Catnap

I've decided to make fractured sleep my specialty: wake me, wake me, I'll steal it back later on.

Happy Birthday, Talia

Is there cake or shall I stop at wf to get some? I have no issue with doing that...

From: Talia Cell
3:02pm 5/20/11

Even a single-line message offers an opportunity to read between the lines.  Allow me to translate:

You failed to make anything much of Mother's Day or even to ensure that the kids did, you yourself don't care for cake and are probably assuming that having a birthday cake at my birthday BBQ on Sunday is all the birthday cake I require anyway, and in general, dear husband, you've been kind of botching it lately, so in an effort to ensure that I don't end up entirely depressed on my own birthday I am hopefully shaming you into finding a cake in the next couple of hours or, failing that--and I do mean failing--I will attempt to shame you in a more substantive and permanent fashion by actually bringing home my own cake on my own birthday and eating it alone in what will hereafter be called "my" bed with my headphones on while watching America's Top Pastry Chef and you can finish raising the children by yourself.

 Gotcha!

Before I get too smug, it occurs to me that I did not think to arrange a cake for the birthday BBQ tomorrow....

Now that they're back

A faithful reader asks "What did you actually get done while the wife and children were away?"  Faithful and perhaps a bit pedantic, but you asked for it so here it is:

• Wake up and read:  I did this every morning.  Now that they are back I get woken up and read in the middle of the night.  It's not the same.
• Put toilet paper on toilet roll:  I did this right away.  Now the paper is back on the toilet tank where Gideon can't (yet) get at it.
• Fit a year's worth of social and business engagements in the city into like four days:  Did it.  My best day was the 14th on which I had five separate engagements in the city and found good parking spots for each one.
• Get a massage:  Did it on my way to the airport to pick them up.  Have not yet recovered from that.
• Fix marriage timer:  Did it!  Set up a spreadsheet and carefully entered the starting time, the stopping time, the dip switch setting, and the numeric reading.  I was prepared to go through all 4-prime possibilities, but the first setting did it!  Welcome to day 2134!
• Completely reorganize all storage spaces:  Well, "completely" is perhaps an exaggeration, but I certainly did some very gratifying reorganization.
• Make proper shelving in kitchen:  Thought some more about this, but no, didn't do anything here.  Not sure we will.
• Find packaging for camera so I can return it. Get new camera:  Got new camera, returned that camera, never found the packaging for my old one.  Does that count?  I hope so, because I really can't figure out what happened to the old packaging.
• Hang new curtains:  Therein lies a story; see below.
• Get rid of futon bed:  Made a plan to do same, which plan has just yesterday come to fruition.  Immediate result of which was a terrible, sleepless night last night.  Hmmm.
• Really deal with media computer and networked storage and stereo and all that:  Really dealt with some of this.  Data all backed up on a new 2TB drive elsewhere on our network, media computer stripped down somewhat, am faithfully investigating getting a new amp and a phonograph.  LPs are the surest way to solve the MP3 problem, no?
• Find non-cardboard based storage system for toys in living room:  SO did it!  Er, almost.  As the picture above shows, I got an awesome chest and put it up on wheels thereby solving not only this problem but the "lack of coffee table" problem to boot.  In doing so I created the "super dangerous finger crushing four inch redwood lid" problem, which is proving tricky to solve.
• Sharpen everything:  Did it. Many thanks to Johannes for introducing me to the Istor.
• Register some fictitious businesses and go to Costco:  Did it.  Quickly ran out of grapefruits, but the business names are good for five years.
• Search for comma key. (If I fail to find it I will move the useless tilde key to the comma spot and put a tiny sticker photo of Gideon's face on it and push it a lot.):  Failed to find it.  Moved tilde key.  Applied sticker.  I push it faithfully.

Now, the promised story which is, perhaps, not terribly interesting, but illuminating nonetheless.  While the family was away I went to IKEA and got all the right hardware and curtains for covering the spaces that require it (not to mention a long-overdue lamp for the living room), but I failed to hang them:  I needed to ask Talia a thing or two about just how high she wanted the new drapes.  Still, I was determined not to let the advent of my dear family halt me in my tracks, so, soon after they returned, I extracted the old hardware and set the new materials out on the at-the-time-still-present futon bed in the living room. Plan was to ask Talia the height question that night and finish the job on the morrow.  Let us call that "Day 1." In point of fact here's what happened:

• Day 1: Remove old hardware thereby generating lots of dust and paint flakes on floor. Am certain I will finish tomorrow so don't bother to vacuum. Exhausted at day's end, I fail to ask Talia how high she wants the curtains hung.
• Day 2: Wake up, stumble into the living room, discover Gideon on the floor playing with my electric screwdriver and the (fortunately locked) shears; all the hardware is now on the floor under the bed because Talia needed to sleep in the living room bed the night before thanks to self-same Gideon. Fail again that evening to ask Talia about desired curtain height.
• Day 3: Remember to ask Talia about how high to hang the curtains and in doing so realize there's only one reasonable answer. Don't have a chance to do the install. Discover Gideon playing with paint chips. Vacuum carpet.
• Day 4: Install anchors but, in a rush to get it done before Gideon wakes up, blow the first one when I drill too large a hole. Install larger anchor on that one. Hang curtains. Vacuum carpet.
• Day 5:  Curtains fall down:  larger anchor simply too large for screw. Reinstall using larger screw.
• Day 6: Gideon pulls curtains down:  larger anchor too large for larger screw when 23 pound baby is hanging on it. Install smaller anchor inside larger anchor. Hang curtains.
• Day 7: Gideon pulls curtains down:  smaller anchor unable to secure firm enough purchase inside larger anchor. No time to reinstall today. Vacuum carpet. Begin to despair.
• Day 8: Wake up to find Gideon playing in curtains on floor. Miraculously, I arrive before white curtains become some color other than white. Determine to finish damn job today.  Install large metal anchors at all questionable points. Hang curtains.

To date they are still up--see background to photo above--but just writing about it is exhausting.

What's next?