10:22pm on vacation eve and I’m just now sitting down to write.

What? You already thought I left for vacation?

I know, you guys get confused with the times on this here blog. It’s easy: I write at nights, usually the night before I post. However, being cheeky, I adjust words like “today,” “yesterday,” and “tomorrow” for the time when you’ll actually be reading the post. So, even though it’s Monday night while I write this, I’d refer to Tuesday as “today” when I write. Unless, that is, I’m writing about something I’m doing in real-time, in which case I’ll usually say something explicit like “Monday night.” See, simple?

Anyway, I’m pretty much all done getting things together… I’m bed-packed (which means everything I intend to take with me is laid out neatly in stacks on the bed, waiting to go into a suitcase). Sharaun just got home from her MOPS thing (that’s the mother’s group thing she does I always talk about, she runs the one for the teen girls - what a humanitarian I married, eh?), and she’s yet to get packing. And, with an early 5am departure planned from here tomorrow, she better get going. Ahem, I also cleaned up the joint and did dishes while she was gone - I can’t stand coming home to a messy house, kills me. So, in a word I am: ready. Let’s do this, let’s get to vacating.

I haven’t mentioned it much here on the b-to-the-l-to-the-o-to-the-g, but some friends of ours are actually joining us in Florida this time around. That’s right, we’re bringing some California folk into the sticky South. For me, this is unique collision of circumstances, and I’m not ashamed to admit I’m a little excited about showing someone the place that holds such a special place in my heart. I want to take them drinking with my Florida friends, want to show them my old haunts, tell stories with immediate context as we drive down the road. I know, it’s not that special of place to go visit… maybe even looks broken-down and busted to high-falootin’ west-coasters… but I’m still excited.

Besides, the prospect of bringing your “now” friends to your “then” place is a concept I think I could get on board with. In fact, the close group of thugs we run with out here has even floated the idea of a rotating “hometown vacation series” thing a few times. Each of us in turn inviting the other friends to come visit our hometowns, staying in various family-held cabins and properties, experiencing the local color, and witnessing firsthand the loins which birthed those who are now seem so attached to us it’s hard to remember they led other lives before the clique. Personally I think it’s a great idea, I eat culture like Asians do rice, and a vacation series like that would serve it by the heaping plateful. Maybe one day…

Before I go, a funny story: Sharaun’s home with Keaton this week when Keaton alerts her that she has to pee. She takes her into the bathroom, as usual, and removes her pants and diaper, as usual. But, instead of sitting down on her little potty like she always does, she instead moves in front of it, standing up, and just stares down at it. “What are you doing?,” asks Sharaun. “I wanna make a peepee,” she answers. “But you have to sit down to make a peepee,” Sharaun notes. “I wanna make a peepee like a big girl, like Daddy does!” Ha, I liked that. Yeah, I know, maybe it’s a little “Chicken Soup for the Whatever,” but I liked it. Suck on it.

And, because I’m way behind on posting new pictures of Keaton, here’s a small set from Bill and Susie to keep you going. Heave a sigh of relief though, as I dumped the last unsorted batch to the laptop before leaving for Florida with intent of weeding through and posting a new set while there. Look for it, OK?

Goodnight, until the sunny soupy Florida air is in my lungs.

Ermmmm… head so heavy. Wrested from my couchful slumbers by the phone ’round 7pm: The wife’s on the cell. “On your way home from the city?,” I say. I fell asleep on the couch; guess it’s time to heat up some leftover lasagna and figure out what I’ll be writing. Ugh, but not before I work this kink out of my neck. Why I do I sleep on this little loveseat vs. stretching out on the full couch? Every time I get this sore neck, yet I never learn. Next time - big couch.

Next week we go to Florida. It’s a short trip, only about six days, one and a half of which are arguably lost to travel. I’m excited. Some friends of ours are coming along, and I’m pretty pumped about showing one of my modern-times California friends a little of the olden-times place where I grew up and came into my own. Not that I intend for the trip to be a tour or something, but, still… the prospect has me excited about getting to impart some “color” to the local scene for them. Now then, I started that thought not to talk about how I’m excited to go “home,” which I am, but to talk instead about what happens when I get back. See, the day after I get back I have to give the first of two presentations.

I haven’t given a real presentation, like to a decent sized audience that will ask challenging questions, in a good while. And, as almost always, I’m woefully underprepared. Dave, you may say, you still have a week and a half to get ready. Yes, yes I do. But, you see, this kinda of unprepared isn’t because I simply haven’t looked at or studied or practiced the material, it’s just that I’ve not assigned a whole heck of a lot of gravity to the thing in my mind. So, I’ve given it the cursory look, practiced a loose patter, dreamed up some witty bits to add here and there to keep the crowd awake… but it’s far from what I’d call “polished.” In fact, the material is still fluid, and I fully expect it to stay that way right up until the night before I go on stage.

I’ll invest some time readying myself and the material, to be safe… but to be honest the whole thing just isn’t doing a lot to rise to the top of my task list, you know what I’m saying? C’mon presentation, you gotta fight for my attentions, I’ve got a lot going on. If you want to be good, you’d push to the top of the list. But no, you just lay there expecting me to breathe life into you. You’ll get it, but it’ll be weak.

On the way to lunch the other day, as the small group of about-to-be diners walked through the parking lot to our vehicles, ready to burn close to five bones per gallon to fill our physiological need to eat, I happened to look down and found $40 in folded twenties in a vacant spot. In one motion I bent to scoop up the money as I exclaimed, “Oh my God I am rich.” (Delivered in deadpan homage to the “Oh my God I am the winner” line from Sandler’s Billy Madison, like I do with so many other “Oh my God am I am…” starts.) I stood there for a moment, looking around me, half expecting someone walking nearby to be checking their pockets before turning around. I waited, and waited, and finally decided that the Lord had ordained I receive that money. I like finding money. When we got to lunch, I spent the $40 buying the meals of those in my car – flexing a little philanthropy in case karma was watching (I even put the dollar change into the tip jar, at Jeff’s behest). Easy come, easy go.

Goodnight.

Bad news this threatening-to-rain Wednesday evening, folks: For the first day in a while, I’m not really in a huge writing mood.

I’m not quite sure what this might mean for today’s entry yet, but clearly it doesn’t bode well. Lately it seems like I’ve no shortage of things to write about or work on here at the blog, and I seem to be sailing through even the most voluminous entries with ease (note: voluminous != good, necessarily). I guess it had to dry up at some point, maybe tonight’s the night. I guess it could be good prep for the bumpiness that’ll likely lie ahead as we travel the next couple weeks.

All day at work today I kept catching glimpses of the little weatherbar plugin in my Firefox window, which was saying it was going to rain tomorrow (60% chance). That, and the fact that the lawn was overdue for a cut, meant I was out mowing right after work today so I could beat the showers. I hate mowing right after work, it’s like coming home from work to do more work - and I hate doing work after work. Actually, that’s not entirely true - because I sometimes enjoy working after work (as long as it’s not on work stuff), I just need time to decompress, to transition from “work” to “home.” Usually, I get this time with a Newsweek magazine (I haven’t always been as learned) in the crapper - the one place and activity where I’m unlikely to get interrupted. Locked there in my stinky little coffin reading about politics or the Middle East (Newsweek has a huge hardon for both), I transition. Anyway, I’ve gone off topic… what I meant to say was that I mowed, and sweat, and subsequently showered. Now I clean with greenish fingernails, typing.

Today I booked our Thanksgiving trip back to Florida. Usually, this would be a Christmas trip… but we decided that this was the year we’d start instituting our own “family” Christmas traditions. After all, we are some kinda family or something of our own now - I think. It feels odd, really, because we’ve been going to Florida for Christmas nearly every year since we moved here to California (save the very first year, when we were simply to destitute to do so). In fact, spending Christmas in warm, sunny Florida with Sharaun’s family and our friends has become a tradition I look forward to. A while ago, however, Sharaun and I both agreed that we’d like to start doing “our own” Christmas thing eventually - and this year seemed like a good time to start.

Originally, my motivation was Keaton turning two - and now requiring a full-fare ticket for the round trip flights. But, that really doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny, as we’ll still be going to Florida at some point (or several points) during the year. So, I guess it just comes down to wanting our own thing. Anyway, we’ve sort of traded off holidays - and we’re headed back this year for Thanksgiving instead. Actually, we’ve invited my family down here for Christmas this year… so who knows, maybe that’ll turn out to be part of our “thing.” Or, maybe we won’t have a “thing,” and will be nomadic Christmas transients instead… that could be a “thing.” What the heck am I on about?

Before I go, today’s the day the new “You Decide Friday” poll closes, so cast those last votes and let me know what I have to write about tomorrow night. Oh, and I promise I didn’t upvote anything… if you’re curious about the ungamed results, “When we used to go hoboing” has six legit ones, while “The first time I got a girl to take her pants off” has a mere two which are “real.” The other two each have zero… which means that… duuude… eight people? I spend way yonder too much time on this thing…

I dunno what to do with that… maybe write about hoboing? Maybe not. Maybe both… but that’s a stretch. What do you think?

Either way, here the poll again. What are you waiting for, g’head, do it:

 Loading ...

Well, turns out I didn’t have any issues filling this page with stuff again. Guess I was wrong about that. Goodnight.

Hi Tuesday. Back to work today, fresh of my latest trip on ship-sick. Felt OK, the busyness of the day working to keep my mind from dwelling on how I felt, letting me instead be washed away in the stress and decisions of my daily eight-hour farce. I suppose that means I have to go back tomorrow, so I will. Today, I went a little mad near the end there (sorry about breaking the no-cussing streak, blame Art). Let’s do this.

♫ Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes… ♫
♫ Oh, look out you rock ‘n rollers… ♫

Just within the past few days, Keaton has begun stuttering. At first, I thought this was utterly cute. She’s always done some amount of stammering or word-repetition at the beginning of her phrases, and I’d always chalked that up to her knowing she wanted to form a long string of words, but needing some extra time to process what she wanted to say and buying it through repetition. This recent stuff though, this is different. All of the sudden at my folks’ place in Oregon last week, she started getting really hung up on her ‘W’ lead-words. “Where’d the doggy go daddy?” turned into, Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-where’d the doggy go daddy?” With the ‘W’ sound repeated an almost comical amount of times. Actually, with the ‘W’ sound repeated a downright comical amount of times.

“W-w-w-w-w-wan-wan-wan-w-w-w-wan-wanna use the potty” began to replace the previously smooth and fluid “Wanna use the potty.” Again, the amount of repetition on the lead word was so prominent I figured she must be doing it on purpose as a reaction to the giggles we initially reacted with.

Within just the past forty-eight hours, though, she’s branched out from just ‘W’ words and now hangs up on all sorts of words. She draws out initial words too, like, “Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii wanna bite daddy’s cheese,” or “Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmy babydoll is sleeping.” Still, I saw no reason for concern, and figured it was some sort of normal speech pattern per development. Sharaun, however, was a little more prudent, deciding she didn’t like the new Keaton-speech and doing some online research. Here’s what the sage internet has to say about toddler stuttering:

Many children go through a developmental stage of speech disfluency that’s often confused with true stuttering. This normal disfluency does disappear over time without need for treatment.

Children with true stuttering tend to repeat syllables four or more times (a-a-a-a-as opposed to once or twice for normal disfluency). They mmmmmay also occasionally prolong sounds.

Hmmm… sounds like our Keaton…

Children with stuttering show signs of reacting to their stuttering — blinking the eyes, looking to the side, raising the pitch of the voice.

Oh yeah, blinking eyes, screwing up her face, seemingly looking into space for the words: check, check, and check. Hmmm….

True stuttering is frequent — at least 3 percent of the child’s speech. While normal disfluency is especially noticeable when the child is tired, anxious, or excited, true stuttering is noticeable most of the time.

Well, as long as the internet is still an infallible source of information and a viable method of self-diagnosis, I’m convinced: Our baby may have a legitimate stuttering problem. The doctor on the internet said we should alert our pediatrician, so that’s what we’ll do.

Still, I secretly think it’s cute, and am not really too concerned. Call me naive.

♫ Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes… ♫

Tomorrow I’m dropping Sharaun and Keaton off at the airport bright and early so they can catch a flight to Florida to see Keaton’s brand new cousin, baby Hobson (blog-style congratulations to Aunt Breck and Uncle Doug). After that, I’ll be on my own for five whole days. Cast back into the shadowy realm of bachelorhood (well, minus all the wild stripper-pole parties I used to throw in my true bachelor past, ahem). On my own for meals, clean boxers, sexual gratification (nothing much new there), bedtimes and waketimes, and whether or not I have to don knickers on the weekend. My barnburning plans include the cleaning jag I’ve outlined here before, and completely eschewing the television in favor of the iPod. In some ways I’m looking forward to the time, but in reality I think I’ll start to miss my girls right-quick.

♫ Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes… ♫

Has anyone ever heard an old fable, or story, or Mother Goose or… something… about a man, or king, or maybe it was a pauper, who woke up one morning to a solid-gold reflection of himself in the mirror? Yeah, I figured not, because I just made that up. But today was my solid-gold day. I was untouchable. I walked on water. I touched souls. The heart-hardened wept open-mouthed as babes for tit.

Below please find the actual photo that sits unblinkingly on my sawmill’s badge. Note the lethargic smile, crooked nose, and fucking hair. It was taken some eight years ago now, and I’ve worn it around my neck five days a week for those long years like a sinner’s millstone. While this is, in what I hope would be anyone’s opinion and not just my own, a spectacularly awful picture of me, it’s constantly displayed on my chest in miniature contrast to my real face just a foot above it.

I like to think I see something better than that in the mirror each morning, and usually I do (changing that pitiful post-college hairstyle really opened up new avenues for me, how on earth did I ever pull tail with that gel-back?). In actuality it’s likely not that far off the mark. They got the underlying concept right.

I hate that picture. Hate.

So imagine my apoplectic joy when, this morning, smiling back at me in that reflective glass, I saw instead an Adonis of an alpha-male, chiseled face sculpted from shining polished gold. I took avenue-wide strides all the way to work, stepping from cloud to cloud and smiling down on creation from my appointed place in the Heavens. I called lightnings with my fingers, distilled the entirety of human consciousness into my hands and cast it to the wind as worthless. I was amazing.

When I got home at 6pm, the chump from the badge was back, only he was eight years older and balder. I berated him, tore him down layer by putrid layer and tried to rebuild him again in all the gilt perfection of twelve hours prior. Resisting my efforts, he slithered back into decline, rusting in real-time, biodegrading on a hook in the backyard.

It’s not over.

♫ Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes… ♫
♫ Pretty soon you’re gonna get a little older… ♫

To those of you who were lucky today and didn’t even know it - Goodnight and sweet dreams.

As Christmas vacation begins to draw to a close, the tightening noose of coming work is beginning to chafe against my neck.

The e-mails are still trickling into the BlackBerry, each little “tinkle” sound reminding me that I can never really get that far physically removed from a job that happens primarily in cyberspace. Unseen responsibility surrounds me, floating around invisible right in front of me, waves and signals buzzing silently around my head, needing only to be read and decoded to transform them into questions I need to answer and things I need to do. It’s sad, in a way, that the very air I breathe is saturated with invisible bits and bytes that represent the work I have to do. Let’s not think about it, OK?

We had a brief scare yesterday, ending up in the emergency room with Keaton. As I mentioned in my last blog, she’s been running a fever now for a couple days, and it’s been sitting around 101° for most of the time. After Sharaun put her down for her nap yesterday, she went out shopping. And, since Keaton wasn’t feeling well and likely needed sleep, I was happy that she chose to take a longer-than-usual nap, not to mention it gave me a little time to rest-off the pukes-’n'-poops I’d been dealing with myself. When she finally did wake up, I got her some Tylenol-doped juice and sat down with her while she drank it. As she was finishing up her sippy, Sharaun got home and joined us on the couch.

Just then, she began to shiver, which I took to mean she was breaking her fever. As Sharaun took her from me, however, she began to shiver more, and we noticed her lips looked a little blueish. Freaking out a bit, Sharaun took her out to ask her mom if she could see the blue as well, and I jumped online to search for “baby blue lips fever” on Google. The modern sage that is Google said that if, during a fever, a baby’s lips and/or fingernail beds turn blue, you should seek emergency care immediately. Meanwhile, Sharaun and her mom had reached the same conclusion, as Keaton was still shaking, not speaking at all, and her lips (and finger/toenails) were now an even scarier shade of blue-purple. They were already strapping her into her carseat as I rushed inside to grab my wallet, sling a very hastily put together diaper bag over my shoulder, and slip on some flip-flops.

With the hospital literally just up the road, we were there in under a minute. But even by then, she had regained nearly all her color and was starting to talk normally. We sat in the emergency room for about twenty minutes, every passing minute of which I became more convinced that she was now fine, and then were ushered in to see the triage nurse. After taking her vitals, she pronounced Keaton A-OK, and asked if we’d still like to be seen. Faced with the prospect of spending four hours in the hospital, or going home and keeping an eye on her ourselves, we chose the latter and packed back into the car. And, although she continued to run a fever the rest of the day, we had no more blue-lipped scares, and she already seems much more “herself” today.

Frightening, and odd, but I guess ultimately nothing.

Well then, until later, take care peoples.

Hey there post-Christmas America. Your trees down yet? Ya bust out the ladder and take the lights off the house already? Still scraping the last of the leftovers from the corners of you casserole dishes? Either way, I hope you had a good holiday. Down here in sunny Florida, we sure did. Oh, and this year Santa came with some extra special gifts…

Christmas came with an extra bonus this year: a vicious stomach bug that had me alternately sitting on or kneeling before the john all day yesterday. It was ugly, and tiring, and I didn’t answer the phone or do anything much aside from trying to sleep through the twisty flip-flopping of my beleaguered bowels. I woke up this morning feeling much better, but still with a rumbly middle… which I attribute more now to not eating anything yesterday than the bug. So, I decided to jump right back into things and am currently pre-heating the oven for a Totino’s pizza. For some reason, my stomach was craving it. I figure, if I can keep that down, I’m healed.

It’s a gorgeous day here, the sun is out and shining, and it’s not too warm to go outside and enjoy it. The original plan was to go visit my Uncle Tom, but we decided to give that another day so I wouldn’t pass along this lovely stomach-thing. Since I am feeling better, we decided we’d take Keaton down to the park close by, but now she’s acting all funny and is running a fever herself… so it seems like we’ll be housebound instead. That’s OK, I suppose I do enough complaining about our Florida trips being nothing but run-here-run-there that I should be thankful for some downtime on the homefront. I know it’s selfish to enjoy how cuddly Keaton gets when she’s not feeling well, but I just can’t help but love her crawling up into my lap and snuggling for an hour. Bad dad.

Well, I’m off. So far, the pizza is staying put… and that’s a good sign.

Merry merry Christmas y’all!

It’s Christmas Eve in Florida as I write, and the weather is wonderfully warm and just humid enough to make you skin feel tacky and soft. I love it. Today, Sharaun went Christmas Eve shopping, doing her part to clogging the retail arteries along with the throng of other last-minute folks. She enjoys the “rush,” she says. And, since I’d always rather sit at home and enjoy some vacation, that’s just what I did.

Sharaun’s folks got Keaton a little tricycle that has an extension-boom thing on the back you can push her with. She feels like she’s riding the bike while you push from behind, and she loves it. We took a “ride” down to the river and back, and then re-did the route on-foot since she wanted to stay outside. After that she sat with dad out on the back porch (what you Yankees call a “Florida room,” a semi-weather-proofed screened-in room) and colored in her Sesame Street coloring book while I surfed the internet. It was a good Christmas Eve.

And now, Keaton’s curled up in her Pack-’n'-Play, waiting to hear reindeer on the roof, and we’re all sitting around watching TV like a good American family. I anticipate a fairly lowkey Christmas this year, Sharaun and I have already each exchanged our gifts-majeure, and what will be under the tree tomorrow morning (today, as you read this) is mostly smaller afterthoughts. As such, I plan to enjoy watching others open their gifts more than looking forward to more loot of my own.

I’m actually looking forward to a nice day with Sharaun’s family, and am in no hurry to get back to California.

Well now, having said nothing yet, I better go. See, as is with most Christmases lately, the (totally legal) music sites I frequent are doing their holiday season “free download” blitzes - so I’m wracking my brain to decide what I need that I don’t have, and am keeping the internet connection saturated. So, I’m off get that new Grateful Dead show.

Goodnight people, and I hope Santa brings you everything you were after. Merry Christmas.