Frenzied Daddy

I took the girls to the zoolights tonight; It was Miss B’s second or so time, and Toddler K’s first time. K thought the whole experience was amazing; she loved seeing the animals again, although as the night progressed from dusk to dark, there were less and less animals to be seen. She was totally floored by the train ride, however. Riding through the darkness, with flashing lights surprising her around every corner was a big treat.

Miss B was terrific. It’s a real treat taking her to the Zoo, because she loves it and the animals. And she’s been to the zoo about twice a year for regular visits and also for Zoo camps in the summer and winter. It’s practically a second home to her. I had to shush her from scolding the other kids who were howling at the grey wolves, though; she was worried that they were bugging the wolves. She introduced us to each new facet of our trip, identifying the animals and pointing them out. The train ride was the high point of her trip too; it was pretty neat.

As you can see, I’ve finally joined the Flickr movement. Only after they were purchased by Yahoo, though. I prefer flickr over fotolog mainly because of their API, which enables me to upload images to Flickr and have them magically appear over on here. There’s a WordPress plugin which does all the heavy lifting for me. As a matter of fact, if you’re interested in using WordPress but don’t want to bother with your own site and suchlike, you could sign up for WP.com, which is a shared installation of Wordpress designed for that specifically.

In the spirit of signing up for stuff, I also finally met Del.Icio.Us.; it’s a “social bookmarking” site. Mainly, you can store your bookmarks there and have them available at any computer you happen to come across. It’s “social” because you can see how many other people have bookmarked the same web pages as you.

Both Flickr and Delicious make extensive use of “tags,” which is the new hotness when it comes to categorizing things. And, of course, there’s a tag plugin for Wordpress. Tags are sort of free-form categories, to make connections between “things” easier to track.

Which makes me wonder if there’s a way to match the Flickr tags to the Delicious tags to the Wordpress tags. That would be flickin’ delicious.

He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good,
So be good for goodness’ sake

This isn’t a post about that pervert Santa, but rather about my kids. My elder kid to be specific. It’s sort of an apology to Santa Claus.

When I was a kid, I did some outrageous stuff, looking for attention. My most memorable, for me, was taking a pack of my dad’s cigarettes and setting them on fire in his ashtray. He came home, the house was filled with cigarette smoke, and he just blithely went about his evening rituals, eating dinner and watching M*A*S*H. For a long time I was convinced that he was senseless. As I got older, I decided that he probably noticed but didn’t know what to do with me, so just let it go.

Yes, I said it’d be about Miss B. Tonight, she threw a total fit about having the next door neighbor (Miss K) spend the night. On and On and On it went, at least an hour of whining yelling, stomping and carrying on. I was adamant though, because, well, I’m just not ready for her to spend a weeknight over here. Finally, as she is winding down, she asks if she can go next door to Miss K’s house because she’s, and I quote, “fed up with my attitude.” My jaw dropped. I can’t even imagine saying that to either of my parents, ever. Even now, as I’m called an “adult.” Sometimes she says or does something that’s so far beyond a line I thought I had to draw that I just have to marvel at her chudspah. I paused a moment, laughed at her, and rather than sending her to her room, I sigh rewarded her by saying “ok, ok. Go.” Because … I want her to be able to stand up for herself, and push her boundaries, but on the other hand … “fed up with my attitude?”

I’m rapidly losing respect for the Banking Industry. First US Bank earned my hatred, and now Chase Manhattan is striving to best them.

Ok; I admit that a big part of this was my fault. I thought my limit was about 5,000 higher than it apparently was. But I wrote a “courtesy check” on our account, paying for our new windows with a 5 percent loan through Chase. Unbenownst to me, this check sent us over our limit (but still under my imaginary limit) by a considerable amount. Chase happily paid the checks and then sent us our monthly bill.

Now, they expect us to pay them a $1950.00 monthly payment; our normal payment, plus the overage, plus an over-limit charge (woo, $35.00), and probably our rate will shoot up because we’re over our limit. I’ve called them twice to try to get them to extend us more credit (just enough so that we’re not over, I’m not going on a spree here, I just can’t see sending them a $2000 check on my montly budget). If they had bounced the check in the first place, well we do have other credit.

I hate banks.

We finally got our Christmas Tree up yesterday; six feet of sheer Noble Fir pleasure. Toddler K was truly offended that there was a tree in the house. Then, once it was in a stand, she defended the tree from all comers- Perrin was wagging his tail too close to the tree’s branches, and she valiantly hollered and screeched at him, batting his tail and threatening him with dire consequences. Or maybe inviting him to a Christmas dance. Who knows? And Miss B was extraordinary; sweet and helpful. And excited to see each and every single ornament that came out of the box. It was a gorgeous afternoon.

And then the snow begin to fly; little flakes floating in the blowing wind. It’s been pretty cold lately, chilly and a strong wind. But today it wasn’t as clear as it’s been, and actually we had some snow. Followed by more snow. Don’t laugh. It is too a lot of snow. We got almost an inch! Of course the city shuts down because these people don’t know what snow is, but it’s a real treat to see the one year old fascinated by the Christmas lights and then totally overwhelmed with the white change to the world. We took her outside where Miss B was already out throwing snowballs, and she liked it for a while, ten we left the yard and she wigged out.

At the moment, FCCO appears to have a good shot at one of the matching grants through the Willamette Week’s 2005 Give Guide. To win matching funds, we need everyone to give. Just $5 is all it takes.

If you haven’t donated yet, please consider doing so now. It only a couple minutes and yet can make a big impact on the Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon.

How do you donate? Go to the Willamette Week Website. Scroll down to Animal Welfare and click on Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon. At the bottom of their ad is a donation button. Click it and follow the directions from there.

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US Constitution, Article II, Section 1
Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Well … that was all well and good in 2004, but this year, he’s quoted as saying ( in reference to the thrice-be-damned Patriot act):

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

I don’t care if you’re a Republican, Evangelical Born-Again Christian, or even Pro-Bush at this point (What’s his approval rating at this point?)… this quote should send shivers of fear down your spine. I got this quote from Capitol Hill Blue, and he has three (non disclosed) sources. He also reminds that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”

Combining the Iraq war autrocities, the Patriot act, and all the nefarious schemes they’ve put forth, and these quotes, I think it’s clear what kind of people we have in the White House. And, frankly, I don’t want them in charge of my daughters’ country.

In the dark of the night, about four in the morning, a little hand shook me awake. “Dad, it smells like a fire.” My eyes shot open and my nostrils flared. But I didn’t hear the smoke alarm. I let the girl into our bed, she snuggled down, and I, err, wandered off to shake the morning dew off my water lily. And then I smelled it too- smelled like .. the electric heater in the bathroom had come on and was burning all the dust off of it. But, no, it wasn’t coming from there. So, I groggily wandered downstairs, where I could hear the furnace running. Well, I could hear the burners fired up, but there was no blowing. I rested my hand on the dusty / hairy exhaust pipe coming from the top of the furnace– it was seriously hot. Something was wrong; it wasn’t kicking over and pushing out the heat.

I did what any normal half awake geek would do, I took out a can of compressed air and blew the dust off the exhaust pipe and out of the furnace. Then I turned it on. . . nothing. So I turned it off again, and turned off the gas, thinking that I had somehow blown out the pilot light. We had a pilot light in Anchorage, and sometimes it went out, but I wasn’t awake enough to figure out where to stick the match. Besides, I thought we had an electric igniter. I went back to bed.

When the repairman showed up, he found that the igniter sensor thing had burned out. Yay, that’s the $120 part. Did I tell you that it was Saturday, and the repairman wanted an extra $20 for coming out? Yeah, well the other place wanted $300 for the call. I was ‘happy’ with the $94 guy. He got it going, fire shot up, the burners came on, and it sounded like we were ready for takeoff. Except the blower part, the fan, never came on. He reached behind and tried to turn it; it was frozen up, which probably lead to the igniter thing being burnt out. When he took out the blower motor, I could see a place to stick a furnace filter. We had never used one, and the furnace was only about five or six years old.

When he pulled apart the blower, he laughed. In twenty years, this was the hairiest motor he’d ever seen. He pulled off two felted rings of dog and cat hair, and the dirt they collected. Seriously, they were an inch thick (about a half inch, if I squeezed it) … of pet hair. Did I tell you that the most expensive part of the furnace is probably the blower motor?

Lesson; use a filter. They’re less than ten bucks a month, you’ll breathe easier, and they’ll save you an expensive trip from the furnace guy.

You think they’re so clean, always licking themselves. You think they’re quiet and smart, and … clean.

Let me tell ya, quiet? Sure. Smart? Sure. Clean? Not so much. Last Saturday, we brought home a new kitty toy, and Toddler K decided to … express her expansive love for the kitties. She hugged the coal black Alice and he turned on her; scratched and bit her hand. We cleaned her up, comforted her, and put her to bed a little later. When she woke in the morning, her hand had swollen up to twice the size and it was red and angry looking. Not so great.

We took her to the mall, because it’s that time of the year, where we go to the mall, and chatted with our friends E & A (congrats on the house!) and worried about Toddler K. About noon we decided to call a doctor. They recommended the Emergency Room. About three minutes later, we were at Emmanual Children’s Emergency, slightly out of breath.

Watching them stick an IV into my seventeen month old kid, my heart was in my throat. It’s a little tiny needle, a little tiny tube, and they draw blood by dripping it out of the tube. It turns out she had a fast-moving infection, they were concerned about her hand because it’s so small and cat scratches can be so deep. So we got to chat with a hand surgeon. And have X-rays to make sure there’s no tooth or claw bits left in the wounds. Guess who got to pin the kid to the xray film? And they decided to keep her overnight and give her intravenous antibiotics. In the morning, her hand was still swollen and red, but better. The day after (Tuesday) she was a lot better. Still kind of cranky, but not quite so … snake-bite looking.

They were pretty confident it was the bite, but the claw mark was a lot deeper, in our opinion. Either way, she got what she needed; a lot of attention, fluids and antibiotics.