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?

Alone

Wife and children are gone. Far away. A whole week to myself.  This means:

• Wake up and read. This is pretty much my favorite thing to do in the whole wide world.  Going back to sleep after reading some is also pretty great.
• Put toilet paper on toilet roll.
• Fit a year's worth of social and business engagements in the city into like four days.
• Get a massage.
• Fix marriage timer.
• Completely reorganize all storage spaces ("summer configuration").
• Make proper shelving in kitchen.
• Find packaging for camera so I can return it. Get new camera.
• Hang new curtains.
• Get rid of futon bed.
• Really deal with media computer and networked storage and stereo and all that.
• Find non-cardboard based storage system for toys in living room.
• Sharpen everything.
• Register some fictitious businesses and go to Costco (same direction).
• 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.)

Delicious.

Gideon's tale

Notice anything different?  A certain terseness?  Something of a staccato rhythm to my sentences?  A sharp reduction in parenthetical statements?  There is a reason.  A good reason.  I have been deprived of my comma.  Literally.

This is a story about Gideon and a fable about persistence.  Its moral is this:  if you keep your goals in mind and work hard at them you will be rewarded with success.  It is a tale for our times.  It is a tale for all times.  It is Gideon's tale.

Gideon has many goals in life.  The more important among them are:

• Emptying completely the kitchen cabinets
• Ripping that fascinatingly exposed bit of tape off of one of our packing boxes
• Throwing himself down the concrete steps that lead to the garage
• Drinking out of the toilet
• Destroying my computer

I term these "goals" and sense that they are important to Gideon because he returns to them repeatedly.  I think most babies share these same goals (though I trust most babies are not interested in my computer per se) or ones much like them.  And I am sure most babies are enthusiastic in their pursuit of their goals.  Gideon is more than enthusiastic.  Gideon is intensely and maniacally committed to achieving these things.

Each of the doors in our house makes a unique sound upon opening.  The sound of the bathroom door opening causes Gideon to drop whatever he is doing and immediately start sprinting in its direction.  Likewise the sound of the door to the garage opening.  It is really remarkably how fast he can crawl when he perceives an opportunity.  Like a very fat bullet he crawls.  He also does this when we open our bedroom door.  The upshot is that it is impossible to open any door in this house without within some seconds sharing the resulting doorway with a large and very determined baby.  The exception to this is the door to his own bedroom.  Sometimes it is possible to pass through that in peace.  Sometimes. 

It is my main goal in life to see that Gideon does not achieve these goals.  I used to have other goals but now really I have only these goals:

• Stop Gideon from emptying completely the kitchen cabinets
• Stop Gideon from throwing himself down the concrete steps that lead to the garage
• Stop Gideon from drinking out of the toilet
• Stop Gideon from destroying my computer

I don't really care if Gideon ever gets that last piece of tape off or not.  But that aside I seek to thwart him and I trust it is obvious why I do.  And so it is we find ourselves at odds.

Gideon is remarkable in his determination and in his sense of the future.  He accepts defeat calmly.  He appears to be certain that in the end all setbacks are temporary and that his goals will ultimately all be achieved.  Certainly the track record thus far warrants confidence on his part.  Certainly this same record suggests that I am in trouble.

I will tell you what really worries me right now.  It is not that Gideon will eventually empty completely the kitchen cabinets and throw himself down the stairs to the garage and drink out of the toilet.  I am not even worried that Gideon will destroy my computer.  He has already done that:  the comma key is gone and he took it.  What worries me is that he also took the m key and that while I found that one I have not found the comma.  So what worries me right now is the thought that in all likelihood he took the comma key and he ate it.

In closing I offer a picture of my opponent by way of explaining why this is all so terribly humiliating for me.

 You win Gideon.  You will always win.