Jack and I kept calling this tile octagonal, but then I finally really looked at it and it only has six sides. For some, that would be a sexagon.*

*NSFW





Check out that chair rail. When I stopped in at lunchtime yesterday to grab a few photos the tile guys had set up a hot plate in the living room and the whole place smelled like steak.



At least that blood stain is covered up now.



At the Tileco warehouse they have all these precut granite slabs held together with heavy straps. Cheapest granite countertops in the known world. We chose three slabs of "Yellow Fantasy." The elves and gnomes are installing it next Friday.



Well, we kind of blew it with the crate training. We left her in it too long one day and she just crapped all over it. So much for that "they'll never soil their nest" theory. And she rings the jingle bell at the door only about 20% of the time. So instead of me training her, she's trained me to take her out every two hours. There's nothing more fun than taking care of a sick, clingy child all week while trying to pack up nineteen tons of books, records, and CDs, and then finding a pile of poo in front of the door when you've missed that crucial thirty-minutes-after-feeding window. Yes, my life is a living hell, and you should feel sorry for me. Maybe I'll put up a PayPal button.

Just a few more links I've been hoarding

The Pope's blog [via Loud Liberal]

Fluid Pudding is having her baby TODAY. Like, right now.

Walking octopi [via The High Sign]

Here's Hit Hotness running his vast empire by remote control. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he really does walk around with a tape measure clipped to his belt. It's the accessories that really say contractor. Behind him, Juan is finishing the scratch and brown* for the master bath so the simple yet elegant subway tile we chose can be set.

*A process not to be confused with Matthew Brown.



Wow, these guys are fast! I wanted to get them to set some subway mosaic in here, too, like 2ND AVENUE or BROADWAY*, but Jack said no again. He thinks if he sets me loose with design I'll turn the whole place into Willy Wonka's house. Which I would. So since he keeps steering me away from the vegetable-shaped drawer pulls and the purple velvet furniture, I'm secretly going to buy a whimssical German doormat. That'll show him, by god.

**How many words can you get out of "Broadway"? Broad, way, road, drab, bard, away, yaw, yar, wry, rad, ray, bay, bray, day, dry, draw, boy, yard, wad, dray, Darby, Roy, Arab, Brad, bra, boy, dab, board -- I'm so mad that there aren't enough letters for ardor or arbor.



Hey, look, they drywalled the kitchen!



I forget what comes next, cabinets? Whatever. If I was responsible for lining these guys up we wouldn't be moving in until 2007.

In lieu of actual Kennedy content today I whipped up a batch of links from some of my favorite webbity-web boys, who are all FUNNY and CUTE!

Palinode's living will.

Chase Me Ladies' recreational sniping hoax part 1, part 2, and part 3.

Laughing Boy hasn't updated since November 20, 2003, but still I link to him in hope.

And last but not least, Bad News Hughes' holiday hijinx part 1 and part 2, plus a manly adventure and a little Sapphic camping.

Tuesday, driving Jackson and two of his friends to the zoo for a class field trip:

Jason: Toilet mouth!

Jackson: Toilet tongue!

Jason: Toilet ears!

Merrick: You're a toilet head!

Jackson: No, you're a toilet head!

*wild laughter*

Me: Hey, okay guys, that's enough, no name-calling, please, uh, we only say nice things to each other in this car.

Jackson: BULLSHIT!



Yeah, mirrors on the bedroom closet doors, too. Fun, in a way, if you like to have fun in that way; me, I am a wee bit self-conscious having fun in that way, believing, as I have for some time thanks to that goddmned James Merrill poem, that the gods watch us through our mirrors. I mean, I like the gods and all, but my seven closest friends wouldn't even get a show like that from me. I'm not sure the gods still consider my decrepitude to be even moderately interesting anyway, given that they have an entire world of perky tits to spy on. But maybe even after you've shrugged off your worldly existence, you still long to ogle; or to paraphrase Ron White, once you see one naked person . . . you want to see all of 'em naked. Ron was talking about women exclusively, but I have a feeling there are a lot more than one in ten homos in heaven. Pure speculation on my part, you understand.

Anyway, if the principles of feng shui are to be taken into account, mirrors in the bedroom are bad luck as they invite more people into your bedroom. But maybe that's not a problem for you. You beast.



I liked having a tub here in the bedroom, but Jack said no.



So Clayte, Mike, and Gaspar hauled it into the hall bathroom. Here you see Mike polishing a bit of copper and snickering. Right before I took this picture I said, "Suck it in, honey," and Jack said to Mike, "I think she's talking to you."



Here you see Gaspar about to put his head up into the attic to move the flexi hose thing that will soon blow heat down into the kitchen through a Reggio register in the ceiling. I took a dozen pictures of Gaspar yesterday and I think it started to weird him out a little bit. I think Gaspar thinks I like him. Which I do! But not in that way. I'm no fool. I know which side my bread is buttered on.

Here you see our new kitchen. The previous owner escaped with the crappy fridge; Martín and Gaspar chucked the old stove into the Dumpster; and Jack gave the dishwasher to Martín as a present for his wife. The wall with the dots behind Jack used to be floor to ceiling with mirrors. I was gearing myself up to live with 200 square feet of reflective surface, but reason prevailed, and really, it was a little disco for us. Jack is holding Katie so she won't eat any more chunks of drywall.

What could be more fun than destroying a kitchen? Destroying a bathroom comes close.

Hey! It's Cliched Photo Day. I took this one last month when Jack's stepmom was visiting. The morning before she left we took her to Our Daily Bread on Santa Barbara Street, thinking that it would be a nice place for some simple carbohydrates and a cup of coffee. Well, it turns out that if you tell a woman who has traveled extensively through France that you're taking her to a place with good croissants, you'd better be fucking sure those croissants are MOTHERFUCKING EXCELLENT. As you can see, stepmom has abandoned hers after one bite and returned to the counter for something edible; unfortunately for her she chose a cinnamon scone, which also turned out to suck. On top of that, Mr. First Day On The Job gave her a cappuccino in a simple, attractive, and potentially fingerprint-melting glass. That was an interesting choice for a cafe with no customers and a bus cart full of unwashed ceramic mugs; what was not so quaint was watching stepmom pick the flecks of coffee grounds out of the foam with her fingers. The only thing that saved a place that I normally love from being totally reamed by a woman with perfect diction -- the only person for whom we vacuum, I might add -- is that the coffee was on FIRE. As in, terrifyingly good.

Excuse me, but my FEMALE DOG just started HUMPING MY LEG. And I thought I couldn't love her any more than I did.

My life is full of wonder and hope.

Yesterday we went up to the Cold Springs Tavern to watch Jack do a gig with Alastair, Mitch, and Tom. Cold Springs is an extremely child-friendly bar. I thought it was illegal to be under 21 in a tavern, but apparently if you’re not even trying to look of age – if, for example, you’re THREE YEARS OLD – you’re welcomed with open arms and unlimited ginger ale. We got our drinks but we took them outside by the fire barrel because you never know, places get raided and I did not want to end the day falling off a barstool while trying to persuade child protective services not to put Jackson in a foster home.

Jackson was having a ball watching drunk people dance and looking at all the bikers ride up on their deafening motorcycles. Once, after Jack soloed and everyone was clapping, Jackson yelled out, "THANKS, DAD!" During the break Jack took Jackson to throw rocks into the creek. When it was time to leave I drove down the old stagecoach road and passed under what I always think of as the suicide bridge, sure that I would quickly find a new way back to Highway 154. It was a lovely evening, and I was wrong.

Me, driving: You know what? I think I’m lost.

Jackson, in back seat: Well, I’m not lost on my side.

Me: Seriously, I don't know where the fuck we are.

Jackson: Don't say that.

Me: Sorry.

Jackson: If you say words like that to me, I'll learn them.

Me: Sorry, sorry.

(silence)

Jackson: It sure is pretty out here.

Me: Yes, I can't think of another place I'd rather be lost in.

Jackson: Don't worry, mom, we'll find the highway. It'll be okay.

And you know what? He was right.

We're coming to the close of escrow on our condo -- not the one I was freaking about, writing big checks and all, but another one that I freaked out about slightly less, having fully explored my ownership panic on the first one. The one we're actually buying is roomier and has good light and a fireplace. A gas fireplace! I won't have to bust out my Girl Scout skills to light the fire, you just turn the little key in the wall and FOOMP: fire. Jack wants to get a remote control and be all James Bond with it, to which I say, Knock yourself out, lover boy. I'll be waiting at the door each night wrapped in Saran Wrap and holding a chilled martini in my hand. Oh, ha ha ha. No, I won't. He's lucky if I even wash my hair. Although shorts weather is finally here so leg shaving has begun in earnest. Armpits are a few weeks off, though, right? RIGHT??

*crickets*

Thanks for all the good puppy training tips. We are having some luck getting her to ring the little jingle bell! I tied it to the child safety gate near the front door, and she's starting to understand that when she jingles it with her nose I will take her outside. She's also sleeping in her crate, which isn't really a crate, it's a big cage with a dog bed inside -- it's a DOGGY JAIL, basically, but she likes it and it keeps her from leaving little stink bombs all over the house at night. I actually woke up one night nauseated because she'd taken a shit on the bath mat and then little green Pepe LePew fingers of horror slowly and delicately curled throughout the house until they found a home in my nostrils. Which made me very sad.

Here my Faith Popcornlike trend predictions for 2005:

HOT
waffle irons
NOT
ice cube trays
HOT
ovens
NOT
refrigerators

Oh, ha ha ha. HA HA!

Updates will be spotty for the next few weeks because we've lived in this apartment for NINE YEARS and we have a lot of stuff to throw out, prepare for storage, and pack. Our move-in day is May 3, if everything goes according to plan. I will, however, try to post some pictures as the chaos increases and then quietly, sweatily realigns itself twenty minutes south of here.

There comes a time, apparently, when children begin to flagrantly, mockingly disregard their parents' commands, and we are now living in that time.

At the gas station, lo, my spawn did fuck with the pump until I yelled at him.

From the kitchen he did flee with a purloined (and out of season) ear of corn, laughing all the way to the bedroom where he did snack upon it, right after I most shrilly told him to wait, for it was meant to be a part of his dinner.

Yea, verily, there comes a point where a parent must choose to become a raving bitch, or else to laugh back at the recalcitrant child and withhold much candy and television until The Unquestionable Right Of Premenstrual Elders To Dictate What You Put In Your Goddamned Mouth is restored.

Woe betide the mother who has been forced into to having a sense of humor about disciplining her child, for she will bear no more offspring, but maybe get a dog instead.

As you might imagine, the last week has been a merry-go-round of puppy training, puppy sitting, and puppy molestation, with a healthy dose of NO! *whack* NO! Little Katiedoo has been chewing on everything: shoes and water bottles, chairs and tables, our hands and our ears and our feet. She'll chew on anything but an actual puppy toy that's been engineered to withstand the force of her love -- her lethal, lethal love. Also, this housetraining thing? Oy. Thank god she's attracted to washable items, is all I can say. I can deal with an occasional poop on the bathmat, but I like to go barefoot inside and I cannot tell you how tired I am of stepping onto a damp kitchen rug. It doesn't send out a pee-warning smell, like it would if a cat had micturated all over it, no, dog pee just lays there quietly until you just get completely grossed out by the sad efficiency of your denial and procrastination mechanisms.

Fortunately, she does a lot of this: