Category: lil’ chino

the coming spawn

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let’s hoist one

Hey Friday, good to see you again… feels like a long time.  Let’s hoist a drink to putting a point at the end of a fine week.

Again my days, each one, were overripe; swollen with work and not-work, stretching and bulging and going soft in spots.  In the end, though, things were good.  Work was rewarding in a way it seldom is, with several pieces of outright praise and formal acknowledgment; the kind of stuff that can keep a worker motivated for half a year or so (not to mention the kind of stuff that can give a worker a God complex and therefore needs to be basked-in cautiously).  Outside-work was evenings filled with activity… not a one left wanting for something to do (also something that can be a blessing and a curse).  Anyway, I expect the whole thing will lead to an exhausted collapse of a Friday.

Wednesday night Sharaun and I hit up the Black Eyed Peas show she won tickets to over the weekend.  While they’re not my favorite act by any stretch, I can dig a few of their more melodic dancey tracks and have enjoyed seeing them live a couple times before.  In fact, the last time we saw the Black Eyed Peas Sharaun was pregnant with Keaton.  We joked that both of our kids will have “seen” the Black Eyed Peas in utero.  The show was OK but the free radio tickets were in the nosebleeds and the sound was sort of echoey and bass-heavy by the time it bounced its way up to our ears.  Plus the couple sitting directly in front of us had brought their kids, a ten year old and maybe a five year old, both little girls.  Seeing the little one out so late covering her ears and looking all mopey and bored while her mom bounced around ignoring her made me sad.

Goodnight.

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an orange afterglow

Work continues to press close, choking out most of the day and leaving an orange afterglow around my mind well into the evenings.

Today at work I decided to limit the iPod’s shuffle to all Velvet Underground. Sometimes, the alternate fey and noisy qualities of their “heroin rock” is just what the doctor ordered. As I indulged I remembered back to my first experience with the Underground. I imagine I was introduced to them in much the same way that most folks my age were – by picking up the soundtrack to the 1991 biographical movie about The Doors. Remember the scene where Morrison meets Warhol at the party? The song “Heroin” is playing in the background and, at the time, it was an odd a piece of music as I’d ever heard. I can remember it playing a large role in my pre-drugs teenage romanticizing of drug use. The song seemed to flaunt the fact that it was made to hear while one was wasted… and I felt like I was missing out. Anyway… it’s more than drug music, and it was a good backdrop to my hectic day.

Tonight after putting Keaton to bed she called out from her bedroom, “Mom, when I get older and I’m a mom, what will you be?” Sharaun chuckled and answered, “When you’re a mom I’ll be a grandmother. I’ll be your babies’ grandmother.” “Oh,” she replied thoughtfully, “Then I’ll have to cook food!” Sometimes I wonder what thoughts spur these kind of questions. She must really be laying in there thinking about the things that’ll happen to her when she grows up. Earlier that night she told me that her friend Jake was her “best friend” because when she grows up she’s “going to marry him.” I can remember being a kid and looking at adulthood as something so foreign; purely incomprehensible from my then standpoint, like trying to imagine what it’s like to be dead or a monkey or a woman. It must be super abstract to a four year old.

The baby growing in Sharaun’s stomach is a super active one. She says he’s moving and turning and punching and kicking and doing all sorts of comfort-impairing things inside her all the time. Keaton has grown quite attached to her swollen belly, kissing it and resting her hand on it and even talking into it to her coming baby brother. Sharaun and her have “decided” on a name they like and have adopted using it even in utero. I, on the other hand, am yet to be 100% convinced of the viability of the name and thus am the sole detractor amongst the family. This puts me in the “stubborn” category as far as Sharaun is concerned… but I’m not on the same wavelength this time around. “Keaton” was a slam-dunk, and I’m kind of hoping for repeat in finding another name we both immediately gravitate to. We’ll see.

Goodnight.

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winner winner (and a chicken dinner (for real))

Good Monday to ya, online friends.  Hope your Easter weekend was relaxing and whatnot; ours was.

For her birthday Keaton got a “toddler cookbook” from friends.  It has a small selection of fun recipes which kids can help with.  Since she and I have a history of enjoying cooking and baking together, we’ve been anxious to try it out.  So on Saturday morning we paged through looking for something to cook for Sharaun that evening.  We settled on cheesy bread rolls, which we’d serve as an appetizer, and chicken satay skewers, which would be our entree.  We told mom we’d be cooking dinner and even made up a fancy menu and lavishly set the table.  We went on a shopping trip together for a few ingredients we were short on, and then we set about cooking.

Even though it’s a toddler cookbook, the recipes are fairly demanding in time and prep.  I actually liked it, because Keaton got an idea of how much time can go into creating something yummy.  We did the biscuits from scratch, kneading and rolling the dough by hand and then leaving the rolls to proof while we worked on the chicken.  She learned to how juice a lime, grate ginger, dredge chicken, and even stir a sauce while simmering.  She also learned that the cheesy bread roll sheet is hot when it comes out of the oven, and you get burned if you touch it (a good lesson, despite of, or maybe in owed to, the pain).  Anyway, it was a truly fun thing to do together and, as much as dad’s opinion counts, the cookbook was far and away her best birthday gift.

If your eyes work and you feel like it, you can check out some pictures of the fine dining and prepwork just below.  Despite  her apparent absence, Sharaun was indeed the guest of honor and was there… she somehow just managed to stay out of any photographic evidence.

[nggallery id=39]

OK let us move along.

Ever since I told Sharaun that Black Eyed Peas tickets weren’t in the budget this month, she’s been on a quest to win them from the radio.  Her track record here is quite good, so I was pretty sure she’d actually end up scoring them.  She called all day long all week long, and I suffered an entire Saturday listening over and over and over again to same stinking seven songs that the stupid radio has in heavy rotation while she tried and tried again.  She even enlisted me to help, and I’d dial and hangup and dial and hangup and dial and hangup right alongside her when she’d hear the cue to call.  In the end, though, around 11:30pm that day, she (of course) did win the tickets.  I half wish the lottery did call-in shows; I’m reasonably confident she could win us millions if they only gave it away over the phone…

Check out her winning moment below:

[audio:sharaun_wins_again.mp3]

When she decides she’s going to win, she wins.
(direct link for those on mobile devices without Flash)

I really should start keeping an index of things that are given away this way… and have her start doing it more strategically… I think we’d have to start claiming winnings on our taxes.

Goodnight.

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a hobo’s feast

Monday was a good day.  Got a lot done and did a lot too.  Listened to some music tonight while Sharaun watched TV.

Viewed from the outside, I imagine that scene (the one with me listening to music and Sharaun watching TV) must look terribly dysfunctional.  Here’s a couple who are simply sharing the same habitat.  The male isolates himself behind headphones and writes while the female watches people dance on television and surfs Facebook on her phone.  Like a case study on avoidance or something.  Not so, though.  It was just for a couple songs… and then we were back talking about how sad we are that Keaton is not feeling well.

Around 3am last night Keaton came wandering into our bedroom sniffling.  Through stifled sobs she told Sharaun she’d had a bad dream about some stairs that climbed up into the sky, or something like that.  Sharaun pulled her into the bed between us and she snuggled up next to me.  Putting my forehead against hers I noticed right away that she was burning up.  Sharaun grabbed the thermometer and she clocked in at 101°.  A quick gulp of Tylenol later and she was fast asleep.  The fever stuck around all day, hanging right near that 100° mark and peaking after dinner at 103°.  Poor thing; she’s so quiet and sweet when she’s sick.  She’s passed out on the couch right now while Sharaun watches some television and I write.

It’s supposed to rain this week.  Starting tonight, even.  As much as I like rain I was getting used to the sun and blue sky and warming temperatures.  Sunday we had some friends over for a barbecue.  The spring’s inaugural.  I cooked way too many (too much?)  beans… I always do.  So tonight we had beans for dinner.  No kidding; just beans with little pieces of leftover meat cut up and thrown inside and the whole mess heated in a pan.  It was like a hobo’s feast; a bowl of beans and meat with bread for dipping. I love leftovers; feels like free food.

Goodnight.

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dwarves & princesses & castles

This week I started reading The Hobbit to Keaton before bedtime at night.

It’s something I’ve been looking forward to for a while.  I loved the book when I was a kid but I haven’t read it since highschool.  I’m willing to admit that she’s likely a little young still to really comprehend the story completely… but I’d talked to her about “someday” reading it together and she wouldn’t let it go.  And, actually, so far she seems to be managing decently.

She asks questions and knows which characters are doing what.  She knows a bunch of dwarves showed up at Bilbo’s house, along with a wizard, and that they did some singing (for which dad dutifully invented a tune and actually sung) and some talking about adventures.  She knows Bilbo doesn’t like adventures and isn’t a burglar.

Every night we start our fifteen minutes of reading with a thirty second recap of where we left off the night before.  She was thrilled that, within the first ten pages or so, they mentioned dwarves and princesses and castles.  “I didn’t know The Hobbit had princesses, Dad!”

I’m hoping that as we get into the book she has enough retention to enjoy it.

And hey, “worst” case we read it all over again in a couple years.

Goodnight.

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the uh-oh squad

Wow.  Four days and four entries.  Amazing.  Tons of media today.  Let’s go.

Oh before I get started, remember that health care thing I wrote about a few days ago?  If you’re old enough to remember 1993, the year the GOP put forward their own health care overhaul legislation, you might find this link interesting.  It compares the major provisions of the GOP’s 1993 bill to the recently passed “Obamacare” bill (and the Republicans’ 2010 counter to Obamacare, just for completeness).  For such a small amount of consolidated data, I found it pretty enlightening.

Work this week saw me delivering annual reviews to the troops.  Even though it’s not inherently negative in nature, the whole “performance review”  thing is a downer in general.  People always want more than you’re able to give, whether they truly deserve it or just feel like they do… and you’re never able to do as much good as you’d ultimately like to.  It’s no fun being the guy that makes people feel like crap.  Tuesday was the day for me and it was a long one.  I called a fellow manager around 4:30pm, after delivering my last review, and said simply, “I’m done.  Meet me at the bar.”

Although I’m not done… still another few to go for remote folks or those traveling or whatever.  Bringin’ me down man, bringin’ me way down.  I’ll be glad when time heals the wounds and we can get back to execution.

Speaking of getting back to execution, here we go.

The other day Keaton was in her bedroom for “quiet time” – we don’t get naps anymore but she still gets an hour to hour-and-a-half of “quiet time” in the afternoon – and she was being anything but quiet.  She was back there singing to herself.  Now while this is a violation of quiet time rules, I had to let it got for a little bit so I could sneak up to the door and surreptitiously record her with my phone.  Have yourself a listen:

[audio:109thefish.mp3]

Keaton at “quiet time”
(direct link for those on mobile devices without Flash)

Funny thing about the radio call-phrase she mimics at the end there.  “The Fish” is a local christian radio station.  I hardly think they were playing the Black Eyed Peas or a song about being “a little drunk” at 2am and needing someone.

At work they have this new program where they offer you cash incentives to do some “health and wellness” stuff.  They’ll draw your blood and run your numbers and you fill out surveys about how often you poop and how many beers you drink each week.  Then you meet with a “health coach” and they tell you to go to the gym and eat less bacon.

Now, I know this sounds all 1984 and whatnot, and I’m sure they’re just using the data to bucket me into some “risk bracket” to determine the optimal time to let me go (i.e. before I kick the bucket per their statistical “when’s he gonna die” model).  Anyway, I didn’t come here to write about that (although I’m apparently sacrificing a full entry).  I came to write about sitting in the waiting room.

While I was sitting in the waiting room (my health coach needs a punctuality coach) I picked up a book to try and pass some time.  The book was called 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work.  Being a manager and all, I figured I might actually learn something I could apply at work.  Oh man was I wrong.  The foolishness of this book was indescribable.  If anyone, ever, anywhere did this stuff at work…  And when I got to this page, I just had to take a picture since no one would actually believe me:

If someone brought me this idea in all seriousness, I would try my hardest to fire them.  Fire.

Goodnight.

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elevated

Back from Florida and things are still non-stop.

I do, however, feel the writing bug coming back.  Now just to find time.  Recently work has stepped it up a notch.  Not like those times when I write things like, “Man work was killer this week,” or “Work is kicking my butt this week,” but rather a real sustained uptick in activity.  If I wanted to I think I could make a DHS-like “threat chart” for work, something like a “bandwidth-demand” chart that’d be similarly color-coded for how much of my mental time (not necessarily just at-work hours) work commands.  Right now I’d say things have moved from “guarded” to “elevated.”  Only problem is that the time in between each threat level, moving upwards, becomes increasingly smaller.  So before I know it I’ll be dealing with “high” and then “severe.”  Not surprisingly, like the Department of Homeland Security we’ll never actually get to “low,” and the longest-lasting phase, the one you tend to get “stuck” on, is “high.”

But, since it’s already half-past midnight on Wednesday and I’m tired and need sleep, instead of trying to flex my quill and write a masterpiece I’m instead going to post a video. I took the following a couple weeks ago when Sharaun was in Florida and Keaton and I were alone for an extended weekend.  I had just gotten into the 1981 Human League record Dare (after hearing that’s what Lester Bangs was listening to when he committed suicide) and had been wearing the grooves out of the thing (virtually, of course) all weekend.  Keaton began to pick up on the lyrics and started to really dig the first track.  She even developed her own dance to the song, which is what I taped here.  Her choice of 80s glasses was all solo, I didn’t foist them on her as a prop.  Check out the moves:

Someone call Soul Train.

Goodnight.