toby of the day: a picket fence is a secondary luxury

A week or two ago, I may have come up with a brighter side to that whole iowa thing. You see, it was a Sunday night, and toby’s stomach revolted against a) something that he ate or b) some sort of microbial invader. Whichever it was, it meant that, like a little alarm clock, every hour or so there would be some sort of explosion to let us know that time had passed. Sometimes, it wouldn’t fall on the hour, and we would naively hope that it had subsided only to find ourselves, moments later, changing clothes and mopping the floor. Toby wasn’t particularly helpful in this regard, as instead of saying “quick, get me a bucket” he would say things like “I want to lay down” or “I want some water” and so there we would be, maneuvering him through the house only to discover that his request was actually a euphemism for “I am going to puke on you again” or “stand back, I believe my diaper is about to explode.” Needless to say, over the course of a couple days, we generated an astonishing quantity of laundry. We have one washing machine in our building which, when it is not already in use and is functioning, is large enough to fit one pillow case or two pairs of toddler footie pajamas. Consequently, Jon spent the better part of Monday lugging sheet sets to and from the laundromat down the street. And that right there is the silver lining. You see, in iowa, we could afford to live in what’s known as a house. and not just any house, but the kind of house that would have it’s own washing machine. I have only once lived in such a house during my adult life, but I dream of someday living in such a magical place again. Iowa, here we come? Eh, I’m still not convinced either.

toby of the day: so long and thanks for all the fish

The simple fact is that toby likes animals. Of course, like all simple facts, this one is complicated by the particulars. Toby likes animals from a distance, a very specific distance that seems to change depending on a nonlinear combination of factors, including but not limited to the type, size, energy-level, texture and general pokiness. To determine the appropriate distance, one must see the animal from afar, then move in closer, until you get too close, then back up again, then move forward, then back up, and so on, slowly titrating until either you reach the perfect spot or the animal, usually a dog or the occasional police horse, wanders away. Every once in a while, toby will pet an animal, again usually a dog. This is best with large, old dogs because toby’s prefers to pet animals on their back about 2/3 of their length away from the head. This way, he avoids the poky and slobbery mouth area while also steering clear of the wagging tail region. Small dogs pose a problem because they tend to be too short and fast for him to manage to maneuver into this region. Similarly, puppies are troublesome because they mostly just want to lick him on the face, so as he circles around, covering his face, trying to get to their back, they circle behind him, trying to lick in between his chubby little arms. Anyway, over thanksgiving, we went to Hawaii for jon’s dad’s birthday. While there, we spent a day ‘swimming’ with dolphins. Knowing toby’s difficulty with approaching and petting animals, we tried to prepare him ahead of time, talking about how fantastic dolphins are and so on. And during the dolphin show that we watched before our swim, I think we had him convinced. They jumped in the air, let people stand on them as they swam around in circles. Toby thought they were pretty fantastic. Naturally, this was less true once we were in the water. To be fair, he managed quite valiantly. The only trouble was, he really wanted to pet the dolphin on that one spot, 2/3 of the way down it’s back. But each time the dolphin would come by, the toothy area or the tail would be too close and the magic spot would pass him by. These days, when we talk about the dolphins, there’s no mention of the dolphins he almost touched. At the same time, his strongest memory is about a statue we saw while I was changing his diaper before the dolphin show started. Apparently, the statue was terrifying. So in some respects, I guess we should be happy he doesn’t remember the swimming part, at least it means that the whole experience wasn’t all that bad, or at least is wasn’t as scary as some tacky Polynesian décor. It’s a start.

toby of the day: I spy something that begins with the letter 'C'

So for the past month or two, I’ve been thinking about making an end of the year post, the sort of post that could make up for all the spotty posting of the last few months, the sort of post that could fill you in on some of the year's highlights --toby’s first camping trip in Yosemite with 30 of our closest friends; proudest moments --toby has memorized much of the soundtrack to Dr. horrible’s sing-a-long blog and belts it from the highest point he can find, usually the cat scratching post while wearing oversized gloves and doing lots of elaborate arm movements; greatest betrayals --in conjunction with the previous section, toby spurned the hand stitched alligator costume that I made him for Halloween and instead dressed as captain hammer. Although, in truth, this really also belongs in the proudest moments section; and general craziness --our new motto is ‘Sunday is the new Friday’ because, in our pre-toby days we could drink many drinks on Friday and use Saturday to recover. We can no longer do this because toby begins screaming “mama. . .maMA!” at 7am sharp every day, even, much to our chagrin, on Saturdays when we are responsible for watching him the rest of the day which he seems to believe involves more than laying in bed watching movies on the laptop in between naps. However, if you treat Sunday as Friday, you can hand him off to the daycare Monday morning, assuming you can manage to dress him and endure the train ride, and then you have the rest of the day to treat as a Saturday, wallowing in bed and watching the likes of Point Break. I should point out that, as you might imagine, jon was a wee bit intoxicated on the Sunday afternoon when he came up with our new motto. Consequently, we haven’t yet decided whether it is the best idea we’ve ever had, or the one that will ultimately lead to our destruction, or at the least a stern reprimand from the people who sign our paychecks. So far though, I’d say it’s been a rousing success.

However, in the midst of all this, we’ve also been applying for jobs. This has been problematic for me in two respects. First, is the fact that after 45 applications, I have not gotten any jobs. While this supports my contention that I would be better off as a baker, it does not do much to boost my own morale. Second, and perhaps more troubling is that jon has gotten some jobs, well, one so far. Which is great, or would be great except that it is in a place so strange, so frightening, so unbelievable that I almost can’t bring myself to mention it. That place, of course, is iowa. It presents me with a similar dilemma as one I confronted the other day when a friend of Toby’s came down with scabies. Because scabies is such a perfectly silly yet creepy name for a disease and at the same time, at least I had thought, such a sufficiently obscure disease that you can use it whenever you need to make light of some other sickness e.g. “if you go to fred’s house, watch out for scabies! Ha ha!” Now, I have to rethink my go-to joke disease, to something like, oh I don’t know, botulism or myxomatosis. See, it’s hard to find a good replacement for scabies. Iowa had been my scabies, as in “you live in Rwanda? Wow, well, at least you’re not living in iowa, am I right?!? Ha ha!” and yet now our living there is no longer impossible. In fact, it is quickly gaining traction in the realm of things that are possible. Faster than I can say scabies. And that is very scary. Very scary indeed. You see, after half a dozen moves over my lifetime, I have finally found a home here in San Francisco which, sadly, is the one place that I cannot continue to live without jon and I both making a drastic career change. And since we’ve never really had the chance to try out the career that we’ve been practicing towards for the past 14 years, I feel like we should give that one a try. Only thing is, we very well might have to give it a try in iowa. Anyway, as you can imagine, all this thinking about my future in some cornfield has left me without much energy for writing quick witticisms. In fact, I bet that you’re feeling like this is the point in the post where I would usually change the tone, start pointing out all the bright sides to the current predicament, how living in iowa will be a great opportunity to join an older ladies bowling league or learn about the intricacies of thunder-snow or watch more television, but I’m just not there yet. Someday I might be. But not today. So until then, here are some pictures of toby, may he never come down with a case of scabies, or iowa.

toby of the day: wherein we learn about some lesser known federal statutes

Ahhh, winter, time for egg nog, sparkly lights, and evening trains full of crazy people escaping the cold. The latter is not necessarily problematic, so long as you sit quietly, minding your own business, not drawing attention to yourself. Pretty much exhibiting a range of behaviors that are almost impossible for a 2 1/2 year old. Case in point. toby has recently become a bit overenthusiastic about gloves. He likes to point at people wearing gloves and then, in a rather loud voice, discuss those gloves, what color they are, whether they look soft, whether the wearer of the gloves is male or female, how he would like to have those gloves, etc. This is not normally a problem since most people find it endearing that he is complimenting their gloves. But sometimes, well, sometimes it is a problem. For example, if you happen to get on the train and sit behind a crazy man carrying a bag full of meat who you didn't fully realize was crazy until after you sat down and that man is wearing gloves and toby happens to point a few too many times at those gloves causing the crazy man to swivel around and yell at you that pointing is a state, no, a federal offense and that you had better stop pointing or so help you and then he continues yelling at you as he and his meat move to another part of the train, only to be stared at by other passengers at which point he focuses his crazy on them and threatens to beat them up if they don't stop staring at him. Meanwhile, after being briefly stunned into silence by the yelling crazy man toby recovers and begins asking, in a voice so loud it seems like it could be heard outside the train, why is that man so angry? And of course, to be sure you know which man he’s referring to, he points at the crazy man, which causes you to whisk him up and off the train a stop early. Well, that is a time when you realize that maybe it’s time to buy a car, at least until the weather warms up again.