July 2003 Archives

A great zot of lightning just nailed something across the street. I can't say what, since my back was turned, but the wall lit up, and in just the time it took me to tense up and flinch, the cannon shot of thunder shook the windows. I have an insatiable fascination with lightning. I'll drop just about anything I'm doing to watch it in all its flavors. From distant javelins stabbing the ground, to forkidy fingers scrambling across clouds overhead, to those frightening moments when it splits open the sky a few hundred feet away. When you see it strike that close, it's like peering inside the Vorlon's armor. It becomes a slippery, flowing, oily thing that scampers out of existence before you can grasp that it's there. I've strode through stands of ponderosas on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and looked up to see 4 foot long splinters of lumber scattered recklessly in the limbs overhead. I remember absorbing myself in imagining the frightful moment that created that dangling mobile of destruction.

I started taking pictures of lightning right after I got my first 35 mm camera when I was 14. There was a certain advantage to doing that in Phoenix, as you could watch the storms moving in from miles away, so you had a chance to get ready and set up a spot. In Flagstaff, the storms pop up so randomly and fluctuate in and out of activity so quickly, that it's hard to catch the show in the right time and place. I've gotten a few good pictures here, but I'm anxious to get out to the Grand Canyon and fish for some keepers one of these days. The vistas are so broad that it's hard not to frame a good shot when some good storms are brewing. The only problem is you don't have the nearby protection of your car when your hiking around the rim trails. The last time I was there during the monsoons was years ago, but I got some pictures I really liked--I also got the crap scared out of me. I'll scan them and put them up in the Fancies section as soon as I get a chance.

It's been raining most fiercely for the past couple hours. The storms started poofing up with the morning sun. I could just sit here all day by my window and watch the streaks of water boogey down the glass.

But, you know, stuff to do, places to go, people to flee from. As a rule of thumb, I never bring an umbrella to work with me. But my groaning stomach is goading me onward. Must. Seek. Food. Really, why should I mind the drenching? I live for tha rain.

Giselle came down with a heavy duty virus this past weekend. 2 point 5 days of barfing and 102 degree fever. I won't aggravate you with all the details you've already heard me go on and on about before--other than to offer you this one quote: "You were right Daddy, the chocolate pudding was still brown when I barfed it."

Just trying to help the kids think deductively, that's all.

She was feeling a wee bit better yesterday, and felt good enough to join in a pillow fight I was having with Harrison. Whipping those heavy couch pillows down the hallway at the kids is a joy that's hard to describe. Up to the point that I knocked a picture off the wall, and realized Amanda was fully within her rights for frowning at me the entire time :)

Alrighty, so one of the latest searches that somebody used to find my site was "milky way tatoo". And I was shaking my head about the crazy things people are searching for that make them link over here, and how they can't spell on top of it all. I mean 'tatoo'? Come on. Then it occurs to me, well duh, no wonder my weblog appears at the top of his search results: I spell as badly as he does. I've got people checking out my site all the time who were lame enough to spell archimedes the same way I did: 'archamedes' -- and I'm in the top ten of those search results. I finally went and fixed those posts, in a wimpy last-ditch effort to preserve a wee smidge of dignity. Too late, I know. I'm going to start typing these in a TextEdit so I can catch that garbage before I post it.

Might as well finish off with some of the more entertaining search referrals from the random visitors:
• ugly stick beaten
• 3rd degree burns in dogs
• getting into the pron industr (argh)
• hamster rectal prolapse picture (oh please no)

Well I guess that first one is the only guy who got what he came for.

I've been messing with Rich, our art director, a little bit lately. Walking in on him really fast and rapping out "Yo! Mah Wife! Wats thuh 411 on thuh 911?" and stuff like that. Today, while he and Jo were gabbing about some project, I burst in with my hands all moving like I was scratching records, "Yo yo yo! Look me up when yall finish up, yo righeeet!" and sidestepped back out of the room while they looked up at me like I was out of my mind, which I am. For am I not the anti-hip-hop, in every possible way?

Well I guess I finally got to him, because Jo comes running up about 15 minutes later laughing about how Rich thought I had come back to the door and he cut loose with a loud, drawn-out "YYYYYYOOOOOOO!!!!!..." before looking up to realize it was actually one of the bigwig product specialists sauntering in to check on a project. He's walking around all quiet and embarrassed now. I feel bad--yet I can't stop giggling.

So Steve, the leader for our group, walked in to our room this morning and started grousing with Rob about a notice they both got from the Flagstaff Fire Department. They both live in the same part of town, adjacent to the forest, and apparently the Fire Dept. is going to start checking the consumables around people's houses out there and advising them on any clearing they'll need to do. Sounds like a good idea to me. The more work firefighters have to put into preserving individual homes, the less resources they have to work on controlling the fire as a whole.

But then Steve brought up a good point, which had occurred to me when last year's Rodeo-Chediski fire tore through communities in Eastern Arizona. After the fire chewed those places up, there were still some homes that the firefighters or the whim of the fire were able to preserve. And so he said, "What's raking the pine needles around my house going to do when me and everyone else have pine trees all over our yards? I say let it burn! I don't want to be the one house standing in the middle of a black matchstick wasteland. Just burn the house to the ground. Start from scratch." (He's upset because he lost his wallet in his house and can't find it because they have too much stuff.) We imagined the evacuation notice going out and Steve hanging back long enough to ignite the foundation of his house with a drip torch. There's times I've wanted to do that to my back yard, that's for sure.

Alrighty, I've been compiling this for the past couple days, so bear with me again.

I can say with a certainty that I'm glad to be back in Flagstaff. I thought Oklahoma was hot? Hah. Phoenix was the broiler and I was the cheese crisp. Yikes.

Despite the heat, we really enjoyed the convention--at least the parts that didn't involve wrestling with the kids. One part of the program was an interview with a couple from Malawi who ministered to the congregations there. I don't recall their names, but the wife was wearing what I suppose is a more traditional African garb. And I was thinking, you know, if people in the Desert Southwest would adopt some form of African attire, dressing-up in the 118 degree heat might not be so miserable. Very cool, very loose. Anyway, as is usual when somebody from a non-English speaking country is visiting, they hold a short conversation in that country's native tongue. And whereas the Navajo language sounds a bit like an old Ford truck with a broken clutch trying to pop into second gear--which is cool in it's own way--the Chichewa language is fast, smooth as silk, and loaded with soft consonants, like ripples on a gurgling stream. It was beautiful.

Another part on the program revolved around the prophet Amos. You know, one of the books between Daniel and Matthew that you have to use tweezers to find. I really appreciate the situations that people like Amos found themselves in. He wasn't raised in the temple, or educated by prophets or scholars. He was 'a herdsman and a nipper of figs'. Which is how I feel sometimes when I'm sharing in the ministry. I'm a 'typer of keys and a clicker of mouse buttons'. What business do I have trying to share the good news with people? There are so many people more qualified to do this than me. But considering that even Christ's apostles were considered to be 'men unlettered and ordinary' helps me feel a bit less apprehensive. It's hard for me. You know, Mister Fluster. But I do count it a privilege, even with the usual smattering of angry folk, there's always the delight of finding people that are mild-tempered and a delight to talk to. I could learn a lot from their demeanor.

As any trip involving a hotel would dictate, the kids strongly requested a trip to the pool. The small pool. The small, cloudy pool. The small, cloudy, tepid pool. The small, cloudy, tepid pool chock full of splashing vacationers and clots of hair. When I reach down to pull out an undulating bird's-nest of hair to keep it from sticking to me, I know I'm ready to hop out, crying kids & all and splat splat splat back to the room. In fact, I think that was the very night that we had to do a major booger operation on Harrison.

Unlike Giselle, who is constantly digging the debris out of her nose, Harrison's nose gets bogged down with rubble if you don't keep an eye on it. And he gets really sensitive about any efforts to extract the calcified hangers-on. Well anyway, I heard all this screaming, and ran into the bathroom to see Amanda in the process of trying to start an extraction. So I jogged over and helped hold him still while analyzing the predicament. The clots were in there really good. A simple, downward nose-smooshing was not going to work. I tried loosening it with a tissue wound into a unicorn point, but it did nothing but tickle and irritate him more. So I asked Amanda for a bobby-pin, and she directed me to a hair clip with an appropriately shaped loop on one end.

Harrison's eyes goggled down at me like a horse rearing up from a rattlesnake, but I talked soothingly like a doctor doing a biopsy. "Now Harrison, we're going to see what we can find up there. Okay? Alright, I'm going to go verrry slowly. Now. See there. Okay I'm going to see what this thing is over here. Hmmm, it's holding on pretty tight. What do you think it is?" And with a steady reaming motion, I pulled out a magnificent, resinous marble that I displayed proudly before him. "Look! It's a refrigerator! Wow, a big one too!" He liked that. Mom used to play that game with me when I was a little kid. Now I see why. He let me go in for a second pass. I swirled about on the other side, and pulled out a smaller fossil. "Look! It's a kitty litter box!" And a teensy bit of wiping later, we were done. Well I guess I made more of an impression than I thought. Because now he's been calling his boogers "Kitties". Heheheh. He mentioned something about the kitties in his nose in front of our next door neighbor and got her cracking up.

While we were down there, we got to see Jennifer, Jessica, Atticus and Ophelia for a short while. Not enough to give them time for the kids to really get down to some serious playing. So we're going to cruise back down next weekend when we're not so rushed and worn out. I will be wearing my foil mumu and hat.

Oh gosh, and we finally got to see Dave (my cousin, in case you don't know) and Julie and their almost-two-year-old daughter Eva, who we haven't had a chance to see since she was born. They waited to start their family until their late thirties, and it's just incredible to see them with a little critter of their own.

And then there's Bill and Carol Free and John and Carol Wensel, who all look like they've gotten younger since the last time I saw them...which has been at least a couple years if not longer. I'm sure they were looking at me thinking my gosh, he looks more and more like a troll every time we see him. It's the haircut. I'm tellin ya.

This is a long one. Bear with me.

Or don't...

The journey to Oklahoma went really well. We travelled during the daylight hours, instead of overnight like last time. We hit some McDonalds playpens along the way, and the kids cooperated for the most part. As you move Eastward from Albuquerque, the sky gets progressively milkier. The sun's intensity drops, but the very air begins to radiate heat to more than make up for it.

There wasn't any real 'weather' to speak of. This trip consisted of day after day of 95 degrees and 60% humidity. Usually, our summer trips to OK are seasoned by at least one good storm that involves talk of trotting down to the cellar to wait it out--with me debating whether I'd rather sit out hurtling lumber and farm animals, or drag my sweating carcass into the basement for a half hour so the cobwebs, dust, mosquitos and fiddlebacks can cling to me like saran wrap. Which reminds me, right now, I've got a can of Dr. Pepper sitting before me, and the exterior is dry as a bone. That same can in Okieland would be gushing perspiration like the upper lips of fat kids in gym class.

But plants do thrive in that sort of aqueousness. The trees there have a very distinct profile. I'm not sure what kind they are, but they look as though they've been combed roughly and are reaching out frantically to grab hold of the sky.

What with getting a late start, and losing two hours along the way, we didn't get to Elk City until around 2:30 am. Which made our visits with everybody Friday a little bit hazy. One thing I do remember was a conversation about the names of their cats: Doofie, Ashtray, Motley and Stub. Then there was the calf that had to be put down due to some congenital problem--its name was Splook. I don't know whether they appreciated me laughing at each name they mentioned, but I couldn't help it. City geek.

The kids ran around outside for a while and chased the cows through the mud and stickers. After recognizing the futility of it all, Harrison threw it on me: "Dad! Catch the cows! The cows love you. They love you. Catch them..." Giselle airs out pretty good, but Harrison was a lump of sweat by the time they went inside.

Even though we don't celebrate The Fourth, we still like to watch the fireworks when we can. I had never seen what sort of show the Elk City folks put on, but I figured it couldn't be any limper than the Flagstaff show. Amanda's niece and their family said they had a spot saved for us with a really good view of the show, so we figured we'd go ahead and cruise over to check it out. Oh boy.

First of all you need to understand, I'm from Arizona, where fireworks are illegal. So when we drove up, I was expecting to see a few people lighting firecrackers, bottle rockets and sparklers. And by golly, they were lighting firecrackers--two foot wide piles of firecrackers on every open strip of available pavement. Roman candles were arcing round, whistling balls of flame over the passing cars while four-year-old kids lit rocket-shaped contraptions on the curbs. The sulfurous smoke drifted across the reddening sky in thickening clots.

After getting out of the car, the racket continued to get louder in every direction. Like being a smurf in the midst of a kettle of exploding popcorn. I think that all the various clusters of people were having a competition, since one group would unleash an incredible display, only to be outdone by another cluster in another beer-bathed alcove. Some of the starbursts these people lit off looked just about as good as the ones I've seen in the 'official' Flagstaff show. I was impressed. That is until some of them started launching horizontally. I mean, roman candles shooting across the field at head level was starting to get disturbing, but huge starburst fireworks? No. I was not comfortable with that at all. I don't know whether the drunken hordes were tripping over their launchers, or maybe they were intentionally aiming at opposing groups.

When they were exploding at head level of people across the park, I was thinking, oh boy, ain't that a shame. Maybe we should throw the kids in the car. Just then, one of those mortar rounds swished into a little kiddie chair behind us. I could feel the heat as it exploded in a ricocheting racket of green and red fireballs--two of which nicked Amanda's arm and turned Harrison from a mood of wonderment, to one of abject fear. Two teenage girls whose head the rocket barely missed, collapsed in a screaming heap. Amanda crouched down and asked if her hair was on fire.

This was not a fireworks show, it was the wartime sky over Baghdad, lowered to an altitude of 15 feet. The police weren't doing anything other than driving around with their windows rolled up. Then again, I doubt they could have stopped any of it unless they fired tear gas and rubber bullets and formed a riot line. The only way it could have descended further into mayhem is if they had flipped over a car and set it on fire.

Fortunately, the 'professional' show started before anyone broke out the napalm. It was spectacular, although Amanda and the kids watched the bulk of it from inside the car where they could enjoy it with a tad less fear of losing their heads.

I made some comments recently about how fascinated I was by the concept of fireworks shows in third-world countries, with shells raining fire on the townsfolk, people on fire, stampeding away. And how it must stem from this desire to stare death in the face so they would have a better appreciation for life if they survived. Well, I have been into the belly of the beast. I mean it is exhilarating. I would never want to take my kids to something like that again, but as we drove away, we kept saying "We're alive! We lived! Can you believe it?" I can picture the Elk City people yelling back, "Pansies!"

We started talking about how the next day's newspaper would cover the event: "Initial reports estimate 17 dead, 33 injured. Nine people are still unaccounted for, and are feared to have disintegrated."

Oh, that reminds me, there's a billboard just up the street from the Hospital that says "Great Plains Regional Hospital: Service in 29 minutes or less, or your Emergency Room visit is Free!" I am not kidding.

On Saturday, we drove to a family reunion in Oklahoma City for Amanda's Dad's side of the family. Giselle and Harrison made friends with the other kids instantly, and soon they were running around crashing into the walls, and each other. They all headed to lunch at a place called Porker's BBQ Ribs or something like that. Amanda ordered fried okra, just to prove that it doesn't cause spontaneous combustion. I tried some, but it tasted like every other fried vegetable I've eaten: like salt, oil, crispy crumbs, and something mooshy in the middle. I continue to believe that you can make anything edible if you cut it into small enough pieces and deep fry it. After a while, somebody in the kitchen must've decided there were enough kids in the dining area, so they threw a huge pig mask over their head and strolled out with their greasy apron and stained pig face to wave at all the little carnivores. The irony of the pig mascot promoting the consumption of pork products is so cliche that I'm embarrassed I even mentioned it. It gives me a chuckle anyway.

We drove back home yesterday, and by way of getting an earlier start and gaining two hours, we got in around 9:00 pm. Tomorrow we head for Phoenix. Go go go.

I got a haircut today. They just keep getting worse and worse. I don't know if it's because the guy who cuts it uses an electric trimmer for 80% of the cut, or because the continual loss of hair is making it impossible to look like anything other than Bill the Cat.

Afterward, we (Amanda, the kids & I) headed over to Sonic for easy lunchings. Amanda customized her order, and they screwed it all up. Then, she noticed me removing the pickles from my burger and asked why I didn't just order it without pickles. I said, because I didn't want my order messed up. Ha. So a little bit later, she starts crumpling up her trash, and I'm looking the other way when I hear her say "Here, could you drop this in the trash can?" And just as I turn to see what she's handing me, I realize that crumpled burger wrappers, napkins and straw wrappers were tumbling down my chest like the remnants of a calving glacier. I tried fumbling to catch it all, but missed everything as it bounced off my gut and onto the floor, "What the? What are you doing? Jeez..." It was just so ridiculous, and I couldn't stop laughing. She was trying not to crack up and replied "The hand is quicker than the eye isn't it?" We agreed that our OK trip was going to be awesome after that one.

Yeah, so I was up late again. I was having a knockdown dragout with the Fancies section of the site, which is now up and running. I gotta credit Brian with inspiring me to accellerate the photo section. It's still got a number of twitchy little problems, including some borders that won't go away if you view it using Safari. ::kicks Safari:: But I wanted to make it live before we leave for Oklahoma tomorrow.

Heh. Watching Giselle try to pack all the toys she wants to take into her allotted backpack was a crackup. "Look Dad, I got it to all fit in! ... Except for the ball and the basket and Buzz Lightyear..." And the backpack is this bulging, straining mass that looks like it's going to explode if you touch the zipper too quickly. Amanda helped her pare it down thank goodness. Can't have things blowing up in the back seat, cruising down I-40 at 80 mph.

Amanda was relating to me how she had made a list of things she wanted to get done around the house yesterday. Stuff like 1) clean & mop kitchen, 2) clean & vacuum living room, 3) deglaze children, etc. The list ended up having six items on it, and it's not like "oh yea, I'll just clean & mop the kitchen". It's a hazard-pay kind of project, involving industrial solvents, chisels, sledgehammers and sandblasting equipment.

All it takes is a single twenty-four hour period of popsicles, juice, malt-o-meal, crayons, pencil shavings, chili-dog oozings, mud & sandbox trailings and ensuing fingerpainting acitivities on every available surface to render the full-scale cleaning battle it becomes. It reminds me of those science documentaries where they show the time-lapse footage of a piece of fruit rotting on the forest floor. And thousands of flitting grubs, nematodes and mycelia are swarming all over it in every conceivable way until it disolves into this undulating, pulpuous mass that you'd sooner incinerate than try to reconstitute. Fortunately, Amanda has a strong constitution for these things, and she took up the cause anyway.

Except every time she tried to get started, the kids ended up crawling all over her. I guess Giselle couldn't understand why she was getting so frustrated and not playing Barbies with her at any given moment. "But Mom, you only have six things on your list! That's not so much!" Heh, so those converstions don't just happen at the office. To her extreme credit, the kitchen looked superb for last night's taco bonanza. Mmmm mmmm that was good.

Oh, and Queen's Bicycle Song is another stinker that can take a flying leap. Bleah.