Down Time

Pick your excuse until mid-Oct:

1. I am currently out at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. Be prepared for my mood.
2. You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn't have received anything at all.
3. Sorry to have missed you, but I am at the doctor's having my brain and heart removed so I can be promoted to our management team.
4. I will be unable to delete all the unread, worthless emails you send me until I return from vacation. Please be patient and your mail will be deleted in the order it was received.
5. Thank you for your email. Your credit card has been charged $5.99 for the first 10 words and $1.99 for each additional word in your message.
6. The e-mail server is unable to verify your server connection and is unable to deliver this message. Please restart your computer and try sending again.
7. Thank you for your message, which has been added to a queuing system. You are currently in 352nd place, and can expect to receive a reply in approximately 19 weeks.
8. Hi, I'm thinking about what you've just sent me. Please wait by your PC for my response.
9. I've run away to join a different circus.
10. I will be out of the office for the next 2 weeks for medical reasons. When I return, please refer to me as 'Loretta' instead of 'Larry'

See Me Blog

Let's just test this new feature out.

No diggity

Started to empty the hot tub for the first time, so that was a fun evening in 98-degree heat index. Plus I didn't know that after the electrical was all set up, the "access panel" to get to the drain is as accessible as a submarine hatch is to a dolphin with an electric screwdriver. Though I thought my CSprings one had a sliding door, I'm now remembering it, too, was screwed shut, so there you go. Don't want dolphins coming by and siphoning my 104-degree water, I suppose.
I pulled the hose all the way down to the bottom of my yard, past the shed, to let it drain down the hill, only Ryan decided to play with it for twenty minutes. He was soaked by the end of it, but I still had a patio to clean from the recent mudslides that appeared due to heavy rains and poor craftsmanship, a deck to clean and organize now that we don't have a plastic playset taking up its entirety, a lawn to mow, and a kid to feed, bathe, and bed. Plus, he had a sandox he needed to go eat and show the neighbor his dirt goatee. Pressed for time and grubby my Dan self, Ryan and I went to McDonald's together for the first time. And I brought hamburgers home for the dogs, since they've had a rough time lately, what with the in-laws being out of town and not bringing them bones for three whole weeks.

Amazingly, though Ryan has figured out that the springs of his crib give him a pretty good bounce, I was able to settle him down and get him to sleep before quarter to nine, the third or fourth time this week he's fallen asleep in the latter half of the 8 o'clock hour. So it's good to get him in a pattern. Like when I come home from work, he almost always comes out to greet me, a big smile on his face...because he gets to grab my dirty tea travel mug and give it to mommy. Oh and yes hi daddy when prompted.

It was pointed out that I am a few levels up on the goofy scale from most people.
Most people don't encourage their spouses to sway from side to side in the car to the beat of the disco-metal track playing on the Dream Theater CD.
And it's reported that no one actually goes "diggidiggidiggidiggi" along with the sixteenth-note guitar line while scraping an imaginary pick back and forth across the steering wheel.
It's nice to be a eunuch.
Unique! Sorry!

Taps

The weather for Col Butler's Arlington ceremony was appropriately gray and surprisingly cool for mid-summer. It reminded me of the weather at my wedding, another event people were glad it wasn't blazing hot.
I drove right onto the grounds of the cemetery, able to bypass tourist parking, and found the administration building where family and friends had gathered prior to the ceremony (one of at least a half dozen being held today); a television showed a live feed of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns. I recognized a few senior officers from my time in Turkey, but didn't think they'd remember me from six years ago, plus they were deep in their own conversations. There were several general officers, colonels, and chief master sergeants scattered around, as well as some young lieutenants -- perhaps friends of one of his sons, himself a new AF officer.
We were directed back upstairs to follow the hearse as we drove over close to the burial site, where a caisson awaited behind six white horses. Col Butler's family stood directly behind -- wife, two sons, grandson. The wife sobbed quietly, arm draped inside a two-star general's and extremely close friend of the family -- our wing commander in Turkey my first five or six months of my tour.
As a fourteen-piece brass band played a solemn hymn, a six-member honor guard team slowly lifted the flag-draped casket out of the hearse and onto the caisson, while we all stood with hands on hearts or etched in salutes. A huge honor guard contingent stood guard behind the band; maybe twenty or so riflemen. The lead cavalryman, in his sharpest looking Army blues, kept his horse steady, saluting all the while. The honor guard took its time, straightening, folding, tugging the flag like a well-made bed, white gloved-hands moving slowly, robotically, in unison. It was the most glorious and dignified thing I've ever seen.
A four-man color guard led the way to the burial tent, a lone drummer tapping a beat in the band that marched behind. The horses stepped off, and we followed last, as ladies dabbed at their faces with tissues, leaning on their husbands.
I was surprised at the number of cameramen covering the event, taking stills, recording video. A few tourists watched us walk by, hats in hand, curious but respectful. I also noticed a dozen or so people already stationed at the burial site, which seemed to be a stone's throw away from the Pentagon.
The casket was taken off the caisson as another hymn played, then we all followed it onto the hallowed grounds, walking among headstones from servicemen who had died in the past year (though most I glanced at were veterans of WWII and Korea and had lived long lives). The family was seated in green velvet-covered seats in front of the casket, as the rest of us gathered close to listen to the rather soft-spoken AF Major/Chaplain give her eulogy. I was expecting someone of higher rank and stature for the event, but she did her best. Unfortunately, the grandson started crying and could not be placated, and the mother just stayed there, shooshing and bouncing the lad (maybe 14 months old).
Seven guns shot three times, and a bugler played "Taps" crisp and clear from thirty yards away. Finally, during the folding of the flag, the family friend/general's wife came up and was able to take the baby away. The general was presented the flag, who then offered it to Col Butler's wife -- imagine presenting one of your best friend's casket flag to his wife on behalf of a grateful nation. A heartbreaking moment.
The ceremony was concluded and we were dismissed, but no one moved for a while. It didn't feel right to leave. An impromptu receiving line began as friends started to pay their condolences; I stepped to the side and just watched; women's faces red and swollen, hugs, tears, handshakes. I stared at the casket, strangely common without the flag adorning it, amazed there was a person I knew inside of it.
As the crowd thinned, I noticed that one of the group who had been stationed at the burial site as we approached was none other than the Air Force Chief of Staff. One wonders how many of these things he's been to.
I made my way to exit, taking one more glance back at the coffin, only then realizing a solitary member of the honor guard was standing watch at its foot. Yet another simple, small gesture that touched me. I didn't say a word to anyone, as I walked past more white headstones to my car, the new Air Force Memorial looming in the distance, stretching towards the sky.

Back to School, Part XIV

In March of 2000, I was in Squadron Officer School in Alabama. We had to write a paper from some list of prepared topics, and as a recent missileer, I figured the National Missile Defense subject was close enough to my career to add some credibility.
I remember quoting Lt Gen Ron Kadish, then the head of the Missile Defense Agency (though it was called the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization at the time).
Jump to 2001, getting assigned to the Space Warfare Center on Schriever AFB, working in the same building as the MDA, with Lt Gen Kadish's picture in the lobby. Huh.

So today his wife proctored my Air War College exam up at Bolling AFB.

I saw a magazine cover on the wall with the general's picture on it, but then a personal frame with him in civvies, and then it clicked that the lady next door had said I had to go see Mrs. Kadish for my test...

...on which I needed to answer at least 18 questions correctly in order to pass.
I got 19 right.
Read about 3- or 400 pages in the last two weeks, mostly after 10pm, for 25 random questions spanning Air Power topics from Vietnam to Desert Storm to Allied Force to the Freedom brothers, Enduring and Iraqi. Went to bed at 1:25 this morning. Cat woke me up licking the back of my head at 5:43. Perhaps she sensed tasty information was oozing out and wanted to smoosh it back in my brain so I'd pass.
I'll thank her later.

Meanwhile, in a Freaky Friday shift of responsible parenting, I have taught Ryan the difference between right and left, while Ainsley has taught him the signs for "First Down" and "Time Out".
What makes me think that if I'm not paying attention at the hospital, she's going to name our daughter Darrell Green?

GOING (st)UP(id)?

You're standing at the elevator doors, in the basement.
Waiting patiently, since you've already seen that a handsome Lieutenant Colonel-select has pushed the 'up' button.
So you have a purpose.
A reason for being there.
You obviously have somewhere to go.
Think about it.
It should be second nature.
Plan it out like a grand drama ready to unfold in front of you.
This is your broadway moment.
The doors will open.
You will walk in...
And PRESS the button that corresponds to the place you want to go.
*ding*
Empty.
Air Force guy goes first (we do, after all, say "service before self").
Four floors are numbered, plus the basement.
Air Force guy pushes "4".
You certainly don't want to push the basement button. That would be silly.
1?
Well, that's just lazy.
Besides.
You want to go to "3".

SO WHY THE HELL DO YOU PUSH "2"?
You had SIXTY-EIGHT SECONDS to prepare for that moment.
Sure, NOW push 3.
"Whoopsie," your body language seems to say.
No, no.
Don't push the "2" again hoping it will go off. It's not an Easy Bake Oven Light.
It's an elevator.
In case you'd forgotten.
Push a floor.
Go to the floor.
Just as the doors are closing on your mistake, someone else half-jogs towards us.
You're by the buttons, genius. Know what those arrows pointing away from each other mean?
Air Force guy sticks his arm out and barricades the closure.
"Thank you, sorry," says the lady and the guy pulling a briefcase behind him on wheels.
She pushes "1."
Yes.
Perhaps the little briefcase contained lead bars. Too heavy to go up the one flight of stairs.
But thanks to you,
genius,
the elevator will now stop
at every
single
floor.

Floor number 2 was especially entertaining, for its lack of anything happening at all, save for letting some air in.

You didn't look at the Air Force guy.
Just humbly pressed the button with the arrows pointing towards each other.
Doomed to your mutual fate.
The Air Force guy, his panini getting cold,
gets the shaft.


This is akin to being the first one in line at a stoplight. You have one responsibility. Look at the light.
Almost as bad as waiting in a long fast food line and waiting until you're at the register to figure out what you're gong to order.
Almost.

Sorry. Cranky. Test to take tomorrow. Boy got up at 7 on Saturday, 6 on Sunday, and 5:30 today.
Roll on, high school years.

Pop, he caulk

Actually, he tapes and scrapes and sands and paints. I did the caulking. And painted low, while he painted high. 8 more hours today of prep and slappin' on the first coat on the window and door trim. Sure is great being able to hijack his weekend again. Should finish up tomorrow, and we can start moving furniture in and eat meals and let the cats sit on their new cat tree and gaze out at the frogs.
We rewarded Dad with a dip in the hot tub and then dinner out at Chili's, where Ryan ate corn on a stick, seven bites of a chicken sandwich, and some of my broccoli (my boy!).
On the way home, he practiced his new move, taught to him by his Mommy: chopping his hand out in front of him and saying, "First Down!"
Mommy's ready for some football.
She even watches pre-season.
Amazing. I don't even think half the coaches do.

Waste Department

To sum up: it took two hours to get to a cramped room with computer banks and safes, get a ten-minute briefing from a gum-chewing NRRC representative, and be told they have shirts on sale for $27.50.

Not impressed.

Even though "NRRC" sounds like something Curly would say three times to the other two Stooges, it actually stands for Nuclear Risk Reduction Center. Set up as a sort of computer-link version of the "Red Phone" between Moscow and DC, we deal with the NRRC (and the Russian equivalent) all the time for sending message traffic back and forth concerning inspections and other notifications. So they were nice enough to invite some of us down for a tour.

So now I can say I've been to the State Department. Even though I've walked past it a bunch of times, I'd forgotten where it is until we got out of the Metro Station right near where my brother lived during college.

One of our group, an Army Lieutenant Colonel, apparently misunderstood the meeting time at DTRA, so we left without him, carpooling to the Springfield Metro and taking the rail in. But he called and said he was on the next train, so we were forced to wait for him for twenty minutes at the visitor's entrance. We then walked down non-descript hallways (the building looks like it was built by communists, very square, very plain inside and out) to the NRRC. I don't know what I was expecting. Certainly not a "Wargames"-like ops center, but c'mon. Three middle-aged men and our gum-chewing, flaky hostess, who basically showed us 1995-era computers that are in use here and in the former Soviet republics, a sample message, and asked, almost apologetically, if there were any questions. Well, here's the NRRC, the briefing seemed to say. Yep. It's a room. A couple of people. A picture on the wall of Colin Powell singing Christmas Carols in 2002 in this very room. Also doughnuts. We weren't even offered a tour of the rest of the building, though they did take us down to the gift shop so we could buy state department aprons if we wanted.

My driver was staying behind to have lunch, so a navy enlisted guy and I asked to bum a ride from the late-arriving LTC once we got back to Springfield. Out to the parking garage, up to the fifth floor...and then discovered that you needed a special card to get out of the parking lot, so we had to walk back inside the station to buy one. Then back to the fifth floor...and he couldn't remember where he'd parked. He just kept pointing his key chain down random rows, pushing the remote unlock button until he saw the lights flash. Down to the fourth floor, nothing, oh, wait, I'm further down, up a level. *sigh*, said the Major and the Navy dude.

So that was five hours of my day I won't have back until I invent my time machine, but even then I seriously doubt I'd revisit this morning instead of doing something cool like telling Ulysses S. Grant about the F-117 or jumping to pre-World War I Vienna and kicking Hitler in the NRRCs.

Edited

Each week, our office exchanges a fax with the folks on site at the Votkinsk Portal Monitoring Facility; we send a letter that discusses upcoming rotations, anything going on at Ft Belvoir, local weather, and then a personal comment from the Branch Chief. The next day, Votkinsk responds with a report on operations tempo, Moscow travel updates, weather on site, and a note from the Site Commander. These letters have become less necessary with the advent of the internet on site, but it's still nice to get the latest.

For the three weeks prior to a rotation, the Rotation Manager is responsible for drafting the "Letter from Home." In the past, the branch chief liked "his" paragraph to be written already, with ideas ranging from office goings-on, good-natured digs at someone who'd messed up, D.C. sports, what have you. The current branch chief likes to write his own comments from scratch, however. Fine. Easier for us.
But the current branch chief went on leave this week, so the acting guy who'd be signing the letter said he "looked forward to my draft comments."
I discussed how quiet it was in the office, with half of the branch in Russia, a third on leave, three-eighths in training, and one-seventeenth on a random TDY. I mentioned how the Redskins had scored 14 points in the last 1:46 of regulation in their first pre-season game against the Tennessee Titan's fourth-string defense (which included people they just grabbed out of the stands), how the Orioles had taken two out of three from the New York Millionaires, and how the Nationals continue to defy all logic by occasionally winning. I also brought up David Beckham's first goal as a member of the L.A. Galaxy -- his wife celebrated by eating half of an M&M.
Finally, I remarked on the thirtieth anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, a bittersweet moment for members in our branch since, coincidentally, the King had died monitoring his own portal.

For whatever reason, that last comment didn't make it to the final draft.
Everyone's a critic.

Snippet

Here is the extent of Ryan's portrayal of the Alphabet Song:

"A B C...

Double-boo...

Whyyyyyy...

Now why A B C ... (repeat this last line)."

But when we finish it properly for him, he lets out an adorable, big-smiled, "...yaaaAAYY!"

Scene of a Massacre

Tendons shorn, blood flying, tears spewing, Ryan endured his latest haircut this evening (his fourth or fifth, I think), when Kim the Bumbling Haircare Professional decided to hack into the back of his neck with a machete, nearly severing....

Okay, it's a little two-inch scrape from the clippers.

But STILL! OooooOOo! <-- as in Yosemite Sam

How about you NOT use the sharpest tools around a fidgety boy, and if you do accidentally cut him, and he's crying his fool head off to the point where his whole face is getting red and splotchy, what say you wrap things up a bit sooner? We'll take care of getting his part just right. No need to keep wetting him down and combing, straightening, parting, maybe cut this one little flyaway piece...NO, WOMAN, LET ME HOLD MY SON.

So we're thinking his next haircut will be the day before Kindergarten.

Mushroom Shower Power

Found out today that I didn't get the exec job, but that instead I'm moving to a different branch to work for an Army Colonel doing policy strategies for regional security or something. Don't have a lot of details yet. At any rate, it gets me out of the long deployments prior to having to worry about the pink diapers (though it won't preclude me from travelling from time to time). First impression is that this won't be as significant a plus as being an exec would have been, military records-wise, and that may hurt me in the long run. And I still need to ask if I'm being transferred to fill a Lt Col's billet or as some random worker bee. Or how long the assignment is. As with anything, I'll make it my own, make it fun. And at least I know a couple other people in there, and the office is literally across the hall. (Though the Colonel's secretary is the lady who didn't show up to make punch yesterday, so...)
Plus, one guy in my office said as if to cheer me up, "They have a bunch of hot contractors."
I replied, "I have a hot wife; I'm good."

Can't believe I was so bored three months ago and now there aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done I need to. Taking Air War College by correspondence, and a test is due before I deploy. Just finished the retirement thing, have to give a presentation during tomorrow's recurring training since the guy it was assigned to said he didn't want to do it since he was leaving the AF next month, and I still have a rotation checklist and 8 other monitors to manage. Plus painting the sunroom and emptying the hot tub and trimming the dogs' nails and giving Ryan tips on how hold milk with two hands.

But since he and the hot wife had been cooped up all day, I suggested that we boys join Ainsley at the pool during her prenatal nautical buxom beauty bobbing session. So while she danced around on an inflatable noodle, Ryan and I hung out in the kiddie pool. He lost his balance once on the wide ramp heading in and bopped the back of his head, but he was okay the rest of the time, though he's damned if he's going to put his head under water. In time. So rather than swimming, he just sort of walked around (he wouldn't even let me cradle him and get him to pseudo-float on his back). Though he did get as far in as water up to his chin. We played with a Scooby-Doo ball and some rings from a basket on the side, then he pointed to another ball, saying "pink". Since it was good and deflated, I put it on my head. "Helmet?" Ryan asked.
Running out of things to do, I asked the lifeguard if the giant mushroom thing in the middle was working, so she got someone to turn it on, pouring water down in a six-foot perimeter from a height of about ten feet. We walked in an out of that thing for ten minutes, me holding him close as I walked. I tried to get him to walk through on his own, but he kept saying 'san-da', which I realized meant 'stand up, daddy, quit dicking around.'
Changing in the locker room afterward, a West African gentleman was next to us, and Ryan kept saying, "Uncle! Uncle!"
I had to tell him that just because his uncle is bald, not all bald men were his uncle.

Party Planner

Today was the retirement ceremony for my boss's's boss, the culmination of eight or nine weeks of planning for a one-hour event marking the end of a man's twenty-eight years of service. The only hitch was that the lady who promised she'd make the punch didn't bother to show up for work today, so that was something else I got to do.
I actually ended up missing most of the ceremony; as soon as it began, I started setting up for the reception in the adjoining rotunda -- making said punch, cutting not said but still there cake, moving food from the hospitality room down the hall, and setting up the blown-up picture the Colonel's secretary had taken of him asleep at his desk. I almost missed being officially and publicly thanked during his remarks, but was able to quickly scoot back in to the auditorium and ensure my cohorts got their equally due credit with heartfelt points, what-ups, and props.
I was exhausted at the end, having been on my feet the better part of four hours in shoes my feet weren't used to, but I was glad to give the man a proper, if simple, send-off.
With cake frosting that turned everyone's teeth dark blue.
Oopsie.

Peas and Quiet

I want to be a good parental role model in the following topics:

• Honesty
• Smoking
• Driving
• Sportsmanship
• Babes

I do not want to be the role model in the following topics:

• Peas

Realizing that I have a weight problem, I know that there are good foods for me (and growing tykes) and love that my wife makes things for me that will keep me healthy and alive well into my thirties.
But I just don't like peas.
I'll eat some.
I'll eat some of anything. It won't kill me.
But if I serve myself peas, it's a couple spoonfulls. Done. They're small, but robust in their green gooey goodness. They're like mini-muffins; a little goes a long way.
So I was surprised by the absolute pork-chop-sized mound of peas that lovingly and healthily appeared on my plate tonight.
There were three hundred ninety-two peas. I counted.
"It's not even a cup!" my wife offered. Lovingly.

Stanley Cup, sure.

Sanford & Wife

A cloud of doom lingers over the horizon, uncharacteristically metaphorically meteorologically speaking, to the east.
If I knew any Russian swear words, I'd use 'em.
Tis the job, to be sure, but rather than leaving a separation-hardened wife and a non-walking booger-centric blob of an offspring, I now leave a uteral-occupied wife and a walking, daddy-centric little man who can almost have a conversation, if you speak his language.
I will miss the little tyke, and the good money is on the fact that he will miss me, too, and won't understand where Daddy is and make Mommy's life more of a little blazing bundle of hell than he already does from time to time.
But yesterday, on a beautiful August Saturday, we spent an hour outside alternately throwing a basketball, volleyball, tennis ball, and frisbee into his new plastic basketball hoop that Ainsley found at the end of someone's driveway last week (we're hoping they were actually intending to throw it away, but have washed all the old fingerprints off just in case), and chasing each other around the front yard and rassling in the grass.
I just stared at his red, beaming, sweaty face and thought, 'these are the times I'll miss."

He watched the first half of his first Muppet movie this evening, appropriately called "The Muppet Movie". Even Ainsley hadn't seen it, having grown up in a palace overseas where instead of watching movies she and her sister played polo and attended tea parties with emperors and shooed giraffes off her property with long, diamond-encrusted fly swatters.
I'm sorry, I'm being mean. But she was making fun of me for knowing the words to "Rainbow Connection".
The Muppets were a big deal in our household. I remember living in Germany and Dad came home from a TDY to the states telling me and my brother about a new puppet show that had just come out over there, and in a few months it aired on the one Armed Forces Network channel on our TV and it was about the best thing since sliced schnitzel.
It's really quite a clever film for adults, too, now that I watch it. Though the slow-motion rolling-in-the-fields sex-fest between Kermit and Piggy was a little off-putting. "This is rated 'G'?!"

Goldenroo

My chronological #1 dog turned 10 homo sapien years old on the 10th. My wife had to remind me as we were going to bed. I felt terrible. Didn't even get her a special hat to wear.
She wasn't even supposed to live to be 8, according to the dimbulb Minotian veterinarian who diagnosed her heart murmur.
There's a silly word, murmur.
Kind of like dik-dik.
What else?
yo-yo?
B.B.
can-can.
fiddle faddle.
froufrou.
poopoo.
Walla Walla.
anyhoo.

SOMEONE explain to me why my son can take a nap and sleep through a thunderstorm belching thunder right outside his bedroom window, but put him down, dead asleep from rocking him, at night, e can hear the molecules from your finger brushing up against the molecules of the doorknob?

My Dad and I spent another weekend day slapping paint against the walls in the sunroom. A bit easier today, not having to strain to reach the roof, though getting the parts above the baseboards was a little hard on the knees. At least it was twenty degrees cooler than earlier in the week, with a nice breeze coming through the windows. And we enjoyed a lovely lunch out on Ryan's tree house. Caulk and window trim next weekend and we might be somewhere approaching done with this project.

Ryan had root beer last week. Doesn't seem any worse for wear.

The last two nights I've dreamed about having back surgery (and feeling it) with Tom Bosley (Mr. Cunningham) as lead doctor and watching World War III from space.
So g'night.

Illutilizable

Yesterday someone asked Ryan what his name was, so he told them.

He also climbed onto his eight-inch-high powder room sink footstool all by himself.


I am officially unnecessary.

Shake Your Groove Thing, Hold the Herb

Ainsley had to help out a friend today, so Ryan played at his neighbor's house all afternoon, that is, right through his nap. After running around the house like a truck on fire for a bit, he started to crash hard sitting on my lap at the computer, so I took him upstairs to splash some water on his privates.
Since it was bath night anyway.
That woke him up long enough to stay awake through dinner, but after small protests and a few minutes stroking my face (he's recently discovered my five o'clock shadow), he was out like a light in the off position by 7:05. Last time he went to bed this early (when I went to West Point), he woke up again from 10 to past midnight. We'll see how he does. It was just so weird to walk around the house, getting chores done, instead of sticking around in his room all night.
Conversely, he woke up a little early this morning, about quarter to seven. (I was sleeping in due to a mid-morning medical appt.) So he was on the couch eating a banana by the time I came down in uniform, but I was still whispering to Ainsley in the kitchen. Habit.

My son wanted a peach this afternoon. Sitting in a bowl on the kitchen island, a yellow/orange fuzzy ball of citrusness was calling to him.
Unfortunately, if I've ever had a peach in my life, it was a) sometime in the 1970s and b) in a can with Del Monte on the side. Neither round nor furry. With Ainsley unavailable, I called my sister-in-law in Washington. As one does. That's what sisters-in-law are for. It's a federal statute.
"Hello?"
"Hi. How do you eat a peach?"
Apparently you wash the fuzz off, get some angry little gross red brain of a seed out of the middle, and cut it into slices and then bite-sized pieces (the gooey peach part, not the seed, which would require TNT).
An alternate method, someone cute told me later, is to just eat it straight, like an apple. Though I have no digital photos of my son doing that, so it must not ever happen.
We tend to photograph everything.

Beans Don't Burn on the Grill

In an attempt to earn a paycheck with a position commensurate with my pending rank, I have been interviewing to be our Directorate leader's executive officer. (The position is for a member of the Senior Executive Service, the civilian equivalent of a one-star general.)
Last week I met with both the outbound and inbound Director of Ops, an Army colonel and AF colonel-to-be, respectively, and then the Deputy Director, a civilian. This honed my ability to prepare just the right answers when I met the Director today:

"So. Why do you want to be the exec?"
"Well, it's a lot closer to the Men's Room."

Weakened Weekend

Spent three hours yesterday and nine hours today emptying, sanding, chipping, sweeping, decaulking, degrouting, brushing, slicing, taping, recaulking, and at long last, painting the inside of the sunroom.
The first week of August.
During our biggest heat wave of the year.
Making me grumble at the cereal-box sized paint brush at the end of my arm, "sure would have been nice if this thing were done in April like they'd promised..."
A pair of kudo for my dad, toughing it out with me, precariously balanced on two ladders (one each, mind you), as we got through the hardest part today, the angled roof and skylights. The walls should be a relative breeze, with a cool front and partly cloudy skies for the window and door framing. Then we can tackle the landscaping. Oh. And the fireplace. And the gutters. And the shed.
Sure is nice not to be bored.

Ryan's teething again, this one coming way down from somewhere near his orbital bone, it seems. So he's been acting very 'two-ish'. We try to keep him otherwise entertained, me teaching him the difference between "high five" and "low five", and encouraging him to sing The Wiggles' "Hot Potato" while alternating his fists. It comes out a blurred "hopitayhopitaya..." without any semblance of a tune, but it's the cutest damn thing in the world. Which is better than him slapping the dogs. Though it's hard to discipline the boy when I say forcefully, "HEY Now..." and he repeats "hey now!" and Ainsley cracks up.

A Tale of Two Kitties

Innocuous Incisor Inoculation

Tomas is our cat who wishes he were a sabre-toothed tiger, roaming the himalayas or wherever the hell, free to go as he pleases as long as he gets handed a Pounce treat every now and then. For months, we have put up with his near-constant meowing and paw-slapping at the front door, wanting out, out, out. Unfortunately, he's gotten into scraps with a few other neighborhood cats, so we stopped letting him explore. Plus, the crying and protesting didn't really bother me all that much, what with being 12 miles away at work.
A few weeks ago, fed up, we decided FINE GO AHEAD DAMMIT ATTACK THE UPS GUY and let him out the front door.
And he plopped himself on the porch, sunning himself for hours. La de dah.
He'd go out, munch on some grass, and then come back. Sometimes meowing to be let in to make sure he wasn't missing anything. And besides going after the black labrador across the street (who simply gave Tomas a puzzled look), Tomas had behaved himself.

Kiki lives next door. She's an outdoor/indoor cat. Dover loves to bark at her from the back yard when he sees her low-crawling through the grass. Sometimes comes over and says hi in our driveway. Lovely girl.

So Sunday Tomas decided to go over and say howdy. In a Franco-Prussian friendly kind of way.
Ainsley heard the high-pitched roar first, asked if Tomas was out, and before I could even say yes I was already running next door. I eventually found them under some deck furniture, just as our neighbor was coming out with a squirt bottle, which seemed rather silly since it had just started to thunderstorm. But I lifted up the lounge chair and found the two clamped together, ying and yang, claws and fangs. A still photo of it might have looked like a hug.
I reached down to separate them, which wasn't easy--they were superglued to each other. Kiki didn't like me touching her belly and seemingly ganging up on her, so she took a bite of my left index finger while I sustained scratches on my wrist and right hand from Tomas' rear paws.
"Grab the scruff of his neck!" Ainsley yells from below deck. Ah. Someone's done this before. While I'm the one always getting in the middle of animal fights and ending up the bleeding one.
Although Tomas joined me this time -- after we washed off my puncture wounds in the sink, Ainsley noticed the left side of my shirt was all bloody. She checked my belly to make sure it wasn't me, then I checked on Tomas in the garage, who was indeed sporting two fewer claws than he had left the house with that afternoon.
But I'm thinking no biggie. I washed out the bites, I've had tons of animal wounds, no worries. My finger felt fine; I played guitar that night for the Howsers' kids.

First Do No Harm

Monday I woke up and my finger was a little swollen in two spots. Oh well, that'll probably go away.
Later at work, the swelling got bigger and considerably pinker.
That probably won't go away.
So I went to the ER to have someone take a look at it. The someones there knew a lot more about cat bacteria than I thought they should, and started throwing words around like "admitting me overnight." What?! They said they were going to give me an IV of antibiotics and talk to an orthopedic surgeon on-call. So the nurse found a nice fat vein in my hand, wanting to put it there as opposed to a place I'd be moving around, in case they had to put more in that night (What?), but she missed and went right through the other side with the needle. She then got someone else to try, only she went ahead and put it in my left elbow pit. Took two vials of blood. Meanwhile, a doctor took a pin to my two bite wounds to get them to bleed a bit so he could collect a sample. That didn't tickle, but I figured we should know what we were dealing with.
The on-call guy said (through the ER doctor) that he wasn't a hand specialist so I needed to go up to Walter Reed.
"Right now?" It's 4:30pm. D.C. rush hour. "There's no one in this building qualified to look at my hand?" Words to the effect of better safe than sorry followed, and wanting to catch this infection sooner rather than later. *sigh*. I called the wife and drove the twenty miles in ninety minutes.
The Ft Belvoir doc had told me to report to the ER at Walter Reed and ask for Dr. Eckels, who was on-call. Asking for him by name would mean I wouldn't have to fill out more paperwork and get seen by a nurse there and repeat what had already been done. But the ER said I had to fill out paperwork. Policy. I told them I'd find Dr. Eckels myDANself and headed for the information desk, who sent me to Ward 71 on the 7th floor. Where there were a bunch of sick people and a locked office.
See, they had heard that I needed the on-call doctor and sent me to the "ONCOL"ogy department.
Har!
I told Ward 71 that I needed the Ortho on-call doctor, who they said was in Ward 5A.
Dr. Eckels had me get some x-rays to ensure no bones were fragmented, then took a look at my hand. The pinkness had already subsided from the IV antibiotics, but the finger was still pretty fat and tender. The Doc said he wanted to "open" up the wound and let it breathe for a while, so he stuck a needle behind my big knuckle four times, inserting Novocaine and making my hand flare out like Michael Jackson's face in the first part of the Thriller video.
"I'm not going to lie to you, this is still going to be a little uncomfortable."
Ainsley, you should probably stop reading at this point.

He took a scalpel and cut open the puncture on the back of the finger, not bad, a little pinch. He then took tweezers and dug in the incision, trying to get the gook out, then tried to pack some little thin strips of gauze into the opening to keep it open and let the bacteria ooze away. He was right. It didn't feel great.
He then did the wound on the inside of my finger. Only the numbing agent hadn't really found its way down there. So when he cut

I'll pause here to point out that I took creative writing courses in college, so
try and follow my analogy here

it felt just like someone taking a sharp knife and slicing into your finger.

Worse was the digging. I tensed every muscle, lifted off my seat, squirming every body part except my hand, and gasped an expletive through my teeth directed at cats in general. The point of no return, the doc kept going, packing, poking, prodding (he was nice enough to move from the metal tweezers to some cotton swabs, but still). It was like a scene from M*A*S*H on a micro scale, watching a little itty bitty surgery with little itty bitty gauze pads getting quickly soaked with blood. I don't think it was the image, as I've seen pretty gross things before, but rather the earlier waves of intense pain that suddenly caused me to start feeling faint, sweat pouring down my head. Like my sciatic pain pre-back surgery. I asked the doc to go ahead and let me lie down before I fell over. That did the trick.

He wrapped my entire hand in gauze and an ace bandage, telling me to have someone at Belvoir change the dressing and take a look at it, then to follow up at Walter Reed later in the week. The dressings became smaller as the days progressed, and by Thursday morning, the Doc said I was fine to just leave band-aids on them. So I'll get to take those accordion lessons eventually after all. Thinking back, the treatment hurt more than the injury, but still -- when you go to Walter Reed and see dudes with half their legs blown off, I just can't see myself complaining.

The Sound of One Hand Washing

Ryan was already asleep by the time I got home from the second hospital Monday night, so he didn't see my hand until Tuesday after work. He frowned and pointed, and I said, "Owie." So he said "Ow-whee?" any time he saw my hand again, making it difficult to get through dinner, even with me trying to hide it behind the squeeze butter bottle. He also saw fit to stick a rigatoni noodle on his own finger and go "owie!" so perhaps there was some sympathy there.
Typing wasn't bad, though showering was just silly with a newspaper bag rubber-banded around my arm. Plus it felt weird to not have my wedding ring on for two days. And it sure was hard to uphold public bathroom etiquette when I could only stick one hand under the faucet and snap around some soap.
And you can imagine that my coworkers had no reason at all to make fun of me all week.
I also saw my old boss from Colorado Springs in the cafeteria. He asked me what happened. "Terrorists, sir. They broke into the house and.."
"Dan."
"Cats, sir. Breaking up a fight."
"....didn't your dog bite you breaking up a fight?"
"Good talking to you, sir."

The Good Son

I'm not sure why I was expecting anything different, but I continue to be surprised at how easy it has become to dress my son. Don't remember if I had a bad babysitting experience, or just have so much trouble dressing myself, but I have an unconscious sensation that it would always be a struggle (my issues with his winter clothes snaps and buttons notwithstanding). You stick his head in the hole of a shirt, say "arm number one" and put his wrist in the slot and schwoomp up it goes. Stand him up and he's already leaning with his hands on my shoulders, lifting a leg to put on his shorts. I sure as heck didn't teach him that. Perhaps someone else cute has been working with him.

He's still slapping at the dogs, which is troublesome. We're having to get him to say "I'm sorry" way too often, and before I believe he even understands the concept. As long as he gets it (and the no-hitting rule altogether) before his sister comes around.
We're still working on names for her, with each of us having our favorites. Still in the very early stages, though. Some names are good on their own but not necessarily with any of our middle name choices. And as Ainsley points out, there are many others she likes but "not with our last name."
You gotta dance with the one that brung you, I told her.

Or "da-da-da" with shoulder shimmies, as Ryan says that word.
Still amazed by Ryan parroting of everyday words and some phrases. And he is on the precipice of starting to sing on his own, beyond a random "la la la". His first song is going to be "Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes," I reckon. Unless someone cute has been working with him on that as well and has some country song planned. Wait: I think he already sings Happy Birthday. Hmm.

Still loves saying names and taking role to hear where everyone is. Last week: "Da-da?" "He's at work. "Na-na?" "She's in Oklahoma." "pam-paw..." "He's in the front seat." "Mimaa?" "You know where she is, where is she?" "Leigha!" "Right, she's with Aunt Leigha." Though he doesn't always get it right. He pointed at a picture in our house yesterday, and I said, "That's Katie."
So he meowed.
"No, no...'Katie.' Not 'Kitty.'"
And the night we picked Mimaa up from the airport, we stopped at Moe's for dinner, then chatted in the car on the way back. He pointed at his diaper bag.
"Cra-coa?"
"No, you can't have a cracker, we just ate. You had a quesadilla."
"Leigha?"

West North

Due to scheduling issues, the Father's Day trip to the U.S. Military academy, just northwest of New York City, was delayed until late last week. The 300-mile journey went fairly smoothly, considering that I couldn't listen to the type of music I usually listened to on long road trips. We arrived around 2pm, and went straight to the West Point museum, behind the visitor's center, since I knew it closed at 4:15. Very interesting displays, artwork, and stories about the founding of the academy in 1802, under President Jefferson's watch (even George Washington couldn't convince a wary Congress that a standing army wasn't a bad idea). Another floor showcased the history of the Army, and the basement held tons of armaments, big and small (got to see a bunch of weapons I fire playing "Call of Duty"!)
Other tidbits we learned: little realized today, but fifty percent of the first graduating class was Jewish.

The other guy wasn't.

But the classes got bigger (the father of Lew Armistead, who died for the Confederate cause during Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, was among the first graduates), and then anyone who was anyone during the Mexican War had been a West Pointer. Robert E. Lee was the commandant in the 1850s. Edgar Allen Poe was a cadet who got his best ideas working nights at the Post cemetery. The attendees have etched a permanent place in history: Patton, Westmoreland, Custer, U.S. Grant, Eisenhower, and however you spell Schwarzkopf.

We then took our bags into the Five Star Inn next door, only to be told that our room wasn't in that building (like I'd been told), that the Officer's Club was closed for the summer (even though it didn't say so on the website), and "Five Star" was more a cute military reference as opposed to any official grade by an accredited resource. I've stayed in nicer places in Turkey, with the "Continental Breakfast" consisting of individually wrapped muffins and bagels like you'd find at a 7-11. Shithole.

Still, we'd heard that the West Point Club's pub was open, so we changed into nice clothes in case they had a dress code, finding a small, dank, wood-paneled room with chairs seemingly still scattered from the previous month's graduation party, chips on the floor, noodles on the chair, and the one other customer there dressed in beat-up jean shorts and a t-shirt. But we weren't too dismayed, still in awe of the beautiful on-campus scenery and view of (and across) the Hudson. We had no idea the academy was built into and up the side of successive hills -- you think of a wide-open campus; flat, for tanks and marching and going 'hut'. But it was just idyllic. The father-in-law wants me to get a job "teaching aerospace" there. Tempting.

The next morning, after a 7 am phone call from some lady at DTRA who got my out-of-office reply and still determined that asking me about tablecloths for the 13 Aug ceremony constituted "an emergency", we had a great breakfast across the street from the Visitor's Center, then took a two-hour guided bus-n-foot tour through the Academy. Again, most everything was shut down for the summer, so The Long Gray Line was just a Big Green Square being mowed (though we did see some New Cadets going through training).
Seeing all we thought we could, we decided to head home around 1:30, thinking we'd get in before Ryan went down. Unfortunately, what took us under 6 hours to get there, going home took closer to 8 hrs -- over 45 minutes just to cross the Delaware River. I felt bad for my passengers (especially when we got less than a mile from my Dad's house and got stuck behind an accident clean-up for 20 min), but we relished the experience and will remember West Point, as opposed to North-South I-95, when we think back.
I'll also remember the trip back as the time I realized "The Bear Went Over The Mountain" has the same tune as "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow."
I really should have had more music.

"NoodleChair" would be a good name for a punk band.