My dilemma...

So I'm home alone with the kids, and M went to work at 11, so the kids were still in their pajamas. It's 3.30 and they're still in their pajamas. The wife's not home until after their bedtime. So, isn't it in everybody's best interest to just keep them in their pajamas all day? I mean, there is an energy crisis going on and we don't want to waste valuable resources right now. Am I right? If I'm wrong you may be a terrorist or oil company owner.

Dead Cat

No, cat's not dead.

Yet.

Lexi's going crazy jumping on the bed beside me. I told her not to get too crazy and jump on the cat. She said, "Yeah cause we don't want a dead cat".

Hmm, I'm getting an idea.

The cat was sick last week. It was strange, he all of a sudden started limping one night, and it seemed to be getting worse, so M took him to the vet. They charged us $350.00 to take x-rays and do blood work, only to tell us that he had a fever but nothing was physically wrong otherwise.

I'm glad M was the one with him, because I don't know that I would have paid that much. I mean, the cat only cost us about $30.00 initially, and there are a LOT of cats out there that don't have fevers and limps. Really though, couldn't the vet have maybe mentioned waiting a day to see what happened before jumping into all the lab work and x-rays?

This cat is getting more and more precious to me each and every day that we sink money into him. Pretty soon he's gonna poop gold for us I'm sure.

The worst part is that now I'm afraid to even touch him when he's scratching and clawing my hands at night, because I don't want to have to take him back for more x-rays.

Had brunch with Ed Begley Jr. yesterday...

Well, I had brunch near Ed Begley Jr. yesterday. Went to the Old Wives' Tales restaurant for brunch to meet up with some old acquaintances who were visiting from Seattle. While waiting for them, we were playing in a little playroom set aside for kids, and this older gentleman was playing with another little boy. I was thinking he had a familiar look to him, but I'm the type of person that would never recognize a celebrity if they were standing right next to me (which he was).

It wasn't until we were seated at the table with our friends, when one of them wrote 'Ed Begley' on a napkin and showed it to us. I thought he was just saying that the guy looked like E.B.

Nope, it was the real deal. He's looking a little older these days. Not surprising, of course. I guess he'll just always be John 'Stumpy' Pepys to me, the original drummer for Spinal Tap.

Probably forgot most of 'em...

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read
3) Underline the books you LOVE.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (not every single word, but close)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot (only read half, only bolded half)
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving (this is a must read book if you have never read it.)
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (who knows what it's actually about though)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

I'm not sure where the list comes from...I got it from my Wayne.

Sorry I didn't learn how to embed those previous videos. I'm now an old hand at it.

edit: Now I did.

Funny stuff

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

Ow!

Noah hurt his leg on the slide the other day. Foot got caught on the side of it and bent backwards a little, causing a slight hairline fracture on his tibia.

Did my usual daddy doctor routine. Poked here and there and surmised it's 'just bruised'. Of course the real doctor once again had a different opinion and put a cast on, 'just in case' my own opinion was wrong.

This is the temporary cast...today he got the real thing. In red...his choice. He's doing well though. All cash donations can be sent to me...I'll make sure he gets them. After the doctor takes his cut, of course.

Bacon Weave, part II

As you can see, it's prettier pre-cooking. One advantage to the bacon weave is that you can cook an entire package of bacon at one time. Normally you'd have to cook them in 2-3 shifts, depending on teh size of your frying pan.

If you look closely in teh first picture, you'll see there is a container of bacon salt near the bacon weave. The world came close to ending on the day the bacon salt was spread over the bacon weave. Luckily Jeff and Sarah were there to help us eat the whole thing.

After cooking, as in the second photo, you'll see that the bacon weave fell apart a bit. That's because of my first attempt at turning it over. Tried the dual-spatula method. Didn't work so well. Finally tried sliding it on a plate, putting another plate over that plate, then flipping the two plates over. The slide the bacon weave from te second plate back into the pan.

One Seater

Went to a restaurant called Wildwood on Saturday night. The Missus and me, her brother and his wife. It was good, little overpriced, but we were having a good time.

Near the end of our evening, I got up to use the restroom. As I entered the men's room, I looked around and realized it's just a single person restroom. Just the room, a toilet and a sink. As I was closing the door, a guy came in behind me, and must not have instantly realized it was only a single restroom. He looks around and says, "Oh, it's only a one seater eh?". "Yep", I replied, as he continued in and locked the door. "You can go first", he said to me.

Erm, what? Now, if you read the story about drinking from the stranger girl's beer can on the bike path in Seattle, you know odd things sometimes happen to me. And while I wasn't really perturbed by this guy's behavior, I just found it pretty odd to be certain. But he went to the sink and busied himself while I did my duty, then we switched and I washed my hands while he did his. I figured since he was such a friendly sort the least I could do was engage him in a little friendly banter.

"Good dinner tonight, sir?", I queried. "Oh yes, I never have a bad meal here", he replied. Wait, he's been here before, and he didn't know it's a one seater? "Same here, very good". By now he was done so I didn't need to keep up much more of this conversation. I walked to the door and opened it up to allow him to exit.

"Have a great evening", I said to him. "Thanks, same to you", he throws back at me.

So strange, my life.

Bacon Weave

Any questions?

A few things you might not know about me...

Got this from Wayne. I usually don't respond, which is embarrassing since there is usually one that says, "I think Mark will respond to this". It's not that I don't want to, I usually just forget about it. So if you thought I was going to respond to one of these and I never did, sorry to make you a liar.

This one is a bit different from others we’ve seen go around. Four things about me that you may or may not have known in no particular order.

Four jobs I have had in my life:

1. Dairy Queen
2. Dairy Queen (It went out of business after I worked there the first time. I re-applied under the new ownership) (It wasn't my fault)
3. Loaded trucks for RPS, a UPS clone. Only lasted one night.
4. Archaelogist (seriously)

Four movies I’ve watched more than once:

1. Bottlerocket
2. Spinal Tap
3. Shawshank Redemption
4. Aliens

Four places I have lived:

1. Aachen, Germany
2. Belmont, Mass
3. Seattle, WA
4. St. Louis, MO

Four T. V. Shows that I watch:

1. Battlestar Galactica
2. Hell's Kitchen
3. Judge Judy
4. Entourage

Four places I have been:

1. Las Vegas, NV
2. Vancouver, BC
3. New York City, NY
4. Tijuana, Mexico

People who e-mail me

1. Mom
2. Gary
3. Stephanie
4. Brett

Four of my favorite foods:

1. Fajitas
2. Beef Stroganoff
3. Chicken Parmesan
4. Hot Tamales (candy)

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Seattle
2. Cannon Beach
3. Camping
4. In a time machine

Four friends I think will respond:

1. Um...
2.
3.
4.

Things I am looking forward to this year:

1. Summer finally starting in Portland
2. Family trip to Michigan this summer
3. Hopefully going camping with my family this fall
4. New television (hopefully soon)

A few things you, as a casual human being, might not know about kittens

Got a cat two days ago. Here's what I learned that I wish I had known before.

Kittens are expensive. Oh we talked them down to half-price, since they had a crapload of cats in a big cage, but ended up spending 3 times the purchase amount on kitty litter and cat food.

Kittens have sharp teeth that will fall out in 6 months. Our kitty, Lou Dobbs, hasn't had them fall out yet, but I'm not looking forward to this nastiness.

Kittens have to get fixed, and that's even more expensive. Like 200 dollars expensive to snip the kitty. C'mon, even back alley dentistry doesn't cost 200 dollars. Unless you do the platinum upgrade, but that's another story entirely.

Kittens turn into cats, and cats can live 15 to 20 years. I seriously thought I was in this for maybe 3-5 years, not 15-20.

I feel like I'm deep in the poo poo now. At least the kids are happy.

Movie Madness

Gah, I hate it when I have a Netflix movie that's sat there, unwatched, for like 2 months. You finally psych yourself up to see it, you go to watch it, and it turns out to not be the movie you actually thought it was, but the movie before that one. Happened to me last week.

I wanted to see a movie called 30 days of night. Some vampire/horror flick. With the kids, we don't make much time for movie watching, which is why it's sat there for a few months now. I told everybody at work about it, and they all said I should watch it, great movie, you'll love it. So I got excited to see it. Waited another two weeks, finally went to grab it. It was Repo Man. That movie kinda sucks.

I'm not successful at movie watching. Almost an abject failure really.

Daddy...

"Daddy, did you call me a dickhead?"

"No hon, the lady in front of us is a dickhead"

"Oh, ok, Daddy"

Out of the mouths of 3 1/2 year old babes it shall be spoken. The wife then goes on to inform me that I need to filter my car language.

"But Sweetheart, dickhead is filtering!"

Post Office Blues

Went to the PO today for the second time in as many weeks. I'm not sure what it is about the post office, but here in my town apparently they have no rules as to when/how people work the counters there.

Last time I went on a Thursday morning and there must've been 10 people in line, with 2 people behind the counters. One guy was with a little old lady for about 5-10 minutes, while the other one was helping someone with a problem, so it took about 20 minutes to send my package. I only went in because the auto-package sending machine wasn't large enough for my box. Occasionally an employee would come out from the back, step up to a counter, and you'd think maybe they were about to open up, only to psych you out by turning around and walking back to the back.

Today I went a little later than last time...still a Thursday, but around 10.30ish am. I was the only person in line. There was one guy ahead of me, standing at an empty counter. I probably waited about 5 minutes wondering whether he had even been helped, or whether we were just wasting our time. Finally a guy came back and apparently couldn't find his package. Then another employee came out from the back, went up to a counter, fishing around in a drawer for something, then headed back again. She came back a minute later and finally opened up that counter.

Seriously, who the hell is running the post office? I don't know why they call it 'going postal', those bastards have it pretty good down at my local spot. I'm tempted to throw my lot in with them.

Funny things

So I just got a call from my sister in law, Sarah. I almost didn't answer, because the caller id said, "Hnatiuk Vasil", and that pretty much spells trouble right there. Hnatiuk is very much an Eskimo name in my book, and Vasil is short for Vagisil, so no thanks, I don't want what you're selling.

But sometimes I just have to see who it is, so I picked it up. Sarah was calling from New York. She lives in L.A. but is out on the east coast for some reason or another (maybe or maybe not traveling under the alias Hnatiuk Vasil.

Anyway, Sarahnatiuk Vasilcole was calling me to tell me she was on the subway platform in New York and she ran into my sister, who lives in New York. They have only met once I believe, a year and a half ago at my wedding.

Crazy.

You wanna hear another crazy story? Not sure what made me remember this, but as I was driving home from Target today I was thinking about a weird thing that happened to me several years ago. I was living in Seattle, and lived maybe 2 blocks from work. I was walking along a bike/jogger path heading home, on a nice and bright spring day. I was overtaking a young lady also walking down the path, and she started talking to me. You know, the usual, isn't it a lovely day sort of stuff. And she's carrying a can of beer, some tallboy of Pabst or something. And she's like, You want a drink of beer? And I'm like, Sure. So I drank from her can, there on the bike trail behind work at 3 pm in the afternoon.

I'll always cherish that memory.

Other updates:

Got a new roof put on. Looks good. We'll see what happens when it rains, but it was a relatively painless experience.

Noah's learning new words every day. Hot, bowl, ball (these may be the same word), Bob-bob for Spongebob

Lexi's learning grown-up phrases. Sample: I was absolutely right, I need my footy pajamas because it's too cold.

Or this one: We were driving yesterday and a lady in front of me was being a moron (going too slow, not signaling, the usual). I'm like, "Come on!"
Lexi: What's wrong Daddy?
Me: Nothing, she's just being dumb.
Lexi:Are you mad?
Me: No, not really, just a little bit, more irritated
Lexi: You must be just a little bit mad, you didn't say fuck.
Me: You're right, I'm not mad enough to say fuck.
Me: Don't say fuck.

And with that, my resolution to swear less is not going so well.

From the mouths of babes

M was in the kitchen last night making dinner when Lexi said, "Mommy's booty is fat".

I got blamed for it. M asked who taught her to say that and she pointed straight at me. Didn't even have to think about it. But I'm innocent.

I would've taught her to say humongous.

Broken Bones

Noah learned the hard way on Saturday that climbing out of your crib is only the half of it. What he failed to learn is what to do once he's on the outside. Much as the newly released prisoner's good intentions go out the window when faced with an unlimited opportunity for mischief, so did his first escape from behind bars end in failure.

I wasn't in the room, so I only heard the big 'thud', but I think he must have landed on his wrist somehow and hurt it in the process. It's not broken, and he's not in a cast, but he got a little splint to wear for the next 3 weeks just to make sure he doesn't re-injure it.

It's tough as a parent knowing when he needs to go to the doctor and when he does not. I tend to be overly cautious about going to the doctor when I'm ill. And by overly cautious I mean I don't go to the doctor. Of course, I don't want my kids to be denied medical care if they really need it, but who's to say when they need it.

First thing I noticed was him grabbing his hurt wrist with his good hand. This was an indication that he was hurt. I did not fail to notice this. If you're keeping score at home, that's one point for me.

Next, I ran a series of what you might term 'amateur' lab tests on the affected area. I bent each finger back, one at a time, and noticed he only cried when it was at an angle that would make me cry if a giant was twisting my fingers into some unnatural position. I also had him make a fist, which he didn't do, but that's because of the language barrier. While I waited for the translator to arrive, I asked him to hold his froggy blanket in his hand, and he was able to do this. Success! No doctor's visit needed. I'm applying to medical school next week.

Over the last couple days I'd say he's been normal for about 95% of the time. It was just now and again when he'd trip and fall, catching himself with his hands, then he'd grab his wrist again with the other hand. Apparently this happened this morning at daycare, and Paula decided he was bad enough to make a doctor's appointment. I think she was worried that she had overstepped her boundaries in making that decision, but I was grateful that she had, because she's with him all day long and can tell when things don't seem right. Plus it was so very slow at work today, I was happy to get out of there.

Anyway, the doctor said he looks fine, gave him the splint just to be on the safe side, and now he's back in the crib, sleeping like a baby. With pillows scattered all over at the base of his crib.

Next we need to work on getting him some scars.

I Am A Crappy Movie?

Just watched I Am Legend tonight.

Horrible. Awful.

I got excited last year when I first heard about it. I had never read the book, but the premise sounded cool, so I went out and got it. Great story...made me want to see the movie even more.

Then I saw the trailer. Will Smith hitting golf balls and driving through Manhattan. Started to worry about this.

Then I saw the movie, and now I'm incredulous at how bad it was. It starts with deer running through the streets of NYC, before a lion comes out of nowhere and kills the deer. I'm sorry, where the hell did lions come from in New York? The zoo? Last I heard, lions needed warm weather. Couldn't be here if Will Smith is wearing a leather jacket and pants.

The ending sucked the worst.

I give it 1 star out of 5. The star is because it has zombie dogs, and those are pretty rad.

One might think...

One might think that I often have periods of amnesia...where I forget that I have this blog to write on. One would be wrong. Blogging is like drinking...the times I most want to drink are when I'm somewhere I don't want to be. Usually this is work. And it's usually about 2 pm.

By the time I get home at night, and feed the kids, and bathe them, and put pajamas on and get them to bed, I've either a. forgotten about what I was so worked up about earlier that I just HAD to write about, or b. (sorry, I just forgot what b. was going to be).

Anyway, for those of you that still drop by occasionally to see if I've updated this...

Go away!

For those still left after that...

Have hope. One day I'll remember to write more. Probably at the same time that I start drinking at 2 in the afternoon.