The Dickens continues to be enamored with the cockroaches. Now she has started including a baby doll in the proceedings, directing me to put cockroaches on its head and feet, or whatever body part strikes her at the moment as being a good place to harbor a cockroach. Pretty soon we're going to be having little tea parties with them, dressing them up in little victorian outfits. This all goes a long way towards supporting my theory that human reactions towards creatures such as cockroaches is learned behavior.

Oh, if only we could get organized around here. If only there were extra hours in the day. If only sleep weren't a necessity. If only I could just lay around and watch Willow play. She's really having a good time inspecting every little thing in reach, and her reach has broadened considerably now that she's crawling. She plays little games too. One game she was playing yesterday included my nose. She kept slowly leaning forward and pretending to bite my nose. This resulted in me having to repeatedly wipe drool from my nose, but I didn't care. The big grin on her face is worth any amount of drool.

cds I listened to while contemplating cockroaches: Lhasa "The Living Road", The Gathering "Sleepy Buildings", Agnes Buen Garnas "Draumkvedet", and Paul Chain "Mirror"

I saw bunnies and some tiny little ducklings tonight, so it really must be Spring. I usually see jackrabbits, but tonight it was definitely bunnies, looking like refugees from a rabbit hutch. Later, the ducklings' mother huffed and quacked at me when I got too near.

Well, I'd better get to bed because I've got to be at work in the blink of a sleepy eye. The crickets are singing here, and every night this week there will be fewer little cricket songs as the scorpions find them and eat them. That's kind of sad, but hey, the scorpions have to eat.

cds I listened to while wondering where all of the cute, fuzzy animals came from: Current 93/Michael Cashmore/Christoph Heemann "An Introduction to Suffering", Faun Fables "Family Album", Tenhi "Vare", and Lhasa "La Llorona"

I ended up with a couple of hours to myself on friday, so I went and saw the Dawn of the Dead remake. It seems that half of the movies coming out recently have some sort of Seventies connection, whether it be a film based on a wretched TV show or a remake of something riding in on a second wave of popularity. Last year's 28 Days Later just might have opened a can of worms as far as zombie movies are concerned. The new Dawn of the Dead owes just as much to it as it does to George Romero's original film - the zombies run instead of lurch, and the last fifteen minutes or so is filmed in that digital strobe style, which serves to quicken the pace and give the film the same "edgy" look that all of the previous trend-jumping films where the same technique was used have. I'm not sure where this style first surfaced. The first time I saw it was in Saving Private Ryan, where it was used to good effect. My complaints about lack of originality aside though, I enjoyed the film. I continue to be morbidly interested in cinematic representations of global disaster, with burning cities and litter strewn roads. It's also interesting to note that the remake is arguably more violent than the original, but got a softer MPAA rating. No doubt because they wanted to make sure that they made as much money as possible. Bring the kids.
I also saw Sokurov's Russian Ark, which was a little calmer, to say the least. It's a tour through 300 years of Russian history, via the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. It's full of classical paintings, sculptures, and people in period costume. Our tour guide is an argumentative french marquis who provides the european point of view, which for the most part constrasts with that of the unseen narrator. The phenomenal thing about this film is that it was shot in one, unedited, continuous take. That's an hour and a half where everything has to work perfectly during filming. No lighting mistakes. No flubbed lines. Lots of preparation, made even more rushed by the fact that the crew was only allowed 36 hours in which to put up sets and film (one of the drawbacks to filming inside a museum that needs to have its doors open to the public). This makes the "making of" segment on the dvd quite interesting...

Okay, I'm going to go read now. Time is precious and there are too many unread books around the house.

cds I listened to while driving and driving and driving...: Paul Chain "Alkahest" and "Opera Decima - The World of the End", Nurse With Wound "Alice the Goon" and "An Awkward Pause", and Sixteen Horsepower "Folklore"

It rained today, which made most people grumble, but not me. I'm glad that winter hasn't completely given up.

We have yet another evening ritual now. Just about every night this week, The Dickens has asked me to bring down the cockroach cage so that she can hold the cockroaches. She asks questions like, "Is dat da mommy?", and, "what he eat?", as she holds them. She's never content with holding just one, so I have to get lots of different cockroaches out. Willow even crawled over to see what the fuss was about, and seemed determined to feed the cockroaches her cracker. After awhile, I managed to put the cage back up. The Dickens looked at me and said, "I see the spider", so down came the tarantula cage. She doesn't ever want to hold the tarantula, just gingerly touch it. This is just as well, because it's a fast tarantula, and could very easily get away from The Dickens if it felt so inclined.

Later, not to be outdone by the Monitor lizard, The Dickens bit me on the leg for no reason. Well, maybe she did have a reason, but not one that I was privy to. She didn't break the skin because she bit me through my pants, but I now have a bruise on my leg. Walking wounded, that's me.

cds I listened to while wondering who or what will bite me next: Ghost "Hypnotic Underworld", Sainkho Namtchylak "Aura", and Circle "Zoplalki"

The thinnest of crescent moons graces the sky. Arrogant drivers continue to insult the asphalt. On the way to work, I saw not one, but two different people fling lit cigarettes out of their windows. On one hand, throwing cigarette butts out of your window seems like such a little thing, but if everybody did it... you can see the problem. A person could make the argument that driving itself pollutes more than the contents of an ashtray ever could, but as a culture we're pretty much stuck with our cars. It's a lot easier to just put the damn thing in your ashtray than it is to find alternative transportation. I guess it bothers me because it's just such a self-absorbed act.

I imagine some beetle-browed oaf hunched behind his steering wheel, his face flapping in the breeze from his open window and drool spreading horizontally across his left cheek as the slipstream catches it: "I done with dis now so I throw it out window", or, "Hey! Dis hot! Fire bad! Get fire away from meee!" The end result is the same - a shower of sparks on the asphalt, and one more piece of garbage strewn along the freeway. Too many pieces of garbage with driver's licenses.

cds I listened to while dodging cigarette butts: Paul Chain "Whited Sepulchres" and "Dies Irae", Current 93 "Dogs Blood Rising", "Where The Long Shadows Fall", "All The Pretty Little Horses", and "The Starres Are Marching Sadly Home"

Okay, from now on I'm not going to complain, even in jest, about delays in getting home. Last night's minor delays were nothing compared to having to wait two and a half hours before even starting work. We sat around and grumbled, shooting rubber bands at each other and joking that somebody must have fallen into the printing press. The usual butt of these jokes is this incomprehensible, muttering drug casualty who works at the printing plant. It's not too hard a stretch to come up with all sorts of ways that he could bungle his job and make the newspapers late.

I figured out what to do with the tip money I received on Saturday. I went and got a Tetanus shot! What fun! I'm still experiencing the bliss of sore muscles. This all came about because of that little bite I got at the party, and various friends and family inquiring as to whether or not I was up to date on my shots. I was pretty sure I'd gotten one five years ago when I'd inadvertently cut a chunk out of one of my fingers at the museum while prepping supplies, but a quick snoop through the employee records showed that I was mistaken. There was just a bill for the emergency room visit and the stitches. No shot mentioned. Well, problem solved now. That means I can get punctured and mauled all I want without getting Tetanus. If there's anybody reading this who hasn't had a Tetanus shot in the last ten years, surf around on the web and check out pictures of people with Tetanus. Yucky. Actually, looking up diseases on the web is a good way to scare the hell out of yourself. I think that's the point - it makes people want to take precautionary measures.

cds I listened to while feeling sore: Paul Chain "King of the Dream/Ash/Picture Disc" and "Life and Death", Paul Chain Violet Theatre "In the Darkness" and "Detaching From Satan", CMX "Aion", and Current 93 "Of Ruine or Some Blazing Starre" and "Lucifer Over London"

I always know it's Monday night when something happens to delay me getting home - the universe seems to know that I have to get up early every Tuesday, and playfully puts little obstacles in my path. Tonight's impediments included my cd player not wanting to play or relinquish a cd, and getting pulled over because "there's been a lot of car burglaries around here..." The cd player finally spit out the cd, and the cop figured out pretty quickly (for once) that I was delivering newspapers. That's better than the last few times when the cops all treated me like I'd just been caught in the goat pen with my pants down.

Also, I got a good chuckle when I read that the remake of Dawn of the Dead earned more money during its opening weekend than that Mel Gibson Christ movie did.

cds I almost didn't get to listen to because of the one that got stuck in the player: Current 93 "Imperium" and "Thunder Perfect Mind", Stone Breath "The Silver Skein Unwound", and Tarantel live at The Great American Music Hall

Here it is, Monday again.

On Friday, everybody (except Lexy, who was stuck at school) came to Hidden Villa with me. The Dickens was especially impressed, and is still talking about it. She even mentions donkeys, which she didn't see because there aren't any there. Willow liked it too, and performed her smiley baby dance. Some of us saw the turtle. The trick to turtle observation is to see it before it knows you're there. I had everybody stop at the top of the crooked stone stairs and gaze across the creek towards the pond. Sure enough, the algae-covered turtle was basking at the top of the wooden board that serves as a ramp out of the concrete, rectangular pond. Then one of the kids spoke, or moved, and the turtle vanished. This was followed by the complaints of the kids who hadn't gotten a peek at him.

On Saturday, I loaded most of my critters into the car and drove to the house of two small children who were having a birthday party. I had been hired to put on an hour long creature presentation, which was in keeping with the theme of the party. The boy, who was turning five, had a few Garter snakes and a Bluebelly as pets, so he was no stranger to reptiles. His sister, who was turning seven, was also enthusiastic about my carload of creatures. I set everything up in the backyard, and soon nearly thirty kids descended upon me. To their credit, they all sat down politely on the quilts spread out on the lawn, while the parents hovered on the sidelines or sat on benches. I started things out small, with the cockroaches, scorpions, Millipede, and tarantulas. There was some high pitched screaming from the more timid members of the audience, but most people at least touched the cockroaches, Millipede, and the slow tarantula. The fast tarantula and the scorpions I didn't offer to the crowd, for obvious reasons. Then I moved on to the small snakes, the idea being to build up to the larger, more impressive reptiles. The Trans Pecos Rat snake, Pueblan Milk snake, and Western Hognose snake all got their share of gentle touching. I kept up a steady chatter as I moved through the crowd, disseminating snake facts and asking questions of the audience. Then it was time to move on to the bigger reptiles... Here I discovered a slight problem with the whole "build up to the bigger reptiles" approach. My hands, which by this time contained the scent of many different animals, proved to be too much temptation for the Water Monitor. The Monitor is constantly on the move, so I just kind of guide him over my body without restraining him too much. During a moment when he had crawled over my shoulder and onto my back, I reached around to guide him around front again. This is when he latched onto the ring finger on my left hand. I quickly turned around and pinned him to the ground. I'm not sure at this point if the kids were aware of what had happened. These things always happen quickly. I pinned him because being bitten by a three foot Monitor is sort of like being bitten by a three foot Crocodile - the teeth are very similar, and they usually follow up the bite by thrashing and rolling in an attempt to tear off chunks of flesh. The father of the birthday kids asked if there was anything he could do to help. I pondered this for a moment, and finally arrived at, "if you could just grab the upper jaw and pull gently upwards...". While he was doing this, I grabbed the Monitor by the lower jaw and promply opened up a gash on my right thumb when I hooked it on a tooth. The stategy worked though, and I quickly returned the blood-spattered lizard to his travelling case (actually a large cooler). Then it was inside to wash the blood off and bandage my fingers with large bandaids and duct tape to hold them firmly in place. Then I went back outside to finish up.
After all of this, the Burmese python was a bit of an anticlimax, but the kids really liked him and took turns standing in a line with the snake draped across their shoulders. The whole lizard incident had happened so quickly that most of the kids didn't seem to realize what had happened. Or if they did, it hadn't bothered them much.
I stayed around afterwards for cake. There were actually two cakes - one shaped like a snake, and the other one shaped like a mound of dirt (ice cream covered with crumbled bits of chocolate Oreos) and covered with plastic reptiles.
And then, despite the fact that I'd bled all over their patio, they tipped me fifty dollers over the price we had agreed on. I really liked both of the parents, and the kids, who were just brimming over with excitement the whole time. I'm glad I could add something to their party.
So the lesson here is to either bring out the Monitor first or wash my hands between animals. I may even resort to wearing gardening gloves. That might be a good idea anyway because his claws are sharp and tend to scratch up my arms.
As for my fingers, the bite is quite deep, but not too ugly to look at. The gash on my thumb is shallow. I'm a little worried about infection, and have been slathering it with neosporin. Hopefully it won't require more than that.
Not an auspicious beginning to any possible career as a birthday party entertainer, I fear.

cds I listened to while bandaged: Current 93 "As the World Disappears" and "Nature Unveiled", Paul Chain "Violet Art of Improvisation", and Diamanda Galas "Defixiones - Will and Testament"

It was slightly cooler tonight. How exciting! Today was another one of those average days - the kind that don't stick in your memory. That's one of the reasons I sit here and type this. Years from now I can look at this and remember when an average day meant going to work at the museum for a few hours, during which it was sort of busy, but not really. We played with gak (sort of like silly putty) and musical instruments (things little kids can bang on, mostly). Then I came home, took out the garbage, played with the kids (all except for Lexy, who was in the grip of a video game), ate dinner (mostly leftovers, but really good ones), monitored bath activity (got sort of wet), checked e-mail (obsessively), Let Lexy and The Dickens take turns holding the Hissing Cockroaches (they stop hissing after they've been held for awhile), fed and watered Lucky the rat (even though one of the conditions for keeping her was that the kids were supposed to do this), talked with Jen in between all of the other stuff (we can't hold whole conversations when the kids are awake, unfortunately), and left for work again, at which I delivered the Wall st. Journal for several hours, while listening to the following cds: V/A "It's Gonna be Hot in the Cannibal Pot Tonite" (Ptolemaic Terrascope compilation), Nurse With Wound "Man With The Woman Face", Current 93 "Live at Bar Maldoror" and "Dawn", Breathe Stone/The Does "Crow Omens/Sleep Deprivation Blues", and Breathe Stone "Hex Thistle" And yes, all of them were pleasantly enjoyable. I once saw the original artwork for the Nurse With Wound cd listed above, and I think it illustrated more than just about any other artwork I've seen that you really have to see the original to really appreciate the full impact of a piece of art. This particular piece is very 3 dimensional, and a two dimensional reproduction is just not quite as cool. Okay, to bed now, so I can get up to go to Hidden Villa tomorrow.

Yep, Willow has no tube in her nose! It's good to be able to pick her up and hug her without having to make sure that I'm not inadvertently tugging on the tube. I'm sure she's happy about it too, although she didn't seem to mind it too much - only when it was being put in. I'm glad I didn't have to witness any of the insertions.

I think I'll go read now. The night is quiet. It's still t-shirt weather outside, but just barely. I think that's why I'm a night person. The temperature during the summer (and freak heat waves, like now) is perfect at 3:00 am. I'll miss that when I stop working at night. I was thinking tonight that my job is the perfect student job, a slightly less perfect post-student job, and really not a good married-with-children job at all. I look forward to getting to settle in for the night with everybody else instead of putting my shoes on and leaving just as the kids are going to sleep.

Okay, now I'm really going to go read.

cds I listened to while enjoying the perfect temperature: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum "Live", Backworld "Seeds of Love", Mahmoud Ahmed "Live in Paris", Sainkho Namtchylak "Time Out - Seven Songs for Tuva", and Nurse With Wound "Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella" and "Automating Volume 2"

Every once in awhile it hits me that I've spent roughly a third of my life asleep. That's over a decade of snoozing. And then, when I'm awake, I spend a lot of time wrapped up in routines - brushing teeth, eating meals, etc. That leaves precious little time for the important things. What's important? Spending time with Jen and the kids is important. Watching Willow stand up for a little longer each time she tries is important. Friendship is important. Artistic expression is important. Music and trees are important. Sometimes even work is important. Right now, looking for a better job is important.

Spending time on the computer isn't really that important. I do it anyway though, but not as much as I used to.

Important cds I listened to: In The Woods... "Liveatthecaledonienhall", V/A "Karmakosmetix sampler", The Tiger Lillies "The Sea", and Six Organs of Admittance "Compathia"

The Dickens is content to go wherever her feet may take her, but unfortunately Lexy doesn't share this philosophy. I took both of them along when I took Nate to gym class, and since we had an hour to fill while waiting for the class to end, we walked around. We found a footbridge over the freeway with children's art on it, a closed museum, and a segment of a local creek trail that The Dickens wanted to explore. Lexy wasn't having any of it. He seems to be afraid to wander. We had to abort our meandering and head back to wait for Nate. This meant restraining The Dickens from joining the class, much to her annoyment. She's quite loud when she's annoyed.

Oh yeah, and I almost ran over some ducks tonight. It's that time of year again when ducks let their feet take them onto the asphalt.

cds I listened to while swerving around ducks: Mark Growden "Live at the Odeon", Jaguar "Run Ragged", Tyr "Eric the Red", John Arch "A Twist of Fate", and Sixteen Horsepower "Sackcloth 'n' Ashes"

Jen, Willow, and I finally managed to ditch that figurative stopwatch for awhile today by travelling to a shady little park near downtown and letting Willow explore the wonderful world of grass, trees, and sand. She sat in the swing and was really excited by the amazing floating sensation of it all. The sandbox was good for some more smiles and chuckles. I buried her legs and feet in wet sand as she smacked me with a small, plastic shovel. After we had exhausted the possibilities of the sandbox, we sprawled on the grass in the shade of some amazing Oak trees, enjoying some much needed down time. I watched the crows, butterflies, and glistening bits of spiderweb pass by overhead. The gnarled limbs of the trees caught the sunlight and provided a stark contrast against the fathomless blue of the sky. It's good to be able to show our baby that all is not chaos. Life is meant to be lived slowly. Later, we reinforced this idea by watching Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice , which is one of those films you can just sink into - a balm for the soul. Actually, we didn't quite finish watching it, because the heathen horde descended upon us and chaos once again reigned. Still, it's days like this that will stick in my memory best. Jen and I had a great time just relaxing and watching Willow have a great time exploring the vast wonder of the world.

On Friday, also in the interest of finding an escape from chaos, M. and I trekked up into the hills to visit the abandoned remnants of a quicksilver mine. One of the cement buildings, the use of which I have temporarily forgotten, acts as an echo chamber, so that when you play a musical instrument into the square hole on one side, the sound is magnified and bounced around inside in interesting ways. I'm not sure what the various hikers and joggers passing by on the path thought of this - especially the conch horn, which is rather loud, and to most ears, unmusical. Actually, let me amend that statement - one hiker made some complimentary remarks, which now mar the recording. Such are the hazards of recording anything in a public place. That said, I want to go back and sing songs into that hole. I just have to figure out which ones.

Lexy shared with me tonight that the reason he's afraid of the windows being open is because he keeps imagining zombies looking in at him - all because of a picture he saw on the spine of one of my books. I told him that he has a good imagination, and that every time he starts to picture a zombie in his head, to instead picture a clown in his underpants. That's the old public speaking trick - picture the audience in their underpants and you'll be less nervous. We'll see if it works for zombies at the window.

cds I listened to after the stopwatch started ticking again: Pentagram "Bir", Fred Frith "Rivers and Tides { Working With Time", T.A.C. "Twilight Rituals", Tank "Still At War", Penelope Houston "Snap Shot", and The Tiger Lillies "Two Penny Opera"

I swear that the weeks are going by faster and faster. I've got to get up in a few hours to go to Hidden Villa. I'll probably take Nate again. The rest of the day will be filled with much rushing about, as usual. This is a preamble to me saying that I'm going to go to bed now. I'm feeling pretty tired, which I hope doesn't mean I'm coming down with something. Maybe it's just the weather. Who knows?

Goodnight.

cds I listened to in the warm darkness: Shirley Collins "Within Sound" discs 3 & 4, Radio Tarifa "Fiebre", Laibach "WAT", The Tiger Lillies with Kronos Quartet "The Gorey End", and The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band With Choir "'This is Our Punk-Rock,' Thee Rusted Satellites Gather & Sing"

The hot weather is still with us. This may be a problem because Lexy has decided that he's afraid of open windows. Closed windows = stuffy, sticky house. On the bright side, it's supposed to cool down next week. Poor Willow always looks so sweaty when the weather is like this.

I think I'm going to go read.

cds I listened to while waiting for a cooling trend: Paul Chain "Relative Tapes on CD" disc 7, Agalloch "The Grey", and Shirley Collins "Within Sound" discs 1 & 2

I was driving behind one of those obscene Hummers today, and found myself wishing that gas would go up to around $5 a gallon just so I wouldn't have to look at all of these gas guzzling monstrosities currently surrounding us whenever we drive. Wishful thinking.

Our BioSITE groups were visited by a couple of people from the Marine Science Institute today. They brought along some fish, including a Leopard shark. We all got a chance to pet it. Some of the kids were a bit nervous, but touched it anyway. I commended them on their bravery. Those without fear are not brave. Those who feel the fear and do it anyway are the ones with the real courage. As for myself, I haven't yet met an animal that has inspired any kind of fear in me (with the exception of people, of course - very unpredictable, and will attack without provocation) so I spent a lot of time touching it. Shark skin feels like sandpaper wrapped around muscle, and this particular shark didn't seem too bothered by the countless hands descending into its bucket. We also got a chance to grope Flounder, Halibut, and Sculpin, to name a few.

All of the above took place outside in the garden, and I now have a touch of sunburn. It felt like Summer today. I think some entity has stolen Spring from us. All kidding aside, if it's this hot now, how hot will it be in July and August?

cds I listened to throughout the relative coolness of the night: Paul Chain "Relative Tapes on CD" discs 3 through 6

The summer heat, not content to wait until it is actually summer, descended like a moist breath over the area today. I took Willow outside and let her play in the dirt for awhile, much to her delight. The Dickens joined us as well. Jen came out and pulled the dead vine out of the beautifully blooming tree in the backyard. It used to be a live vine, and I remember spending a lot of time stopping Nate from tearing at it last summer. So of course it was the next door neighbors, who for reasons known only to themselves, hacked off the vine at its base on their side of the fence, leaving us with a tree full of dead vine. Oh well, as long as they leave our surviving trees alone.

I got home late tonight, and have to get up earlier than usual in a few hours, so I'm going to bed now and you can't stop me.

cds I listened to while hurrying home to go to bed: Townes Van Zandt "Texas Troubadour" discs 3 & 4, Jolie Holland "Catalpa", and Paul Chain "Relative Tapes on CD" discs 1 & 2

The newts are back in the pond at Hidden Villa. You know it's getting close to Spring when the newts return. Of course there are other signs of Spring as well. The air is thick with the scent of blooming flowers, and today was actually quite warm.

I have new brakes and tires. The people at the garage were touched that I cared enough to warn them to be careful not to cut their hands on exposed steel tread on my tires. This is when I found out that they did indeed also sell tires. This saved me a trip.

I went up to Berkeley with M. to see a theatrical version of Anton Chekhov's "The Duel". As usual, it being a Central Works play, G. did the sound for it. The actors also sang a bit during the course of the play. Quite nicely too. They also fired loud guns at each other, the sound being subtly bolstered by G., hiding in his corner. A fine evening out. Of course, beforehand we got sucked into Amoeba, which has a greater suction that other record stores. Fortunately I had stuff to sell, so I ended up trading things in rather than plopping down lots of money. I'm still being quite good at not spending money on cds.

cds I listened to while smelling flowers: Winfred E. Eye "A Bottle, A Dog, Some Milk, A Bottle", Neurosis & Jarboe "s/t", and Townes Van Zandt "Texas Troubadour" discs 1 & 2

That was strange. I was in the middle of writing a post and it vanished into nothingness. I'll keep this brief so if it happens again I won't be too angry at the computer.

I need to get brakes and tires tomorrow because the brakes are sqeaking like nervous mice (at least they're not growling like demented marmots), and the tires are sprouting steel hairs (This is what happens when they go beyond bald - funny, huh?).

The Dickens has "The Big Red Barn" memorized, and now reads it to us.

cds I listened to while realizing that if we were trapped in the world of Fahrenheit 451, The Dickens doesn't have to worry: Savina Yannatou "Anapnoes", "Virgin Maries of the World", and "Rosa das Rosas", Anathema "Resonance", and "Resonance 2", and Gillian Welch "Time (The Revelator)"

I've just noticed that I've mentioned ducks and misspelled "burglar" in two posts in a row. Whatever can it mean? Perhaps it's the first sign of insanity.

Willow is scooting and crawling all over the place, which means she has to be monitored more carefully, especially when she's hooked up to her feeding tube. I've already seen her stretch it to the limit a couple of times. She's just a hair shy of 15 pounds now.

The Dickens has a favorite book, an epic tale called "The Big Red Barn". This book allows us to peek into the lives of various farm animals as they play in the grass and the hay and then retire for the night so the mice and bats can have their turn playing. It's actually kind of nice to enter that little-kid world where farm animals cuddle up under one roof after a fulfilling day of romping around in the grass. The Dickens seems especially curious about the goose peeking around the corner of the barn, which I made the mistake of calling "duck" the other day. Now whenever she points at it and asks, "what dat?", and I say "goose", she corrects me - "it a duck!", so duck it will stay.
One day she will grow up and realize why animals are on farms and what becomes of them. For now though, she will remain ignorant. Innocence is fleeting, and should be treasured. So should reading. We mustn't let it become a lost art.

cds I listened to while hoping no burgler alarms were going off anywhere: Primordial "Imrama", Northwinds "Masters of Magic", Savina Yannatou & Lena Platonos "Kariotakis - 13 Songs with Savina Yannatou", Bonfire Madigan "88", and Irr.App.(Ext.) "Perekluchenie"

Everybody who spends any time driving at night knows how blinding those freeway construction crew lights can be. Sure it lights up the road brighter than day so they can really see what they're doing, but it also blinds all of the drivers in their quickly moving vehicles mere feet away. Tonight, I heard somebody honking on the expressway overpass that I was in the process of driving under, and then a loud voice came drifting down on the night air: "TURN OFF THE LIGHTS!". I wonder if that's the only sound the driver made as he snapped. I don't know how long this little confrontation continued after I left the area. I'll bet no cops showed up though. They were all too busy pulling me over, supposedly because there was a burgler alarm going off somewhere in the neighborhood. They told me to put my hands on the steering wheel where they could see them, and seconds later told me to turn off the car. Have you ever tried turning off a car when both of your hands are on the steering wheel? Not possible. Then they told me to get out. Have you ever tried to get out of a car when both of your hands are on the steering wheel? Even less possible. Talk about mixed messages. They then asked if they could look in my trunk. After rummaging around a bit, one cop opined that I needed to clean my trunk. Another cop impressed us all with his vocabulary by saying things like "fuck a duck". I refrained from pointing out that ducks are pretty hard to catch, and probably wouldn't at all like that cop's attentions if they somehow failed to escape his sweaty clutches. In short order, I was on my way again, and whoever actually tripped the alarm probably got clean away as the cops were sifting through the detritus in the trunk of my car. One even asked if there was any porn back there, and seemed disappointed when I gave him a disgusted look and told him there was not. Go figure.

cds I listened to while once again looking suspicious: Killer "Shock Waves", Ghost "Hypnotic Underworld", Northwinds "Great God Pan", Savina Yannatou "Dreams of the Mermaid", and Manilla Road "The Circus Maximus"

Jen has another sore throat. I think the germs just line up outside our door with little slips of paper with numbers on them. Every once in awhile, a hollow voice says, "now serving number _", and another group of germs crosses the threshold.

I say go away and bother somebody else. We don't have time to be sick.

I've applied for a couple of jobs online. I figure if I can just click a button to buy cds and dvds, why not click a button to apply for a job?

Time for bed. Goodnight.

cds I listened to while not really being rained on: Eleni Karaindrou "Rosa/Wandering", Cadaveria "The Shadows' Madame", Pentagram "Live", Savina Yannatou & Primavera En Salonico "Terra Nostra", and Tristania "World of Glass"

I went on a hike on friday with M., who makes much less noise than the kids. Because of this absence of racket, we saw a bunch of wild turkeys, several groups of deer, and a very still rabbit. Had the kids been with us, the only animal we would have seen would have been the gopher. The gopher, being headless, would have been oblivious to any noise made by the kids.

M. and I talked about the difficulties of finding satisfactory employment.

On saturday, we took the brood, bundled them into the van, and went to a wedding. We had a fine old time. The kids rampaged around the hotel, accompanied by other like-minded children. The cake was lovely, with some sort of mocha filling. One of the hotel employees congratulated as he passed, and I thanked him, which is an automatic response to being congratulated. Only after he had gone did I wonder what on earth I had just been congratulated for. Then it struck me: he must have thought I was the groom, who also has long hair and a beard. As everybody knows, all long-haired, bearded men look exactly alike to the untrained eye.

On sunday, we partied all day. First, we stopped in to drop off some photos to the newly wedded couple. Then we went to a birthday party for K's daughter, who is 1, but only because she was born on leap day. While we were there, some clown presented me with a way to make money. When we got home, there was a message on the answering machine from M., who had heard from a mutual friend about a job opening that might interest me. As I was going to work, it struck me that the clown and the mutual friend have the same name. I don't know what this means. It's good news though.

cds I listened to while pondering change: Therion "Secret of the Runes", Eleni Karaindrou "(dammit, it's a greek title and I forgot to look up the translation)", and "Unreleased Recordings", and My Dying Bride "The Voice of the Wretched"