Month: March 2011

Alter ego fun times

I can't help but tell you guys about the amazing three days I've just had in the Rio Grande Valley.

Here's an epic post on my writer blog. Go take a look.

The kids at one of the schools I visited made me a beauty queen sash. I don't think anything gets more fantastic than that.

Grown-up-itis

these big piles of crap
don't count as decorative
it's not the MoMA

I think Grown-up-itis comes in several degrees and conditions. When you're 4 and you have it, you think you should be the boss of everyone. When you're 14 and you have it, you think everyone should leave you the eff alone (oh, poor, deluded teen self, becoming a grown-up means exactly the opposite).

But when you're 34, Grown-up-itis strikes often on Saturday mornings and often after you've been to someone else's house the day or week before. For me, today, it's centered around the house. The giant white walls in the house. The giant white naked walls in the house.

It appears that grown-ups have art in their homes. Or at least photographs on the walls. They also have systems of storage so that the ever growing, ever leaning, ever colorful piles of toys don't leave ugly marks on the giant, white, naked walls.

Also, grown-ups seems to have a better ability to hide markers, pencils, crayons and Sharpies than I do. This is evident by the fact that their walls are not covered with scribbles, blobs, streaks and smiley faces.

Now, I do have a leg up on a lot of the grown-ups, as my garage is FULL of artwork. Original oil paintings, still lifes, portraits, abstract works. Stored away under yards of plastic wrap, we have a gallery of work in there. At least a gallery. Maybe two.

This is just one of the many benefits of marrying a fine artist.

Convincing said fine artist to hang the work is another matter. Especially when the work is "college art."

Note: I don't care if it's college art. I loved it in college, and I would love to see it in our house now. Art that has moved from a brownstone in Baltimore to an efficiency in Far West to a rental in Neiderwald to a home with three kids in south Austin… this art has been with us since the beginning and I think it would be lovely to have it on the walls again.

So here's to being a grown-up – and here's to convincing the other grown-up in the house that hanging art created when he was not quite a grown-up – in a house bought with money from his grown-up Workin' For The Man job – is ironic in a very MoMA way.

We can hang the paintings higher than Sharpie weilding hands can reach. And maybe we can drape the yards of plastic over the piles of toys and turn them into their own little art installations. There's nothing more grown-up than living INSIDE art, right?

If I can't convince him to put those paintings up, I might start an iPetition.

Or at least stop going to other people's houses where grown-up-itis is so virulent. 

The Most Boring Injury Ever

True story!

My husband and I were watching Masterpiece Theatre and shopping for rice cookers on the Internet last night. Oh, yeah.

In his excitement at spotting a fancy rice cooker, my husband leaned over to hand me my computer, but it slipped and crashed into my arm at this funky angle. Now there's a huge bruisy feeling all the way through my arm. I wish there was something gory to take a picture of to show you, but you can't see anything – because OF COURSE when you bruise yourself shopping for rice cookers while watching Masterpiece Theatre, you're going to get an intramuscular bruise that no one can see.

Alas.

Side note: Downton Abbey is a FANTASTIC show.

Other side note: Worth it to spend $129 on a rice cooker? It also makes cakes!

In case you can help…

Today, we celebrate giving back Ike's air compressor and suction machine to the medical equipment company. (Yay!) But while we're celebrating, another trach family is facing one of the most terrifying prospects I can imagine.

They are basically stuck just over 100 km from the Daiichi power plant in Japan. Maleek is trached, and just like Ike used to be, he's absolutely dependent on having a working suction machine so he can breathe. His family managed to find some gas and passable roads so they could get to a hospital that has power off and on. Now they can attempt to charge their equipment and get some rest. But obviously, it is still not safe for Maleek right now. Rolling black-outs to areas with power are expected to affect hospitals for 4-6 hours at a time.

Maleek's family, while living in Japan right now, are from Toronto, and they're trying to get in contact with the Canadian embassy. They haven't received any help, other than advice to "find a local hospital".

What Maleek needs is a way out of Japan. But because of his critical airway, his mom doesn't know if he can handle the 12-hour flight to Toronto. I know there are people looking into seeing if the US Navy has a way to medi-vac him out of Japan, at least maybe to a closer, safer place (like Australia). Or, if there is some way the military (or the Red Cross, or anyone) can get him home, with oxygen and the appropriate supportive equipment on the plane.

People have been contacting the media in Canada to try to get someone to help Maleek, as well.

I'm not sure a plea on a blog is very helpful, but if someone out there knows someone who knows someone… well, you just never know.

Maleek has a facebook page now. It's here. And I have contact information for his family, should anyone reading this know of a way to help. You can send me an email at haikuoftheday at gmail dot com and I can pass the info on to you.

Thanks everyone, for your help and good thoughts.

UPDATE

The Toronto Star has an article up about Maleek. The family is in Tokyo now, still trying to figure out how to leave the country.

Toe-eating

fits just right in mouth
when your body is a sphere
toe-eating, at 2

Ike-a-saurus was happily gnawing on his big toe a few minutes ago, shouting, between mouthfuls, "Eat! Toe!" So I asked, "What does your toe taste like?"

He grinned and answered, "Elmo!"

I made a 'you're such a goose' face and followed up with, "What does Elmo taste like?"

His – very serious, this time – answer: "Toes."

And that's what I get for trying to elicit new vocabulary with silly questions.