Four More Years!

Vaughn sends his congratulations

Hello Mr. Obama, How is it to be president? It seems like it would be very hard and frustrating. If you get this letter, please reply back as soon as possible. I wish you could be president for 1,000 more years. You are a great president for the four years you have been in office for. I believe your fans love you and that you are the greatest president any country could ever hope for. And I like Bo Obama, your dog.

Published! Ummm...sort of.

Jacob had my blog made into a book! It is the best gift ever and there is something so fun about being able to see all these entries and pictures in hardcover from the comfort of my own couch. All three of us gathered 'round to laugh over some old memories and coo over some old pictures. There were a couple sensitive moments though and I was told by Vaughn that certain posts were not to be shared with anyone - EVER.

The best part though is that Vaughn has decided to start his very own blog! It is called "A Life" and is at VaughnsLife.blogspot.com. I really hope he keeps up with it because being able to retain the little things from the day to day, particularly from your childhood, are worth more than he can even imagine at this point. I have the "Book About Me" from the first grade where I posit some key theories such as that Jesus was in fact the most important American that ever lived or that the dinosaurs are extinct because they ate each other. Things that really show I should have been TAG tracked much earlier.

The Key To Learning a Language is Repitition

I've picked up some cds on learning Italian and they promise that with dilligence I can be speaking enough Italian to get around in just three easy months. So far I've only learned "very pretty", "sorry" and "sex". Before you judge me gentle reader, these are among the handful of the very first words in the book. Nevertheless, I can't help but feel these could be helpful in a pinch.

Career Aspirations

Vaughn is an exercising fiend these days. When he is not shooting hoops outside, beating on the punching bag in the basement, or nagging Jacob to take him to an indoor basketball court he can be found doing a bunch of random exercises in ordered succession around the house. These include running and jumping over the arm of the couch, lifting weights over his head and running up and down our stairs. While I admire this interest in physical fitness, I'm sad to report that all these steps must be done to Lady Gaga's Poker Face on repeat - a song I am now hard pressed to ever remember liking.

This training is not without a purpose however, it is directly tied to his career goals. Vaughn's employment road map can be laid out like this (in order):

1. Work at 24 Hr Fitness for seven years (Not as a trainer- in the kids area. This is apparently what happens when you don't give your child the sibling they want).

2. Play professional basketball as member of the Blazers for two years (He is focused on seeking vengeance against the Utah Jazz - this is the only game he's actually seen but has stuck with him the way that a hero in a movie might spend a lifetime hunting their parent's murderer).

3. Back to 24 Hr Fitness for another go in the Kid's Club. Number of years still estimated at seven.

4. Then the undetermined "weird job out at the Oregon coast." I'm guessing this is where he'll retire so hopefully the benefits are good.

Improptu Snowshoe

Jacob and I had a little impromptu "date night" the other day in the middle of the day. We were going to go for a walk but on the drive home I casually said, "I sure would like to go snowshoeing" and like a champ, Jacob said, "Let's do it!"

We felt a little guilty as we raced around the house to get ready since Vaughn has been dying to go to the snow. We probably would have taken him with if he hadn't just gone sledding the weekend before and we were planning on taking him sledding the very next day - to say nothing of the fact that the last time I went snowshoeing with Vaughn it involved me pulling a sleeping Vaughn behind me in a sled. Still, we had to laugh at the idea of staging lots of pictures of us wrestling in the snow while eating as many Swedish Fish as we could consume.

We got kind of a late start and the staff at the snowshoe rental place noted that it "gets dark awfully early" and helpfully suggested a site closer than the one we had picked out. I couldn't help but wonder if we seemed really inexperienced and if maybe we'd make some employee list that day for "Renter Most Likely to End Up Dead."

It was a really nice drive out to Mt. Hood. It has been painfully cold lately but the weather was clear and beautiful. It did take a bit longer to get out there than we had thought and our actual snowshoeing time whittled down to maybe and hour and a half. As we got closer to our destination (as estimated anyway, the signage along the highway is already bad and all the signs were covered with snow or actually covered in paper), Jacob pointed out seven or eight snowshoers tromping along a high embankment next to the highway. "What are those people doing? Why would you snowshoe THERE? It's like they just decided they'd had enough and had to get out of their car." We pulled into the parking lot and started asking around for the direction of the Mirror Lake trail head and were told it was approximately a mile from the parking lot - back along the highway. Oh so that is why they were walking along the highway.

We plodded off at a pretty decent clip to maximize our time on the actual trail but it was kind of dicey going. The trail was narrow and if you fell to the right you were a few feet down onto the highway shoulder but if you fell to the left you were about ten feet down into a semi-frozen river that looked pretty impossible to get out of. The snow was gray and dirty- presumably from diesel exhaust. At this point Jacob proclaimed that showshoeing is "the bastard stepchild of winter sports". Passing people on the narrow ledge of a trail was tricky business and I was pretty shameless about leaning toward the freeway and letting the passers brave the descent toward the river. Jacob asked one group that we passed about how far we had to go. A woman answered that it was about a mile and then tacked on, "Think you can make it?"

By the time we got to the Mirror Lake trail head we figured we had about ten minutes to spend on the trail before we had to turn around and head back. The trail itself was tranquil and beautiful and a reminder of why snowshoeing is fun. On the way back off the trail we passed a small group that we had seen putting on their snowshoes in the parking lot. As we went by one of them said, "That was quick." Snowshoers are a snarky bunch.

We Could Be a PSA!

Movie Madness is the movie store by our house and it is chock full of props and memorabilia that the owner collects. Last night, as we were trying to find a movie all three of us wanted to watch, Vaughn cried out, "Look! A real gun! I sure would like to have one of those laying around the house!"

He also asked the lady behind the counter how old you had to be to work there because his latest idea is that he really needs a job. In fact, he plans to write President Obama to complain about Child Labor Laws.

Lessons in Herpetology

Our gentle bearded dragon, Bob has not been well lately. The poor guy barely eats and mopes around his cage. I suspect that this is due in part at least to the fact that his environment has not been at optimal conditions as these guys are not the easiest to care for. There is a whole array of UVB lighting and heating needs (with specific recommended temperature ranges depending on the area of the tank), vitamin powders (some of which should be given daily, others only once a week), crickets that should make up only a specific percentage of the diet (and must be given a disgusting gelatinous food called “Gut Load” prior to being fed to the dragon to ensure they don’t become calcium deficient) and specific fresh vegetables that must be chopped up to a size “no bigger than the space between the dragon’s eyes” to avoid “binding.” It’s really a miracle we’ve kept him alive this long but now he is languishing and I’m feeling terribly guilty as each day becomes more of a dragon death watch.

Last night, as I went back to the pet store to load up on another $100 of various foods, lights and heaters, my thoughts turned to another delicate and high maintenance pet that had been a fixture at a previous place of employment.

Marley was a giant white cockatoo that belonged to our front desk receptionist, Jarine. How and why he ever ended up in the office is a bit of mystery to me but as someone who is in favor of more animals everywhere, I was thrilled with his arrival and lobbied for him to have a permanent place in our office, going so far as to put up a “Let Marley Stay” sign in my cubicle. Earlier that year I had tried to institute “Take Your Cat to Work Day” and had only ended up seriously pissing off my otherwise docile cat and probably guaranteeing my spot as the odd one in the office.

Pretty soon there were little warning signs that life with Marley in the office might not be totally smooth. For one thing, according to Jarine, the slightest change in his general condition might mean death within hours and so the office temperature became tightly controlled, often in contrast to what the human residents might have preferred. The prospect of death within hours also meant that if Jarine sensed a change in Marley, he was immediately rushed off to the vet, leaving us without a front desk receptionist.

Then Marley hit sexual maturity and all hell broke loose. He took to shrieking at an incredible volume when he was left alone, which meant that client and board meetings were often punctuated with the sounds of someone being tortured in the adjacent room. To mitigate the lonely screaming, he was sometimes stashed in the office I shared with my co-worker. This was fine until the jingling and clanging of a large bird humping his cage started. “Oh god, he’s doing it AGAIN!” my office mate would say in horror as Marley temporarily satisfied his quest for a mate by violently thrashing in his cage.

The final straw however, was that Jarine would let Marley exercise by roaming around our kitchen area where the employees ate. Sexual maturity with no companion birds had made him aggressive and he would wander around and peck at ankles. Cockatoos are in the parrot family and even gentle pecking can result in blood loss. We all took to eating with our legs tucked under us.

Strangely enough, no one ever thought to confront Jarine and tell her it was time to take the bird home. I guess we all felt like it was the Director’s job to do it and she seemed preoccupied with more pressing matters. For my part, I quietly took down my “Let Marley Stay” sign and slipped it into the recycling bin.

**Update: I'm happy to report that while not 100 percent - Bob has perked up a bit on account of the recent changes.

**Side Note: Coming up with titles for these things isn't easy. I had to resist the temptation to use the obvious "Bob/Marley" AND "Marley and Me."