The Final(ish) Characters—Still Super

Not a great deal of new information to report today. After three days of being stuck in the house thanks to the four-odd inches of rain we’ve gotten since Sunday evening, Gabe is FINALLY reverting back to his insidey ways. And not a moment too soon. He’s been nothing short of stir crazy this week so far—forcing us to make about a dozen trips a day upstairs where, after ten minutes, he realizes there really isn’t much more to do up there than there is downstairs. And, in between trips, I’ve had to patiently explain to him that “We can’t go outside because it’s rainy/sloppy muddy and cold” while he stands in front of me, shoes in hand, yelling “Shoes! Shoes! Shoes!” at me to get me to put them on, which, in our household, means it’s time to go outside.

Or maybe he’s a little sick. He’s had a bit of the splatterbum off and on this week, so maybe he’s under the weather. Hopefully it’s not swine flu. I DID catch him licking a wild hog last week, and then he also ate a live chickadee Monday, and then he did sneak off to Mexico to check out the post-Spring Break party scene, but I still sort of doubt it’s swine flu. There just aren’t THAT many cases of it yet—not that you’d know that from the coverage it’s getting by the news sources.

On a story-related note, you might be happy to know that I’m almost out of unnamed stuffed animals. I think there are only two or three left. Of course, we have a slew of other animal toys that I could still name, so there’s no guarantee that I won’t keep doing it, just because I find coming up with the back stories for each more fun than just about anything that doesn’t involve sex or alcohol. But, for now at least, you all are off the hook.

The Final(ish) Characters—Still Super

Udder Nonsense

Udder is a little cow doll. Again, I can’t remember where Gabe got it. Maybe it’s because it’s been coming up on two years since he got most of these toys, or maybe it’s because I’m a flaky scatterbrain, but I’m finding that most of these last toys—the ones that didn’t get named immediately because they weren’t popular with either Gabe or me—just sort of “appeared” in his room as far as my memory goes. I’d find it a troubling sign of getting older if my memory hadn’t always been crap.

Udder Nonsense is the only “professional” superhero in the group, meaning, before joining up with the team (which I haven’t named yet, and probably should), he was PAID to be a hero. She was sponsored by babblefish.com and was their spokescow for nearly a year before the online translation service finally realized that, in fact, Udder’s super power really didn’t jibe all that well with the message the website was trying to get across to the public.

See, Udder has the Power of Babel. She can make anything, or anyone, completely incomprehensible. And, as anyone who has ever tried to do a direct translation of a large passage from one language to another with an online translator, “completely incomprehensible” is pretty much the end result that you get. You might recognize all or at least most of the words, but there won’t be any discernible message in them. And since her ability just sort of drove this unpopular notion home to people who saw her, she had to be let go.

Shortly thereafter, she was added to the team, not because anyone thought she would make a good addition (in fact, she’s almost completely useless since, as a super power, this one is about as terrible as “really bendy thumbs,” for all practical purposes), but because they thought she’d make a great scape-cow. Whenever an assignment was botched or an order was ignored, they could blame Udder’s ability. “Sorry, Udder must have been in the room, we didn’t receive anything but gibberish when you contacted us.” And, for her part, she grudgingly accepts this role because, really, where else could she get three squares a day and a comfortable bed without having to do much more than apologize profusely on a regular basis?

Animal Planet Presents: The Meerkat Major

The Meerkat Major is an “alert” (I use that term because I have no idea what to call an animal like this who’s standing up on its rear feet—possibly “being stupid” would be a better description since most of my experience with animals that do this is with our cat Typhoon, and, invariably, she is just being stupid when she stands up on her rear legs) meerkat that I’m pretty sure Libby bought at the zoo. Christ, she buys something every time she goes there, doesn’t she? We must have five or six of these toys that came from there. Oh well, I guess I shouldn’t complain, they give me an ample variety of characters to use for my own devices under the possibly erroneous auspices of entertaining Gabe.

The Major is another bad guy, but he USED to be a hero. Technically, he ranked higher than Captain USA! USA! USA!, but nobody ever paid any attention to him, favoring orders given by the Captain. They did this because, being a meerkat, a typically comical animal, nobody could take him seriously. Eventually, he snapped. Specifically, he lost it when the superhero team forgot his birthday but, in the same week, helped the Captain remember that he had a dentist appointment that he’d scheduled six months earlier. From then on, he dedicated himself with the type of megalomaniacal focus that only a fictional super-villain can muster to destroying the team that he once was technically the leader of.

The Meerkat Major has a complicated slate of super powers that could, in all probability, rival the Captain’s. He received them thanks to generous donations made by the scientific community in the form of radioactive cosmetics that were designed to make women’s face parts glow in the dark. The cosmetics worked wonderfully, giving off an eerie and entirely disconcerting green glow, but they had the unfortunate side effect of killing 99.9% of all test subjects. Only the Major survived.

Specifically, the Major can fly, we do know that because ALL of our superheroes can fly (after all, what fun is a stuffed toy acting like a superhero if you can’t throw them all over the place to simulate flying?). Beyond that, he will likely have whatever super power I decide fits the specific circumstance.

The Cranky Cracker

Or just Cracker for short. The Cranky Cracker is an albino polar bear. How can I tell? Shut up, that’s how. I’m not sure where this bear came from either. I can’t tell if he’s a Beanie or not because he no longer has his tags, but he’s the same size as most of the Beanies. If he IS a Beanie, then chances are better than average that Gabe got him from my Grandma. She can’t possibly have many of those things left if she’s giving them away like that to every toddler that comes into her house. We must have five of them.

The Cranky Cracker is the “brains” behind the supervillain organization, and he is a completely dickish racist. Specifically, he hates everyone in the bedroom who isn’t a white bear. Unfortunately, though, he’s the only white bear in the entire room (well, except for Captain USA, who is probably white with flag “stripes”—but maybe he’s really flag colored with a white background, which wouldn’t be the same thing at all—but they obviously don’t see eye to eye).

This means that he hates everyone, but he doesn’t just hate them, he wants to destroy them (but in a vague, Solomon Grundy from the Super Friends kind of way that doesn’t specifically involve killing, because this is a kid’s oriented toddler’s room, but instead focuses on picking up whatever he can find and hurling it at his enemies only to knock them down but never really hurt them. In fact, I like to say “Cranky Cracker will DESTROY the Super Friends,” in my best Solomon Grundy voice when I play with this guy, even though my group isn’t actually called the Super Friends).

But it’s tough to destroy your enemies when you’re a powerless moron hillbilly, so Cracker had to recruit a group of eager go-getters to do the dirty work for him. And like Lex Luthor and his Legion of Doom, Cranky Cracker comes up with some diabolical scheme and sends his lackeys out to do it, only to see his plans go down in flames because he’s surrounded himself with the most inexcusable kind of imbeciles. Though, his Legion of Mean People is currently in contract negotiations to bring The Faceless Stalker in from the League of REALLY Mean People (same kind of group, but they don’t mess around when they throw things at their adversaries—they’re a grittier, 80s style super villain group that’s not afraid to get its hands a little bloody), which could turn the entire dynamic of the super-rivalry on its ear. It all boils down to whether Cracker can offer the Stalker something it wants, and all the Stalker wants is your soul (yes, yours), so you better watch your back.

Molly the Moose

Yeah, I know, I already covered her. But once we got started with the pictures, Gabe wouldn't stop. So I'm including a new picture of her, just because.

Stupid Dog

This little plastic dog isn't a character, yet, but, as I said, Gabe got a little obsessed with the picture taking there for a bit, and when I put the camera down, he kept saying "Cheese" through his binky and picking up new toys for me to take pictures of. After this one, I just pretended and he didn't seem to know the difference, even though the flash wasn't going off any more. Some day, I won't be able to fool him like that anymore, and I will be sad. It's like when your dog finally figures out that you're not REALLY throwing the ball when the ball doesn't leave your hands and it's really just hidden behind your back. Suddenly, all those fun times messing with its mind are gone, and all you can do is look back fondly on those memories. Sad. But not sad YET. I've still got plenty of months of mind-messing ahead of me!

New Super Characters

This past weekend was, for the most part, a quiet one. Aside from the weather, not much happened, which is good. After last week’s whirlwind of terrible news for friends, family, and acquaintances, it was good that nothing else bad happened. The only thing of note was the weather.

Last night (Swe had our second tornado warning of the year already. Now, I’ve never been a doomsayer, but it seems awfully early for us to already be seeing our second set of tornadoes blow through the area. And that’s just for us here in Harvey County, there have been more tornadoes across Kansas already. I’d like to suggest that this is nothing more than evidence of the meteorological cycle coming back around again to a somewhat more dangerous year, but it seems pretty obvious to me that the writing is on the wall. We are being judged. By whom, I have no idea, but it’s pretty obvious that Kansas has made someone’s List, and I fully expect that, by the end of this summer, there will be nothing left of this state but rubble and sorrow.

Sure that might be a severe prediction, but what if I happen to be right? I mean, yeah, it will be terrible, especially for us since we live here, but I’ll be like the next Nostradamus or something. While I’m at it, I better make a few more predictions, just in case the first one comes true and I’m not able to make more. Here goes . . . .

Wow. This is tougher than I thought it would be. I sat here and stared at the monitor for almost thirty seconds, which is as long as I’m willing to think on anything unsuccessfully for one go. So, nevermind. But I know it’s important that I get some more predictions down, just in case, so I’ll give it some thought while I’m tossing and turning in bed, which is where most of my “best” ideas come to me.

New Super- Characters

The need for new characters came about rather unexpectedly today. Yesterday, we got almost three inches of rain, so going outside was pretty much not an option, especially since it’s still cloudy, drizzly, and dreary out. So finding things to do inside has been a bit of drama since calmly explaining to him that “We can’t go outside because it’s cold and muddy and I don’t feel like having to give you a bath after ten minutes outside and then have to dose you with baby Tylenol for the next two weeks while you fight through another miserable cold” just doesn’t work. So we’ve spent as much of the day as we could upstairs, and, since I’m a helper, I decided to sort through the hamper full of clothes that he’s outgrown.

Sorting clothes with Gabe is an adventure. He likes to help, which is good, but his brand of “helping” usually involves him grabbing armfuls of whatever we’re working on and doing the last thing I did with it. So, when we’re outside and I’m putting leaves in the trashbin, he will grab leaves and throw them in there. That is helpful. When I’m trying to sort clothes (ranging from 6 mos. To 2T because we haven’t sorted and stored them in quite some time), he grabs an armful from the unsorted pile and tries to dump them on whichever pile I put the last piece of clothing on—though he’s not really coordinated enough to do that either, so he ended up falling into those piles a few times, unfolding everything and mixing the clothes right back up again. It felt a bit like pushing the same boulder up the same hill over and over again. Or having my eyes pecked out by crows over and over again. Or something else miserable and repetitive from ancient mythology, so we changed focus to a new story.

And I decided superheroes this time. My plan was to spend a good half hour or so dressing them up, but I couldn’t find any of the old blankets we had for him to pin on like capes. Libby says they’re in the attic in the garage. Oh well, guess we’ll just have to imagine capes too.

Johnny Bee

You'll notice that Gabe is in all of these character pictures today. He pretty much wasn't interested in allowing me to photograph his toys sitting all alone on the chair. Actually, he just didn't want me messing with his stuff. He kept pulling the toys off and throwing them on the floor, just to keep them somewhere other than where I put them. But he was just fine with helping, though he doesn't look all that pleased about it in this picture.

This character, I decided, should be named after a character in the second greatest superhero TV show of all time (the best being “The Greatest American Hero,” of course, and all you “Heroes” fans can suck it), “Misfits of Science.” That’s right, it was awesome. Or, at least it is in my memory, and since it doesn’t look like it’s available on DVD anywhere but in Germany, nobody can prove to me otherwise.

Johnny Bee is, not surprisingly, a bee. I’m afraid that I can’t for the life of me remember who gave this toy to Gabe. He was one of the earlier toys that he received, but, despite the fact that he’s very soft and I’ve often tried to get Gabe to latch onto it, he’s just never cared for it. This is probably just as well. Bees can’t be trusted. Not only will they kill themselves to inflict pain on someone else, which is a sure sign of mental instability, they are also prone to mysteriously “disappearing” or “hybridizing” with African Killer Bees, and neither of those things are cool, as far as I’m concerned.

Johnny B., from the TV show (who, I swear, was called B. Man, which was what I was going to name this character, but I couldn’t find anything to substantiate this memory in my very thorough wikipedia and IMDB research), gained his abilities when he was struck by lightning while playing the guitar at a rock concert. He wore sunglasses to cover up the glowing in his eyes from all the electricity in his body.

Johnny Bee, however, was not a rock star, and he won’t be wearing sunglasses because we don’t have any small enough to stay on his head (I’m sure you wouldn’t dare doubt that I actually tried several pairs on him before giving up, I’m just that dedicated to this type of thing). Instead, Johnny Bee gained his powers when he was electrocuted playing Guitar Hero, as I believe everyone who plays that game should be. I don’t think this because I have anything in particular against the game, I just suck at it, so I wish ill on anyone who doesn’t.

Ralph Hinkley, Captain U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! (U.S.A. must be chanted jingoistically)

I’m afraid that I just couldn’t pass this up. Ralph Hinkley was, of course, The Greatest American Hero. And, while I do feel a little guilty directly “borrowing” two of my new characters straight from shows I liked when I was growing up, I also don’t mind being a bit of a hack from time to time. Please note that I ALSO lifted his superhero name indirectly from Captain America, so I’m not stealing from just one source for this one. But, since Ralph never had a superhero name, as far as I can remember (and I bought the first season on DVD and watched it last year, so it might not have ever been established), I had to give him an actual superhero name of some sort.

And, since the toy is a little Beanie Baby colored like the American flag, what else could I name him? It was like the toy gods just GAVE me these two toys to relive memories of my favorite TV shows, they fit into these molds that perfectly. I’m just really, really sad that I didn’t think to call the screaming monkey (who I named Screaming Mimi) Howling Mad Murdock (he’s even wearing an aviator’s helmet). It makes SO much sense! I’m a fool. A handsome, witty, foolish fool! But it’s too late now. The monkey has already been named, and there’s no changing the playroom cannon like that. Oh well. I guess I’ll just have to keep my eyes out for another toy with an aviator helmet.

Anyway, this toy came from my grandmother. If I’m not mistaken, Gabe picked the bear up from her shelf of Beanie’s one of the times we went to visit her, and she gave it to him. I tried to convince her that he didn’t need it, but she insisted. Then, to prove that, in fact, he didn’t need it, Gabe has never touched the toy since.

In my mind, Captain USA! USA! USA! (don’t forget to chant that as you read it—go back and do it properly if you didn’t the first time through) has an amalgamation of Ralph’s powers and Captain America’s skills. Sadly, since Captain America is pretty much a poser of a superhero, and Ralph’s superhero suit let him do pretty much ANYTHING (it really was a bit ridiculous, really, he could do just about anything the show’s writers got it into their minds to let him—sort of like Sylar on “Heroes” but without all of the wishy-washy melodrama and serial killing), my Captain has all of Ralph’s powers and he carries a shield made of a mysterious metal that is harder than anything on earth (though how, exactly, one goes about forging something like that was always beyond me).

Needless to say, he never takes the shield with him because, let’s face it, there isn’t really any NEED to take it anywhere. He’s bulletproof, super strong, super fast, can fly (sort of), can turn invisible, and can do a few other things that I can’t really remember off the top of my head. (Holy crap, I’m reading about the show on wikipedia. Here’s the quote with the list of the powers Ralph received from the suit: “The basic powers (outside of flying) included super strength, resistance to injury (including direct bullet hits), invisibility, precognition, telekinesis, x-ray vision, super speed, pyrokinesis, holographic vision, shrinking, and psychometry. He also showed signs of being able to control minds when he was exposed to high doses of plutonium radiation.” I remembered the x-ray vision and precognition because I think he discovered those in the first season, but I had no recollection of the other ones—I guess his writers started to get desperate towards the end. Oh, and sorry about all the links, I just copy/pasted straight from Wikipedia, so they aren't anything but links back to various pages there.) But he does use the shield as a toboggan when there’s a big snow.

Oh, and like the Ralph from the show, my Ralph got his powers from aliens, though it’s not from a super suit, he got it during a very complicated probing procedure.

Calypso the Hedgehog (Villain)

OK, so this backstory is probably going to be needlessly long and complicated, but it includes butt humor, so I think it’s worth it.

Let me start by getting three of the more minor details out of the way.

Calypso’s name has no significance. I was inspired to name him such because he is a villain and because Noggin made me. In between shows, Noggin doesn’t air commercials. Instead, it airs—and re-airs throughout the day—little clips starring their mascots Zee and Moose with the occasional clip from a show, musical number, or pro-Noggin propaganda in the time between shows. Since all of the shows were made for Nickelodeon, there is about eight minutes to fill after every show. And, I’m convinced, they only have about thirty minutes worth of material that the reuse over and over again. This last month, there has been this amazingly annoying steel pan calypso song sung by this kid about how he wants to be like his dad on there, and I hear it at least twice a day. Because it annoys me so, I decided that was a good name for a villain.

Second, I’m not sure where this toy came from. Libby might have picked it up at the zoo—but I presume that about every toy that is a miscellaneous animal.

Third, Calypso is a finger puppet in real life, and he’s also a finger puppet in my storyline. He’s a BIG finger puppet, though, probably more of an arm puppet. And their arms would have to go up his butt, so you can only imagine where this is going.

Calypso came to life one Friday evening last spring. He belonged to the child of one of the FBI’s “men in black,” (most certainly NOT associated with the sub-par movies—these are the old school men in black), and magically came to life one night—and grew only slightly in size—after a mighty sorcerer cast a spell on him. Why? Shut up. He did. And at this point he was alive and wasn’t a finger puppet anymore, not because it’s actually important to the story, but just because it makes things a little more needlessly confusing. The non-Tommy Lee Jones MIB immediately put him to work and gave him the code name “Deepbutt.” He got this name because of his special ability, he could shrink down even smaller and go, you know, under cover, so to speak. Let’s just say he usually went through the backdoor uninvited and tended to overstay his welcome, if you catch my double meaning.

And he did this for a number of months, working the backsides of anyone and everyone the FBI had an interest in. Usually he favored a “toilet bowl infiltration” followed by a “little, pokey, goddamned painful surprise” right up the person’s butt, where he stayed until his mission was over. He loved his job, even though no amount of showering ever got rid of the smell. Then, round about last fall, he “accidentally” unshrunk himself while still, er, embedded in a cell member of a radical wing of Greenpeace. Obviously, the Greenpeacer died of butt failure, but Deepbutt also suffered a career ending injury. He became completely paralyzed from the butt up.

So, for all intents and purposes, he became a finger puppet again. However, he kept his sentience, and his ability to shrink down really small. But he lost his job because there wasn’t much call for a shrinking hedgehog agent who had to be inserted into a person’s butt to hide there indefinitely. That would be ridiculous, and how would you cover something like THAT up? “Excuse me, sir or madam, I just need to stick this small, prickly animal into your rectum. It won’t take a jot. Much thanks!”

He did, however, get on with a supervillain group, but only to meet the group’s Negative Action quota for handicapped employees set forth by the League of Sour-Minded Villainy. He became “that guy,” the one who always tagged along but never really participated. Kind of like how Aquaman “was a member of” the Justice League or Super Friends.

But there is always the fear, should a superhero have rear access, that Calypso will find his way into their special no-no place! And because of that, he still strikes fear into the hearts of many.

Video Extra

Because I don't like posting things on youtube for some reason, I decided to include this video here because it's fairly short. Every once in awhile over the last few weeks Gabe has decided to either spin or run around in circles until he falls down. Most of the time, he stops as soon as I get the camera because he can't figure out how to say "Cheeeeez" and run in circles at the same time, but this time I managed to get a little footage of him doing it. With luck, he won't eventually brain himself on the end tables while doing this.

Rocking Out at Geology's (Regional) Woodstock

Yeah, I know. Punning "rock" in the title was lame. Punning almost always is, but what can you do? The empty title line was mocking me, so I had to shut it up properly with a corny pun. It won't sass me again any time soon, I expect.

Anyway, yeah, how exciting is that?! That's right, a question mark AND an exclamation point!? Twice?! Thrice?! It's out of control, and that's exactly what visiting the rock festival at the Wichita Geological Society (might not be its actual name, but I'm too lazy to find the brochure or even pull up the email that Libby sent about it two weeks ago, which is still in my inbox and surely would have taken one-tenth of the time that writing out this ridiculous justification/explanation did) felt like today. I would like to say it was a "rocking good time," but it was only sort of fun, and punning "rock" more than once in a post might get me banned from Blogger.

Interesting side note: Blogger does not have its word processing spell check program set up to recognize the word "Blogger." Nor "blog." That seems silly to me.

Anyway, today's festival was the geology nerd equivalent of a Star Trek convention. I know this because I've been to several Trek conventions--but only because it was a mandatory part of a yearly vacation we used to take to Tulsa that primarily revolved around a trip to a local strip club. We always went to the convention, of course, because we paid $10 for the tickets, but the convention was never better than lame (though one year we shared a hotel with Jaws from James Bond, the cute red-head from Firefly, Wang from Voyager--whom I declared a vendetta on in a memorable bar scene--and Bruce Boxleitner from Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and Jon had a mancrush on Chief from Battlestar Galactica, all of which was rather fun. Another year, I almost puked on a stripper. That was less fun, but certainly memorable.).

Side note the second: "mancrush" is a word according to this website. Something weird is going on in Blogger's lexicography department.

Rock nerds united! This is just one of four aisles at this thing. Sadly, without a proper catwalk to get above the crowd, I couldn't get a picture that took in the entire scene.

Also, unlike the Trek conventions, there weren't people dressed up in sub-ridiculous homemade costumes, which is too bad, really. It could have only added to the atmosphere.

Now, I'm sure that most of you are assuming that I was bitterly complaining about this event the entire time we were there. This is only partly true. I did complain, but it wasn't bitterly. I actually have a soft spot in my heart for rock collecting. I rather enjoyed rocks when I was growing up. We even had one of those rock tumblers that can make boring, ordinary driveway rocks SHINY, boring, ordinary driveway rocks after only two days of making the most god-awful noise imaginable. We put ours in our unfinished basement, but, if I listened closely, I could still hear the damn thing spinning and knocking while in bed two stories up. But it did what it was supposed to, it shined rocks! And we loved those rocks for two or three minutes before we stuffed them somewhere and forgot about them and the rock tumbler forever. Money well spent!

My youthful interest in rocks, however, never prompted me to actually study the things, though, or even learn more than a very little bit about them. I can readily identify quartz, because, if you pick up a handful of Kansas rocks (around where I grew up, anyway), you've almost certainly just picked up a handful of quartz and possibly giardia. But, over the years, I have learned a few more things about rocks, and all of it came flooding back to me at the event today. For instance, did you know that everything that ends in -ite is a rock? It's true. "Dinomite," "Samsonite," and "Carbonite," which is what poor Han Solo was trapped in for all those years while George Lucas dreamed up the Ewoks, almost certainly the first sign that he wanted his wonderful franchise to die a horrible death, are all rock names. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

Today, I stopped for just a second, and I'm serious, it was no more than a second, at a display of meteorites, because the only thing more interesting than rocks from Earth are rocks from space. Specifically, I stopped to look at a very shiny meteorite, and before my eyes even had time to fully focus on the shiny chunk of space dirt, the guy watching the booth said, "Pretty amazing, aren't they? That one in the middle (the one I was admiring my reflection in) is Cellulite. Did you know that less than 2% of all meteorites are made of Cellulite?" To which I replied, "No. I didn't know that." And I should have added, "And thanks, that's one more piece of completely useless trivia that I'm sure I couldn't forget if I tried (though, obviously, I already forgot what the rock was ACTUALLY made of, but it might as well be Cellulite for all it matters to anybody anywhere).

Then we wandered back to the Junior Rock Pile where tikes are encouraged, for $.50 a bag, to pick out some rocks to take home. Now, this is a racket that I wish I could get my foot in the door in. We paid $.50 for the privilege of hand picking rocks VERY similar to the ones that Gabe could find in just about any big, unpaved driveway. There were a few more colorful varieties than our standard fare rock, of course, but not by much.

Gabe handpicking his rocks. Finn and Kris were there, too.

They gave him a small paper bag to fill, the contents of which they then transferred to a far less environmentally friendly, used newspaper bag, for some reason, and tied off for us to take home. Then they gave his paper bag to the next kid. Rock people are weird.

Unhappy with the main selection--or possibly just more interested in doing things the "difficult" way, which I suspect was the real motivation--Gabe started digging through the supply buckets to find rocks that lived up to his rigorous standards.

And that was pretty much the end of that. We went early--it started at 9:00 and we were there before 9:30--but after being there for less than an hour the place was already PACKED with school kids taking field trips. We could barely even get out the door without mosh pitting our way through the tides of vacuous looking seven year olds.

Here is the one video that we took. Right before we left, Finn took to grabbing ahold of a series of big "touching" rocks and yelling at them. We couldn't decide if he was mad at them, trying to move them, or, perhaps, carrying on a conversation. Of course, by the time I found the camera, he was already mostly done.

Side note the third: Finn's face is all bandaged up in this video because Darby, their family dog, chomped down on Finn's face for no real reason yesterday. It was pretty terrible. They rushed Finn to the ER and had several stitches put in his cheek and above his eye--they even had to call in a plastic surgeon to try and repair the damage to limit the amount of scarring. They still think he'll have a pretty obvious scar, though. He was really lucky that Darby missed his eye, though. When they got home from the hospital, Kris took Darby to be put to sleep. It was very sad and tragic. But Finn was in a pretty normal mood today, which was good. Apparently, because he's a not-quite-two year old, he's already moved on.

On Generic Crunchberries

It probably comes as no surprise to anyone that my favorite breakfast cereals are high in sugar and low in anything like healthy secondary ingredients. "It's made of cardboard derivatives and its primary binding agent is a type of industrial adhesive used primarily by the aerospace community, you say? But it's colorful and has an irresistible high fructose sugary glaze on it!" I respond blithely as I spoon another heaping scoop of now entirely soggy, color smeared near-gruel from my bowl into my mouth. And one of my favorites has always been Cap'n Crunch.

But Cap'n Crunch is expensive. What isn't expensive is the Kroger knockoff of Crunchberries (my second favorite of the Cap'n line--I was always a bit of a purist as a kid, but I've grown to appreciate the subtle flavor nuances that red, blue, green, and purple orbs can lend to a spoonful of Crunch now that I'm older and my tastes have matured) that comes in a bag. The bag holds something like a bushel of cereal and sells for the same price as the real stuff, and it really isn't that bad (though it does need to soak for a bit because, straight out of the bag, the stuff is so crunchy that it will readily and consistently lacerate my mouth with each chew).

Because I know that I have terrible eating preferences, I've tried desperately over the last coming up on two years to instill in Gabe an appreciation of better, healthier foods--and I've done this by almost completely denying him anything with high fructose corn syrup in it--and, actually, processed sugars in general. For the first year and a half, it worked like a charm. He ate fresh fruit and veg and would stuff just about anything we put in front of him into his mouth cheerfully. But then he learned that there are tasty foods out there. I'm not sure how it happened, but it did. I blame Libby and Nana and Poppa, but only because I can without the slightest little iota of proof. Over the last six months, our steady stream of healthy, nourishing foods has been infiltrated by sweet things that we know he will eat. I'm not proud of it, but sometimes it's the only way we can get him to eat anything, and we figure something is better than nothing.

Yesterday for breakfast, Gabe discovered generic Crunchberries. He's always been a fan of dry cereal, but we'd tried to give him Cheerios or other options whose claims to be a "healthy part of this balanced breakfast" didn't have to include another source of "grains" in the picture (along with every other food group) to make the claim legit. But over the last few months he has grown to all but reject these good-for-you cereals when offered, and we can only get him to eat the sweet cereals. Yesterday, I took this to its logical next level, I gave him a sweet cereal that included color combinations that could not be found in nature (they should advertise it as containing "The great taste of Blue!" because, really, what flavor can it be that represents a natural food except blueberries, and nobody with taste buds likes blueberry flavored cereals).

I made him a small bowl of the cereal (dry still because he doesn't command a spoon well enough to eat milked cereal) and within five minutes he had eaten every one of the "berries" in the bowl. He'd eaten only one of the little yellow Cap'n Crunch-like biscuits and found it not suitable for his palate. He brought me the bowl and said, "More!" So we went into the kitchen and I pulled out the bag and we proceeded to fill the bowl with nothing but the berries. And he ate that entire bowl.

This morning, I discovered a most unexpected side effect of a breakfast made up entirely of Crunchberries. His pooh was the most disarming shade of green I have ever seen come out of an omnivore. It was very nearly vibrant and lush--as though it was made from grazing in a dewy stand of spring grass in a secluded meadow in some heavenly glade. It put me quite off my game this morning.

So, obviously, this morning, after he ate his leftover pancake from last night but still wanted something else to eat, I decided to conduct a little experiment. Instead of giving him a bowl filled with a variety of the berries, I picked out only the purple ones. If the after-product tomorrow morning looks like he ate a muppet, I'll be sure to let everyone know.

Akiko vs. "The Eye"

So it’s been a bit busy this last week or so, which, sadly, has reduced the amount of time I’ve had to sit at the computer. And by busy, by my standards, I mean that the weather has been pretty nice and we’ve not been in the house enough for me to sneak into the office for five minute stretches while Gabe entertains himself, however briefly, in the living room.

I am, by almost all accounts, an “indoorsy” type person. Gabe, on the other hand, is every bit as outdoorsy as his mother. I won’t say that I’m disappointed by this because I know that kids should want to play outside. According to all the nature propaganda that Libby shares with me from her parenting magazines and websites, playing outside for at least an hour a day dramatically decreases the chances that a child will develop ADD and ADHD problems.

But I worry about this. Everyone is ADD or ADHD these days. They’ve got more drugs to “deal” with this problem than they do for erectile dysfunction and restless leg syndrome combined (though I base this observation only on the number of commercials that I see, because that’s really the only reliable way to know what drugs do, I’m sure, otherwise it would be an incredibly irresponsible practice for the FCC, or whoever regulates such things, to allow drug commercials to air in such a dangerously frequent and vaguely informational fashion). And I’d hate to make Gabe a pariah in his school just to appease his early childhood desire to play somewhere other than the five rooms we have designated as safe zones for him right now.

Can you imagine how terrible it would be for him, as the only child in a room full of attention deficient schoolmates, to get through his days? Every recess he would have to listen to the constant ribbing of his peers to the tune of, “Hey, Gabe! Why don’t you sit still long enough to read an entire comic book for us! Freak!” Or maybe they’d make up a jump rope rhyme: “Gaberella, dressed in yella, went to the library to read Nelson Mandella. Made a mistake and read an Ake (Ake Anderson, a Swedish detective fiction writer—yeah, not many authors out there with names ending in –ake sounds, it would seem, but I’m certain his second grade friends would have the research skills to search on Wikipedia for “ake author” like I did and use the first name that appeared in the teasing rhyme that they'd create). How many librarians would it take?”

The horrors. And, more importantly, how will Gabe ever be able to thrive in this age of useless trivia if he doesn’t have a sound foundation of exposure to the shows that will become pop culture references in his later years? How will he ever be able to relate to “I love the 00s” when it airs here in about three years? These things trouble me.

And today is going to be another nice day, which means more time outside. Nonetheless, I’m determined to get something posted this morning before and during his nap, because I care that much about, um, things, I guess. Whatever. I forgot what I was going to say. My attention and focus is terrible these days. Hey! Did I ever tell you about that episode of the Muppets with Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker in it? Or when Kenny Rogers sang “The Gambler” on a train surrounded by really creepy old person muppets? It was awesome.

Akiko and “The Eye”

We left our hero, her nemesis, and some other secondary characters that were searching for her in Gabe’s Room Park, preparing for a face off.

Unfortunately, the events that were supposed to quickly follow had to be postponed while the Army Corps of Engineers removed the playground equipment from the park. They were deemed “unnecessary for a bedroom now that the weather has gotten nice” and the entire set was disassembled and moved out to the driveway. There are plans underway to replace the playground equipment with, perhaps, a nice set of plastic table and chairs suitable for drawing on, but, as with all government projects, the actual work hasn’t gotten underway just yet.

After the brief disruption and quite a lot of foot shuffling and uncomfortable glances from one character to the other (because nobody would engage in polite conversation with “The Eye” because she’s just too creepy) while their setting was being rearranged, the players picked up the thread of their story where it left off.

Maria faced off with Akiko, who is flanked by a number of young thugs as back up (though they surely would rather be called "toughs" instead. At least I'd prefer that. Imagine living your life through young adulthood and all the pieces that made up that life, only to be called, probably to your face, a "thug." That's hardly something to be proud of. "Tough," on the other hand, at least doesn't sound so much like you're a not-quite menacing extra hired to stand around behind the Joker or some other cartoon super-villain. Not something a mother could be proud of, but maybe something that she wouldn't be afraid to tell her bridge club about four martinis into the evening). Stanley, Dag, and Karl Weathers were meeting nearby to discuss the possibility of Dag’s acceptance of Stanley’s case to find his niece. And . . . action.

A MAJOR battle ensues. Akiko kicks some serious mafia butt. Chaos rules the day. I probably should go into detail, but fight scenes, while almost certainly the most interesting narrative element of a story (after sex scenes, of course), the kind that even the least interested of reader will pore over with close attention, just don’t interest me all that much when stuffed animals are concerned. And, really, when we get to these scenes in our stories, all it means is that I try to convince Gabe to pick up his toys and throw them around a little (which is what I hope will happen in today’s video offering).

But Stanley, Dag, and Karl didn’t participate. They just backed slowly into the shadows when the trouble started because, sadly, Stanley didn’t know that it was Akiko involved in the melee. His aunt, in her flighty short-sightedness, hadn’t even supplied him with a picture of her niece, so Stanley didn’t have any idea what she looked like. On the plus side, Dag agreed to help Stanley with his case, so they’ll probably get involved eventually.

And that, my friends, is as far on Akiko’s story as I got originally. Thus ends the storylines that I created with Gabe before I started this blog. Now it’s new stuff from here on out.

Oh, bollocks! Here’s a bit of clarification. I just realized that the last batch of pictures—the ones of Akiko and the gang in the “park” surrounding the little plastic slide in Gabe’s room—were deleted and nobody ever saw them. Thus my earlier reference to the park equipment being removed probably made no real sense. Duh. Yeah, so we disassembled his slide yesterday and moved it out the driveway since it’s nice enough for him to play on it out there now. Originally, I had everyone set up around the slide as they were all meeting in the park. But that piece of setting was gone for today’s video. Yeah, good times when you have to spend an extra paragraph explaining something that didn’t need to be explained in the first place. Could I have just deleted the earlier reference and never written this paragraph? Sure, but that was a pretty fair percentage of today’s storyline post! Without that and this explanation, this would have been about three sentences long or something. You’re welcome!

So, this one is a little long again, and not really on topic. Gabe started off interacting with the dolls he was supposed to (the one he's carrying at the beginning is Maria "The Eye," who hasn't had a picture on here because she was lost--stuffed in the bottom of a basket, actually--for a few months, but you can't see her creepy eye in the movie, I'm afraid), but he lost his mark very quickly. I kept filming, though, because I saw some promise in his interactions with his toy kitchenette. I was hoping he'd show everyone a little unnecessary destruction. He tried, but not to the level that I'd hoped he would.

Oh, and sorry, no pictures this time. I couldn't think of any way that I could stage the players that would be relevant or interesting, so it's just the video this time.