Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Monday, March 28, 2005 The Escape Artist In nearly fourteen years of living with us, Strat has surreptitiously gotten out of the house or apartment X times, where X is an indeterminate three-digit number. X times, he has been safely inside the house again within 12 hours. I can even count the number of times he's been gone for more than a few hours without taking off my shoes or dropping my pants. There was an overnight or two, when we went outside to renew the search at the crack of dawn and he was out on the front step going, "Jeez, I'm hungry already, you fucking people," which didn't prevent him from trying to escape again when we opened to door to leave for work twenty minutes later. There was the time we went out in the early evening, only to return in the wee hours to a house that was one cat short, and I went out in the back yard with a flashlight calling, and I could hear him answering, but couldn’t locate him in the dark, even as his meowing got more strident, and I zeroed in on the noise in shrinking concentric circles until I was right on top of it, and realized he was right on top of me, as in perched up in the tree next to our garage, and rescue or no I defy you to bust out an extension ladder while wearing all black at two in the morning without suspecting yourself of being up to no good. Replacing the storm door reduced these incidents sharply. The new door latched with a satisfying click when you let it swing free, and Strat didn't escape again for a good long time. Which was nice, because later that year he was diagnosed with diabetes, and the idea of his hiding under some bush somewhere three blocks away when it comes time to give him his insulin shot isn't one we care to entertain too much. Now I think I need to adjust the tension on our automatic door closer, because these incidents are starting up again, especially now that the weather is getting warmer. A couple of weeks ago he didn't come to breakfast. I headed out to the garage—which hasn't been touched inside since we converted it into a haven for the missing Phantom—and there he was, lounging on the sofa that I haven't bothered to drag out to the curb yet. He lifted his head to look at me. "Oh, breakfast?" that look said. Last night, Bitter was saying goodbye to us and to M. Tiny, who was a little out of sorts this weekend thanks to certain diaper-related occurrences that may or may not have had to do with the recent introduction of fruit into his diet. Trash had him sitting calmly and happily on the kitchen table, and just as Bitter was about to head out the door, he was suddenly overtaken by an unprovoked wave of crippling, atavistic grief. His face crumpled and he sent forth a heartbreaking wail of existential angst. Bitter let herself out while we tried to convince M. Tiny that the very world isn't the hopeless black hole of despair he clearly thought it was (at least not yet). Forty-five minutes later, long after he was calmed down and trying out a few sleepy-faces, Trash noticed that the front door was ajar, because Bitter doesn't have a key and Strat can pry the door open if it isn't locked. Furthermore, the storm door had failed to latch with a satisfying click. Phantom and Turtle enjoyed the Strat-attracting tuna we put out just to make sure the cat wasn't hiding in the house, while Trash took M. Tiny and I headed outside with a flashlight. First stop: garage. Sofa: there. Cat: not. So as I wandered the neighboring streets for the next hour or so, I thought of how big the number X is. I thought of that couch in the garage, which he'd found even though he didn't know it was there the last time, and now that he did, he'd certainly find it again. I thought of all the times I'd been through every block a couple of times, and then saw him trotting towards me down the street while I was standing in my own front yard. And I thought of another number, Y, which is the number of times Strat has returned or been found. Normally, Y=X, but during these nerve-wracking periods when Y=X-1, one always wonders how long that period is going to end up being. Basically I was just biding my time until he either showed up on the front step to eat the tuna I'd put there, or came back to the garage to find him camped out in there. I don't know how many times I looked on that couch, but after one time, yet another incidence of finding him not there, I turned around to renew the search and saw him trotting happily towards me up the driveway. Of course you can't be mad at him when that happens, and not just because he seems at least as happy to see you as you are to see him. I dropped into a crouch and he ran up to me, practically crying to be picked up and brought inside. Which I naturally did. And gave him the tuna on the front step that he'd blown right by to get to me. This is why having Strat escape is preferable to having Phantom escape. Because if you spot Strat, he'll let you catch him. And if you don't, he'll get bored of your incompetence at finding him and eventually come back to you. For the tuna, if nothing else. I'm still fixing that damn door, though. Today's best search phrase: "HamMer the FIRE." GoOd idea. The pRObleM with FIRE is tHAt it'S toO DamN taLL. posted by M. Giant 9:57 PM 3 comments 3 Comments:
First stop: garage. Sofa: there. Cat: not.
By I am so glad that your cat is safe. I think you have had enough cat losses for one year -- make that many years. Gina
By
My MK is given to similar behaviors, but he will stay gone for at least a day, most times. Last time it was a week.
By Wednesday, March 23, 2005 Humpblog (3/23/05) So Trash and I have been putting off doing our taxes this spring, partly because it’s hard to find time to do that when there’s a human in the house who needs one of us to feed him every few hours, but mostly because we were dreading the bottom line. I brought in a bunch of freelance income last year that I’d never paid taxes on, and we figured the day of reckoning would have us in line for a vigorous federal screwing. But last week Trash gathered up all of our receipts and 1099s and W-2s and we schlepped it all over to the home of her stepbrother, who happens to be an accountant. He plugged the numbers into his magic tax software program (which is to TurboTax what a Boeing 747 is to a kite), and it churned out a rather large number for the final amount. And it was a major screwing. Except it was on the “owed to us” line rather than the “owed to government” line, which meant that our “screwing” was more along the lines of a “windfall.” I swear, we’re going to start adopting a kid every year after this from now on. * * * How about an early Christmas present? Keep it Coming books has released an anthology of Christmas stories called Upon the Midnight Clear. As you can probably guess by the fact that I’m telling you about it, the anthology includes a short story by me, called “The Collector.” Buy it here! That’s of course assuming you’ve already bought and finished your copy of The Sisters’ Tragedy, but even if you haven’t, give this a look. I daresay it’s a little lighter reading. * * * Speaking of taxes, M. Tiny has his own reason to dread April 15. You see, there’s a certain procedure that many infant boys undergo very shortly after birth. However, M. Tiny was just too small at the time. He had enough to worry about, what with learning how to breathe and eat reliably on his own, without going through a trauma that was likely to reduce his weight by something along the lines of ten percent (boy’s gifted, is what I’m saying). But now he's big and strong enough that recovering from the operation shouldn’t be a problem. They just advised us to have it on a Friday, so we could spend the weekend with him in his newly diminished state. And the next available Friday just happens to be tax day. Looks like Uncle Sam won’t be the only one getting his cut. If you know what I mean. And I think you do. * * * Today's best search phrase: "Krispie Kreme genie Kahn." KAAAAAHN!! posted by M. Giant 10:07 PM 4 comments 4 Comments:Congrats on three years blogging, by the way. Make sure you fill us in on how Brenda, Steve, Marsha and Keith are doing.
By Wait, it's your blog anniversary? Congrats!! As a devoted and addicted reader, I thank you for the constant humor and enjoyment you offer through Velcrometer. Here's to another 3 years of great stories about Trash, M. Tiny, and the Giant household of cats.
By
Congrats for making the three year mark - you've made me laugh so hard my roommate thought I was dying!
By why are you goiing todo that to that poor little baby ,unless its a religous thing or you want him to look like you why mutilate him?
By Monday, March 21, 2005 I'm Not Gumby, Dammit! There are things about your first kid you don't realize you're going to be paying a lot of attention to until it's actually happening. Like the shape of his head, for instance. When we first met him, at the ripe old age of eight hours or so, his noggin had been somewhat compressed by its passage through the birth canal into a sort of H.R. Giger-alien shape. And then we brought him home and watched as his head got all properly and cutely spherical. We'd been warned about what positions to let him sleep in—namely, always on his back. We'd been told to encourage him to turn to both sides so his head didn't get all uneven from always resting on one side. This happens, you see, because a newborn's skull is still relatively soft. And, of course, thanks to SIDS we couldn't let him sleep on his stomach, since all babies who do that wake up dead, which, to many parents, is even worse than having a kid with a lopsided noodle. We had a plan. We had his bassinette in our bedroom for the first couple of months, and we made sure to rotate it every few days so that he wouldn't always be looking in the same direction as he lay on his back. He'd spend a few nights looking left to face our bed, and then we'd turn his bassinette and he'd spend a few nights looking right to face our bed, and then we'd turn his bassinette and he'd spend a few nights looking left to face our bed, then we'd turn his bassinette and he'd spend a few nights looking right to face our bed, then we'd turn his bassinette and he'd spend a few nights looking right to face away from our bed… Uh-oh. And then, during his bath one day in December, I looked down at the top of his head. The perfect, symmetrical oval was gone, and overnight it had been replaced by a trapezoid. Thanks to our failure to be sufficiently vigilant, our beautiful boy was suddenly the Elephant Man. The problem was exacerbated by his natural preference for looking to his right all the time, even when not lying down. Things to his left might as well not have existed. This quickly caused the muscles in the left side of his neck to tighten up, so much so that if he was really interested in checking out the sinistral side of things, he might be persuaded to point his head straight in front of him while cutting his eyes to the left. And even if he'd wanted to rest on the left side of his head, the fact that it came to a point on that side meant that it would roll right over to the flatter right side the minute he relaxed, like an improperly inflated basketball. Obviously this couldn't stand. We started rolling up blankets to jam under the right side of his head so he couldn't look in that direction. At his next doctor's appointment, he got a referral to see a physical therapist to even out his neck muscles more. And we received instructions to keep him off the back of his head as much as possible. All these things are working. The flatness on the one side isn't nearly as severe as it was when we first noticed it. His skull is still forming, so he has plenty of time for it to even out before it sets, as it were. Some babies his age have such severe Gumby-head that they have to wear special, custom-fitted helmets designed to reshape the infant's melon. These helmets run about $2,700 apiece. We're lucky, in that it looks like we caught it before it got to that point. Also, don't tell Trash, but when she's not around I plug his ears and blow hard into his mouth and nose in order to inflate his head like a dented soda bottle. I figure I'll teach other parents how to do this for half the price of a $2,700 helmet, and I'll still clean up.  
posted by M. Giant
9:33 PM
17 comments
17 Comments:Well, hello, little trapezoid baby. You made my ovaries go into some sort of rave scene just now, especially with that second picture where you're all lounging and "...'sup?"
By That is one cute little baby-person.
By
So, so, so CUTE!
By Oh crap. I think I feel my maternal instinct stirring, so forgive me while I now flee to the cuteness of M.Tiny. :)
By
When 500,000 new babies are born 36 weeks from now - it's all your guys' fault.
By Hooray! M-Not So Tiny Anymore pictures! What a cutie pie. His head looks perfectly normal to me, but even if he did have trapezoid head, he'd still be adorable.
By
But a helmet is so attractive!
By I knew M. Tiny was adorable. But THAT CUTE? I didn't think it was possible. Dear god, are you trying to kill us with the cuteness?!
By
Ahhh, poor M. Tiny has to sleep in a laundry basket! He will be screwed up for life. Maybe your readers should chip in and buy him a crib.
By
hi hi -
By M Tiny has TRANSFORMED!!! He is now M. Big Juicy Baby I Need to Squeeze!!! I chime in with the "holy crap, my ovaries are exploding" crowd, dude. Mind you don't toss him in with the laundry, now.
By Aw, what a cutie! He looks like a little teddy bear in the first one. Actually, the fact that he's starting to sit up on his own and not lying down all the time will help with the trapezoid-headed-ness too.
By
He is so cute! He looks just perfect. I bet you suddenly are thinking about having another one.
By Wait a minute. All this time, my parents have insisted my angular head was "normal" and everybody else was weird. Next thing you're going to tell me is that having 10 fingers and toes is "preferable."
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Physical Therapist? Ick.
By
Is he sitting up by himself already? Isn't that rather early? Especially because he was a premie. And he no longer looks like a premie. He looks like a cute, plump, normal baby boy. So, what else can he do? Can roll over? Stand? Drive a car?
By
My nephew was a N. Tiny because of problems with his heart, and like your little guy he just all-of-a-sudden filled out. Look at him chillin'! The trapezoid head will resolve itself, I'm sure.
By Thursday, March 17, 2005 Holiday Humpblog (3/17/05) I don't know whom I think I'm kidding, thinking I'm going to post more regularly during this, the "non-stop season of 24" (TM Fox). The fact is that it's actually not non-stop. It stops for about 167 hours every week, and even that remaining hour contains several three- to five-minute breaks. And thank God for those, because I actually tried recapping that show in real time once, and you know what? It didn't freaking work. * * * Happy St. Patrick's Day! I can't tell you how glad I am that I'm not spending it the way I spent it two years ago. Not least of all because this one is quite a bit colder. And also because, like so many other things I've done in my life, manning a beer tub in a bar on the parade route of the St. Paul St. Patrick's Day parade seemed like fun until I actually did it. * * * Of course, if I were in New York this St. Patrick's Day, I'd be at the KGB Bar at 85 East 4th Street for Drunken! Careening! Writers! Tonight's reading features my awesome TWoP boss Sars; my awesome one-time Pub Quiz teammate and current The Amazing Race viewing partner Linda; and the awesome Couch Baron, whom I met once, briefly, about two years ago and who almost certainly doesn't remember me, not that that makes him any less awesome. But I'm not in New York, so if you are, you're going to have to go for me and tell me about it. I’ll even cover the cost of admission for you. Linda will give me a full report when she gets back, of course, but she's all modest and will therefore probably lie. * * * So because these days I've got my thumb on the pulse of nothing, I recently heard that Hunter S. Thompson offed himself. People think of Hunter S. Thompson and they think of his glory days in the 60s and 70s, or maybe that Johnny Depp movie that by the end made me want to get off drugs (even though I wasn't on drugs, I wanted to get off them anyway). But they may not have heard of what he was up to during the period between shooting himself and shooting his assistant. Surprisingly, there are things he didn't shoot at all. In 2000, a couple of guys asked if they could stop by Casa Duke in Colorado. And then they did. You should read these stories. They're very illuminating, even if the ultimate payoff never came. But there's another thing I'd do if I were in New York: pick up some parachute flares at Marine Hardware. * * * I don't know why, but in the bathroom at work today, there is a stack of Dixie™ cups and two big jugs of Listerine™. This is an entirely new development. I find it confusing, yet not off-putting; the mouthwash-soaked cups in the trash can freshen up the air in the whole room. And, by the way, I defy you to walk past what is by all appearances a free community supply of Listerine™ and not give your choppers a swish. I didn't mean to—I didn't even particularly want to—but did I? I did. In fact, I found myself drinking a lot of water at my desk in order to accelerate my next trip to the biffy. If this is some kind of stealth-marketing scheme on the part of Listerine, it's working. * * * Today’s best search phrase: “Check out my leg (s).” Oh, search phrase, you know I don’t like you that way. Why can’t we just be friends? posted by M. Giant 4:16 PM 6 comments 6 Comments:
Are you sure that the mouthwash was really mouthwash? I'm not sure I would have put it in my mouth, if you know what I mean.
By Dude, one of the few things that would have made last night better is if you and Trash had been there. And Linda was awesome, even though I GUARANTEE she will tell you otherwise.
By
I'm going to guess that someone in your office has some serious stank breath, and as a passive-aggressive way of dealing with it, whoever it is bothering the most put the mouthwash in the bathroom to encourage said Stank Breath to use it. So much more polite than leaving it on his desk.
By Jennaratrix is probably right, although I think I would also avoid trying the mouthwash just sitting out in the bathroom. THat is, unless I was the one with the stank breath.
By Man, I totally wish I had been in New York. I completely would have gone to see that St. Patrick's Day madness (that is, if I couldn't find Rob Corddry dancing on a bar somewhere).
By
So, do we ever get to see new pictures of M. Tiny? And hear an update? He must be so much bigger now!
By Wednesday, March 09, 2005 Humpblog (3/9/05) Maybe you’ve noticed that this her site has taken a rather domestic turn as of late. Both domestic in the sense of “occupied with everyday household concerns,” as well as in the sense of “hardly ever getting out the door.” As for the first charge, it’s a fair cop. Between work and my share of the child care, I have no idea what’s going on in pop culture, aside from what I catch from the commercials during 24 and The Amazing Race and the radio during my commute. As for the second charge, I leave the house almost every day. How else could I have noted a disturbing new trend in men’s fashions? What is the deal all of a sudden with the second shirt button being way too high? Particularly on shirts with spread collars. I noticed it first on my own shirts, when getting dressed for work constricted my throat so much that I might as well be wearing a tie. I considered leaving the second button open, but all of my gold chains were out being re-plated. I figured I was just going to have to start being more careful with my shirt shopping, until I noticed that all of my male coworkers were in the same boat, with collar plackets that split nearly horizontally before angling steeply down to the collar points. I haven’t brought it up to any of them, of course. Guys don’t talk about this kind of thing. I might as well jump up on my desk and start singing “Bali Hai.” So I can only assume that this is a concerted effort by the men’s fashion industry to make us all, in the first and last words of Seinfeld, look like we still live with our mothers. * * * Meanwhile, the one person in our house who does live with his mother gets to wear the coolest shit. I’m not just talking about the miniature versions of grown-up clothes, although those are indeed awesome. Like the outfit he wore to a wedding a couple of months ago. He was all decked out in a white turtleneck, navy jacket, and tweed pants. He looked like Thurston Howell III after falling through a wormhole. No, I’m talking about actual baby clothes, for which adult analogues do not exist. Not that I’d actually want pants that unbutton along the inseam, because I am not a stripper. Or a t-shirt that snaps under my crotch, because that would make it even harder to hide my gut (among other things). Of course, M. Tiny makes it work, because what choice does he have? There’s something for every baby out there. For instance, M. Tiny has one shirt where the designer clearly couldn’t decide whether to decorate the front with a dinosaur or a pickup truck. So what doe M. Tiny wear on his chest? A picture of a dinosaur riding in the bed of a pickup truck. It’s genius! Today Trash was deciding whether the dragon-motif shirt she had already put on him matched the dinosaur-emblazoned pants she was considering dressing him in. “Sure,” I said. “Dragons are practically dinosaurs anyway. Where do you think the dragon myth came from, anyway? Dinosaur bones found by medieval archaeologists.” “You’re making that up,” she said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not true,” I answered. The last part of that exchange occurs quite frequently in our house. The pants went on, but I think it was more because she was bored with the conversation than anything else. Of course, M. Tiny is still a few months shy of his five-month birthday and, as such, has only the most abstract understanding of the world. The designs on the clothes he’s wearing are so far down on his list of personal priorities that he’s not going to be able to count that high for a good fifteen or twenty years. It’s not like he’s going to be embarrassed by anything he’s seen wearing until then anyway. Which is of course what baby pictures are for. * * * Not that there aren’t things he finds inordinately fascinating. A toy flower that we use to demonstrate the concepts of “coming” and “going,” which he would want us to do all day if he didn’t get hungry. A cat, if one of them gets close enough. Lights. And most of all, ceiling fans. There’s one in his nursery. We keep it running pretty much all the time, not because it’s particularly hot in there, but because it mesmerizes him into docility. He’ll stare up at those spinning blades indefinitely. I like to imagine that he’s thinking, Saigon. I’m still in Saigon. Shit. * * * Today's best search phrase: "What does 1.5 millimeters look like." Hang on a second, let me get my aneurysm. posted by M. Giant 3:56 PM 9 comments 9 Comments:
M. Tiny is clearly a Parrothead. The first line of Jimmy Buffett's "Little Miss Magic" is "Constantly amazed by the blades of the fan on the ceiling..."
By The docility is a bonus, but once that's done he'll stumble around drunkenly and punch out a mirror. Then it's not so cute anymore.
By I've got a 4 month old myself, who can't get enough of the ceiling fan... It works wonders when nothing else will.
By Ahh, I want a tee-shirt that has a dragon in a pickup truck.
By I want the shirt.
By
Now I'm curious: Where DID the dinosaur myth come from.
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By
By You are hilarious, M. Giant! I never knew what potential there was for humor in a small child until I had one. I'll have to bookmark this site.
By Friday, March 04, 2005 Moving Moments Last weekend, Trash's brother, her sister-in-law, and our three-year-old niece Deniece moved back to Minnesota from Iowa, where they've lived for the past two and a half years. Now they're four blocks away from us. Trash and I helped with the move. A few treasured memories from that weekend: 1. Driving nearly three and a half hours nonstop while M. Tiny slept in his car seat the entire time. 2. Getting to pee after driving nearly three and a half hours nonstop. 3. Coming out of the bathroom, taking a look around Brother-In-Law’s house and seeing that it was already almost empty as my bladder now was. Yes! 4. Observing that the moving truck had been loaded of everything except large items. 5. Realizing that helping with large items would have to wait while I helped with making M. Tiny’s bottle. 6. Ending up helping with, like, five pieces of furniture. 7. Reaching the top of the basement stairs with my side of a nine-ton flatscreen TV and realizing that not only had I not voided my back’s warranty, I was also not quite dizzy enough from the effort to actually pass out. 8. Realizing that since M. Tiny and Deniece were spending the night at their grandma’s house, which meant that I would be able to sleep in the next morning. 9. Walking into our Iowa karaoke bar for the last time. 10. Walking out of our Iowa karaoke bar for the last time, about forty-five long minutes later. Those chicks were seriously irritating, dude. 11. Waking up at 6:30 the next morning and realizing I could go back to sleep, which could only have been better if we weren’t sleeping on the floor at the time. 12. Bringing up the rear of a three-car caravan back to Minneapolis: Trash’s mom driving our niece Deniece in the front, Trash driving M. Tiny in my car in the middle, and myself driving BIL’s Jeep with the nine-ton flatscreen TV in the back, which allowed me to pop a 240-mile wheelie. 13. Passing BIL’s new house on the way home, 99.99% of the way into the trip. 14. Getting to spend Sunday evening at home with Trash, her mom, M. Tiny, Deniece, Trash's sister Lisa, Lisa's Heterosexual Life Partner, Heterosexual Life Partner's husband, and their five-year-old daughter (it's complicated). 15. Meeting BIL at the new house to unload the trucks on Monday evening after work, only to discover that the moving van was entirely empty, and the only reason that the Jeep hadn’t also been unloaded was because I had just driven it over from our house. 16. Not having to carry the nine-ton flatscreen TV down the stairs of the new house. 17. Going home to watch 24 after only an hour and a half of “helping.” 18. After 24, driving Deniece to her new house, so she could see her new bedroom all set up and spend her first night there. 19. Singing the ABC song in the car on the way there, and arriving when we hit “P” the second time around. 20. Bringing Deniece into her new house, where her parents were waiting for her, and hearing her sing out, "I’m hooome!" Today's best search phrase: "show me a food web and what is going to hapen to it if we remove a pests." No. posted by M. Giant 8:04 PM 11 comments 11 Comments:
I must know - Lisa and HLP and HLP wife and daughter combo? My brain is cramping...please explicate.
By
I must know - Lisa and HLP and HLP wife and daughter combo? My brain is cramping...please explicate.
By
I must know - Lisa and HLP and HLP wife and daughter combo? My brain is cramping...please explicate.
By This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
By My guess: HLP's husband is transgendered. He started off as wife of HLP but has since transitioned. Am I right? Do I get a cookie?
By
okay..."Trash's sister Lisa, Lisa's Heterosexual Life Partner, Heterosexual Life Partner's husband, and their five-year-old daughter (it's complicated)."
By
Unless I'm entirely mistaking the confusion here... "Heterosexual Life Partner" is a reference to a particular Jay/Silent Bob leitmotif, which would mean that HLP is a LADY, making her and her husband having a baby... an entirely straightforward matter of biology.
By Daffybroad wins!
By but how does sister Lisa relate to Heterosexual Life Partner?
By And just how many sisters does Trash have?
By You could have a longtime HLP, then one of you meets someone and gets married. Who is to say that we can only have one committed life partner? Frankly, I think a lot of people seem as close, in some ways closer, with their best friend as with their spouse. Also, men and women meet different needs in our lives, whether we are straight, gay, or bi. To me it feels very natural to have both a man and a woman in my life who I have a committed lifetime partnership with, although the nature of the relationship is unique with each. -D
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