I got an R/O (request off) today. They finally had adequate manning to give me the day off. I called in when I was in Rockwood and got the word from Jennifer Quails, then made a U-turn at 188th and headed back toward Nine Forward. I called Brant because he had just texted me. He just got back from Tuscon, AZ last night; he was at a Mock Trial convention. He didn’t like Tuscon. They hadn’t had rain there since October. He also said the people there were decidedly unfriendly. Interesting. He also mentioned that the landing @ PDX last night was especially memorable. Borderline horrifying, it sounded like. Figures, since there were major wind gusts roaring through Portland last night-- multiple power outages have been reported throughout the region.

Anyway, instead of going home, I drove here to Starbucks, grabbed my laptop out of my work bag in the trunk, and set up camp in a nice maroon wing-back chair, where I am now typing these words. I love days off like this. They’re an unexpected pleasure.

Yesterday was Keaton’s birthday. I had talked to him on Friday when he called me. I tried calling him yesterday, and left him a birthday voicemail. He didn’t return my call. He had been in LA all weekend for some USC class stuff, and was returning to San Diego yesterday afternoon/evening. I’ll try and call him later today.

Well, much of my recent time has been occupied with working on movies, pictures and the web site for Abigail. I just love doing that! And with my new iWeb program, it really looks awesome! I love the editing I get to do in the movies. The iMovie program really lets me do professional-looking stuff. I’ve posted two picture pages, and three movies on the site. I sent the URL to Eric’s mom, Pat, back in New York, and she’s forwarded it to other family members. Very good response. Even Eric, who is definitely not one given to being easily impressed said “Oh my gosh, that movie is so cool. We’ve watched it over and over.” Totally reinforces my suspicions that I am an attention junkie.

I recorded a few episodes of a cooking show I’m thinking of starting as a video podcast. I figure I need an outlet for these newly rekindled creative juices (can you kindle a juice?) that are currently pulsing. I’m going to call it something like “Making Food: Kitchen Activities for Men Who Hate Cooking,” or something like that. It’s going to consist of simple, quick things men can do to make food. “It’s not cooking,” I’m going to stress. “I hate cooking.” For example, one of my first episodes will include a simple and quick recipe for a man’s healthy salsa (I’m also going to stress healthy foods). The recipe?: One part store-bought salsa, one part fat-free cottage cheese. Voila! Healthy, protein-rich dip for your (baked, not fried) chips! Dunno if the program’s concept is going to fly or not, but it’ll definitely allow me to let it out. It needs to be let out.

Starbucks is pretty much deserted now-- the morning on-the-way-to-work crowd has come and passed, save the pair of women directly behind me. One of them is telling the other about her love-life. It’s really quite fascinating to eavesdrop. Apparently this guy she has been seeing likes her a lot more than she reciprocates. In fact, she totally wishes this guy would move on. Evidently he wants a LTR and she wishes he’d find someone else. This woman is involved in the credit union industry; she’s talking about her credit union friends. It’s funny how women communicate. So many, many words. Of course who am I to talk (pun intended). I’m probably more verbal than your average male, and indeed, I do let my fingers do a lot of talking (like I am right now), but allow me to express an oft-concluded stereotype: Women process information with their mouths. Men process it with their brains (yeah, yeah, don’t start). So many words, so little time to actually comprehend them.

Wilma has taken to pooping under my dining room table. She recently suffered an injured leg, and that, combined with her cold (is it pneumonia? I can only hope) has made her reticent to walk (or shall I say limp) up the stairs to use the litter box. I don’t know how she hurt her leg. It might be broken. I think she and Seven got into a fight (they do almost every day-- she’s a little bi**h to him; serves her right). Anyway, all she does now is sit on the couch and molt (her dirty, matted hair falls off in large, ugly clumps). Occasionally she rolls her obese body off the couch to hobble over and eat and take water and since the carpet under the dining room table is right there, she avails herself of the woven fabric and takes a dump. Way too much work to walk all the way upstairs. Well, she has actually started recovering from her leg thing, and her cold is much better too. So, my expectation is that since she is now more mobile, she should be able to return to her previous habit of laying the goods in the sand upstairs.

But no.

Saturday she dropped the children off under the table once again, and I spent massive amounts of minutes using the Resolve stuff. (Oh, yeah, she also has started to fancy the rug as a clawing post, ripping the fibers right out of the matte-- another reason I want to kill her.) I cleaned up the mess and sprayed some anti-cat spray stuff on the carpet. It’s supposed to have a scent that animals abhor and should thus be expected to repel them from those areas you treat. But the anti-cat spray either doesn’t work that well, or it actually attracts the ding-bat feline to the spot where it’s sprayed, the unfortunate result being that on Sunday morning I awoke to not two, but three mounds of gooey delight under my dining room table.

Well, that stretched the limits of my tolerance (“Why can’t we just get along?”) and Wilma and I had a little “heart-to-heart” wherein I, rather emphatically, expressed to her in no uncertain terms that I was displeased with her choice of repositories for her excrement. This encounter included me gently, but firmly, rubbing her fat little nose in said shit. She didn’t like that one little bit, and as soon as she was free of my grasp, she retreated upstairs (mind you) to my bedroom closet where I promptly closed the door and allowed her a “time out” to think about what she had done.

Of course, I didn’t keep her in there too long. Heaven knows I wasn’t about to encourage her to start a new repository in my closet. Later in the day I went shopping and when I returned, she rubbed up against my leg as if nothing had happened. We’ll see if her memory serves her well. I promise, she will not win this war-- not in the long run. (This isn’t a threat, Wilma. It’s a promise.)

I spend most of my time wondering if I'm too introspective...

[This picture relates to this post only indirectly. However, it does show who wins when push comes to shove.]
Aaron, the guy who drives the Fedex truck on my route, pulled up to the building I was entering. I waited for the elevator, and by the time it arrived, Aaron was inside the lobby. We entered the lift together and made chit chat as we rose to the third floor. We both got out. I quickly picked up a Next Day Air letter from a customer and returned to the elevator and entered. As the door began to close Aaron came out of another office and headed toward the elevator. I pushed the "Open Door" button and held it for him. (Hey, those guys need all the help they can get.)

I got off at the second floor and Aaron went on down to the first floor. I picked up some more packages from an office and returned to the lobby and lo and behold, the elevator was there waiting for me, doors just opening. Aaron pushed the button to return it to me after he left! Thanks, man!

Last night at about 10:00 Eric called me and said “We’re going to the hospital.” Amy’s water had broken.

This morning at about 10:30 he sent out a text message saying “It’s a girl! Will talk later.” Abigail Elizabeth White was born at about 7:45 or so, this morning. I brought an extra shirt to work so I could go up to OHSU and see them tonight, but Eric has had only about one and a half hours of sleep, and Amy hasn’t had any. So, when I get off work I’m going to call them and see if they’re up to visitors. Otherwise I’ll maybe see them tomorrow night or whenever she comes home from the hospital. The baby weighed 6 pounds and some-odd ounces. Mom and baby are doing fine.

While I was driving home from work tonight, listening to the news, a story caught my ear. They were reporting on the whale that swam some 40 miles up the Thames River in London. The one line that grabbed my attention was this: "This is the first whale ever spotted this many miles upstream on the Thames since 1913, when they started keeping records."

Errrh? I'd love to see an entry in that record book. Maybe it looked something like this:

"June 17, 1936. No whales.
"June 18, 1936. No whales.
"June 19, 1936. No whales...
"November 5, 1968. No whales.
"November 6, 1968. No whales...
"January 20, 2006. A whale."

Errrh?

Does anyone else get this?

According to the CDC, the average life expectancy for American women is 5.3 years longer than for American men. And yet, women's health is the hottest topic in medical circles today. I did a quick search on Google, and get this: Searching for "Women's health" brings up 142,000,000 results, while a search for "Men's health" brings up only 54,900,000 results. There are over two times as many sites addressing women's health as there are for men.

What gives? Why is there such a huge interest in Women's health when men have a life expectancy that is over 5 years less than their sisters? Is this a "politically correct" kind of issue? It certainly is socially "fashionable" to be concerned with women's health-- just look at all the interest in breast cancer research, etc. But does the evidence of who's dying earlier support all the interest? It would seem not.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all for addressing issues that deal with women's health. Please don't insinuate that I think we should at all ignore these issues. It just rings funny that the interest in men's health pales in comparison, it's especially interesting when you consider that men die so many years earlier.

It’s been busy.  But yeah, I’m still here.  Not much to report, activity-wise.  Get up- eat- go to work- eat more- come home- work out- eat- sleep.  

The overnight NYE festivities were a success. I went to C-Web's house and along with his wife and J-Hatt I consumed many consumables, not the least of which was a delicious Prime Rib (not to be confused with the Prime Directive). We played Boggle, in which I schooled 'em, and Trivial Pursuit, '90s edition, in which I also schooled 'em, albeit not as convincingly. Arrived back in Oregon, @ 9Fwd> just in time to hear three bells announce it was WAY past my bedtime.