New movie release

Hey, folks - Well, I finally got enough time to put together a little video I've been thinking about for a while. Here it is:



For the longest time, imovie wouldn't let me watch the video accurately while the music was playing. So I had to do some work-arounds, and today finally had the time to do it. After playing the guitar, changing the strings, shoveling the deck, staring out the window, and playing with the cat. I'm amazed I worked all that in today.

I dang near went skiing, but the thought of doing so all by myself felt kind of icky. Despite last night's fresh snow. I was already a little iffy about dumping the kids in daycare for the day - they didn't want to go, and I didn't have any specific and compelling reason why they couldn't stay home with me. Except that I just wanted to putter around by myself, which I couldn't really tell them. So I said I had to do some work.

To which Q responded, "Papi, cual es mas importante: Tu trabajo, o pasar tiempo con tus hijos?"

OK: He's officially too smart. I'm going to have to do some research on what toys dull kids' minds and go buy him some.

Perhaps I'll write more later - not so much more to say right now...I'm off!

Outpourings of Affection

Maybe it's because she's no longer peeing all over the house and reminding me what the place smelled like when we first moved in. Maybe it's because she's spending so much of her time cuddled up to my kids. Or maybe it's just the meth talkin'. No matter the reason, I am in Skittles ga-ga mode. As evidenced by the following explosion of Skittles-related media:




"T and Skittles: A Love Story."



"A Weird Love Story."



"Like, 'Disturbing'-Weird."



Speaking of weird love stories...



Not Skittles-related, but cool: The kids' ski cards.

Halle-pew-jah

As in, glory be!, the stink appears to be gone.

I went online last night and got a number of suggestions about how to keep Skittles from piddling all over the house. Because the litter box was now anathema to her completely - for a good while, she was pooping in it, but would absolutely not piddle there. But now #2 was also beginning to show up in odd corners. The website had a number of suggestions - the basic jist being, "Make her litterbox as attractive as possible, and all other areas as unattractive as possible, for peeing in."

One of the tricks for making a place unattractive is spreading tinfoil on the ground. So I did - there are now to bands of it that run the length of the floor under our picture window and behind the wood stove.

And since cats often like to scratch immediately after using the litterbox, we put an old bath mat next to it.

And we closed her in there over the course of the day, while Janneke took a few minutes this afternoon to try to find the last piece of the puzzle: kitty litter that she would like. This stuff we'd been using is pretty rough, compared to the strictly clay-based one we'd started out with - and which we'd not been able to find again. The stuff we replaced it with is made from corn and is very granular. So as soon as Janneke arrived at home with it, we put it in the box. And the need was great - because as soon as I had gotten home, I had settled in to mop the areas downstairs where she had done #1 and #2. Neither was anywhere near the litterbox.

Once the new litter was in, I found the kitten and brought her down and placed her in the box. She moved as if to leap away, which was what she had been doing every previous time I'd put her there, but I held her, and took her paws and moved them so she could feel, really feel, that this was different. And it sank in - she suddenly looked down at it and began to relax, then to sniff it. Knowing that cats prefer not to be watched in that circumstance, I scampered around the corner and watched with just one eyeball peering around the doorjamb.

As she settled, turned, squatted, and peed.

I bounded up the stairs and leapt into the dining room, fists high, face jubilant; Janneke immediately knew what had happened, and we embraced in the middle of the room as the camera swung around us and the fireworks exploded everywhere.

I no longer look menacingly at the poor little thing - I shoot her only loving looks.

And the best thing about this kitty litter, apart form its acceptability to the cat?

It clumps!!

Whoah - great video to share, here, apropos of nothing. Some find it creepy. We atheists find it heart-warming.


Mwahahahahahaaaaaaa!

Staving Off Anxiety. And Tinkles.

Hoo-boy, I tell ye, boy howdy!...Hey. How's it going.

Sunday morning, rain is falling, wind is blowing, and the ladies are on the couch under the afghan while Q builds bionicles and I sit in the kitchen and write this. I am the only one not wearing pajamas.

(I am not, however, naked.)

We had a few friends over for dinner last night - Janneke did, more accurately, since she whipped a huge and delicious pan-Latin-American feast. All I did was clean the house. We dragged up a table from downstairs and had five people over. (Would've been seven, but Mark and Ronadh are in Ireland, attending a family funeral - we're thinking of you guys!) It was big, big fun, and the kids, who went to bed half an hour after the guests arrived, cooperated fabulously. T was afraid she wouldn't be able to sleep, but I pointed out that her door was open, the lights from the dining room were reaching her bed, and she could hear every word any of us said. And this was to convince her that she would be able to sleep. It's a strange logic that kids live with - the more disturbances that keep them from thinking the dark thoughts, the more likely they are to fall into unconsciousness. Q, though, who has been lobbying for a later bedtime, claimed not to be sleepy at all, and so, in order to avoid a scene, I magnanimously allowed him to play his Gameboy in bed. (An hour and a half later, he was still at it - I shut him down at that point. And he was up this morning at 7:00, chipper as can be. Maybe he has a point - I'll get all Charlie Wilson on this issue, hold some meetings and see if we can't work something out.)

I'm still working on the guitar. I've got "Fusill contra fusil" pretty close to whipped, and after the guests left last night, Janneke and I ran through "La maza" a few times - and Janneke did so without notes, nailing all the words on the last one. (Which, if you know that song,, is not easy.) Don, who came over last night for the party, was psyched to learn that I was doing that, since he learned to play in Chile and has a number of Silvio songbooks. So this afternoon I'm going to go over to his house and see if we can't break some wine glasses. (With the music.)

Skittles is still Pittles, as in "She pittles all over the damn place". We ordered the musk stuff that Jayne suggested, and at least now have the advantage of knowing where she likes to leave them. I haven't detected any smell for days, since we stay ahead of her. The bathroom door is always closed, leaving the area behind the woodstove, the floor under the picture window, and the kitchen door that leads to the garage. Nothing where there's carpet, thank goodness - though that makes sense, since none of our rugs would have any ancient cat smell that (hopefully) humans can't detect. Maybe I should whip out the anti-icky-poo from years ago and soak it into the floor there...Many possible solutions. They can all get in line behind my nap. Here's the leaky feline last week, checking out our new skis:



Tension builds at work around what the budget cuts will bring in the coming year. I understand it - there's going to have to be some reductions. But I don't feel like my job is in danger, but maybe I'm naive. Just - It seems like there are a lot of steps to take first. Pay freezes, eliminating a sport or two...And then of course, if someone has to be eliminated, there are a lot of part-time people. I would hate to see that happen, but just in terms of my own job security, it seems things would have to get a lot worse before they eliminated Spanish. We have a very successful Latin program, for example, which everybody would hate to see go, but it's one person, and we offer two other languages. Seems that would be on the block before me. So our Latin teacher is worried, and we are all worried for her...French seems a little on edge, too, and one of them is new there, even newer than me. But French is popular, and the new teacher absolutely rocks. It would be a bad move. Besides, I think all of us would take a pay cut if it meant others wouldn't be fired. I certainly would. Or at least a freeze. There are some single moms who teach there, some people whose husbands are hurt and haven't worked in a long time...It could get bad. But we have a good union, so I'm sure they'll get creative and protect everybody. Go Lenox Education Association! (Or whatever they're called.)

Whatever - what comes will come. We're in pretty good shape, financially, in terms of debt and such. Nothing other than the car and the house, and the car, we can sell, if things get bad. But I'm not worried. I'll be employed three years from now.

("So, then," says the bespectacled older gentleman across from me with the bow tie and the cigar, re-crossing his legs and jotting things down in a pad, "why are you going on about it?" So I turn into a bull and gore him to death and then blast through the picture window and across the river to board the train and ride through the tunnel to freedom.)

OK, off to tickle some kids. Take care, brush your hair...

The Young and the Boneless

Gotta be quick - it's late, and I'm very tired. But here's the latest:

My birthday was fantabulous. Up at 7:00 or so, and off to the Chef's Hat, Williamstown's finest eatery. OK, not our finest eatery - but the best greasy spoon in the Northeast...ern part of town. Pancakes and French toast for all, then off!, to Jiminy Peak!, where Q and T once again trooped happily off to be taught the many secrets of gravitationally-enhanced locomotion.

Janneke and I then hit the slopes, and I tell you what, boy-howdy: Best conditions I've ever seen in all my days of skiing. (There have been three.) Nice soft powder - at least, compared to before - and 28 degrees to start, eventually rising to 35 or so. There were a lot of people, sure, and at one point that did cause me to get confused and fall over as I tried to avoid plowing under a group of hapless and clueless teens who had blocked an entire run so they could stand arm-in-arm and decide what to do next. But otherwise it was an A-OK day.

We had our new skis and boots on, and man-oh-man, that made a lot of difference. Not once did I feel like I couldn't go fast enough - a sensation i definitely had in the learner skis. We looked and felt snappy all day.

Picked the kids up and learned that even T was now certified to go all the way to the top and come all the way back down on green trails. So we hooked up with her friend Hazel's family, and rode to the top, four abreast in the ski lift. Which was quite a feeling - just the family, floating slowly above the trees, smiling at each other, admiring our ski tips. Big fun.

We all came down the mountain, and it turns out T is a speed demon. With no annoying instructor to insist that she follow any particular pattern or rule, she devoted herself to going as fast as she possibly could. We called after her and caught up to her and helped her up from a spill here and there, but by and large, she was zooming happily along. At one point I was a little ahead of her, and as she saw me pass her, she called out, "Feliz cumpleanos, Papi!" Watching her smile at me as she did so on the fly was one of the best moments of the last several weeks.

One of the worst came seconds later, when she hit a series of bumps and started doing front flips.

I skidded to a stop below her just as she finally came to a rest. Her helmeted head had done a few reps against the snow, and now she rested on it, her legs curving up over he back and down in front of the helmet. I could hear her muffled screaming - and it was downright screaming - and felt myself sinking into empty nausea as her left knee hung there at an angle that was never intended. I looked down to get my own skis off, hating myself for ever having introduced her to this and for having let her go so fast, sure I would soon be cradling a crippled little girl.

I ran up the hill to her and saw that her leg had righted itself, and as I turned her over and touched her knee, she pulled her legs up and started to stand. And before you could say "Thrombitis", she was lifting first one foot, then the other, and saying through tears that she really wanted to keep skiing. Four-year-olds, I'm convinced, are made completely of rubber.

Eight-year-olds must be, too, because at the bottom of the hill, I found Q, who had gone ahead, quietly taking off his skis, and soon found myself listening to a sobbed description of a multiple-flip fall that had ended in a collision with another person and a lost ski, subsequently recovered. Man. It's that last run of the day - It should just be banned. Officers in space suits should step forward out of a brilliant, lightning-like rip in the space-time continuum and say "Sir, we're from the future, and this run you're about to do turns out to be the last one of the day, so we're not going to allow you to do it. Please go to the lodge and remove your skis. Thank you." Then they'd disappear back into the air. And then they'd poke their heads out again to whisper, "The Steelers win tonight, by the way. Bet the farm."

We all went home and watched that happen, too. We were all pulling for the Cards, but it was not to be. I did take enough emotional distance not to lose any sleep over it, though - the sleep I lost was from starting awake again, shaking my head, trying to rid myself of that image of T's gooey knee, hanging over the back of her head in a way that just doesn't seem possible.

Had a guitar lesson today - here's the song I'm working on now:

AL FINAL DE ESTE VIAJE EN LA VIDA

And there you are. Apart form Skittles peeing everywhere she shouldn't (I'm open to suggestions there, by the way), we're kind of newsless. Hope to talk to you all soon, off to bed...

The Relative Growth and Progress Rates of Cats, Skiers, and Musicans

Just so you can compare, here's a photo of Skittles the day we brought her home:



And here she is now:



That is to say: She has grown a titch.

Went skiing again on Saturday, and it was similarly successful. Janneke didn't go, though - claimed she had too much work to do. So I dropped the kids off at 9:00, bought us some Jiminy Peak Value cards ($42 each, but they give you $15 off every time you go up), bought an eight-hour ticket, rented skis again, and hit the slopes alone. Among thousands of other people, but alone.

Strange - the second time around, with so much better an idea of what was coming, I put probably a fifth the effort into it. I wasn't tired at the end of the day, unlike the first day, when I was exhausted, and every time I went up, I skied all the way to the bottom of the mountain without stopping to rest. This is probably the norm, but before, Janneke and I had always rested after a few turns, probably mostly so she could see how I was holding up. But it was great, if a bit lonely.

They have a board up at the lift so that anyone whose child has a problem in the Skiwee program can be alerted on their next trip up the mountain, but the kids' names never appeared, so I went another round. And on that second round it became clear: at the top of the mountain, there was far, far too much wind to be comfortable. My face and neck and nose were exposed, which was just painful. So I went into the gear store there, and bought an adult-sized and a youth-sized "Turtle Neck" - a fleece tube, essentially, that you pull over your head and wear around your neck and mouth, adjusting it as needed. One would go on Q, and one on T.

But at the bottom of the mountain, where T was going to stay, it wasn't really windy at all. So I found Q as he was about to get onto a lift with his teacher and had him put on the youth size one, and put the other on myself. And was far, far more comfortable.

Our friend Daniel came up to the mountain to meet me around 12:30, and he and I skied together until 3:00. It was just great -he's a great skier, having grown up in Williamstown and having learned in the very same program as Q and T, but he always happily went on the green and blue runs with me, shooting ahead sometimes or zig-zagging through trees, but always staying pretty much in my orbit. We would chat in the lift on the way up, pop into the lodge to warm up...It's a great hobby. Huge, huge amounts of fun...Don't know why I was always so down on it. Jealous, probably. It isn't cheap, after all, and I didn't grow up doing too many things that weren't cheap. But it isn't horribly expensive, either, and it's good exercise. I'm a little more mature now, and have decided that I am all for it.

So now we've ordered boots, skis and poles for me, skis and boots for Janneke, a helmet for Q, and skis and poles for T. Q already has skis and poles, and T already has a helmet. Janneke found this site where you get the same makes and models for 1/3 what you would pay in the ski shop. (We know - we priced them.) And next year, we'll get the season pass and really, really get our money's worth.

Had some friends over for brunch - they're going to France at the end of this month to live for 4 and a half months. They have four kids, so the adults were outnumbered, but we were able to keep them occupied with a movie ("Ratatouille") and a ping pong table. Their kids adored Skittles, as we do, and managed to caress and stroke her without coming to any harm. (Hobie, as happens during all visits from families with children, was confined to a back bedroom throughout.)

Probably the news I'm most excited about, though, is that I have pretty much figured out how to play "La maza" by Silvio Rodriguez, and Janneke sings along when I play it, resulting in a great deal of enjoyment and diversion. It was the rhythm with the right hand that had me floundering, but today I got it down, and over the last couple of days, every time I would start to play it, Janneke would hum along from wherever she was sitting, singing the melody. And today she pulled up the lyrics on a computer, and sat with me as I played it, and whattaya know, it really sounded good. So Janneke skyped her mother, and we gave her a little concert. It was really fun, and Janneke has been very generous with her compliments on how far I've come with the whole Latin guitar thing since December. Once we get a repertoire together, we'll film some, how 'bout, and include it on the next batch of videos that get sent to the families in DVD form. Youtube...? Not so sure. (Though we sound way better than most of the people we found singing it there today.)

T is sick. Coughed all last night, and tonight dropped into unconsciousness without even finishing supper. Q and I were just getting home from Q's Sunday night pickup soccer game (he was fast and active, though he could have been more aggressive - still, he got high praise from the U-12 coach, who was organizing the whole thing), and I just had time to smooch T's hot, red cheek before she started to snore, right there on Janneke's lap. If someone has to stay home with her tomorrow, it'll be Janneke, since she isn't teaching. Though there is a lot to be said for the philosophy that whoever is teaching should be the one to stay home with the little sick-o. She's been pretty well out since we put her down, though. Knock on wood.

OK, I've put off walking the dog too long. Gotta hit the bricks. Take care, brush your hair...

In Dreams

That's the name of the main "denoument" theme song from "The Lord of the Rings", which Q has taught himself to play from a book of film scores for young people that he got for Christmas. He has gotten pretty good at it lately, and usually chugs through it effortlessly. But just now he was having a hard time finding the notes - some false starts midway through where the bridge is, struggling to find the right chords. So Janneke walked over and opened the music book, then spread it out in front of him so he could see what to do.

Q looked up at Janneke and said, dismissively, very slightly impatiently, but not unkindly:

"I'm playing it in G, Mom."

My little key transposer!