My Thoughts

A Week That Seemed Like A Month

Sun, 16 May 2010 17:37:29 -0700

Before you become a father, one of the things you always hear from guys who are already fathers is that no matter how much you "give" to your kids, you "get" so much more in return.

I suppose this is true, because what my adorable 16-month old daughter gave me was something so great that not only do I wish she had kept it, both my wife and I wish she had never had it herself in the first place.

What she gave me, and then my wife, was a stomach flu so bad that it turned our house into something that looked like John Hurt's chest-explosion scene from the movie "Alien." Oh, I know she didn't meant bring the plague to our corner of Oakland, much less spread it around to all of us. And the way this illness began, and continued to live with us as the newest member of our family resulted in one of the most-ridiculous weeks in a life that has been filled with ridiculousness. I'm not sure if that is even a real word, but it fits.

All of this started on a Monday morning. I was at work and my wife, the Thoroughly Awesome Megan, sent me an instant message to say that our daughter, Madeline, had thrown up sometime in the night. I immediately had images of what probably happened to Jimi Hendrix, and what nearly happened to myself on a long-ago, Jack Daniels-fueled evening in my college frat house. However, Maddo, as we sometimes call her, wasn't inebriated like Jimi or myself, and she just needed to be cleaned up and taken to daycare.

Now, I know this was a violation of daycare protocol. Our kid was sick, we knew about it, ergo, one of us should have stayed with her. Well, by this time of the morning it was too late for that, so Megan drove Maddo off and we hoped for the best.

As the day went on, I forgot about the Baby Barfing, and proceeded to go about my work day, which was about 40% checking emails, 30% making moves in Mafia Wars online, 20% putting out fires dealing with upper-level excitement over the 3% stock moves of companies I don't care about, and about 10% of actual work that I found to be interesting and enjoyable. At one point, I decided it was time to figure out how to check my home voice mail from a remote phone, as we had just switched phone service and i hadn't yet mastered this technological feat.

I called the number to remote in, and found that there was a message from the place where Megan had an amniocentesis done 10 days earlier. At the time, Megan was 20 weeks pregnant, and we had just gotten the latest blood results which came back with a 1-in-39 chance of the baby having Down Syndrome. Now, 1-in-39 odds of anything come out to 2.5%...Which meant that there was a 97.5% chance that the baby was perfectly fine.

If, when I was in high school, you would have told me I would score 97.5% on all my tests, I would have been applying for Rhodes Scholarships. But when your future kid is involved, the only thing you want to hear is there is 100% chance of NOTHING going wrong. Once that genie was out of the bottle, there was no way of avoiding it.

So, we had the amnio. And the results came back with the best kind of "negative" you could ask for. Everything was fine, and it's another girl, to boot. I guess my X Boys are just better swimmers than my Y Team.

Needless to say, I was a pretty good fucking mood when I left work and got on the BART train home. Shortly after emerging up from the San Francisco Bay and into Oakland, my cell phone rang. It was my daughter's daycare calling.

And then everything went to hell.

Apparently, Madeline wasn't done throwing up because daycare said she has lost her lunch, literally, during her nap. I rushed to pick her up and take her to her doctor's office where, in the middle of playing with to other toddlers, she proceeded to drool about of quart of baby barf all over herself and the play area floor. and yet, she wasn't done, as she managed to let loose one more time, right on the floor in front of the check-in desk. Awesome.

All of this meant that I would be taking a personal day on Tuesday to stay home with Madeline to make sure she was fine. Didn't want to risk the little girl getting sick around the other six or seven moppets that make up her daycare posse. We ended up doing little more than eating oyster crackers and bananas and driving to an auto body shop to get an estimate of $683 to fix an 18-inch-long dent along the bottom of my truck's rear passenger door. I have already spent too much time on this topic.

The rest of the evening was really uneventful, but anyone who has had a sick toddler knows what happened next. And it happened to me at 1 a.m. Wednesday.

Within 30 minutes of that first stomach rumbling, I was on my knees and putting an end to three-plus years of not throwing up. After the convulsions subsided, and with my bodily strength reduced to a level weaker than that of an eight-year-old Girl Scout, I managed to e-mail work to put in a sick day. Megan took Maddo to daycare and I took up residence on the sofa to catch up on 8 hours of the "Deadliest Catch" and other DVR shows.

Time passed. I ate chicken soup and crackers and began to feel better. That short winning streak of semi-health came to an end when I tried to eat some applesauce. Bite Number One put me in pain. Bite Number Two sent me doing my best imitation of Usain Bolt as I made it to the toilet just in time to expel a day's worth of tentative recovery into the bowl.

But I wasn't the only one to join in the night's Barf-A-Lympics. Two hours after putting Maddo to bed, I heard her crying her head off from her bedroom. Maddo has always been pretty good about sleeping through the night, but once in a while she'll wake up in fit because she can't find her pacifier or she's had some bad baby dream. I went in to her room, expecting to just put her pacifier back in her mouth and be done.

Instead, I stuck my hand into a slick of wet goo, and the smell told me all the rest of what I needed to know.

Thursday was meant to be a day of taking it easy. Once again, I was taking a sick day and, once again, Maddo was staying home with me. Only, it ended up being more than just the two of us at home that day.

That's because beginning at 7 a.m., Megan joined in the Chorus of Vomiting.

Now, having this stomach bug was bad enough, but Megan being 22 weeks pregnant added a sense of urgency to the matter, especially if dehydration entered the equation. And it did, because after five hours of on-and-off retching, Megan's doctor's office told her to get to the triage ward at the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center's labor and delivery department. Eight hours and two liters of fluid later, she wasn't feeling much better, but the sadistic on-call doc. let her go home.

Friday was a joy, as I put on my non-fantasy nurse outfit and tended to Megan all day as she mostly slept and ate the occasional oyster cracker. I was only at about 75.6% myself, having gotten almost no sleep following the hospital trip, but still managed to take Maddo to daycare without driving off the highway. By the end of the day, Megan was still beaten up like she had just gone through Ultimate Fighting Challenge Roman-Numeral Whatever. For her part, Maddo had what we in the parenting trade call a "blowout" at daycare, which brought a perfect end to the day.

But...The Wave of Illness was not yet at an end.

I got up Saturday morning, and, figuring I had a few minutes before I had to turn into Hawkeye Pierce at the Four-Oh-Seven-Seventh, I took a shower. This turned out to be a waste of my time because after I was fresh and clean as a whistle, I approached Maddo's room and before I even touched the doorknob, the smell hit me.

And there she was, my adorable daughter, looking as if Niagara Falls had just poured vomit all over her and her crib. Well, I had to dive right in, clean her up, give her a bath and run her off to the doctor's office...The same office she had thrown up twice in just on Monday...Where I was greeted by at least eight other sets of parents and their offspring waiting in line shed of me. I guess this was the place to be on Saturday morning because the line just kept growing behind me and it didn't end by the time Madeline and I were done.

The doctor was kind and professional enough, and said there was really not much to do. That it was a really bad stomach bug that was going around and, more than anything else, to keep her hydrated. I thanked the doc. For her help and wondered if my insurance would cover the extra $50 charge for Saturday drop-in hours that's on top of my $20 co-payment.

But, hey...When you have a kid, you get used to having you wallet Hoovered out and you Visa card never getting paid off. What you don't expect is to come out from the doctor's office and find one of Berkeley's Finest Meter Maids having just written you a $40 ticket for being, literally, three minutes past the meter timer.

With Maddo in my arms, I tried to plead my case, explaining how I had out an hour's worth of money in the meter, that I was with my daughter at the doctor's, and that there was no way I could have left the office or the exam to come out and put more money in the meter. Could she cut me some slack this one time?

Anyone who has ever had a run-in with a meter maid knows what happened next. And it didn't involve amnesty.

Of course she couldn't do anything because she had just written the ticket. She then took a bite out of her PowerBar or Snickers or whatever she was eating and gave me her best I-don't-give-a-shit-I-have-quotas-to-meet smile.

I stared at her for a minute and then said the only thing I could think of:

"No sympathy. Fascist!"

Like I should have expected anything in return from her. At least my daughter gives me something more than I expect when I see her. Even if it is when she throws up.

There Is No Apartment For Rent!

Wed, 5 May 2010 20:16:58 -0700

I don't like having a cell phone. I don't like having to pay between $80 and $90 a month for the thing when I get, at most, $30 a month of use out of it. And I really don't like how it's become a de facto necessity that you have to have a cell phone just because you have to have a cellphone. It's like how microwave ovens went from being $1,000 countertop anchors to the most-popular popcorn makers ever made.

Then again, I do recognize the social necessity of having a cell phone. It definitely made it easier for me to get a hold of AAA when I came home from work and my truck had a flat tire. And I am pretty sure it would come in handy if I ever needed to call the cops should I ever get taken hostage by drug thugs and thrown in the trunk of an '87 Buick with $3,000 spinning rims.

And it is because of my cellphone that, for the last four days I have been inundated with the strangest batch of wrong numbers. I expect to get a few wrong numbers calling me. That comes with the territory. But these numbers have been wrong beyond somebody just mistakenly dialing a 7 instead of an 8.

Last Thursday, the first of these numbers showed up on my phone's screen. I didn't recognize it, so I didn't answer it. However, a couple of minutes later, I noticed I had a message on my voice mail.

After listening a couple of times, this is what I determined the message to be:

"[Chinese, Chinese, More Chinese] ah...apartment...[More indecipherable Chinese]...apartment...bye."

OK, well, that doesn't happen every day. Some Chinese guy was obviously calling about an apartment for rent and dialed the wrong number. No big deal.

But, as I was soon to find out, he wasn't the only Chinese person in the 510 area code who was interested in a two-bedroom apartment between Pearl and Central Streets. Which I think is in Alameda, CA, where I don't live.

A couple of hours later there was another call. And then another. By the end of the night, I had received eight calls from six different numbers that I didn't recognize. One beauty of the cell phone is how it displays the numbers of those trying to call me. I call this the Ignore Function because it allows you to say "To he'll with THAT!" if it's number you don't know. Or, in the case of it being a divorce lawyer, one that you don't want to answer. [Long story from several years ago behind that.]

Not everyone left a message, but of those who did, what they left was almost always to that which I described about 200 words ago:

"[Chinese, Chinese, More Chinese] ah...apartment...[More indecipherable Chinese]...apartment...bye."

By Sunday night my wife, The Thoroughly Awesome Megan, was convinced I was either having an affair or running illegal Chinese fireworks. The messages continued into Monday, then Tuesday, with eventually 13 different callers inquiring about the place. I called a few of these confused apartment seekers back to tell them that, 1) I didn't have an an apartment for rent, and B) Whoever had place the ad wasn't helping things by including the wrong phone number in, for all I know, was the Oakland-Alameda Chinese Real Estate Times.

I actually felt bad for a few of the callers. I could tell they were really interested in the apartment. In fact, it got so that I wanted to go check the place out.

If only I knew the right number to call.

Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock...

Sun, 4 Apr 2010 15:47:05 -0700

Today is Easter Sunday. I always feel like Easter gets a bit of the shaft in terms of holidays, most likely because it falls on a Sunday. And let’s face it, Sunday is never good for holiday excitement except for the Super Bowl.

(I will now clamber under my desk to avoid any bolts of lightning that may be coming my way.)

As I write this, we have 57 minutes to be at Megan’s Uncle Steve’s house for Easter Dinner. There will be a big gang of people, and probably the Red Sox-Yankees game on the TV, so that is fine. I just hope we make it there while there is still some food available.

That’s because both Megan and Madeline have decided that right now, when we should be getting ready to go, would be the perfect time to take naps. And since we are supposed to be over there at 5, and it is going to take at least an hour to get the ladies ready, and, again as both said ladies are asleep, I cant see us getting anywhere near to getting out of the house until 6.

There are a few rules I absolutely live by. One is that you should NEVER eat a steak, especially a ribeye, at any level beyond medium rare. Another is that if you litter, you should be castrated.

But above all else, I can’t stand being late for anything. I can’t help it. I just hate being late for something. It literally drives me insane. I would rather be 20 minutes early for my own execution than show up five minutes late for the gallows.

What will make me crazier? Being late for dinner, or sitting here stewing thinking about us being late?

Ugh...This is the type of material you come up with when you’re off from work for 1.5 weeks and you have spent most of your time off cleaning out boxes of ancient crap from the dirt and dust mine that is the storage space under your house. Sorry I don’t have any better material this time around.

Oh...one last thing...R.I.P. to Grandma Lois Busic. June 6,1919-March 31, 2010. Miss you already. Glad that Madeline and Megan got to meet you last fall...

Who’s Writing This Script?

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 06:44:57 -0800

Sometimes I think my life is being controlled by some bad sitcom writers. To wit…

Last Thursday I was to take a call from a representative of a company that was interested in using me as a freelance contract editor for some projects. The company isn’t important, yet, so I won’t say its name. I will assure you it wasn’t to be the editor of the Penthouse Forum letters. Does Penthouse even exist any more?

The woman I was to speak with called me right at 5, just like she said she would. Now, this would have been perfect if my wife had been home to help with our 14-month-old daughter. However, my wife was at the chiropractor and my daughter, whom we call Maddo at times and knows to erupt into a screaming fit every time I get on the phone, did just that, making it nigh-impossible for me to hear anything the interviewer said. I put her in the playpen, which only resulted in more earthquake-victim-level screaming.

Fortunately, for me, this woman was very cool about things. “I have an eight-year-old boy at home, I know how it is,” she said, and offered to call me back in two hours as she was already working late.

I thanked her for her understanding and patience…and then spent most of the next two hours making dinner, feeding my daughter and listening to her cry in her high chair. Megan, my wife, came home about 6:45 and, of course, Maddo had made a mess of everything. But, that’s standard procedure for a 14-month-old who loves to turn her meals into abstract artwork.

As soon as Megan arrived, I headed downstairs to take my new call. And that’s when all hell broke loose.

I was about halfway down the stairs when the shout came: “REX! MADELINE NEEDS TO BE CHANGED! THE SMELL IS MAKING ME SICK!”

So, even though I was about two minutes away from my call, since I am a Good Husband and Father, I turned around and raced upstairs…To find that Maddo had what we in the New Parents Trade call “a blowout.”

I don’t really need to go into what a blowout is. Let me just say that things had worked their way up her backside and were soaking through her clothes and onto her highchair cover. Nice image, right?

I grabbed my offspring, took her to her room, and started to change her, which was an experience similar to the marines going after the Taliban. Megan came in the room, took one whiff of the air, and…ran to the bathroom to throw up. Awesome.

I got Maddo cleaned up just enough so there wasn’t a disaster all over her back and took her into the bathroom where Megan was starting the water for the kid’s bath…and still retching.

And then the phone rang. It was the woman calling about the editing gig. We had a good talk and twenty minutes later, I think I had lowballed myself.

In Control...Or A Lack Thereof

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:48:28 -0800

The look was one I had seen before. Glazed-over eyes, a long, wan face, a facade of complete and utter confusion and misunderstanding.

I had seen this look many times, but usually in photos of dirty, exhausted soldiers during the Tet Offensive. This time, it was on the face of my wife.

Granted, the situation in which I found my wife wasn’t nearly as desperate as the battle of Hue. But for her, it might as well have been, because she didn’t know which remote control would turn the TV back on.

Our 14-month-old daughter, whose hands are magnetically attracted to any type of handheld electronic device, had grabbed one of our remotes and suddenly, the marathon of “The Real Housewives of Orange County” had become “The Great TV Snowstorm of Oakland, CA.” For me, it was easy to figure out.

“See, just take this remote and push the “input” button.” I said, showing her what to do. “Then, press the “up” button and go to “HDMI 1”, press “OK” and there you go. You can also just press the number “4” button on the remote...”

My wife gave me a look like she was going to commit three murders. “You know I’m not going to remember that.”

She was right. Between four different remotes, there are 146 buttons from which she has to navigate. I might as well have asked her to pick up a sextant and try to decipher the inner workings of a 1940s-era Univac computer.

One hundred forty six of anything is hard to keep track of. Try rolling up all the coins from you sofa, the floor of your car and that old fraternity mug on your dresser while also chasing your 14-month-old daughter out of the cat’s food dish and you’ll see what I mean. Oh, and by the way, she just spilled at least 146 pieces of Friskies on the floor.

Personally, I love all the remotes, which is probably my way of trying to feel like I have some sense of control in my house. Which I don’t. No man who is married and has a 14-month-old-daughter is in control of anything, especially when that adorable little girl has just made off with the main remote and is making a beeline for the toilet.

Maybe it’s some deep, subconscious way of re-living the days of playing Army with my brother and neighbors. The remote as a weapon. I remember the first remote control TV we had when I was a kid. It was for our, then-gigantic, 21-inch RCA color TV and it had a grand total of five buttons. Volume up, volume down, channel up, channel down and one to turn the box on and off. We couldn’t use it to jump from one channel to the next out of numerical order. If we went past Channel 5, we had to go all the way back around in order to get back to “The A-Team.” And by then, we had missed the awesome shootout in which no one got killed.

And this remote was so lame that it didn’t even work on the cable box that we used ONLY to get Showtime. We still had to get up, walk across the living room, press a button on that box to switch it over to Showtime. And this was back in the day when my brother and I would have to sneak over to watch Showtime’s soft-core aerobics chicks do their exercising.

But, today’s remotes do so much more and, in the case of my wife, confuse so much more, too.

For example:

Remote No. 1: The Cable Box. 53 buttons.
The silver-colored weapon of choice from the Comcast Corp. This is the main tool of accessing our entertainment as it controls both the cable box and the TV. It also comes with the mysterious “AUX” button for a third device and which no one I know has ever used. The best things about this remote are it accesses the On Demand and DVR. The three greatest inventions of my lifetime have been iced coffee, the iPod and the DVR, and even though there are at least 30 buttons on this remote that I never use, I can’t speak ill of it simply because of the DVR. I don’t know how I ever watched TV without it.

Remote No. 2: The TV. 45 Buttons.
This one comes courtesy of the TV maker, Panasonic. I love my 50-inch, 1080p Viera plasma TV. The remote that came with it is the one that causes my wife the most confusion. It only works on the TV, so in that case, it is simple. However, this remote also is used to switch from the TV to the Blu-Ray player and also to the Apple TV set-top box, and it is this switching that gets my wife lost in the vortex of electronic depression.

Remote No. 3: The Blu-Ray player: 45 buttons.
This remote is in some ways the most-advanced and most-frustrating of all the remotes. It is made to control the Blu-Ray player and TV. However, none of the TV programming codes that came with it work so half of its ostensible purpose is useless. When you use it to turn on the Blu-Ray player, it automatically switches the TV to that device, so you don’t need to use Remote No. 2 for that purposed. Also, it connects wirelessly to our home network and an access Netflix, Blockbuster, Pandora Internet Radio and YouTube, which is awesome. Now, if I only had the time to use any of those features.

Remote No. 4: The Apple TV: 3 Buttons.
One button controls the menu options, one button selects items and plays and pauses content, and one button, which is really a ring around the second button, does all the rewinding and fast-forwarding you could want. But I have to use Remote No. 2 to switch over to the device, and half the time it seems like I have to use it to reset the Apple TV in order to connect with iTunes. Also, I think I am the only person in America who actually has an Apple TV.

After all of that, it’s a wonder I haven’t developed a Thousand Yard Stare of my own. But I can’t. It’s time to get on the DVR and catch up on last week’s episode of “Burn Notice.”