife, P., used to refer to her as my “girlfriend.”

A few weeks back, Lucy started showing less and less interest in food, until she wasn’t eating at all. I started feeding her, despite her protests, by hand, pushing food into her mouth with a syringe. When I had to travel on business, P. took over the hand feeding, and I hoped that whatever was causing the loss of appetite would pass. I scheduled a vet visit for when I got back.

But she was 15 years old, and had been in declining vigor for some time, and I knew when I got dropped off at the airport that things were probably not going to resolve happily.

When I returned on Wednesday, it was clear she was in trouble. She hadn’t eaten on her own, and her skin was jaundiced. I took her to the vet the next morning, alone, trying to steel myself.

Her liver had shut down. There was no telling, really, what had caused the loss of appetite without sending out bloodwork, and maybe a thyroid test, and several days of hosptitalization. The vet told me even then, the outlook was probably grim, and that her quality of life would suffer dramatically no matter what the outcome.

Plus, it would likely cost over $3000.

I was being asked to make a choice between Scylla and Charybdis. “It wouldn’t be the wrong decision to have her put to sleep,” the vet said, softly.

I assented. The vet left me with Lucy for a few minutes, and I cried some more. I pulled myself back together before they took her out of the room to catheterize her, leaving me with the paperwork to sign authorizing everything, and a number for a pet memorial service to set up cremation.

I could have brought her home for a day of goodbyes. But it was clear that would put everyone else in the family through even more emotional turmoil. I called my wife at work and told her what was going on, trying to stay calm, but failing.

She came back in, catheter in her forepaw. “She was very good,” the technician said, as she put Lucy down on a fresh blanket on the table. An assistant stood by as I called the memorial service and gave them my credit card number. And then they all left me with her.

I cried. A lot. There’s no getting around that. I pulled her into my lap and held her, with minimal protest from her, and cried. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I stroked her ear, then put her back down on the blanket on the table when it was clear she was uncomfortable with this sort of attention. She never stopped purring, though.

I stroked her ear. She purred. The vet came in to see if I was ready. I asked for a few more
minutes. I got them. Finally, I assented, and the vet began the procedure. First, a “twilight” anesthetic to put her in a relaxed state…her eyes dilated, and her purring faded slowly. Then the overdose of anesthetic….”She is no longer with us,” the vet said, after what seemed like seconds.

I was left alone with her. “You can stay as long as you need to,” the vet said. “Just turn out the light when you leave, so we know.”

I stayed another 15 minutes or so, stroking her, looking into her darkened eyes, and then quietly gathered up the cat carrier, turned off the light, and left.
wooden

Yesterday, I picked up her ashes from the vet’s office. They were in a small box engraved with flowers, with a brass plate to affix with her name engraved. And there was a card with a poem that made me weep again when I read it. I took her home, and put her on a picture shelf.

And here I am now, all worked up again having recounted her passing. Today was a day of thanks, and I am thankful that I had her for so long, and terribly sad at the hole she left behind. The other cats here — including Pixel, the 12-week old kitten we rescued from the streets last month — have big pawprints to fill.

(Via papercasting.net 2.0.)

(Via papercasting.net 2.0.)

”

(Via papercasting.net 2.0.)

Desi escaped Tuesday night when he got spooked by the storm and the wind blew the door open. He didn’t go far, but I looked for him almost all of Wednesday, and when I spotted him Wednesday night he was scared and cold. He took a nice piece out of my hand when K. and I finally coaxed him out from under a neighbor’s porch.

Saturday was Soccer Day, with my Under 12 Boy’s CYO team on the road with a 2 pm game. J. had been skating the night before at a Katrina relief ice-skateathon or something with his friend C., and then had a sleepover at C.’s, so perhaps he was a bit more sluggish than usual. But in any case, we all managed to get out the door to the game together this week (the whole crew in one place…the logistics are mind-boggling).

K., now hard-core as he’s playing JV soccer at Poly, wanted to run the kids into the ground as a warm-up. I eased him up and reminded him that it was going to be a long, hot game. And it did get hot–90′s again. I don’t remember September this late being this hot recently.

In the end, it was a tie again (making Brood X’s record for this year 0-2-0, at least 50% better than our record at this point last year). Then we grabbed lunch and headed for HampdenFest.

After grabbing beers and snow-cones, we wandered down toward the Hampden Idol contest in time to catch:

• An adequate execution of “Gloria”
• A woman who made “Whole Lotta Love” sound like a cat in a dryer
• Ali’s inspiring rendition of “Don’t Stop Believin’” (to which K. and I waved our cell phones)
• Chris, the “Thin White Guy”, performing “Let’s Go Crazy”, and stealing the show

My ex A. and her husband D. arrived in the midst of this. As we stood there on the Avenue after the wrapup of Hampden Idol, Benn came by. He pointed out that the spot where P. and my ex were sitting on the curb was in fact the scene of a murder:a street person, known for being a loan shark to addicts, had grabbed a little girl walking to the community center after school, and she ran in to the center crying; her grandfather emerged with a cane and beat the guy to death in broad daylight.

On that note…we headed out shortly thereafter. The boys left with my ex for the night, and P., Z. and I headed to New No Da Ji for dinner before calling it a night.

Sunday, we met up with the boys and A&D at the Irish Festival at the Armory. Nothin’ is as Irish as passing through an armed checkpoint to get a beer, I suppose; the Guard was conducting ID checks on every person who entered the Armory. Aside from the asses from Noraid (or, perhaps, the “reformed asses” would be more appropriate now that they’re allegedly behind the peace process–but from the stickers they were giving people, you’d think they were still shipping the Provos Armalites), it was a pleasant enough event, with Z. enthralled by the Irish dancing and K. intrigued by the Irish dancers. I got a free Smithwick’s as the beer concession tried to empty the kegs. J. shook us down for money for a shamrock ballcap and a faux-celtic dragon pendant. It was a Gallagher family heritage event.

Then, it was home and back to homework and other work and the grind of the week ahead.

The old Dodge Grand Caravan urban assault vehicle (well, it’s 6 years old, but it looks older) has been drawing all sorts of snide remarks from the family. My eldest son keeps talking about getting it on “Pimp My Ride”, or painting it all haze-grey and adding gun ports. My wife is embarrassed to ride in it. Even my 4-year old says she wants a new car.

Well, today, just to humor them, I stopped at a few dealerships to look at my options. I tried steering the discussion something less…vanny, like a Pacifica, or maybe a hybrid Highlander.

Well, after being reminded why we had gotten the Dodge Grand Caravan UAV in the first place, I was left with the realization that I was stuck in van-land. And with all this “employee pricing” stuff, and my political bent, we were pretty well set on going American. So, we’re going with the Chrysler Town & Country Touring. At least it’s a little more tricked out than my current ride.

But it’s still a minivan. And even though I’d come to love the old champagne Grand Caravan for all its dents and scratches, it’s gonna take a while to get to love the new one, which we need to negotiate the details on on Monday.

But the Sirius satellite radio will probably help.

We’re already trying to figure out how to top this for next year, when he’ll be competing against HS seniors.

e got all our data, we fired off a few more; I shot a golf ball/spud load, and then Paula stepped up to fire (after we coaxed her back down from the van). We switched from propane to the Suave deodorant for the “fun shots”, and naturally, Paula’s load misfired.

A note on misfires. The Spudtech site states:

There are a lot of reasons why your launcher may not be working. First and foremost NEVER take off the cap and start clicking away at the igniter. This again has led to human fires and that chemical thermal hair removal thing again…Hairspray in cold weather just does not go well. Too much of the burnable stuff in the spray condenses on the chamber walls, making it very difficult to burn. You might try warming the chamber by the fire if you are camping or graduate to a lighter, hotter fuel (propane). To ‘defuse’ a misfire you need to take off the cap, while pointing it in a safe direction. Allow the chamber to air out for several minutes, perhaps longer, to get the fuel load out. After you are certain the fuel has been vented, again verify the spark, just by turning the chamber enough so you can see where the spark should be. Never point the chamber bore directly at your face, or body, or anybody else. If it sparks then it is a fuel mixture problem.

So I did a combustion chamber check, removing the end cap and venting the chamber. I waited a minute. I told Paula to click. Nothing.

I looked into the chamber at an angle from a few feet away. “Let’s see if we have a spark,” I said.

She clicked again . FLOOF. A small fireball rolled out of the combustion chamber, past my face.

Kevin fell to the ground laughing.

We reset and Paula got her potato round off. Meanwhile, there was this smell…

Zoë said, “Something smells like popcorn.”
Paula said, “It’s Daddy’s hair.”

Those who know our past experiences with science fair projects, such as rocket-powered helicopters, were a little leery about the idea of Kevin (and I) doing anything that had to do with combustion. (With the helicopter–a twin-rotor job built from scratch–there was the small matter of not having enough amperage/too much resistance to ignite the engines on all four rocket motors, and having to get a little too close to harm’s way to attempt to get ignition.) But we figured that if we followed standard safety procedures, there was little chance of either one of us catching on fire.

Last week, using directions off of SpudTech.com, we assembled a fearsome-looking spud bazooka out of pressure-rated PVC pipe. The whole apparatus is just about 4 feet long (3 feet of barrel, and the rest being combustion chamber). The firing mechanism was the most expensive component: a $15 replacement piezoelectric gas grill igniter.

Yesterday, Paula retrieved our ammunition for us (four good-sized Idaho russets and two cans of Suave deodorant) before taking Zoë out for a few hours. I grabbed an old sock, and told Kevin to accompany me to the backyard, where we performed our first test-firing–with the sock as the projectile. The shot sounded more like a wind instrument than a firearm; the sock flew about 30 feet, scaring a stray dachshund out of the alley.

Then we headed out to a nearby field behind a large city school, where we had a clear half-mile of range to work with. And the spud-hurling commenced.

It was way more fun than it should have been.

We, er, needed to check many different firing angles and propellant loads to establish what we would need to do to properly prepare for the actual data collection phase of the experiment, so we ended up shooting for almost an hour and a half–first just with potatoes, and then with a mix of projectiles. A few field-notes:

• The butane in aerosol deodorant is certainly an adequate propellant, but the deodorant itself quickly fouls the electrodes and prevents spark unless you clean them between shots. I’d try propane, but I fear it might be a bit too efficient a propellant for the task of measuring ballistics. (In other words, we might not be able to find the projectiles afterward.)
• You can easily convert the spudthrower to other, found ammunition by using a cloth or sock as wadding. Golf balls found at the scene were excellent projectiles. In fact, one was perhaps too good a projectile, as it never was observed actually landing.
• Any crowd that gathers to see what you’re up to can easily be assuaged if you’ve got a teenager with you and you simply say, “Science project.”

She’s inherited 9th and 12th grade classes mid-term; the 12th graders are in the middle of Macbeth, while the 9th graders have, well, done mostly nothing. They’ve had a substitute for the past four months, who relied largely on vocabulary worksheets to pass the time.

Paula still has to complete her masters coursework, but she doesn’t have to student teach now (obviously)–an observer will come in to evaluate her in her own classroom. That’s a relief in many ways (including matters financial).

Plus, her benefits rock. As soon as hers kick in, I’m dropping mine like a rotting, blighted potato.

The weather brought us an unexpected (well, not wholly unexpected) houseguest. The Mooch showed up at our back door, whining and holding up altenating paws to get minor relief from the icy ground. Naturally, Paula let him come in the door.

He ensconced himself in the back half of our basement for a while, seeking shelter under an obsolesced foosball table near our water heater for a while. And then he started making himself at home.

Our two resident cats were none too pleased. Lucy, our 25-pound alpha female, made noises I hadn’t heard from her before. Desi, her submissive cohabitant, seemed spooked at first, then indignant.

Seeking to avoid conflict, I shut Mooch in the back of the basement for the night with food and water (after establishing he knew what a litter box was for and installing a backup box for our cats in the other half of the basement). And then we went to sleep.

At 6 this morning, I heard Lucy growling from under the bed. I tried to coax her out, as Paula went into the bathroom. Mooch came in to wish her a good morning.

Apparently, Mooch is really Houdini. He must have squeezed through a small gap in the framing of our finished basement that allows the sewage drain to pass under our basement bath and out through the back of a closet. Like an early riser at a bed and breakfast, he was wandering the halls and poking around for his morning meal.

I’m going to call the vet today to make an appointment for our feline houseguest. I suspect he may be with us for a while.

The relocation of my office to a corner of the basement is almost complete; I still need to run phone lines in here, so for now our DSL connection and my office phone base station are still sitting up in my former office, where Kevin is sleeping (or. perhaps, IM’ing now that he has bedside bandwidth).

While I got my desk down here and reassembled on Sunday night, the real work of moving all of the detrius that had accumulated in my office over the past 7 years was left for today. Kevin and I moved bookcases, filing cabinets, and piles and crates of stuff up and down two flights of stairs. By dinnertime, we had finished with the cleanup and the installation of the major elements of his room, as well as the reconfiguration of what is now Jonah’s exclusive domain.

Jonah arrived home from a visit to a friend’s house, and we found he had still not finished watching a video (“The Secret Garden Revisited”) that he was supposed to watch as homework for some “character education” mini-unit that his teacher is doing. During the course of trying to get him to sit down and watch the damned thing, he became increasingly petulant and whiny.

During the course of this episode, it was revealed to us by his brother that Jonah had in fact been lying about the events of the previous weekend and had in fact called my ex a bitch. Precise words and context–she was trying to break up a “fight” between them, and Jonah, who is almost 11, said, “Don’t touch me, bitch!”

So, that led to some more catharsis, as you can imagine, I’m sure.

By the time all had blown over, and the kids were all in their respective bedrooms, I was aching tired. But still, there were these piles of crap all around my desk….

I guess I know what I’m doing during conference calls tomorrow.

So, I’m surrendering my office of the past 8 years, and moving my business operations below the waterline, as it were, into the “clubbed” half of our basement. That happens to be our family room as well, so I’m doing a bit of downsizing in the process. But on the plus side:

I’ll be able to:
• play Katamari Damacy during teleconferences.
• ride my mountain bike on the trainer stand, also during teleconferences, on mute
• hear when people walk up to the front door
• fold out the sofa bed if it’s a slow day

There is the small matter of reduced daylight, being next to the laundry area, and having to deal with children’s toys scattered across the floor of my workplace. But I’ll burn those bridges when I come to them.

My daughter says, “I’m scared, there could be ghosts out here.” I reply, “There are no ghosts here–this is Columbia.”

Like Saturday, when Jonah and the boys of Brood X won their first game this season, 5 to 1. It was a Red Sox-size miracle; the drought was over, after one goal all season (on a penalty kick). The kids were playing position, passing, it all came together. I wish I could take credit for it, but I think a lion's share of the credit goes to my assistant coach–I think his screaming got through to places my earnestness did not.

And like Friday night when Paula, Zoë and I went to have dinner at the Golden West, and ran into some fellow Baltimore bloggers (seadragon and lostgirl). (And seadragon apparently was concerned that she'd overstayed her welcome…believe me, T., you didn't; otherwise we wouldn't have come into the bar looking to say goodbye. Zoë is our built-in timer for such things).

And then a house concert Saturday at another blogger's house that Paula had gotten us into, with Zoe. It was mellow. It was a good crowd. It was…time to take a few breaths before dashing off again somewhere else.

I spent so much of the first stretch of my life trying to reach something, or working to get somewhere. It's hitting me now; it'll always be this way. There will always be something to work to; there will never be room to coast. And that's fine–because the things that matter are those occasional patches of calm along the way that let you enjoy the trip to whatever you're working on next.

It looks like autumn has taken hold.

And for years, everyone who's gone has assumed that the parking meters in the adjoining parking lot (a weekday commuter lot) were not in effect on Sunday–for ages, one of the remaining “blue laws” on the city's books made street parking free on the sabbath. Even with increasingly tight parking enforcement in the city, meters under the JFX were never enforced on Sunday; it was implied that the parking was free for those patronizing the farmers' market.

Well, this weekend, market-goers got a rude shock. As we parked, we saw a squad of contract parking enforcement agents writing tickets on cars for meter violations and various other infringements of parking regulations. It was a revenue-enhancement ambush.

Now, it would seem to me that if the city really wanted people to comply with meters and parking regs in the lot on Sunday, they would have at least given some notice. But it was clear that the city wasn't really concerned with citizen compliance–this was about padding out the budget at the end of the fiscal year. The meters, you see, are only a quarter for an hour–the tickets are for $20 or more. And if you don't pay the tickets, there's no limit to the late fines the city can impose on you. That's right–forget to pay a ticket for an exposed meter, and your fines could exceed the value of your car.

You can imagine how pissed off the dozens of people returning to find tickets on their windshields were. And Paula and I were just plain disgusted with the city's tactics. It's not like there's a public-transportation alternative to get to the Farmers' Market; and if anything, the market has thrived in spite of the city's neglect rather than because of anything the city has done for it. (I understand they raised the price of entry for farmers and merchants again this year.)

It's funny how our mayor is so big on multicultural messages, yet I've never seen him at the Farmers' Market–which is one of the only places you'll see this city's cultures elbow to elbow. In fact, the only place I *have* seen the Mayor with the masses is when he's playing with his band in a sleeveless T-shirt.

On the other hand, I ran into (well, not figuratively)Senator Barbara Mikulski at the newly-reopened Baltimore Conservatory in Druid Hill Park. The Parks Department has really done a great job there, and Sen. Mikulski was walking about on her own, checking out the payoff.

Zoë also loves the new “space net” climbing net nearby in Druid Hill; it's the first playground upgrade in years in the park, and it's almost as much public sculpture as climb-on equipment. The new swings are also a welcome addition. Now if they could only pay some attention to the Buena Vista playground and some of the other neglected small local parks…

I turned 40 on September 10. I had made some noise a while back about some sort of party to mark the milestone, but as the date approached the idea seemed less and less attractive. The angst that had surrounded 39 has long since passed, as have many things over the past year–miles, people, means of employment. But when 16 ten-year-old soccer players sang happy birthday over a plastic tray of candle-lit cupcakes, it was just right.

My mother said, “You’ll like the 40s–you don’t need to prove anything to anyone anymore.” And she’s right. My early-thirties obsession with ladder-climbing has long past; if anything, the professional trevails of the past year have taught me to sieze back my life from work in any way I can.

I haven't been watching much of it this season, as I usually have other things to do on Sundays at 9 (like peel my three-year-old off the wall and get her into bed), but Paula has insisted on watching it every week. At first, she taped episodes in the hope that I would actually get a chance to watch them. But that was pointless. I've pretty much come to the point where NO television show is important enough for me to watch it time-shifted. Or, at all.

But Paula insisted that I sit down to watch this episode with her. I did, for a while, and then felt time being stolen from me by something that sucked. “I can't believe you made me watch this,” I said. “I can't believe I sat through it,” she replied.

The whole David – picks – up – psycho – hitchhiker – who – steals – his – money -and – forces – him – to – do – crack – with – him – before – dumping – gasoline – on – him subplot just totally drove me nuts, to the point where I couldn't bring myself to watch any more of the stupid show. David has just gotten more nerve-grating over time; maybe they should have set him on fire–it might have brightened up the rest of the season.

I'm kidding. Really. Maybe.

Zoë was up at 8 this morning, and ready to take on the world…while I, on the other hand, had been up until past 1 am working on feeding the beast its weekend rations.

Anyway.

So, we creaked into the day, and after a late breakfast it was determined that, in order to give Paula a bit of time to get ahead of her classwork, I was going to take Zoë to the pool for a couple of hours.

This, we did; of course, when I take Zoë to the pool, she doesn't need any pool toys, because I am the primary source of entertainment. It's “do that thing you did last time” time…sweeping her through the water backwards, her legs and body making a wake. It's “toss me in the air, Daddy” time. It's let-Zoë-ride-on-my-belly-while-I-crabwalk time. It's lift-Zoë-out-of-the-water-on-my-feet-while-sitting-on-the-bottom-of-the-kiddie-pool time.

Eventually, Zoë wanted a snack, and then she wanted to wash the entire side of the kiddie pool with a duck-shaped sponge she found. But soon it was time to go home, since we were going to go to Artscape.

So, it was back to the house to grind out a few household chores that had been left undone, and then change and head over to pick up Zoë's godmother Jesse, then to the light rail stop to wait for the train downtown. And wait. And wait. Apparently, MTA, despite plenty of advance warning, hadn't really prepared itself for the additional traffic for Artscape (which is located right on the light rail line, and has no arrangements for parking to speak of).

Finally, after almost an hour of waiting, the train arrived, filled to capacity. We squeezed on. And soon, we were there, and Z was on my shoulders. As The Mayor and his exercise in musical megalomania were playing, she demanded that we dance. And then back on the shoulders. And down. And up. And so on.

We decided to forego the forced march back to the other [designated white-boy] stage where the Violent Femmes were playing (and let's not even get into the irony of the Mayor's band opening for the Violent Femmes). Besides, all the real energy seemed to be down where Wyclef Jean was playing. We looked at book stands, sat for a little while, and then grabbed Princess Z the pretzel she desired. Then, as the sun set, we headed for the light rail stop.

All that Zoë-lifting and Zoë=spinning and Zoë-dancing has seriously whupped my ass. And she kept going hard, until we dropped Jesse off; on the ride home, she fell asleep in the car. Which, of course, meant I got to carry her again.

Some, tired from working the streets in the 96-degree, feels-like-the-inside-of-a-panda's-mouth heat, even humored little girls who climbed up on their laps.

At least I didn't have a mojito.

Zoe was trying to carry one on a leaf (so as not to have to actually touch it) when I got one onto her back. By the time we were back over to our blanket with Paula and our neighbor/babysitter Anna (whom Zoë had invited along, and had been showing off ever since our arrival to our teachers), the cicada had climbed to her shoulder. Zoë laughed at the cicada's tickly legs on her shoulder, then squirmed, and the red-eyed bug plopped to the ground as it sought a less shaky perch.

Finding the works of Franz Kafka at a church fair is, well, surreal. It reminded me how much of my recent life has resembled Metamorphisis (figuratively, of course–I didn't awake to find I had become a giant cockroach).

Sunday, I made my patented french toast and bacon breakfast for mother and daughter (the boys still being at their mom's/my ex's for the day). We went to Fells Point, rode the water taxi, did the carousel next to the Science Center, contemplated touring a Spanish tall ship (not mom not daughter's style, I determined–more of a boy thing), and jaunted back to Fells Point for pizza at BOP.

Then it was home again, to cook dinner on the grill–the neighbors (Anna and Allison) came over, the boys returned (Jonah gave Paula a Mother's Day card he had made, which nearly knocked her off her feet–”from your son Jonah”), and I grilled salmon, chicken, eggplant, mushrooms, zucchini, squash, and onions on the Weber (followed by a flight of toasted marshmallows for the Z).

Zoe on the front steps, showing off her new dress.

Frankie, come home!

Nice tomatoes.

Oregonian lambs

Baa.

Ram.

Ewwwwwww. Zoe sucks a lemon plucked from the fresh-squeezed lemonade.

…if someone were to stage a production of “Beauty and the Beast” next week, you would be ready, since you could recite all the lines in your sleep.

…you know all the words to every “Veggie Tales” song.

…the last book you read cover to cover was “Madeline Goes to London.”

…you know every last mark on the back of the toddler swing at the neighborhood playground.

There's this little problem: these six dollar fish are basically rats with fins. No, I take that back–rats don't eat their own feces, last I checked. And they certainly don't bite their own feces, spit them out, and then bite them again because they forgot what they had just done.

Cleaning up after six dollars of fish can be quite an undertaking. Given what my usual hourly rate for the odd consulting job is, I figure these fish are into me for close to ten grand at this point just for algae scraping and gravel vacuuming. So, the time had come to outsource to cheaper labor.

A friend of Paula's suggested one of those sucker catfish, the black things that sort of glom onto the side of the tank and hang there. But apparently, by just doing that, they can grow to be up to a foot long, and we really don't want to have to buy another aquarium just because the hired help doesn't fit in it anymore, now do we?

Or, we could buy some snails. Snails are fun, in an invertebrate, gastropod sort of way. Unfortunately, we've been down that route before–only to find that goldfish actually eat snails. They suck them right out of the shell.

So Paula picked up a trio of algae eaters, little suckerfish that zip around and masticate the green sludge off of the bottom and sides of the tank. They're so small “they don't even count as a fish” for aquarium planning purposes, said the salesperson.

Now, here's the sad part: the algae eaters have more personality than the goldfish. They can hide in the little castle that the goldfish once, unbelieveably, swam through; they dodge from plant to plant in search of appropriate cover. Then they swim up to the side of the tank, adhere themselves, and hang there for a minute or two as they ingest some small amount of photosynthetic plaque. Meanwhile, the oafish goldfish stare at any human that comes in range of their questionable eyesight, flapping their lips and using their limited body language to beg for more food.

Maybe we just need algae, algae eaters, and snails for entertainment in our aquarium. Anybody want some goldfish?

The only difference in this regard between me and John Kerry is that my first marriage was annulled by the Catholic church (because it was officiated by a Methodist Navy chaplain, and not a priest) and my ex never got around to the details required to get our marriage blessed before she fell in love with the assoicate pastor and… well, there's a novel in that story. So, even though I have two children from that marriage, I get a Catholic “do-over.”

Kerry apparently doesn't rate one, and in the eyes of some he therefore is not in a “state of grace”–and should therefore be refused communion, or have the common sense to stay seated while the queue forms. Others tut-tut, but say that it's up to the individual to determine whether he or she is in a “state of grace.”

Forget if a politician could *ever* be in a state of grace, by definition. What ever happened to, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?” Oh, I forgot, this is the juncture of politics and religion, where the first stone is cast in order to appear to be without sin.

And you'd better be casting a stone if it's a Sunday, because the Pope just told Australian bishops that all secular activities should be avoided on the sabbath–so throwing a baseball on the sabbath is a sure path to Purgatory. Get your indulgence payments ready.

I spent Easter morning in church with my wife, children, and (erk) ex. She came in cursing her father and sister over how he had given her the furniture out of his condo that he had just sold, fuming over how he had never asked HER if she wanted any of it, and how her sister had slighted her in so many ways over the weekend. She then took communion. Was she in a state of grace when she did so, still muttering words of hate under her breath?

When so-called Christians shower hate upon people who are different from them, are they in a state of grace? When we sit by as a country and let our leaders send our brothers, sisters, and children off to kill on a whim, can any of us be in a state of grace?

Good times, as his brother Kevin would say.

So now, I have a three, ten, and thirteen year old. The oldest is the age of the sum of the younger two; a mathematical alignment we won't see again. The three are as different as three children can be, and yet so tied together. I clung to each moment of today, watching them interact; Kevin, the 13 year old, responding well to the additional responsibility that comes with his age (he can be left in charge of his siblings for short periods of time now, and he revels in that role); Jonah, blossoming socially and showing more of the depths of his talents; Zoe, the youngest, yet somehow clearly in charge of her brothers.

At the end of it all, his mom (my ex) prepared to depart with him and his brother for the night. “Why do I have to go to Mommy's house on my birthday?” he moaned. There's a lot behind that question, too much context for me to deliver here. I answered, “Because she loves you too, and wants to spend time with you. And we'll be back together on Easter Sunday.”

It's hard to watch the boys go, not just because I know they really don't want to, but because it breaks up the trio for a little while. Things don't run as smoothly with all of them when they're not a unit.

A Swan Lake Barbie. Complete with light-up wings.

Saints preserve us.

No kiddin', Dave. Ah, the joy of a life without inhibitions. Zoë is free to pretend whatever she wants; to be a ballerina (“It's time for my dance recital,” she says), a super hero (“Daddy, can you put on my cape so I can be a super powers?”), or she can recruit her brothers and lead a band of scurvy pirates, bandannas and all (“Arrr, Daddy, we're hunting for buried treasure!”).

She's a clothes-horse in training, with a vast supply of dress-up clothes and a well-developed sense of style. She can be as demanding, or as dainty, or as demure as she wants to be. But usually, she's just in charge. That's Zoë — She Who Must Be Obeyed. At three. Look out, world.

The one thing that happens when you spend two days mostly one-on-one with an almost-three-year-old is that you realize how much more time you'd like to spend one-on-one with her. You realize how much television she's been watching, how much of her brothers' influence has filtered into her conciousness as you talk with her. and how big a sponge her brain is.

Walking from the parking lot to the zoo: “Daddy, when I was a robot, I had really strong legs.”

At the gate: “I want to go see the cheetah.”

In the zoo: “The sitatunga was lonely before the other ones came. But now it has lots of friends.”

On the carousel: “Silly Daddy. Tricks are for kids.”

By the (goats in the petting zoo, waterfowl pond, duck enclosure): “Look out for (goat, goose, duck) poop, Daddy.”

Eating chicken fingers from the zoo's concession stand at a picnic table: “I like this chicken. But this is chicken from a farm, not from the zoo.”

At random: “Are you happy, Daddy? I'm happy.” and “I love you.”

Professions of happiness and love, and warnings of nearby poop; what more could anyone want?

It was an evening of sounds quite in contrast to those coming out of our basement earlier today. Sadly, I must report that my 12-year-old son is a Linkin Park fan.

Now, I can understand the appeal of something so rough-edged and loud to a young set of ears. After all, when I was 12, I walked 2 miles to the TSS (“Sam Goody and the record store at TSS…got the music!”) to buy my own first vinyl chosen on my own–and I bought Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits. And, regrettably, I later added to that Boston and the Alan Parsons Project. It took me a litle while to find my musical center–but then, it was the Seventies, after all.

And it's not like my son is completely lacking in taste. He is baffled by his old man's ability to introduce him to music he likes; like Jimmy Eat World, and Reel Big Fish, and Evanescence (all brought into this house first by yours truly). For his trip to California this summer, I made him a mix CD of Heavy Metal classics so he could learn the origins of the musical genre that he so enjoys: I gave him Black Sabbath (Iron Man) and Judas Priest (You've Got Another Thing Coming) and AC-DC (Back in Black), among others.

I didn't even sneak my signature Clash song into the mix.

And how does he repay me? By blasting more of this whiteboy rap/metal crap. Let me play him some Body Count and see what he thinks of Linkin Park then. “Cop Killer” over and over should do the trick.

Speaking of doing the trick, the four horsewomen did a cover of a Backstreet Boys tune, “I Want It That Way” for their first encore. And let me tell you, it has been claimed as a girl power song now. I will never hear that song the same way again. And thank God for that.

So, I got to take our daughter Zoë to preschool this morning. It was my first trip back to the Wee School since Jonah, now in 4th grade, graduated to kindergarten. Same place, some of the same faces, but a different crop of pre-schoolers and parents. Well, different in their actual identities, but the same in their cast roles.

There's still the neurotic, pushover mom, who told her manipulative, clinging son that his friend was coming to school today (when she wasn't) and watches from 20 feet away as he dances at the parking lot curb waiting for her car to show up, and then screams bloody murder when she finally decides to go pick him up and bring him in and deposit him and split. Different woman, different kid, same script, same roles.

The drill of arrival at the Wee School is familiar–find your kids cubby, and watch as she pulls a token with her name on it and slides it under the classroom door to announce her arrival. The laminated construction paper tokens are familiar; they've downgraded the backing that holds them to the door from a magnet to velcro, but the idea is still the same. Zoë quickly found her pink crayon tag on the door and slid it under, then climbed back up on me and told me to knock for her.

Ms. Karen, who has been pre-school teacher to all three of our kids now, greeted me warmly. It's been five years since I saw her, and she's still the same enthusiastic, warm, pre-school cast woman she was then. She gushed about how tall Kevin, our 7th grader, had gotten–she had been his pre-school teacher 10 years ago, and had seen him when he came in for the open house. She still gets Jonah's name wrong, calling him Noah.

In two years, we'll have completed another cycle through the Wee school, and Zoë will start pre-K at St. Pius, following her big brothers' footsteps. Kevin will head to high school, and Zoë will take his place back at the bottom of the stack. It's the circle of daycare, and we'll have completed our third cycle.

After all, most of the smaller things that I desire (music, 
books,  and the like) are well within my own reach, and those
things that aren't impulse purchases that I find somewhat desirable are
just shinier, more expensive versions of the things I already
have.  Once I realize that, my desire for things rapidly turns to
indifference.

Sure, another guitar
is always nice.  But, as I tell my wife frequently as we stroll
through Ikea, “Where would we put it?”   (This generally
results in our escape from Ikea for under $200).

Maybe a newer, faster Mac G5 dual processor so I can videoconference
and render DVDs of my latest documentary epic at the same time. 
But where would I put it? Would that really make me happy?  (Well,
it would make Steve happy, probably)

Not any more happy than I am on average,
probably, based on what Jon Gertner reported in last Sunday's NY Times
Magazine.  It seems that people just don't get happier in the long
term from the acquisition of things, or the accumulation of more
money…they just get used to it.  (As the father of two boys
caught in the endless Nintendo upgrade loop, I could have saved Harvard
a lot of research investment on that point).

The Buddhists are right–things own you, especially Things on a macro
level, like houses, cars, and stock portfolios.  They require care
and feeding that distracts you from the rest of living.  And the
higher-end they are, the more care and feeding they require.

So, if you want to give me something for my birthday, give me an
extended deadline, or a day off in the park on my bike.  
Sure, maybe a new mountain bike might be nice (considering the terrain in the park) but my current ride
is more than most guys my age have indulged in.  Give me a
hand-drawn card, a Manhattan, a Che Guevara t-shirt from a Cuban thrift
store.  Give me a few minutes of intelligent conversation.

Save that other stuff for when I turn 40.  (Or, if you're in a rush, for Christmas.)

I thought about this again the other day as I watched Eight-Legged Freaks
on HBO (David Arquette's best outing yet–though that might not be
saying much). The movie was a great way to waste 99 minutes of your life;  I particularly enjoyed the  trapdoor spiders in the movie, and the “Gremlins”-like sound effects used to represent the scampering spiders as they overran town.

The movie reminded me of the giant orb spider (about 8
inches from leg tip to leg tip-sse the second photo at right) I saw in the brush when we stopped  on
the eastern shore of Virginia l–it looked like it could eat small birds that flew into
its web.

And
I wondered: is this what global warming has in store for us? Wetter
springs, more mosquitos carrying West Nile Virus (or malaria, or
whatever), and bigger and bigger arachnids that will one day start
snatching family pets and dragging them into their sticky lairs? 
Will I have to face down a thirty-foot mutant tarantula in my lifetime?

Probably not.  But it's fun to think about, in some perverse, geeky,  sci-fi schlock way.

For this, and dial-up access from the road, I've been paying $50 a month.

So, the time has come to completely pull the plug. I just redirected my domains to a new domain name server at my bargain-basement hosting service, where my disk quota is larger by more than a factor of 10 and my hosting bill is $8 a month. I will no longer suffer in the name of supporting locals. As soon as the DNS refreshes, my move of all my weblogs (except for the one hosted by Userland) will be complete.

So much has happened that I've let pass without comment. The blogosphere is full of comment on these things; I have nothing to add to the parallel monologues of the past few weeks. I read the Wall Street Journal for the first time in 15 days this morning, and I think I feel a tiny bit of what Ken Bowersox will feel when he returns from the International Space Station today–a sudden return to a world that is familiar, yet changed.

So, now I have a handy brass paperweight.

Over lunch, we discussed the various laws of physics that we were going to need to take into account as we built this strange bird. It?s great that his sixth grade science class is so focused on physics right now–we can talk about Bernoulli and Newton and apply what he?s learning now directly to this project.

Now, to get it to fly will take more than physics. But he does go to Catholic school…..

Zoe is just over 25 months old, and she blows me away every day.

A: “Because Jesus didn't eat that much, and we're trying to be like him.”

It's been seven Valentines Days since we met as a result of a personal ad I placed in the Baltimore City Paper as my aunt suggested. I was working from home, dealing with the fallout of the end of my first marriage, and felt like I'd never find anyone with whom I could have a relationship of any kind.

She responded, and we talked on the phone…and talked…and talked. So, we planned a first date. For New Year's Eve. I figured, if you're going to roll the dice, might as well roll big…

The rest, as they say, is history–despite my total flubbing of our first Valentines Day. I was away at a conference in Boston, it was early on in our relationship, and I was at a loss. So, I did the worst possible thing–I made a card that said: “You're special. That about says it all.” I put it aside to give to her when I returned.

Maybe it was because I wasn't ready yet to completely open the door to somebody. Maybe it was because I couldn't figure out how someone could actually be interested in me romantically, what with all the baggage I was carrying around (2 kids, a contentious ex-wife, a subterranean two bedroom apartment with the “living room” serving as a computer test lab…you know, the usual). Whatever it was, I was obviously subconcsiously hedging my bets.

She , on the other hand, also made a card, which she had painted by hand, and Fed-Ex'd it to my hotel.

So I felt even more lame when I gave her the card I had made when I got back to Baltimore. That she didn't leave me then and there says a lot. She does occasionally remind me of that card, though.

Last night, as I was negotiating conditions for our daughter to go to sleep, Paula again made me an original Valentine–a bowl full of paper hearts, each enscribed with a reason she loves me. When I got up to take the boys to their chorus practice before school this morning, she told me that there was a special bowl of cereal waiting for me on the table.

She also got me a 120 gigabyte external hard drive for my Mac.

I've made her a card this year, too. But it isn't nearly as lame as the first one.The only reservations it comes with are for dinner at Petit Louis.

Plus, this year, it comes with chocolates.

Jonah decided to build a snowman. Chelsea, his cousin, found the remains of a traffic cone, which became the snowman's hat. Jonah found a Bud Ice bottle; what else would a snowman drink? A stick became a…cigarette. And voila, a truly urban snowman was complete.

Zoë is the consummate pretend picnic hostess. “Let's have a picnic! Want coffee, DaDa?” Her favorite must-read bedtime books are “Snow” by P.D. Eastman and Roy McKie, and Sandra Boynton's Pajama Time. She likes olives, blue cheese, and smoked mackerel. Life is a cocktail party, and it's never time for bed–and never time to get out of her striped pajamas.

Zoe Makes Breakfast

click on the image for video.

Eastpointe is on the eastern edges of Baltimore. Its clientele that evening were sketchy–Paula observed that it looked like an Eminem lookalike convention. By the time the party got rolling, just about everything else in the place was closing down.

Much to my son's chagrin, I was the leading scorer for the evening. He accused me of taking advantage of my “military training.”

While I have to admit I did shoot .22 rifle competitively in college, and did a half-hour mock assault once on “Combat Town” at Camp Pendleton during the summer after my sophomore year of college, I somehow doubt the killer instincts I developed as a deck officer, a damage control assistant, and an administrative officer had a whole lot to do with my success in laser tag. I think it had more to do with the fact that I was playing against 8, 12, 13 and 14-year olds, a social worker, my ex-wife and a biology grad student.

In tribute to Kevin turning 12, here's a short video (no audio, sorry) from this summer of Kevin at the Silver Penny Theatre camp at Towson U. doing a number from…Grease (you may need to click on the image below to start the video):

Then Tuesday, I came down with a fever. I think it might have been West Nile, but it could have just been a 24-hour flu. Anyway, I was out of commission.

Wednesday, I was still recovering, and had deadlines to meet.

Thursday, I was back in Detriot again.

Today, I got a ride in, a hill-climbing mountain biking run up the back edge of the Disc Golf Course and along the Baltimore Zoo's perimeter fence, then back down mountain bike slalom style, using disc golf “holes” and tees as waypoints and launchpads. It was a good upper/lower body workout, and fun; any time a 280-pound guy can get airborne on a bike, there's fun to be had.

This doesn't go over well with my eldest son, who recently read a kid's horror book about giant evil rats coming out of a New Jersey landfill for a book report; he now has a fear of rats. He whined about taking the trash out the other night because it was after dark, and he thought he might get bit by a rat with rabies and die.

Okay, the problem isn't that bad. And maybe that's just an excuse from my 11 year old, who would do anything to get out of doing his chores. But you get the picture.

1 wild turkey.
1 rough-legged hawk–on the ground, with prey.
15 turkey vultures.
1 red-tailed hawk.
1 raven.
And the usual assortment of other members of the family corvidae. (crows, blue jays).

We spotted the rough-legged hawk standing tall on a grass median. It was startling to see a bird that big so close to the road, with such bold features–and since we passed it doing 75 mph, I wasn't sure about the identification until we got home and I checked the Sibley guide.

BOF Session in my backyard

Last year, I put up a bird feeder in my backyard. Being in the “greatest city in America”, I didn't expect much; sparrows, house finches, and flying rats, mostly. And that's what I got. Until this last fall, when the goldfinches started showing up around the sunflowers we had planted.

However, that didn't prepare me for the crowd in my backyard this last week. It was a black bird blowout–Red-winged blackbirds, boat-tailed grackles; I thought I was in a salt marsh or something. They were pigging out on birdseed and making a ruckus.

Paula called me from her cell phone and told me to come to the window to see; she was in the car with the kids, and had just pulled into the driveway. They were sitting in the car, watching the mob up close and personal as they emptied the feeder. A few “rock doves” joined in, while the house sparrows watched mostly from the sidelines waiting for the crowd to thin.

We've been in this house for more than five years, and I've been in Baltimore for 11. And I don't recall seeing this many RWB's–or any grackles to speak of–inside the city before. Maybe it's the drought. Maybe we're on a migratory lay-over map somewhere posted by a crow on the bird Internet. Who knows? We appreciated the visit anyway.

Zoë's first haircut

On March 5, Zoë got her first bang trim. Paula got a little help from our friend, Ying Hue, in administering the unpopular exercise.

Bear On Board

I have a confession to make: I watch Bear in the Big Blue House. My wife got my our daughter Zoe two BBBH DVDs for her 1st birthday, though I suspect it was more for her and me than for our daughter. Sure, Zoe likes Bear–but Paula and I were watching BBBH before Zoe was born, and when the kids weren't home.

Who is this ursine guru, this orange furry fakir who draws child and adult alike into a hypnotic state, unable to break contact with his beady, blinking, hood-browed eyes?

Now even our oldest son seems to have fallen under his tutelage. Maybe it's the way he cha-cha-chas.

Aces

In other Gallagher news:
Jonah brought home a straight-A report card last week!

Kevin brought home 2nd honors, with just two B's and the rest of the card in the A zone!

Kid Weekend

We just had one of those rare, wonderful kid-oriented weekends (and I mean that without any trace of sarcasm) that come along every now and then and remind you why you repeat the experience of being a parent.

Saturday morning, we went to see Dan Zanes do a benefit concert at the Charles Theatre. Dan used to be in the Del Fuegos a couple of lifetimes ago, and now he does kids' albums grownups can love. Everybody had a great time.

Then, on Sunday, we had what had been planned as a low-key cake and milk birthday party for Zoe's first birthday. We went to church that morning, went to brunch with friends, and casually mentioned the event to them; we also invited some of Zoe's play-date friends from around the corner and a few other family friends.

Just about all of them showed up. We ended up with about two dozen people in the house–about half of them kids playing down in the boys' playroom in the basement.

Zoe turned 1 today

Here's my 11-month old daughter demonstrating her poise and grace. Actually, she has been walking since New Year's, but this is the first chance I've had to document it online.