Typically, my trip is over too soon. Tomorrow evening I fly home from Portland, into the fire and brimstone that is northern California, and back into what we think of as real life though I think if one does it right, travel is real life and work is the other thing we do from time to time.

I've spent the last couple of days exploring neighborhoods around Portland; though I think I haven't really even scratched the surface. My friends Bonnie and James moved up here several years back, and love it here; I rather suspect the 'tour' they've given us has been more a sales job for 'why move up to Portland'.

Portland is a funky town; I spent today trying to think of what it's like. It has some similarity to Santa Cruz, CA; but it's much more a place than Santa Cruz. It also has some similarity to Berkley, but Berkley has much more sense of self-importance. It finally occurred to me that it felt a bit like Austin; it's a college town, it's an oasis of culture and weirdness in a largely back-woods state, and it's a place which seems to see itself as apart from it's surrounds. It has a dynamic food scene (today's oddest treat; blue-cheese chocolate truffle), a somewhat unique music scene, and people on the street all seem a half step ahead of things, style-wise. Yet it's also very much a small town, not quite so cool as it thinks it is. You can see people trying to be cool.

I like this town. I don't, though, love it yet. I could immediately visualize living in Victoria (as I could when I was in Vancouver ten years ago). I actually pondered living in Seattle. Portland, though, I haven't yet come to terms with. I can't quite decide if it's self-aware funkiness more tips the scale toward appealing, or annoying.

Either way, it's a town I need to see more of. I don't know why it's taken so long to get up here to visit; the family I'm staying with are some of my favorite people in the world, and they've had an open offer extended to ages. It's not that far, and I can even see coming up here on two wheels some day, if I pick a good time of year for motorcycle travel.

I still haven't managed to get to Voodoo Donuts for a bacon maple bar, one of the key goals of my trip. I'm hoping to get that taken care of tomorrow. On the other hand, if I don't get there, it's one more reason to come back real soon now.

I kind of meant to keep a running log of my stay in Seattle as did in Victoria; or at least carry on a flirt-by-flirt, firework by firework overview.

I never quite got to my computer in seattle; maybe it was flaky WiFi, or maybe the lack of a decent writing surface in my room. Or maybe I was too busy by day and too beat at night.

I've been through Seattle a few times before, and sort of rated it as one of those 'what's the big fuss about' cities. The last three days in Seattle changed my mind completely. I drove in thinking, i should have stayed in Victoria, or gone to Vancouver; I left today thinking, I want to live here.

My hotel was almost exactly halfway between Pioneer Square and Pike Place Market; it would be hard to pick a more perfect spot for a first trip. This is the corner where the Seattle Fire started in 1889.

It's funny; my mental image of Seattle came from two sources. There was a teevee show around 1970; 'Here Come the Brides' or something like that. It presented 1860's Seattle as a folksy, rustic place.

That image stuck - though I can't recall ever actually watching the show at the time - until Seattle hit the public consciousness in a big way, thanks to Sub Pob Records and the Grunge scene. Somewhere around the same time, Starbucks started to its slow march toward world dominance.

My image of Seattle changed from from folksy to urban; like the rest of the country, I sort of noticed seattle for the first time in fifteen years or so. Trouble was, the new image was just as two dimensional as the old. What I saw wasn't that different than the music scene in San Francisco; punk, folk and metal bands all sort of converging on a common point, fueled by drugs, alcohol and coffee.

Several years ago, I came through the area on the way from one place and to another. What I saw was horrible traffic, crowds on tourists, and not much else. I pretty much got out of town quick as I could and haven't been interested in coming back since.

This week, I wiped out all that. Cheesy western teevee, grunge rock stereotypes, traffic and empty tourism; all gone.

What I realized the last few days is, I'd missed what made this city cool. The dynamic weather, the amazing views, the food, the culture. In one sweep of coast line, one can find two of the country's best ballparks, storied old quarter, world-class farmer's market, numerous museums, and thriving downtown.

Everywhere I looked there were shops, restaurants, bars, and yes, coffee houses, that were full of locals as well as tourists. People live here; the tourists spots are such because places like Pike Place Market are real, not hopped up for tourists.

I didn't get to do half of what I wanted; I missed the Experience Music Project, I missed several restaurants, several museums. I didn't get to shop for produce and cook (no kitchen in my hotel). I didn't have time for any live music. On the other hand, I managed to get to Pike Place a couple of times, found a tattoo shop I've wanted to visit for years (Vyvyn Lazonga), toured Seattle's underground, visited the Space Needle (something I've wanted to see since I was little. I saw forth-of-july fireworks and visited the Utilikilts store. I got out to see locks in Ballard, took my kids to Archie McPhee, and even managed to catch a musical with them (Aida, one of their favorite shows).

What I proved to myself is that I'd completely missed seattle last time I was here; and that I needed to spend a whole lot more time here than had this week. I liked Seattle enough that I started to visualize living here; the only things that stopped me from pricing houses were the thought that I'd just seen un-seasonably warm weather, and that the main high tech employer in town happens to be Micro$oft.

Plans for next time, though; condo, not hotel, so I can show Pike Place and then cook. And plan for much more time, so I can actually hang out.

It wasn't planned this way, but my family and I wound up in Victoria, BC for Canada Day (Or as my kids insist on calling it, 'Canadia Day').

This wound up being a lucky coincidence; the dates were picked around my mother-in-law's trip to Everett for a high-school reunion, my work schedule, and my kids summer school. We had no idea, when booking, that Canada Day fell on july 1st, nor did we think about the significance of this.

July fourth means little to me, apart from being the day we used to have fireworks (before local communities decided to punish the responsible many in order to weed out the irresponsible few, by outlawing all fireworks). America may be my country of birth, but now, and even when I was a child, it all too often it represents what's wrong in western culture. While I will root for American teams in the Olympics, and think the ideas upon which this country was founded are pretty damn good, I can't in good conscience stand for the national anthem or salute the flag; these things carry too much aura for me of mindless, reactionary, love-it-or-leave-it patriotism.

Particularly in this bush-era, post 9/11 world, the stars and strips says to me, 'we don't care of we're stupid and wrong'. Yes, I'm cynical, but I remember the sixties, when we fought another war far away for no reason anyone could justify; I remember when we wore american american flags on our jackets to say 'it's my country too.' We fought a culture war then, and thought we were winning. I don't always have the resolve to keep fighting it.

So it was particularly refreshing to come to a country in the midst of celebrating it's symbolic birth, when it's a country I have no emotional baggage with.

Canada is a northern neighbor, a country that's produced some of my favorite bands and musicians, a place where they share my passion hockey. Ok, sure, they don't know how to play football correctly and they kind of sound like Bob and Doug; but they have far saner policies on drug enforcement and gay rights, and they make much stronger beer. The sum is still pretty largely positive. So I could embrace the festival spirit easily, letting go my own opinions on nationalism and politics. Today, it was about red and white flags, fireworks, beer, and pretty girls (have I mentioned the girls in Victoria? Ok, let me put it this way - grrrrrowl.)

Victoria does a pretty good job of throwing a party. My hotel faces the Legislature building across Victoria's Inner Harbor; this means I was greeted at 8am - yes, 8am - by loud, live music from a stage across the water. This pretty much went on all day; bands, DJ's, speakers. It was going on when I went to breakfast, a couple hours later when I walked into town, and it was still going when we came out of the Empress Hotel after having afternoon tea.

I felt wildly out of place; I wasn't wearing red. It looked like everyone walking up and down the street, locals and tourists alike, were decked from head to toe in red and white, including a number of girls who'd found clever ways to fashion Canada's flag into tops and mini-dresses. Every car seemed to sport a flag, and everyone looked happy. No one was protesting anything; no anti-war demonstrations, no rallies, no nonsense; it felt like the entire city had set down it's issues for a party.

The best part about all this was how my kids reacted to it.

We planned a brief foray into Canada just because Ruby, my youngest, has no memory of being anywhere but the USA; I wanted to give her the experience of spending money that isn't all uniformly green. I wanted her to see road signs in metric; I wanted her to see what it's like to cross a border. But today's celebration gives her more than an experience of place, it gives her a sense of national identity. A week ago, she thought of Canada as a name on a map, and a place where sports teams or certain family friends used to live. Today, it's a people. It's a culture. She'll never forget seeing people in red, celebrating a flag and a nation that meant nothing to her only days ago.

Businesses were giving out small Canadian flags; our hotel has pins in a dish on the concierge desk. My kids decorated themselves with flags and pins, and dug through their luggage for any red garments they had. Happy Canada Day, they said, to anyone they talked to.

The party went on into the evening, culminating with a terrific firework display which was launched directly in front of my hotel; we were able to see both the display in the sky, but also the pyrotechnicians on the ground and the apparatus they used to put on the show. People had been camping out for hours to get a good viewing spot; but we had best possible vantages, both from our room, and from the hotel's rear patio, only a few yards from the launch point.

It was a terrific day; one of those experiences one can't really have, other than traveling with kids. Watching some vague concept become real and tactile and human; watching how that lights them up. I've traveled a lot, and those moments don't come every day, not even in every trip. But when they come, they make every penny spent pay off a hundred-fold.

Tomorrow, we leave Victoria for the states. The only good thing about this, for me, is that my iPhone will once again work over EDGE without paying insane international data rates. Apart from that, I can't think of anything I look forward to. I want another week in BC, at least. But the three days I've had are some of the best travel days I've had in quite a long while.

I'll admit, though, that I've been singing Blame Canada all day.

Yesterday I sailed the seven seas - or at least a couple of square miles on San Francisco Bay - on a reasonable facsimile of a realio-trulio Pirate Ship.

Ok, so it was a school field trip with my fourth-grade daughter's class. There was no rum, no pillage, precious little mayhem. But terms like avast and belay were heard without a trace of irony.

The boat in question (the hawaiian chieftain) is one of a pair of historically accurate reproduction of 18th century sailing ships run by Gray's Harbor Historical Seaport; they spend the year sailing the west coast and doing various educational and training cruises, wintering in southern CA, and spending summers someplace in washington.

I was, from the moment we boarded, green with envy. These people - mostly college students, with a few crusty old salts - work long hours, get payed little, and live full time on the ships, if in considerably more comfort than we'd have seen two hundred years ago (flush toilets, and food without so many maggots and weevils; the good things about modern technology). They do this 'cause they love the sailing, I guess, and because how else in this day can you call yourself a pirate and actually put in on your curriculum vitae?

I was all for joining up with then and there. I could hang with a year sailing; forget all this fucking high tech.

Alas, my three hour tour was just that, and I had at the end of the day to collect my truck-load of kids and return them to school. Yet I've spent the last 24 hours thinking about jibs and spars, about working aloft in the rigging, about what it'd be like to have land feel odd under my feet. Even if it's play, I wanted to go do it. Call it my version of the old run off and join the circus fantasy.

So of course I looked at the crew openings page. Because the world needs more sailors and fewer engineers, sez I.

I meant to post this two weeks ago and as usual, the sheer load of stuff I need to do got in the way. I'm in the final two weeks of getting a project out and... well, nevermind, I don't wanna talk about work. Let's just say, busy with a side of busy.

Anyway, I'm here to talk about music.

My current big band obssion is The Bad Plus.

I blogged about them not long ago; but since then I've seen them play live since.

I discovered this band sort of by accident; my friend Chris (also known as Papa by my kids, Christo von Paisley back in the Jailbait Babysitters days), and as Papa Christo by a whole lot of our friends, mixing the two nicknames together) handed me These are the Vistas one day a couple years ago, saying, you like jazz, you should check these guys out. , and I liked them instantly.

If you have not listened to them, it's impossible to convey in one or two song samples, and it's difficult to describe. They are a basic jazz piano trio (piano, stand up bass, drums). However, they have a way of playing with a rock sensibility, even while very much being a jazz group. They are not really fusion, certainly not what I think of as fusion (chick corea, john mclaughlin, herbie hancock, joe zawinul). Sonically, they're pure jazz. Yet they manage to feel more purely like a fusion than any of those bands did, at least back in fusion's heyday in the 70s and 80s; no electric instruments, no funk bass, no distortion, but instead the rock coming from driving beats and a rock-infused melodic sense.

They play covers from Bacharach to Rush, Tears for Fears to Queen, Interpol to Black Sabbath. Yet it's their originals I find most inspired (and you'll find two examples below); these guys are all three accomplished composers, with distinctly different styles.

A few months ago, when I saw Richard Thompson play in Saratoga, CA, I noticed The Bad Plus listed on a bill of upcoming acts. So I was watching for tickets to go on sale.

When then did, I was nearly first in virtual line, snapping up front row seats in what has to be one of the south bay's best small venues, the Villa Montalvo carriage house theater.

I wasn't sure who would be going wth me, but I picked up three tickets; Chris, I was sure, would want one, but Kenny or one of my other jazz musician friends would be interested; a good seat is almost always easy to give away.

Cut to a month ago, when I posted this entry; my nine-year-old daughter Ruby, who'd always responded stringly to jazz (from the time she was an infant, if I had jazz on, she calm down and listen), developed an un-expected love for The Bad Plus.

She impressed the hell out of me. TBP are, to say the least, somewhat challenging; they play weird songs, weird time signatures, bizarre improvisational sections. They're not user friendly jazz. Ruby got them, and loved them. She kept seeking them out in my iPod, asked me to load them onto hers. When I told her I had an extra ticket, she enthusiastically said yet, I want to go!

When the night of the show came, Ruby was excited to the point of speechlessness. Se's funny like that, her sister gets twitchy and talks non-stop when excited, chatters so fast you wonder when she has time to breathe. Not Ruby; she goes near-catatonic. Like so much sensory input sends her into a fugue state. That's how they were when we were seeing Wicked; Olivia vibrating and ruby absolutely still, wide-eyed and stone faced. Both in a state of rapture, but with polar opposite appearances.

I got in the car this morning to drive my 9 year old daughter, Ruby, to school.

I jacked my iPhone into the stereo and handed it to her as I pulled out of the driveway. Pick something, I said.

She spent several minutes scrolling around through my collection and chose something.

She chose this.

I listened for a moment to the quiet opening, puzzled.

What is this? I asked her.

The Bad Plus, she answered.

"You like this?"

Yeah, we played it last time you drove to school.

My little girl. This is added on to her taste that already ranges from High School Musical to the Beach Boys to Garbage. Eclectic, one might say.

The Santa Clara County Office of Education has been, for the past twelve years, been building an impressive collection of children's artwork. I wasn't aware of this until recently though.

From the SCCOE web site:

Thirty-four student artists from public schools throughout the county were honored when their work was accepted for display at the COE (County Office of Education). Their work—selected from 280 submissions—now will hang alongside more than 600 other pieces that have been collected in the past 12 years. We welcome visitors who want to stroll through our hallways and view the creations of our talented students.

My daughter Olivia was one of those selected this year. A month ago, we attended an unexpectedly moving awards ceremony, at which educators and major Bay Area arts figures spoke about the importance of art in both education, and life.

This year's winners are here, and below is Olivia's piece, which now hangs in the main hallway in the SCCOE building (click to see larger).

Yeah. Dad's proud.

There are certain things a man does for no other reason than to win the approval of women.

This can include gifts, certainly. But it can be as simple as lawn-mowing, or putting the seat down, or getting one's fucking feet off the table.

Little else, though, has quite the innocent payoff of pleasing adolescent girls.

Hence, I accompanied my nine year old daughter Ruby to "Disney's High School Musical on Ice" at what was once called the Oakland Coliseum (though it now seems to be named after some over-monied high-tech database giant).

It was a bit odd being in that building again. It's been a while. I've lost count of how many concerts I saw there through the seventies and eighties. They seem to have re-modeled the place heavily, or the drugs I was on back in those days did worse to my memory than I was aware.

But that night, it wasn't stoner boys in down coats and waffle-stomper boots, sporting Yes and Genesis and Pink Floyd t-shirts. Tonight, the smell of shampoo and lip-glass and adolescent excitement was in the air.

There's a sound - unlike any other sound, anywhere. This is what Beatlemania must have sounded like in person. This is the sound five thousand adolescent girls screaming as one, at the top of every tiny set of lungs, when an skater dressed and made up and wigged to vaguely resmble Zac Efron takes of his shirt and does a bit of fancy footwork across the ice.

I have to admit, such excitement is infectious.

Now, if you have adolescent girls at home, or know someone who does, you are all too aware of the whole High School Musical phenomenon. I won't bother to describe, or try to explain, why this low-budget Disney Channel made-for-television movie has become such a massive hit. What I'll say, though, is that it's cute, silly, has pretty good songs, and likable stars (and as we know from the gossip pages, Vanessa Anne Hudgens is pretty tasty indeed in her birthday suit.)

But one has to be at least a bit afraid at the idea of - well, anything on ice that isn't either olympic, or a comestible.

Ok, maybe it was just the screaming girls. Maybe it was the fantastic seats I had (I could reach the ice from my seats, which means I was close enough to see the skaters sweat, and see the expressions on their faces when they would occasionally drop character). Or maybe it's that I genuinely love figure skating. But I admit it - I liked it. It was, possibly, the most soulless piece of live performance I've ever seen, and yet I enjoyed it.

Yeah, I'm blaming the little girls. It's hard to be jaded and cynical when you're sitting behind a ten year old who looks like she's seeing god every time a favorite character skates by

Ruby was absolutely paralyzed with excitement. I thought she was unhappy halfway through the first act, and then realized, she was utterly overwhelmed into a fugue state. She wasn't even able to applaud at first. I'm not entirely sure she was even breathing. When we got home, she had a sobbing breakdown, a combination of exaustion (WAY past her bedtime) and thrill over-load.

I can't say I want to go back and see HSMonI again right away. But I also don't at all mind the time and money. Well, well worth it. And damn, are those good Dad Points.

Saturday, Ruby goes with me to her first hockey game; thus, she gets to see what ice should look like, ie, with blood on it.

Update: I just read a review of this show by SFGate's Peter Hartlaub. He captures it perfectly.

I had this idea I'd do some writing while I was alone, but it wound up as predicted; at work late every day, and then sapped of will when I got home. I started at least three blog entries, all of them now languishing.

Ah. Such is life.

Today i fly south to Los Angeles to meet up with the family - my daughter's birthday (dinner at House of Blues), and beyond that I don't even know what our plans are. My only items of interest are stopping in at Sunset Tattoo (just because I'm staying near it), Musso and Frank for martinis, and beyond that, I don't care. I imagine the kids will want to visit Olvero Street and the La Brea tar pits (because they always want to do those things), but I'm pretty much down with anything that doesn't include work. Likely there's also some plan to go celeb spotting in some night spot or other (Wait, I'll bring my checklist).

Whatever - it's the going I love. I need to find a job where I can travel and write for a living.

Father's day cards from my kids, which show you that adobe illustrator can be used for good as well as evil.

It started out as a plan for a family reunion.

This would be a good place I said, to do a family reunion. The 'sometime' was implied.

My in-laws (you may remember them from an earlier episode, in fact many, known collectively as in-law vs outlaw) have one of those family reunion traditions. Sometimes we do these every couple years, sometimes not. And always, it's a case of, who's gonna plan it, who's gonna say they're coming, who's gonna show up, who's gonna pay for the ones who can't afford it.

We've done 'em close - monterey, tahoe - or far, idaho, utah, oregon. And every time it's a funny, silly drama, the kind you only get in families. Disorganization, mis-communication, flakiness. yet, always, we have a good time.

I don't fit with these people - they come from mormon stock, though a lot of them are not mormon anymore. But if you watch Big Love, when they show you the LDS people, you could be looking at some of my more-distant mormon in-laws. They're a straight-arrow bunch. And I'm - well, I'm the outlaw. The pirate. The biker. The counter-culture guy. They, truly, have no idea who I really am, unless some of them are reading this space.

Yet, they're good folks. There are some crazies in the bunch, even if they're non-drinking, never-gotten-stoned types. There are some who own guns, some who ride motorcycles. There's a group who have a real taste for mayhem. Sober mayhem, but mayhem all the same.

But - ultimately - they're family, and family means disorganization.

So a few months ago, we were at Disneyland, and staying at a nearby hotel, and I said, instead of the usual places, we should do the family reunion here, next year, a year after. Whenever, it'd be fun.

And I mentioned that in passing to my mother-in-law, who somehow converted that to now because that's how she is.

Everyone said, yeah, we can do that, great, we're in. There are a lot of big Disney geeks in teh family - some of 'em much bigger disney geeks than I am. So it was a no-brainer, they were fully into it. A date was picked, motel rooms booked. Everyone, even the arms of the family that usually drop out, said they were in, coming from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah.

And you can see where this goes.

One by one, they dropped out, like a set of dominos. Oh, wait, we can't do that week.

Until it was back down to pretty much just the LA locals (the lovely couple whose wedding I attended before my Fiji trip two years ago), my family, my in-laws.

But you know, we had the rooms booked, so it turned out to be a very small family re-union. And so, next week, I'll be in sunny southern CA, getting sunburned in line for It's a small world. Alas, Pirates is down for now - they're adding Jack Sparrow to the ride, an idea I don't like. But maybe this time I'll get time to talk to Jack Rudy about a tattoo I want, and in any case, not working is always, always a good thing.

Wow, are my legs sore.

I realize now how long it's been since I've been on a bike. Where's my fuckin' advil?

Wait, actually, where's my darvocet? Not that I need it, but if I'm takin' pills, it might as well be ones with side benefits.

It's been a long time, and yet, I find, even though I'm outta shape (it's been that kind of year), that I'm a better bike rider than I was. When I bought myself a mountain bike twelve, thirteen years ago, I remember thinking, this used to be easier when I was a kid. Now though, even with the quads tight and the breath not coming as easy as I'd like, with the hills feeling oh-so-much steeper than they look, I'm finding my riding skills better, ten years away from my last bike ride.

I realize, though in many ways it's different, that riding a motorcycle almost every day for much of the last decade has made me a better bicycle rider. Not that that's a surprise; not like the realization I had after my first long dive-every-day trip that diving makes me a better motorcyclist (who knew?) yet, it's a pleasure to find that I'm more, rather than less, comfortable after the intervening years.

But damn, my legs are rubber today. A ride up the hill to the local cemetery (which wasn't so much because it's memorial day as just because my kids like cemeteries; they're morbid little monsters, but that's no surprise) was pretty much an uphill slog the entire way. And I haven't seen a squat or a leg press or a lunge or even a treadmill in six months.

I've a goal though, for both me and the young'un, of getting up that hill to the cemetery without a break. No bike walking, no stopping. By mid june. That, and a return to the gym sometime in the next week or two, and maybe, just maybe, I'll be back to feeling like me again by the end of the summer.

I think I can I think I can...

After a very long, hard struggle involving mis-teaching, panic, fear, anger, and desire, my daughter can now, at twelve, ride a two-wheeler.

Your long dark nightmare is over, I told her.

This was a long time coming. She was set up badly in the early days by grandma 'helping' - which is to say, pushing. Olivia would ride around in grandmas back yard on her first adorable little red training-wheeled bike. Olivia would steer, grandma would push. They did this for about two years while telling me 'Olivia can ride her bike', only, Olivia could not ride at all. Somehow this set in poor O's mind the notion that bikes should go without any pedal action at all. She's been fighting this ever since.

We've tried - first by buying her a couple of cool bikes, then by offering rewards and bribes. The training wheels and coaster brakes, which should have made it easy, made it harder because she would stop peddling each time the bike started to go. The old habit would kick in, and she's stop, and then bike would stop, or worse, flip.

Each and every time, no matter who worked with her, she's wind up in panicked tears.

This weekend, a beautiful, sunny weekend, she found the place in herself where desire and anger overcame fear; she wanted to try again. And so her mother's bike came out of the garage - a brilliantly well-styled bike but frankly not a good bike for a beginner. And it looked like we had the usual taped replay, fear and panic driving Olivia, making her stop and give up every time the bike began to move. Olivia had the skills. We could see it. She could ride. But fear overcame all, and each time she hit that point that every bike rider knows by instinct, the point where you kick the pedal and the bike stabilizes, she'd instead drop her feet to the ground or worse, back-pedle the coaster brakes; and she'd go down, and sob in frustration at why the bike won't stay up.

We had a melt-down, sobbing, anger, frustration. I'm not fearless like you guys! she sobbed.

And I sat with her, my arm around her as she sat in the seat in her grand-mother's borrowed van, the sun on the back of my neck, and I talked to her about fear and anger and desire; about the things we all fear, about the fears adults have they won't admit to. And I told her it isn't about not being afraid; it's about not letting the fear win. It's about letting the desire, or the anger be stronger than the fear, about getting angry and saying, i won't let you beat me. And when she found that in herself, she'd push instead of giving in.

She cried, and then came back, and wanted to try again. So I got out my beat up old bridgestone mountain bike, which I haven't ridden in ten years, and I said, stop yelling, stop crying, stop arguing, stop talking, stop moving, and just sit and watch me. And I peddled around, stopped, started, turned, just showed her how the bike tips and wobbles, but STAYS UP WHEN YOU PEDDLE.

And she sobbed, and said she couldn't. And in two and three foot increments, we worked our way up my street, her failing over and over. And, for the first time, though her face grew red and she began to cry, she didn't let it win. She got angry, but instead of stopping and screaming and arguing about how she couldn't and why she couldn't, she did what I'd told her, what her mother's told her, what friends have told her, and looked ahead, not down, and saw where she wanted the bike to go, and peddled when she felt like stopping, and suddenly, the bike was moving. And I was peddling along side her, watching for cars, and telling her, that's in, you're riding - faster now, faster, faster! and she argued with me; don't say faster, that makes me want to go slower, so I said go slower go slower and she argued with that as well; but she was peddling as she argued, distracted and letting the instinct to peddle take over.

And that was it. All the way to the end of the street and back. She faltered and stumbled and fell, but she got back on and needed no help, and while she'd whimper I'm sorry and why am I so stupid each time, she got back on and beamed when she started to move again. We rode to grandmas house, to the local grade school, me peddling a bike with three working gears out of twenty-one and barely any brakes, her peddling that beast of a cruiser, far too big and heavy for her. And we didn't want to stop.

I made her a promise years ago, that the day she rode, she could go get a bike, any bike she wanted. And I would have done that, even if she'd demanded this one, or the one for which I lust in my heart, this one. But she listened to the bike store guy, and listened to me when I told her those bikes are cool but they don't work that well for the hilly terrain where we live, that they're big and heavy and hard to carry around (all the reasons I don't own that beautiful 8-ball bike). She listened because she felt strong and didn't need to make a fuss.

She tried a couple of really cool-looking bikes, and struggled, and then she got on this bike at the store, took it around the parking lot, and knew instantly that she could ride this thing.

And so it's hers, the Raleigh Passage 3.0.

Not flaming red or cobalt blue or whatever her favorite color is this week. Not styly or hip. She went with the choice of fit and function over an amazingly-colord bike she tried first. She never fussed, or second guessed. Black goes with everything she said, and couldn't wait to get it home.

When you're that age, bikes represent freedom. The world just opened up to her. The library, the bookstore, the local hangouts. Starbucks and the local mall. She can get there. She's not ready now, but she sees the distance shrink. She sees the world, unreachable yesterday, drawing close to her, like space warping. She's asking me, can we rent bikes, next time we go to Hawaii, or Fiji, or Turk and Caicos? Can we ride to the local Sushi place instead of driving? Can we go out now, please, right now. She doesn't care that she's covered in bruises from falling, that her butt hurts from the seat, that she's got odd sore muscles in her legs. She wants to move and not stop moving.

And I remember that feeling. Like my daughter, I was a big, slow kid. I was strong; I was an ox. But I was slow and clumsy. The bike changed that, letting the strength in my legs compensate for my size. I could race my friends, and while I didn't usually win, I never came in last. I could move and go. Freedom and power.

I stood there in that bike shop and looked at the bike she'd chosen, and looked at the killer sale price, and started mentally adding up how much it was going to cost me to get my mountain bike working. I added up the parts and the effort and the time and then looked at her riding and I said to the clerk, hey, can I try this one?

And unexpectedly, I came home with the big brother to Olivia's bike. Again, not the 8-ball, not the Rat Fink. Not the $1200 full-shock mountain bike. No flames, but an embarrassingly grown-up metal-flake silver. But it got me out on the road without letting me build road-blocks to impede myself. And it got me out, peddling, instead of sitting on my ass playing Resident Evil, or fooling around at my computer, not writing nor working, just killing time. It got me out in the sunshine (note to self - remember a hat next time), sweating. It got me remembering how much I like being on two wheels. And it got me doing something with my kids that I remember doing with my parents.

Let's Ride.

A mother's day highlight:

Having to explain to an 8 year old and a 12 year old what M.I.L.F. means.

"Um. It's a, you know, really pretty mommy..."

The little one was fine with that. The elder gave me one of those looks. You know the ones, the ones I'll be getting more and more now, the ones that say, ok, fine, but there's more to this story and I know it.

I spent my sunday not being at the computer. I think this was a good choice; I'm arm-wrestling a lotta frustration and staring at a screen on which I'm unable to do anything useful makes it unquestionably worse.

I managed to sleep unusually late, thanks to lovely chemicals; what was was that old DuPont quote? Without Chemistry, Life Itself Would Be Impossible.. I woke just in time to make fine, strong coffee (Peets of course - there's simply no better coffee the world over), and then tune in a football game.

Ok. So my team sucked. They basically conducted a clinic in how to suck. Big deal though, it beats that empty, mocking screen. Final score? I think it was about seven hundred to minus 5 or something. If we were not in negative numbers, we should have been. There goes my fantasy team stats for another week - can I have a mulligan on this week and start over?

It was one of those afternoons where it feels, for a day, like summer isn't over. Hot, bright, clear, with the feeling that there's not just a day, but an entire season before me. A life before me. Starting fresh.

I walked out and looked up and breathed in a summer smell, and wanted it not to end, ever. I wanted to walk and keep walking. I felt like if I could just follow the sun it would lead me to a place where summer never ended. But it's not so simple as that and I can't always simply make the choice and have it go as I dream.

So instead, I gathered up my children and spent several hours simply walking, exploring our neighborhood, with stops for lunch in a new italian deli, and for beverages in the odd little market that still scratches a living in town, somehow.

We walked until out feet hurt; Olivia's outgrown another pair of boots. Like me at her age, shoes seems to shrink before our eyes.

We returned home, finally, to change shoes, drink and then we needed to feed Ruby's obsession with goofy-golf.

We spent the rest of a sunny, dusty afternoon knocking small, brightly-colored balls about on ratty outdoor carpet; I entertained my children with snippets of old monty python routines. My hovercraft is FULL of EELS!

I'll finish my day with a short workout, something I'm trying to get myself back to. I'd forgotten how much I need that, how much better I feel when my muscles have the vague ache of weightlifting. So I'll do a short set of curls, some pushups, as many crunches as I can stand. Just the basics, though I need to be back at the gym, I need to get myself back to heavy leg-press sets and squats and bench. I've never felt better, in my adult life, than when I have a routine of heavy lifting.

And then, I think, a glass a scotch, and if my eyes will stay open, tonight's RockStar INXS. This is the last week and I'll miss it. Though I may not stay away that long.

Simple sundays.

Still though, I thought, as the sun was setting, I want to follow that sun. I want to be where summer never ends.

Someday.

I started to write this ten days ago, but have been unable to finish it with the intervening events. It felt self-involved to go on writing about an oddly painful memory of my father inspired by a replica firearm. So I put it away.

Tonight, this just felt right, sitting alone on a thursday night, my family sleeping, the smell and feel of winter in the air for the first time this year.

No, I'm not gonna roast a fucking pig. I keep thinking I should try it, but when it comes down to it, I'd rather just drink.

I'm throwing a luau today, for my daughter's 7th birthday; mai tais, hawaiian food (vaguely hawaiian, anyway), hawaiian music around the pool.

My goal for the day - don't kill anyone. Because, you know, it could happen. Rum makes a man crazy, sometimes. And almost without exception, I'm armed with sharp, pointy things.

     "it is a vile drink that turns even the most respectable men into complete scoundrels." -- Elizabeth Swann

It's true, and I must say, any ladies of age who choose to show up in bikinis had better watch out. There's no question, no question at all, that I'm feeling my inner scoundrel today; and that's just the coffee so far. When we add ol' demon Rum to the mix, watch out.

My daughter is seven years old today.

Wow. How time fucking slips between my fingers. I remember the first one, who's now eleven, being born only a couple years ago. This one can't possibly be this big, this old already.

Seven years can go by in a blink.

Happy Birthday, Ruby. I love you.

[made with ecto]

God, I feel like I've totally dropped out of the blogosphere. I really haven't even thought about any entries of note in a
week, I have not read anyone else's blog in a week. I've barely been on line, haven't IM'd, have not answered email.

Even though I've been working like a dog all week, I still feel like I've been on vacation from everything. But now I feel oddly out of touch with the online world and have a lotta catch-up reading to do.

My bachelor week is about done. And while I didn't go anywhere, still, I feel like I've had a vacation. My watch is in the shop for repair, and literally, it's been a week since I knew what time it was; it's been a week since I cared what time it was.

So what have I done? I'm trying to think. Not much, and yet I feel like I've been busy. Busy not doing anything important at all. I've been to a few dinners, watched a few movies, finished a couple books, written quite a bit. I've had too much to drink almost every night. I've talked to friends on the phone, I've hung out with topless, sunbathing lesbians, I've seen a movie, watched some TV, and just hung out a lot. I've been to a couple strip clubs, gone drinking with a group of guys I just met, watched porn movies. I've sat in the sun and done nothing. I've gone swimming at midnight and slept until 10am. I've gone for motorcycle rides and cooked for myself. Re-wired a friend's AV system.

I have not read any Harry Potter. Waiting for the family to get home for that one. But I have read up on Harry Potter spoilers. I'm like that.

Apart from some writing and work, I've avoided my computer. As I said, little IM, no blogging or reading blogs. I'm behind on mashups over at MashupTown, I'm behind on everyone's blogs; I don't think I've left a blog comment in a week.

It's been an interesting week. I have never truly lived alone. I haven't been this alone in years; last time I was this alone, I crashed my motorcycle and spent most of the week barely able to walk with a back sprain. This is considerably better.

Yet it's weird to get up in the morning and not see my kids; it's weird to not read them stories before bed. It's weird to not have anyone to cook for; it's weird not to have the daily, constant chaos that comes from living with a family. That chaos is both the bane and the beauty of being a father, so it's loss is both good and bad. It's lovely to not have to run my dishwasher daily, to not have two loads of wash every day, to know any mess I have to clean, I made. But it's a little empty to come home from work and not have anyone say Hi Daddy.

I miss 'em. Yet, this is good; it's been therapeutic for me in many ways. Time to think, to relax, to not have to think about anyone's needs but mine. I think we all need more of this; fathers, mothers, husbands, wives. Our kids, if they're lucky, sometimes go to summer camp, and some of us get to go away to college. Grownups need summer camp now and then, I think. Particularly a summer camp with strippers and sunbathing, topless lesbians.

I must say though, I'm still tempted to go get my nipples pierced before everyone comes home. I've been thinking about it for a week, and I just might go do it, tonight, tomorrow. I would have gotten a tattoo, were not finances a little short this month, but some part of me wants to do something that leaves a mark. Other than walking into a door.

[made with ecto]

No, Not the reality teevee show. I'm done with that topic.

I'm talking about a temporary bachelor.

The family are taking off for a toasty tour of the southwest (why do they call it the southwest when it's east of here? And what's with the midwest? It's not mid, nor west). I, on the other hand, as a workin' stiff, can't always take off at the last minute with no advance planning. So I'm keepin' the home fires burnin' and waiting for some post-cards and t-shirts. Gray, with skulls. That's it, you know what I like.

Meanwhile, I've got a big ten days here to myself.

Obviously, I'm hoping to get some writing done. It's a prime chance, truly. And if I could turn the tap in my head, I could write a fucking novel in ten days. I've got the stories, and I've got the time. But I'll keep expectations low and just say, I'll work, and maybe I'll get a story or two I can post.

Most likely, I'll spend too much time at home. I'll do a ton of laundry, watch a lotta movies (I got netflix again - first up, Firefly), read a thick, heavy book or two (Moby Dick? Hell, it's on my bedside table), and drink way too much. I'm tellin' ya, friends, if I do this, come get me outta the house. Sometimes I go hermit when I have the house to myself. Come get me and take me out and get me in trouble. I could use it.

The worst thing I do when I'm alone is that I tend to spend way too much time at work. With no reason to get home, no one to cook for or clean up after, I tend to think, I'll just finish this today instead of putting it off. That, also, I need to resist.

Other things come to mind. Maybe I'll take a short motorcycle trip, pack just what I need and head off up or down the coast. Maybe I'll toss a sleeping bag and a jug of wine in my jeep and find a beach to sleep on.

Why not? A man's gotta try for an adventure or two.

Or maybe I'll just conduct a short tour of dive bars in my town. That shouldn't take long, it's a small town and it's got too few bars. Drink up and crawl home. In the old days, I'd have gone on a weekend-long chemical vacation; I miss being young and stupid sometimes.

Hell, I'll find some way to occupy the hours. I always do.

[made with ecto]

(06-21) 13:15 PDT ATLANTA, (AP) -- Marijuana-flavored lollipops with names such as Purple Haze, Acapulco Gold and Rasta are showing up on the shelves of convenience stores around the country, angering anti-drug advocates.

"It's nothing but dope candy, and that's nothing we need to be training our children to do," said Georgia state Sen. Vincent Fort, who has persuaded some convenience stores to stop selling the treats.

The confections are legal, because they are made with hemp oil, a common ingredient in health food, beauty supplies and other household products. The oil imparts a marijuana's grassy taste but not the high.

(Continue reading this story)

They're talking about Chronic Candy (I'm sorry, that's a stupid fucking flash site. You know who uses flash? Fucking morons use flash.)

I gotta say -- as an old ex stoner, I think this is pretty entertaining. I mean, take me back to the old days when I smoked that shit by the bagfull. Dude -- whoa.

But as a parent? Honestly, I'm more worried about the fact that it's candy. Candy does more harm than fuckin' pot does.

So the short review of Howl's Moving Castle.

As Miyazaki goes, don't expect Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke. It's not even close to the magic of those films.

But as films go -- well, it's still Miyazaki. And he's fucking brilliant.

As always, it's beautiful. Sweeping vistas, skies that glow with life, inventive creatures, motion that's not like any other animator. It's inventive and clever.

Unlike the other films, though, there are plot and pacing issues. The plot makes little sense, and the title character never really makes any sense, vain, shallow and cowardly one moment, brave and honorable the next. We never really see any reason for anyone to love him, yet love is supposed to be the motivation for much of the plot. It's a muddle, but a light-weight one. There are also moments that drag, where characters are talking to each other without it seeming very relevant.

There's plenty to like though; the main character, a girl names Sofi who's under a curse that turns her into an old woman, seems to change ages continually throughout the film in a deeply surreal way; this wasn't an accident, I think Miyazaki is saying something with it, but I couldn't quite crack the code. The voice acting is low key, with good turns by Lauren Bacall, Blythe Danner and Jean Simmons, though Christian Bale is entirely too manly as Howl.

Unexpectedly, Billy Crystal's vocal performance as Calcifer, a fire demon, was wonderful. Usually when they put someone funny in a part like this, it screws up the character, as with Phil Hartman doing the cat in Kiki. Here, for some reason, Crystal's performance makes it work.

It's well worth seeing; I'm hoping the weaknesses were due to it being a story from outside source, not due to any slippage of Miyazaki's talent.

---

My father's day was pretty much uneventful. No one fought, no one cried. The kids and I went to the Winchester Mystery House, a place that seems to have endless entertainment value for Olivia, and then I took off and had a little time to myself while the family made me dinner. Not exactly the plan I had in my mind's eye for the afternoon, but you take what you can get, and peace is not a bad description for a day. Later, I'll pour a scotch and watch Six Feet Under, and then I'm thinking good thoughts about sleep, something that's been in short supply lately.

[ of course after I wrote that, I realized that they've moved six feet under to a different night, so I had to content myself with old Monty Python episodes, but you know there's still sleep to look forward to... ]

I just corrupted a young mind with the evil hypnotic badger badger badger. Olivia always asks why I say "Oh, it's a snake" whenever she says anything about snakes.

So I tried, at lunch today to explain badger badger badger and simply could not. So tonight, I played it for her.

Now, she's wandering around the house saying "Mushroom, mushroom!" and "It's a snake, ohh, it's a snake!"

My work here is done. At least until I give her Bananna Phone.

---

Thanks, Brutha Ray. I'm needin' a fresh book. You just sent me the one. Favor back at you, now that I have your mailing address!

How is it the same guy can make Desperado, Sin City, and Shark Boy and Lava Girl?

It's what you gotta do sometimes when you're a parent. You go to movies because this weekend, you need something to do with the kids, not because there's something brilliant playing that you gotta see. When this happens, you gotta choose from what's on.

Sometimes there's the unexpected winner. I mean, who'd have though the Wild Thornberries movie would be a charming little flick? Sometimes you get Madagascar, funny, but not something to seek out unless you need a kid flick.

And sometimes you get Shark Boy and Lava Girl.

Let's start with -- my god what a headache I have. Hasn't 3D gotten better? It took a can of PimpJuice (also known as PJ Tight, the #1 Hip Hop Energy Drink!) to get that under control.

I wanted to like this movie. I was willing to laugh with it when the jokes were terrible and the dialog sounded like written by Rodriguez seven-year-old son (Who's credited with 'story by'). I was even willing to find the low-grade CGI effects charming.

But god. It's boring. Boring, boring, boring. The kind of boring where you wait for a bad joke to groan at because it relives the boredom.

Ok, fine. The kids liked it. They're the target audience. But damn, you know, I want a director who's as talented as Rodriguez to have a little, just a little more judgement and self-restraint.

So what's good about it? Very little. There are some clever creatures, something Rodriguez has a gift for (plug dogs, or something like that, hell-hounds made of electrical wires with plugs for heads), funny casting (Kristin Davis of Sex and the City as Mom, and David Arquette as Dad, looking eerily like Rodriguez himself). But the the only thing that kept me entertained through it was the delightfully pink-haired Taylor Dooley as Lava Girl. She's cute as a button, and I'm setting my watch for how old she has be for, well, you know. Hell, 2011? Ah. Ok. I'm hoping she keeps the pink hair, I tell ya.

Sigh. When does Howl's Moving Castle open? There's one I'll line up for.

     "Daddy, is there any way iTunes can add a beep to a song?"

     "Uh."

     "I mean, could we take the mp3, and, you know, make it so when it plays, it has a..."

     It starts to dawn on me what she's asking.

     "Olivia, do you mean, like, a bleep?"

     "Um. Yeah. Like, if there's an explicit version of a song..."

     "...You want to bleep out the words, right?"

This is my eleven-year-old daughter. She wants to download songs from iTunes to put on her beloved iPod Mini. But she's concerened, because some of the songs she wants, like several from Green Day's American Idiot are explicit. She can't get the clean versions, but she wants the songs.

This is where the dichotomy lies. Because on the one hand, there's my little girl. She's thinking, simple problem, simple solution. Solve the problem. Don't be defeated. Don't be afraid to change things to make them work the way you want.

On the other hand -- hell. How on earth can she be related to me with an attitude like that about four letter words?

Now I just gotta find a simple sound file editor that can do what she wants, and see if she's willing to listen to the words long enough to get the bleeps in the right place...

So I'm gonna be in beautiful Orlando, Florida sampling the exotic delights of Disney the latter half of this week, flying home Monday the 9th of May.

I'd like to say this will be a booze-and-narcotics driven adventure, a sort of Fear and Loathing vs The Mouse deal, but no, this is family. Kids. Grandparents. The Full Catastrophe.

I should have some blog entries from the trip, I'm takin' my laptop with me.

But you know, if I have any Florida-local readers who want to, um, get lost in the park with me, you know where to find me. I may also be open to post-park social invitations. Book early, and offer much.

Sometimes you know, when one's mood is low, there's not a thing in the world better than playing goofy-golf with one's kids.

I should try to find a history of goofy golf, mini golf, whatever you want to call it. It's an oddity, and I'd guess a singularly american one. I can't quite imagine the french or the germans playing it.

But in any case, it's terribly hard to find much importance in the world's problem or my own when I'm using a tiny, candy-colored putter to knock a florescent orange golf-ball into a grinning dragon's mouth.

(Title shamelessly stolen from Woody Allen.)

There is no outpouring of love, ever in life, like that when we die.

My friend Chris -- Papa Christo -- my best male friend even in life. His sister died this week, by her own hand, after a long and terrible depression.

I never knew his sister Holly. I'm not sure why. I met her a time or two, but for some reason, our paths never really crossed like they did with the rest of his family. Now, it's too late, and tonight now do I learn what a sad thing that is.

I went to her funeral tonight -- well, I don't know if funeral is the right word. She was a deeply religious woman, a catholic, and it was some complex and arcane (to me) catholic thing including a bazillion hail marys, which of course make me want to climb the walls and swing from the rafters naked like a chimpanzee.

But it was the readings after that brought tears to my eyes.

I've never seen Chris cry before. I've never said "I love you" to him, not heard him say it to me. Yet tonight, before things even started, he was weeping on my shoulder and we were whispering I love you as passionately as lovers.

Tears came to my eyes so easily over his loss. More easily than ever they came over my own loss of a sibling.

So many people stood up to talk about Holly; so much love. God, this woman will be missed. And the pain over the manner of her death spoke deep into my soul, the feeling that she's been lost long before she died. I know that feeling I said to myself.

Why can't we tell those we love how we feel when they're here? Why can't they hear it, feel it, when love is shared?

I don't want to wait for my loved ones to die, to tell them how I love them. I doubt I ever said it to my father, I know I never said it to my brother. I don't even recall when last I told my mother I love her.

Love is so easily shared for the lost. It's so easy to speak well of those who are gone, to discuss the joy and light and happiness they bring. Yet when they live, the annoyances great and small plague us, loom large, larger than they should.

Does loss change that focus? Or are we simply more comfortable pouring out love to those who are beyond hearing?

I love you. Let us not be afraid to say it. I love you -- friends, family, parents, children. Tell your loved ones how you feel while you have a chance. Sometimes they're taken away before it's time, sometimes we just forget to say it, forget we feel it. Say it when you can.

I find this hand-written list:

Need	Kinda
Portable Bathroom	Wizard and Pirate Haloween Outfits
Nun	Shepard
Jousting Equipment	Sheep w/Lambs
Female Pirate	Rock Landscape, Small
Fairys Waterfall	Lit Fireplace w/ accessories
Chopper Motorcycle	Guinea pigs
Black and White Ghost Costumes	Goose girl
	Girl with rabbit
	Dragon and Tiger Costumes
	Cave w/ vulture

And I'm thinking, I wanna go to this party. Sounds like some kinds kinky soiree.

And then I realize it's a shopping list of Playmobil toys that my kids wrote up.

Hmm. Not quite what I was picturing...

(Edit: Note that I've added more items -- I missed the WHOLE OTHER SIDE of the list!)

All in dreams, I can dream now oh how I
I wanna live where it's like today
I wanna live where it's always this way
I wanna live where it's always Saturday

     -Guadalcanal Diary, Always Saturday

This is one of the things that brings out the petty peevishness in me.

Holidays that only some people get. What's with that?

Presidents fucking day. Nevermind the fact that we don't have a president right now, since that monkey in the white house never got elected. Nevermind that. The point is, why do my kids get that off when I don't? Why does my mail man get that off? Why does my bank get that off?

Martin Luther King day. Huh? What? Postman? Yeah, he's sleepin'. Banks? Stock Markets? All shut down.

What's the matter with this country? Look at europe; they get every fucking holiday off. They get months of vacation to our weeks. They get to take a siesta, some places, in the middle of the fucking day.

I get up this morning and it feels like saturday, kids playing and all. I poke around and make coffee and don't much get moving and then suddenly I realize, fuck, it's a work day, I'm acting like it's a day off because it's a day off for my kids.

Dammit, I want my day off. I have stuff to do. I have housework, I have motorcycle rides on a beautiful, mild January day. I have writing I'd like to do, I have cooking I could do with that big tub full of chicken stock. I could go see a movie with my kids. I could do nothing.

But I go to work, where we're all looking around going, fuck, why are we here? It's not like most of us are getting any work done.

Sigh.

Life needs more saturdays and fewer mondays. Something's gotta be done about that.

So it wasn't quite the Hef sort of pajama party, with love in the grotto and bunnies and a cast of thousands. It wasn't even rated pg-13. But I had a damned good time New Year's Eve.

We started with the concept of a dress-up cocktail party, classic hors douvres (Hell, I'm never sure if I'm spelling that right), martinis, classic cocktails, you get the idea.

But several people bagged out, we had kids in tow, and our holiday week wound up busier than expected; we all wanted to hang, but couldn't quite manage the full party we'd visualized.

So someone called an audible at the line of scrimmage, and full-dress cocktail party became pajama party.

Now, normally, I don't do PJ's. I don't even own pajamas. But I kept thinking Hef. So I agreed. Though the best we could do at Target at the last minute was some too-long black silk pajama bottoms with a black thermal shirt. But it worked; and oh, does silk feel good against a shorn scrotum.

So it may not have been Hef, but I still had the world's most fabulous babes:

And a good time was had by all. Silk, you know! Plus look who I'm cuddled against.

RIP Chibi.

We expected the last one, Addison, to go. This was a shock. Chibi seemed fine two or three days ago. Addison was old; Chibi was barely a year.

We found her cold and struggling to breath, and it was like a re-play. But once she was warm, Chibi started to move around and I thought it would be ok. Weak, sick, but I thought we could save her. Olivia and I bundled her in a tee-shirt of mine and raced across town to the emergency vet.

We handed her to the woman at the desk, who said "Oh, guys, I think it might be too late."

Chibi had died on the way there, warm and bundled on Olivia's shoulder. She left our life as she entered it, in a car, kept warm under Olivia's chin.

Final chapter in the skull ring story.

I wrote recently about Tony Creed.

Today, after being assured that I wasn't going to get a ring for xmas, this showed up in a small black box under my tree:

Tony Creed rules. Take a look at what it says under the eye sockets in the skull. That's right, Elvis Lives. Tony did that because he wanted to, because he liked my name and wanted to make a ring that said "Elvis". We didn't know that's what we were getting; we just ordered the 13.

I'd buy more jewelry from Tony in a minute. The dude's just cool. The ring is beautiful. Exactly what I wanted.

Christmas is about love. Not about jesus or gifts or religion. It's about love.

So let's make this really clear up front. I'm not a christian. I wasn't raised a christian.

I was raised an atheist. Mother and father were both from southern protestant/baptist families (something like that, I'm not sure exactly), but they were both intellectual liberals who grew up in southern California. Dad was, as I've said, a science and logic guy, an empiricist who would never open his mind to anything science could not prove.

So have no religion. I have no spirituality, per se.

Andie and I decided to try to attempt mother's Peanut Butter Fudge.

Fudge attempts so far:

Four.

Successful results:

Zip. Zilch. Nada. Null. None. Goose Egg.

We're skunked on fudge.

I even picked up a candy thermometer, but due to a mis-read on it, the first two batches were very over-done and set up as soon as I started to beat them (Oh, I get to use it again, beat 'til creamy. That phrase does it for me every time.) Batch three came out very very close but is still a bit soft, but I'd gotten some of the boiling syrup on the thermometer and the read was a best-guess. Batch four was again over-cooked.

But you know, the smell of it cooling was right. I think that mattered more to me than the fudge itself, which is so sweet it'll put me into a sugar-coma just thinking about it. But god, it smells good. And cooking with best friends is really what makes it christmas.

I'm gonna try again. I was hoping for a batch for christmas eve, but we'll see.

Meanwhile, it seems like several of my female readers were quite enamored of my entry on shaving. Just let me know when you're ready, I'm here with a razor any time.

The Recipe:

Peanut Butter Fudge

(makes 36 pieces)

4 cups sugar
2 Tablespoons corn syrup
1 1/3 cups milk
1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons smooth peanut butter (Jif/Skippy type, not natural)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup coarsely chopped peanuts (we usually left this out)

In a saucepan, combine sugar, corn syrup, and milk. Stir together well. Cover pan and bring to a boil slowly. Remove cover and cook mixture until a small amount dropped into cold water forms a soft ball (or do it the easy way and get a candy thermometer, and cook to 236 degrees F). Remove from heat; add peanut butter and vanilla, but do not stir. Cool to lukewarm. Add peanuts (or don't, we never did), and beat until creamy (Wow, I like that phrase) and thick. Pour out onto a buttered pan. When cool, cut into squares.

The Story:

This is a slightly modified version of a recipe from the Sunset Cookbook of Favorite Recipes by Emily Chase, published in 1949.

I don't know when my mother got this cookbook, nor do I know when she first made the World's Best Peanut Butter Fudge. But I know this was a holiday fixture in my house throughout my childhood.

I still, once in a while, buy a lump of peanut butter fudge in a candy shop. Every time, every single time, I've been disappointed. It's never as good as mom's. It's never even close.

So as kind of an attention slut, I can't help but keep an eye on my hits and stats and referrals (Where the hits come from).

My best hit spikes have both been from mentions in erosblog, one of my favorite sex blogs. Both times my hits spiked through the roof, and I'm still getting hits from both mentions.

But the funny thing I'm getting now is a steady wave of hits from google searches on the word "Erototoxins".

This makes me laugh. I'm hoping some of these are coming from the insane people who actually thing all this makes sense. But in any case I just think it's funny how many times each day I'm still seeing referrals based on that word. If I've actually picked up any readers from that, folks, let me know, that will be a cherry on top. I keep trying to find a way to work erototoxins into everyday conversation since it's such a silly word.

When I started blogging I really didn't want anyone to read this. I was doing it for myself. Somewhere along the line that changed and I wanted to make sure I stayed visible and had an audience. That's a double-edged sword; I know I'm more restrained in what I write here now, since people I might talk about are reading this, people I might not be talking about might assume I'm talking about them, and -- well, people are reading, and I am aware of it. On the other hand, knowing people read this makes me update it; when my audience was about three people, I updated only once in a great while.

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In other news, people keep asking me for details on last weekend's party. Lets' just say it wasn't my party and they were not my details, so I promised not to confess too much here. I will say, though, that I spent most of sunday in bed; I'll also say that my children were not the least bit surprised and alarmed to find two people passed out in my living room, nor were they in any way concerned to find daddy in bed that morning cuddled up with a lovely woman who was not mommy. "Oh, hi!" they said; "We didn't know you were here!" They're pretty damned cool kids.