Good Luck Investigation Boat

toby's from san francisco: The truck! The truck!

2010-12-11T17:56:00.000-08:00

Just when we were sure our furniture would get trapped in a snowdrift in Calgary, there was the giant truck, taking up 8 metered parking spaces along the side of St. Laurent, our little blue car smiling at us from the back. Our new apartment is, as toby will be the first to tell you, on top of a yogurt shop. He tells this to anyone who appears to be listening, especially people that we meet on the bus. “where do you live? I live on top of the yogurt shop”. By on top of a yogurt shop, I mean that you ascend one steep, narrow flight of stairs to put you directly above said frozen treat purveyor, then up another two flights into our apartment. If you desired, you could then go up another flight and be in our bedroom or on our deck with a view of downtown. It is a lovely view and you might consider doing this unless you are one of the men carrying our furniture and boxes up from the truck, for example, the man who at the end of the day explained that he had the steel plates holding his recently broken spine together, in which case, I suspect that you might pass on the view because your legs have already turned into jello. And in fact, just so that they don’t have to contend with that last flight of stairs, we tell them to just stack all the boxes in the vast empty area that we don’t have enough furniture to fill right now anyway. As a side note, we bought a new dining table and sofa like a week before we moved. In our San Francisco apartment, they looked enormous and so we have had weeks of fitful sleep when we imagined all the money we wasted on furniture that would be too large to even fit up the stairs, let alone fit into our new place. Of course, the new place is large enough to have swallowed our previous apartment in one gulp, and thus the sofa and table appear tiny by comparison, so in the end, I feel that was not the most productive worrying that we’ve ever done. In any event, somehow, the movers managed to get everything up the stairs unscathed and so our apartment went from empty to full of boxes to full of empty boxes and piles of paper to full of stuff that we shouldn’t have moved all the way over here but we were too frantic before the move to properly clean out our closets so now we have a huge pile of junk for goodwill to almost presentable, just requiring a few more coat hooks. and with that, we’re finally home. And ready for some yogurt.

toby's from san francisco: blandest vacation ever

2010-12-07T18:16:00.000-08:00

The grande biblioteque is both grand and bookfilled as its name would suggest. But I am mostly just sitting sleepily watching the glass elevators shuttle up and down. Toby and jon are in the kids section reading, I assume, books about or involving or with at least one picture of lions. As with most aspects of our new life in Canada, this is actually just a form of waiting. In this particular instance, we are waiting for lunchtime. But much of the past week has been spent waiting in lines, waiting and filling out forms, trying to distract toby while waiting, waiting on wait lists, or just generally waiting. It’s a strange limbo. We went to a party last night and everyone asked how we like living here so far, and mostly we smile and respond positively that we like it very much. Because we do, or at least, we think we do, and we certainly expect to. But of course, we don’t really know, because living in a hotel and working by standing in lines isn’t really what our life will be here, in fact with any luck it isn’t what our life will be next week, when we hope that the slow moving truck with its amiable but somewhat tooth-free driver and all of our belongings pulls up at our new apartment. But until then, we live in what may b the blandest vacation ever, swimming every evening in the hotel pool (for which we purchased heavily discounted bathing suits because ours are on that slow truck) and cooking some pasta on our single functioning burner, and waiting waiting for furniture and cell phones and credit cards and bank accounts and medicare and snow. But at least right now we can stop waiting for lunch time as it has finally arrived. cheers!

toby's from san francisco: 4093 km is a lot of miles

2010-12-07T18:12:00.000-08:00

Just a few notes for those of you who might be considering a transcontinental move to a different country, for example, from san francisco to montreal.

1) carrying cats through the metal detector is not as terrible as you might expect if perchance you are lucky enough to be holding a surprisingly limp lulington. If, on the other hand, you are holding wendy, it is full of all the clawing, scratching, and bleeding that you had previously imagined. And maybe more.

2) speaking of cats, while soft carriers are lighter, easier to fit under the seat in front of you, and keep the people at customs from asking to see your paperwork because they don’t realize those bags are full of cats, they do little to protect the cats from rambunctious 3 year olds who are also quick to forget that they are not just luggage.

3) the flight from san francisco to toronto is REALLY long if no one takes a nap.

4) 1 hour and 15 minutes may or may not be long enough to get from one airplane, through customs, to a second airplane. We don’t know the answer to this because what we did learn is that 75 minutes isn’t anywhere near to enough time to get through immigration when you are actually moving to that country, especially when the immigration computer system is mysteriously down.

4a) when the immigration computer does go down and they have to fill out your work permit form by hand, be prepared for every office that you walk in to subsequent to that to eye you suspiciously because of your strange non-standard green work permit that has been haphazardly stapled into your passport.

5) while Jon disapproves of “found” toys for hygiene regions, I feel that once you wash off that plastic dinosaur that’s been sitting in the immigration waiting room for hours or perhaps even days, it becomes your best option for occupying an antsy 3-year old while the immigration official tries to fill out your work permit paperwork by hand.

6) it’s much easier to estimate the cost of all of your belongings on the spot when the customs agent asks if you have just gone against the all the rules of importing furniture to Canada and bought a bunch of furniture immediately prior to your departure.

7) it turns out that montreal is pretty far away. And after today, it feels even farther. Fortunately, beer is here to help.

toby lives in san francisco

2010-12-04T18:18:00.000-08:00

ok, so I have plans to describe to you in glorious detail, our new life in Montreal. but a quick digression before we start. when we last left off, apparently way back in february, we were inches away from moving to iowa. well, it turned out that iowa could kinda tell that we were not exhuberant about the prospect of being cornhuskers or hawkshuckers or cornhawkers or whatever they are there and so days before the visit that we had planned for the middle of february, they cancelled. the trip, the job offer, the whole shebang. I can't really say that we were upset exactly, it mostly just meant that they had taken away a really good bargaining chip that we had. an offer from iowa is, at minimum, better than no offer at all. in any case, shortly thereafter, although at the time it seemed like an eternity, somehow through the magic of canada, we got jobs at mcgill in montreal instead. both of us got jobs. that's one, two jobs. 100% more jobs than we have gotten anywhere else. 2 times more jobs than we've been offered before, and this time it was in a city where we would not just be willing to sit for a year or so while trying to get other, different, better jobs, but somewhere we would like to live. needless to say, we took them. fast forward 7 months, and here we are, living in montreal. anyhoo, I had planned to just pick up this blog from where we are now, and not dwell on the dark days of iowa, because I am old and lazy and can barely remember what we did yesterday let alone last july, and if I had to recall last july, well, I think we'd still be stuck with the most recent post being from last february, except that as I was working on the first post, there was a bit of a ruckus upstairs. toby had been complaining about his stomach after dinner. this happens not infrequently, but it's hard to tell if he's just eaten way to much or had too much juice or if the strange sassafrass candy from the local natural foods store is disagreeing with him or if maybe beef tartare isn't so great for three year olds. in any event, we suggested that maybe if he just went to bed, he would feel better. I then came downstairs and was clacking away on the laptop while jon offered him a nibble of an antacid. I'm sure you can see where this is leading. so moments later came the ruckus and the lovely dinner from our new neighborhood bistro was all over the blankets and floor and behold, toby felt immeasurably better. I bring all this up because after we stripped the bed and wiped down the floor, we did not hand wash those items while planning tomorrow's trip to the laundrymat, oh no, we placed them in our energy and water efficient washing machine, pushed a button and set it to work. to which I say, take that IOWA.

and just fyi, that picture is from a little trip we made to san mateo in august to escape the fog and eat some ramen. so now you're almost filled in on what we've been up to.

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

2010-02-07T15:54:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-07T15:37:00.000-08:00

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'

2010-02-07T14:42:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-07T14:28:00.000-08:00

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.

toby of the day: what else are you hiding in there?

2009-11-18T21:43:00.000-08:00

When we were in Kyoto last year, toby was quite taken by a picture of a daruma on map of local sights in the lobby. So taken, in fact, that we attempted to visit the daruma shrine, only to discover that the map was apparently not created by people from earth, so not only was it considerably farther than anticipated, but even though the picture of the daruma had been one of the largest on the map, none of the people we stopped on the street had any idea that it existed. Eventually, we gave up and headed to the golden temple instead. In any case, because toby was so smitten by them, when I returned to Kyoto a month and a half later, I decided to forgo buying him his perennial favorite, a stuffed owl toy, and instead picked up a little plush daruma. I’m not sure if it’s the beady eyes or thick scowling eyebrows, but from the first moment he saw it, toby has hated that daruma. Recently, he started to play a game with it wherein he insists that it is his “friend” then proceeds to throw it down the stairs. My part in the game, from what I can tell anyway, is to insist that daruma is my friend and try to steal it back before toby hurls it over the banister. The other day, after rescuing the daruma from yet another flight down to our foyer, I hid him under my shirt. In retrospect, this was not my best idea, but at the time it was pretty amusing since Toby was completely flummoxed by this move. He searched and searched for the daruma, always returning to just stare up at me, his brow furrowed, his eyes blank and confused, while I pointed frantically at my suddenly larger belly. Eventually, I let the daruma peek out from beneath my shirt hem and something clicked in toby’s head. What I mean is that now, whenever toby comes into contact with one of my softer parts, and these days I have lots more softer parts than I used to, he will poke me in said softer part and ask “daruma’s in there?” then try to peek under my shirt. I have to say that some of these softer parts are parts that you don’t necessarily like to have a two-year old poking you in or digging through in search of his most hated stuffed toy, especially while you are, say, riding a crowded bus. But I guess so long as he doesn’t try it on anyone else (friends, strangers on the bus, first girlfriends) I can probably manage, and at least it means that the daruma, and my various softer parts, have gained a more favorable status. And perhaps best of all it has provided us with a new euphemism so that we can say things like “check out the darumas on her” and, really, who wouldn’t want to work that into their lexicon.

toby of the day: a somebody named toby

2009-11-18T21:24:00.000-08:00

While jon and I were eating dinner the other night, toby wandered in holding what looked like chunks of colored cardboard. “Look, somebody broke this box.” Since it was a box that had been held together by duck tape, we were not particularly fazed by this news. “uh huh”. He struggled to try to fit the extra piece back onto the other two unbroken parts. “But look, this box is broken. Somebody broke it”. I replied, “Yes, I suppose so, but, you know, that’s okay”. We returned to our wine. “Mommy, look, somebody broke it. can you fix it?” I considered this for a second, whether it was even worth hunting down more duck tape to fix that old box. "You know toby, that box sure is broken, I don't think I can fix it. but, again, that's okay, it was an old box." he looked concerned. "somebody sure did break it." I waited for him to accuse someone, Jon or I or maybe the cats, when he chimed in “maybe somebody sat on it.” hmmm, maybe. “Um, Toby, did you sit on the box?” his head was down, he was still fiddling with the pieces, and his voice was distracted, innocent and perhaps even a wee bit patronizing. “yeah”. Well, I guess we solved that mystery. Up next, somebody got paint all over the floor, and it’s not who you think. Or is it?

toby of the day: I said good day!

2009-09-04T21:28:00.000-07:00

The other night when I was putting him to sleep, toby had mostly dozed off when he suddenly bolted upright and asked “Mr. Wonka pee in the toilet?” then just as suddenly he laid back down and was snoring again. I imagine his dreaming little head to be like some crazy editing room where all sorts of gibberish gets spliced together in a manner a thousand times more nonsensical than what I wake up remembering these days. Which I have to say makes me a little jealous. For example, I recently dreamt that I was hanging out with Ewan McGregor talking about how my hand felt like it was asleep at which point I awoke to find that my hand was, in fact, asleep and then I lay awake for a while, feeling vaguely disappointed since dreaming about my hand being asleep because it was actually asleep was sort of a waste of a dream involving Ewan McGregor, you know what I mean? In any case, with regard to toby’s dreaming, the answer to your first question is that toby is obsessed with the classic willy wonka and the chocolate factory movie not the more recent, although also enjoyable, tim burton remake. It started with an interest in the oompa loompa songs, but has spiraled into an addiction to much of the film and often results in him singing various songs and reciting bits and pieces of it, especially this scene. I have to say it’s a bit unnerving when your two year old is constantly walking around shouting “good day, sir!” or “it’s all there, black and white, clear as crystal!” in his grumpiest, most Gene Wilderesque voice. The answer to your second question is that toby does sometimes pee in the toilet himself, although not frequently enough that we can imagine a diaper free lifestyle anytime in the near future. And as far as toby’s question, well, if you have any insight just let us know.

toby of the day: our summer vacation

2009-08-14T10:28:00.000-07:00

Toby has not flown on an airplane since we came back from japan last October. That flight, described in detail here, was sufficiently awful to swear us off of flying with Toby forever. And by forever I of course mean 10 months. Historically, Jon and I have tended to take elaborate trips, and like a couple of heroin addicts we usually rationalize those trips by telling ourselves that this will be it, after this we’re staying home, only to get antsy after a month or two and suddenly we’re on the interweb buying tickets to Thailand. So for us, 10 months is kind of like forever. Sure, during those 10 months, Jon and I traveled a bit for work, I went back to Japan, and jon and I both went to bochum germany, which jon described as the scranton of germany, mostly because to call it the detroit of germany would make it seem too cosmopolitan. But those were definitely trips for work, and so by june, we were crawling out of our skin at having remained so sedentary. Because, really, while Germany in January might be many things, it is not Thailand. I realize of course that Seattle is also not Thailand, but I would point out that it is also not scranton. And it’s only 2 hours away. And has some really nice hotels. So recently, we braved the skies again with toby in tow, as well as our friends ed and michelle and their 5 month old son milo. Here’s a little summary of our trip.

Thursday: car to airplane to car to hotel. Toby liked the airplane, if only because we spent most of the 90 minutes stuffing him full of dried fruits to keep his ears clear. We ate lunch, and toasted the start of our vacation with some tasty beer. Then toby and I made some vague attempts at napping while jon slept like a hibernating bear. Then dinner at a brewpub down the street where our waitress managed to create toby a fruit bowl filled with fruits she snuck out of the bar and off the dessert plates. Those seattle folk sure are friendly.

Friday we spent the morning gawking at other gawkers at the fish market. Toby found the market to be somewhat uninteresting until we discovered the construction they were doing behind the fish market involving a number of digging trucks and a crane. I believe if we had offered to just leave him there with a sleeping bag and a handful of dried cherries, he would have been set for the rest of the trip. But we didn’t and instead we packed him up and headed to the space needle. At the bottom of the needle is a little amusement park, full of cleaner than average carnies and even what toby called a “big train” otherwise known as a roller coaster. In truth, it was one of the smaller roller coasters I’ve seen, but you wouldn’t have guessed that based on the squeals of the preteen boys riding in the front car. Toby was too short to ride, so we headed over to the carousel which toby called the “scary horse”. Given such a name, as you might imagine, we didn’t make it onto the carousel. But, we did which make it onto a flying elephant and dragon ride, called dumbo and puff, I guess to avoid copyright issues associated with rides that only include flying elephant. It was a successful ride in that I did not get dizzy, and toby thought it was the greatest thing since tiny rocks. Then we went up the space needle. Then we came down. Then lunch. Then toby surreptitiously vomited lunch all over his pants, so he and I caught a bus back to the hotel. The bus was full of physicists wearing fezzes. Toby was blissfully sleeping in my lap or I would have followed them. Then we did some other stuff which I can’t remember because it was not yesterday, but it can’t be as interesting as the physicists in fezzes, right, so really, what does it matter?

We started Saturday with a leisurely brunch. Afterwards, hopped up on pancakes, toby tried to break into the museum of mysterious things because he desperately wanted to hug the stuffed yeti sitting in the stairwell. Unfortunately, the
most mysterious part of the museum was the fact that it was not open even though according to the hours it should have been. After that we worked our way over to the sculpture garden. There, jon overheated and insisted that we find a cool spot with beer before he passed out because it was easily 85 degrees out. So we were working our way back toward our hotel, searching for beer on the way, when we ran across some very helpful people holding what might be described as an outdoor informational seminar. Their gathering might also be called an anti-gay protest held by religious wackos. but that difference is mostly semantic. in any case, one woman in particular wanted very much to let milo and toby know about appropriate versus inappropriate places to put an erection. While her list was a little sparse, she was surprisingly detailed about the few places that she did include, and quite loud. Whereas I, with my prudish nature and all, would be a little embarrassed to be standing on a street corner yelling at passing children and families waiting to cross the street about erections and rectums, she seemed to find it completely natural. Unfortunately, both milo and toby were asleep at the time, so they missed out on her wealth of information. And while someday I may remember to counsel toby on things I might avoid were I to have an erection (sharp objects, paris hilton), I worry that now he may never know this woman’s useful tips. At least I can only hope. After our run in with the zealots, we finally found some beer and toby and milo awoke and ate snacks. Then Jon and I went to dinner by ourselves where we tried to come up with something to talk about other than toby while toby hung out with ed, michelle and milo and introduced them to a range of youtube videos that I can only assume they never imagined existed. Like this one. And maybe this one. Then we came home, and we all went to sleep.

On Sunday I picked everyone up in our zipcar minivan and we headed onto a ferry over to Bainbridge island. Toby enjoyed the ferry and jon and I only briefly discussed a rescue plan for what we would do if he jumped from my arms and fell in. We spent a few minutes trying to reach the front of the boat where the wind was very strong. At this particular moment, I have difficulty envisioning a time when we will ever encounter wind again and toby will not say ‘remember the boat? Windy!’ but I’m sure if you ask me in 6 months, he won’t be saying that and I’ll just stare at you blankly having forgotten about this episode entirely. In any case, the ferry docked and we drove for a couple hours to port townsend where we ate at a brewpub then wandered around the tacky shops. Ed and michelle did not buy a hand carved wooden moose, but clearly wanted to, so if you’re looking for what to buy them for the holidays, now you know. Then we piled back in the car and returned to the ferry. We played a delightful game of “where’s Edward?” which involves asking “where’s Edward?” while lifting your hands, palms up, next to your slightly shrugged shoulders and then looking around. A similar game called “where’s Michelle” was also played. Toby is quite the expert at both games, as well as a third game called “where’s Milo?” In contrast, he is not a big fan of “where’s mama?” or “where’s daddy?”, at least not when he can play the highly superior “where’s Edward?”. We returned, rested and headed out for hip, upscale Vietnamese food suggested by our concierge. Perhaps because it was the first non-brewpub food that he had encountered for a few days, toby seemed particularly enthusiastic about dinner, and even voluntarily ate some carrots. Our waitstaff was not as enthusiastic, and appeared rather perplexed by the presence of two patrons under 2 (and 4 patrons over 30). I think we were not really their demographic. But the food was delicious.

Toby and I spent our last morning touring the library across the street from our hotel. It’s awesome. We spent much of our time at the children’s section, which was bustling with playgroups. While most of them seemed entirely reasonable and cohesive, there was one special one. It was kind of like when you assemble a Swedish desk and are left with a perfectly functional piece of furniture and a whole bunch of screws and strange plastic bits that just don’t fit together at all. These women were those screws. Their leader was patronizing and bossy and did a surprising amount of yelling for someone in a library. Below her was a moneyed grand dame, mostly interested in where they were going to go for tea. and at the bottom was a flustered woman who seemed unable to stand up to her 3 year old, let alone the playgroup leader. I would describe their children, but I can only assume they had snuck out of the library to find themselves good therapist because I never saw them. Toby didn’t either because he was busy reading about dinosaurs. After the library, we took a little stroll, had our last lunch of bar food and beer and headed back to the protective san francisco fog. The flight home was a breeze. Next stop: indonesia.

toby of the day: an excuse to use the word dapper

2009-08-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

Remember the scene in Cinderella, where the forest animals have spent the day collecting junk around the house to put together a dress. And so Cinderella gets gussied up and wanders downstairs and her ugly stepsisters proceed to tear the dress apart. well, the other day I was trying on my favorite dress in preparation for a wedding we were attending. It’s a royal blue, silk Chinese dress that jon bought for me when we were first dating. I’ve worn it once, to a dinner in boston where I managed to cover the front with wine and duck. Since then jon has refused to let me wear it. Apparently, even though I cannot see the stains (the dress has little tolerance for such grandiose movements as, say, looking at your chest so when I try to look down at them a bunch of snaps bust open on the shoulder) he can see nothing but the stains. But I figured this could be my chance to wear it again, because no one would bat an eyelash at the fact that a woman holding a two year old had stains on her dress. So I was trying on the dress, mostly to see if I would be able to chase that two year old around when I was unable to breathe, bend over, or separate my feet more than 8 inches. But it turned out that the chasing part wasn't much of an issue, because toby immediately turned into one of those wicked stepsisters, screaming “noooooooo! take it off! take it ooooooffffffff” while clutching at the fabric and yanking with all his might. Fortunately, his might is not as strong as Chinese silk, so the dress remained intact. But it did mean that I had to hunt down something else to wear at the last minute, or find myself some forest animals willing to make me one, since having your clothes torn off by a small screaming child is often frowned upon at weddings, even weddings held in Berkeley. And while that would have made for some exciting photos, you’ll have to settle for these of toby looking quite dapper in a sweater vest.

toby of the day, great day for seals

2009-07-14T20:58:00.000-07:00

Toby likes the beach. I like the beach. Jon, well, Jon does not like the beach. I think it’s the sand, and how it’s all sandy, and as I’ve written previously, the beaches here are a little chilly, so while at other beaches you can rinse the sand off in the ocean, that’s not really an option that we have. In any case, because toby and I are beach supporters, we continually try to win Jon to our side. So recently we drove to one a little south of pacifica. It was a warm and sunny day. From the parking area, we walked past a field of wildflowers, and jon and I remarked how we should really get ourselves a car so we can do this whole nature thing more often. The sand was warm, the ocean waves big and sonorous. And as we searched for a place to settle down we discovered that the beach was, well, it was full of dead animals. The first spot where we almost tossed our blanket was apparently devoid of people because of a dead seal decaying a few feet away. And the second spot was available because of a dead seagull. But, third time is the charm, and we found ourselves a reasonably safe spot, though we suggested to toby that he might not want to dig too deep. Which turned out not to be a problem as he was far more excited about a little pool of runoff from the nearby hills, so we took turns standing in the frigid water while he splashed around. And for a brief moment, we were a happy beach-going family. But then it came time to head home. The last time toby went in the ocean was the day I forgot to pack him a change of clothes so we ended up dressing him in a sweatshirt and a nursing cover. This time, I packed him a week’s wardrobe, but forgot an extra diaper. So we dried him off, and crossed our fingers. As we quickly made our way back to the car, we peeked back over our shoulders to see the sun glistening off the ocean, a few small children splashing in the stream where toby had been playing, and, just a little ways upstream, prostrate against the bank and dangling it’s foot in the water, a dead bird. A cormorant I think. Regardless, Jon frowned. A lot. While we whisked toby home and into a diaper without incident, I think the entire day was a bit of a setback to our pro-beach propaganda. If only jon was a taxidermist or pinnipedieologist, then he might have thought it was the best day at the beach ever. although, on the other hand, I must say I feel very fortunate that I am not married to someone who gets excited about dead, decaying seals. Sigh. I guess at least he enjoyed the wildflowers.

toby of the day, his tombstone will say 'also ran'

2009-07-14T20:45:00.000-07:00

The other day toby came home saying what sounded like “payback nick” over and over again. I can only assume that he must have made some bad bets at the track and is now in over his head. Of course, I warned him about this sort of thing, but he said he had it under control, so what can you do. I guess when they break his kneecaps that’ll teach him a lesson. Sometimes kids just have to learn the hard way.

Update: turns out he was just learning to sing 'nick nack paddywack'. it's amazing really, I had no idea that song was about bookies.

toby of the day, what's so wrong with a little green space?

2009-05-31T21:31:00.000-07:00

In the outer sunset, it seems that the most popular landscaping style, aside from painting the concrete in front of the house green, is to surround indigenous shrubs and small plants with rocks. While I applaud this approach for its simplicity and water saving potential, it means that the 2 block walk from the train to the new daycare is like a trek through a minefield, except that instead of trying to avoid the mines, toby is collecting as many of them as he can press against his little chest and still walk. My newest strategy is to throw a rock ahead of us and convince him to race me to it. This usually works for at least a block or so to keep him on the sidewalk, and holding only a minimal quantity of rocks that he will add to our own growing rock garden at the entrance to our apartment. Then I can just carry him, albeit kicking and screaming, that last block. I guess this is why people use strollers, if nothing else it means you can transport larger rocks.

toby of the day, boys: don't cry, like trucks

2009-05-31T20:59:00.001-07:00

The next day we continued to avoid contaminating people we know with hoof and horn disease and instead went to the beach. Ahh, what a lovely way to spend a spring afternoon you might say, probably as you imagine people in swimming trunks, warming themselves under the sun and romping in the surf. But that is not our beach. I would like to suggest that our beach is more like how you might imagine a beach in, say, Denmark. Except that I have been to a beach in Denmark, and it was hot and full of very athletic and scantily clad beach volleyball players. And again, that is not our beach. Our beach is one where I didn’t want to take off my shoes because my feet were already cold. Our beach is one where I was pretty sure the wind was going to blow off my wool hat. Sure sometimes it can be warm enough for the wearing of, say, a light sweater, when you make it there in the few hours after the sun has heated up the sand but before the fog arrives. But this was most certainly not one of those days. Consequently, Toby seemed somewhat nonplussed by our beachcombing, and was even becoming a little irritable about the wind burn on his face. That is, until we rounded a bend and snuck up on a digging truck. It turns out that Toby is boy and therefore in love with a wide range of construction vehicles, most of which he refers to as digging trucks. In this case it was a bulldozer and it was parked on one of the paths through the dunes leading off the beach. Toby tried to convince us to drive away in it, but we thought better of that suggestion, mostly because we figured it would not maneuver well in a high-speed chase. That, and we needed to get to the park chalet for a beer, and there isn’t much parking over there, especially not for a stolen bulldozer.

toby of the day, a cow says

2009-05-31T20:38:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago we transitioned toby into his new daycare. As a special welcome, one of the children contracted hand, foot, and mouth disease which the interweb was quick to point out is in no way related to hoof and mouth disease, although we’ve had a difficult time not referring to it as that. In any case, hand foot and mouth is a pretty contagious virus similar to the chicken pox that results in small blisters on, yes you guessed it, the hands and feet, and inside the mouth of the kids that get it. The first case at the daycare was discovered on a Saturday and by midweek the following week kids were dropping like flies. Little blistered, feverish flies. Toby lasted most of the week, but by Friday, he too had a couple of blisters. Fortunately, his version never really amounted to much. Still, we tried to least avoid contaminating people that we know, so we spent Saturday morning busily infecting strangers at the farmers market. We had a close call when we ran into toby’s friend jonah and his family and I imagined having to explain myself as I slapped away jonah’s hand as he went to give toby a high five or something. But luckily toby decided to act shy, preferring to nuzzle his face into my chest, rather than run over and hug, drool on, or otherwise shower jonah with infection. Which meant we managed to escape after some brief chit-chat and quickly wandered away to wipe our hands on some heirloom lettuce.

toby of the day, that's not a lion

2009-05-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

toby likes fruits. sure, he likes other foods too, he eats a reasonably balanced diet, full of meat, starch, tofu and the occasional vegetable. but he really likes fruits. really likes them. here we tried to capture what we mean by that. of course, as demonstration of the heisenberg uncertainty principle*, as soon as we pull out the camera, we destroy his momentum, turning him into a tame and principled fruit eater. However, by the second video, he's back on track, managing to stuff almost and entire mango into his little mouth. and just so we're clear, the place mat that he's naming animals on has been washed so many times it resembles the walls of a romanesque church in some unheard of spanish town, the kind where the murals on the wall could be paintings of saint christopher, or they could be paintings of a kangaroo wearing a tutu and a man about town hat, which admittedly has always been my preferred interpretation of those murals. in any case, it makes it all the more fun to watch toby try to decipher what's in the picture. Enjoy!

*I will point out that wikipedia tells me I should really call it the "observer effect", but that sounds lame and lacks the ironic grandiosity which I'm trying to convey, so I'm sticking with heisenberg, wikipedia be damned.

toby of the day, let's pretz!

2009-05-03T20:58:00.001-07:00

Apparently it is traditional in japan to celebrate hanami or the arrival of spring, and the associated blooming of cherry trees, by drinking sake under those flowering trees until your necktie ends up around your head. This year we had our own hanami celebration, replete with blooming trees, sake, revelers, and even a necktie. The tie belonged to Jon and while it did not end up around his head, I believe that is only because at the end of the day he wasn’t really in any shape to figure out how to tie a tie around his head. So basically our hanami was a success. And as you can see by the video, toby also enjoyed the welcoming of spring, in particular the part where you can just stand around dancing while eating japanese snacks.

toby of the day, teacher, mother, secret lover

2009-04-12T21:17:00.000-07:00

Toby has discovered television. ok, I guess technically that’s not entirely true because we don’t actually have a TV. and some would even argue that the TV we used to have, the one Jon brought from Japan, circa 1981 that finally emitted the last electrons from its cathode ray tube in January, didn't really count as a TV. In any case, we do watch things on our laptop, and now toby likes to do the same. He started with an online cartoon called making fiends, or “MEANDS!” as he calls it. And then we introduced him to the movie Totoro, in particular a few 5 minutes chunks introducing the totoros and the nekobus. For a while he would ask me to sing him to sleep with strange songs about concrete shoes or by mumbling through Japanese Totoro lyrics. All was good. But, while I am weirdly capable of watching the same 2 minute video clip over and over and over (and over and over and over) again, Jon is not, and in some respects, neither is Toby. So after going to youtube one day to show toby the totoro movie trailer, there was no turning back for either of them. Toby soon moved on to demanding to see a video of a girl singing the song from the new Miyazaki movie “Ponyo”. He could watch her do her little choreographed arm movements for hours. Then came the discovery that a search merging his love of robots and his love of balls results in a number of videos of knee high Japanese robots competing in some sort of robot world cup and for a couple of weeks, robot soccer was all he could talk about. Until the past few days, when the main topic of conversation became bouncy balls after jon stumbled on a sony bravia commercial from a couple years ago. As a consequence of all this, he has almost no interest in television. I'm not even sure he knows what a television is, since when he sees pictures of cassette players in his books he points to them and says “TV?” And even if we come across an enormous television, while it is playing the sony bravia commercial, he will turn to Jon, point to the laptop, and say "bouncy balls?" then wait patiently until Jon can pull it up on the screen. I’m not really sure what any of this means, except that I must admit I'm kind of happy about it, at least until he learns to type “elmo”.

toby of the day, how do you even spell borscht?

2009-04-12T21:04:00.001-07:00

We recently had to find a new daycare. Mostly because our current daycaretaker is weak and hateful and seems to think it’s acceptable behavior not only to have a second child, but to use that procreation as an excuse to stop being our daycaretaker. Of course, she’s really not weak and hateful, because if she were it would be incredibly easy to find a new daycare. No, instead it is the fact that she is so very very awesome that makes the task of searching for a replacement, well, terrifying. So we started looking at daycares and preschools only to discover they were all either full or frightening. Panicked that one or both of us would have to stay home until a preschool spot opened up in September, we briefly considered finding a nanny to share with another family. This plan was very short lived. I cannot convey to you how entirely out of our league we were in this enterprise. It was as though after managing to make 3 of 5 shots into the toy box from the other side of our living room, I joined an NBA basketball team. And just so you know, I almost never make 3 of 5 shots into the toy basket. We quickly realized that finding our own nanny and a family to share her with would take the better part of 2009, and then after a couple of meetings with existing nanny share families, we even more quickly we discovered that we are not, and may never be, the kind of people that have a nanny. For example, the first mother we met works at home, and yet not only was she not dressed in pajamas when we stopped by to meet her, she was wearing make-up and had her hair styled. On the other hand, during our ride over on the bus, I had remarked to jon about how pleased I was that my pants had only a small quantity of food on them, and that the color of his t-shirt made the thumb sized hole in his sweater almost unnoticeable. I most certainly was not wearing makeup. This same woman explained to Jon that she stored all her daughters toys in a leather ottoman in the living room so as not to disrupt the rooms decor. That living room was also outfitted with a cream colored sofa and two glass lamps that I was pretty sure toby could shatter just by looking at them too long. Jon smiled and looked understanding, even though in our living room we keep toys in a bookcase (laid on it’s side for safety reasons of course) that we found on the street. At the second home, the family seemed a little more down to earth. But the nanny, well, let’s just say that given the look in her eyes when she snatched a telephone from Toby’s chubby little fingers, I was pretty sure he would end up in some gulag labor camp before the end of his second week with her.
But through a combination of luck and, well, luck, a spot opened up at the one daycare that we actually liked. It’s no denise, but at the same time there are a lot of equally important things that it is not. For example, it does not smell like a dreadful mix of borscht and poop, it is not the sort of place where infants get pushed around in strollers all day while inside the house, the owner did not spend much of her time staring wistfully and tearfully at a wall of photos of former attendees trying to convey to us how much she loves her kids, and I’m pretty sure that it is not the sort of place that will look down on me when I show up with food in my hair. In all, the owner, kids, and teachers all seem nice. And it was recommended to us by a woman I work with, a woman who is perhaps the most cautious and, dare I say, overprotective mother I’ve ever met, a woman whose standards could not be higher. She sent her daughter there, and still raves about it. I think it will be good. We’ll keep you posted.

toby of the day, shaken, stirred, and very dirty

2009-04-12T20:53:00.000-07:00

At the gym where I swim, there are two showering options. There is a large, kind of open area with showerheads lining 3 of the walls, and then along the fourth wall there are a handful of shower stalls. On the door of each of the stalls is a sign that reads “stalls are for adults only, thank you for your cooperation”. Ever since they put up the signs, I have been surveying the stalls during my shower to try to determine what adult only activities I can and should be participating in but have somehow been missing out on, like a small martini bar, stash of porn, or even an accountant eager to chide me for not having done my taxes yet. But so far, I’ve come up empty handed. Then this morning it occurred to me that maybe there are no special adult activities available within the stall, but instead that it’s a metaphor, that adulthood is a cold, gray stall where you stand alone waiting for the water to warm up. I think I much preferred the hope of encountering a nice martini, with extra olives, you know, as a reward for having gone swimming. It would certainly convince me to swim more often. Perhaps I’ll write up a little comment card for the suggestion box.

toby of the day, it was the blurst of times

2009-03-03T22:05:00.000-08:00

Toby is talking a lot these days. Often, it’s fairly easy to piece together what he’s trying to tell us. Mostly because every other word is phone, ball, robot or truck. But sometimes, it’s a little harder. Today, he was rambling on about ‘juice owls’ and ‘walrus hats’. At least I think he was anyway. It’s kind of like our own version of the infinite monkey theorem, I just need to go back and read some Shakespeare so I know when we’ve hit on something big. For example, I’m pretty sure there isn’t a mention of walrus hats in either Hamlet or King Lear, but it’s been a while since I’ve read Henry IV part 2, so maybe I’ll start there.

toby of the day, sayonara bacon

2009-03-03T21:33:00.000-08:00

So after months of negotiating, stalling, and waffling, and a couple of late night calls to our house, we decided to decline the job offer from Kyoto. Yes, essentially I brought home the bacon, and we never ate it. We just left it in the refrigerator until it had grown moldy and, to drop the metaphor for just a moment, rather irritable, and then we threw it into the compost. There are lots of reasons why it wasn’t for us, though top among them was that the only job offer for jon was for him to be my one and only postdoc, which isn't really an offer at all. Of course, in my mind, the entire enterprise would be nothing but rainbows. It would be like petting a family of puppies, for four glorious years. Jon and I would be a crackpot team of scientists, spending our days collecting data, publishing one Nature paper after another. We would become the favorite customers at the oyakodonburi place and discover all their secrets. Toby would learn Japanese. I would learn Japanese. We would travel around the country every weekend, and visit kiyomizudera each time the seasons changed. But of course the reality would be that Jon would be my only employee, overqualified, underpaid, and very grumpy. We would work together all day in a tiny tiny room. Then we would go pick up toby at the crazy Japanese daycare where they would change his diaper every hour, on the hour, whether he needed it or not. And we would have to bow our heads with shame as they berated us because he had only napped for 40 minutes. Then we would all head home to our miniscule apartment with mites living in the tatami floor and no furniture because our furniture would still be in transit on a very slow boat, the kind of slow boat that would most likely be taken over by pirates well before it reached us. And since pirates love beaten up wood furniture and framed indie rock posters, they would certainly keep all of our belongings, perhaps leaving us with some plastic blocks and maybe some mismatched dishes. Then we would try to sleep, but Jon would lie awake, stressed and bitter at his pain in the ass boss, aka me. and I would know he was lying awake because I too would be lying awake, panicked about how I would get tenure, or better yet, a job back in the states, when my Kyoto gig was up in exactly 34,112 hours and I hadn’t published enough. and toby would know that both Jon and I were awake because we would all be sleeping together on futons in our one room apato. Only the cats would be oblivious to our collective middle of the night insomnia, but only because they would still be trapped in quarantine in Osaka. Anyway, so we declined. Which means that we have at least another year here in our favorite city, which we’re pretty pleased about. And I only have to watch toby chase the cats around the room, or see jon sleeping soundly, or sit in the park with our friends, playing boggle in english and having a beer, to know that we made the right choice.

toby of the day, you clearly have no idea

2009-03-03T21:24:00.000-08:00

8pm, Tuesday, our downstairs neighbor has a friendly chat with Jon:

“I understand he’s an active kid and all, but it’s just that it’s kind of loud.”

“uh-huh.

“I mean, I totally understand but if there’s anything you can do. . .”

“right”

“It’s just that, well, it almost sounds like he’s jumping”

“yeah, well, I guess that’s because he is”

“he is?”

“jumping”

“oh”

toby of the day, red shoe diaries

2009-03-02T21:01:00.000-08:00

We keep our shoes lined up at the top of our stairs. While I have tried to winnow down the number of pairs of shoes that I keep there, inevitably my shoes somehow sneak out of the closet and back into the nice little row by the banister. This is always surprising since while I was pregnant I became addicted to a bland and boring but so very practical and comfortable pair of leather clogs and am pretty much currently unable to wear any other shoes. Toby has two pairs of shoes in the line. However, when asked to get a pair of shoes to put on, he usually stomps back into the living room wearing some of mine. He’s currently partial a pair of red mary jane’s, though he too is often seduced by the bland but functional black clogs. He’s amazingly deft at walking in them, even shoes with heels. Which is more than I can say for myself. I can only hope that I don’t have to interview for too many jobs, since my chances of teetering over on those heels are dangerously high. I guess I could always have toby give me some lessons. Or better yet, I’ll just borrow some of his shoes. Maybe the ones shaped like alligators.

toby of the day, something about a sunday

2009-01-24T21:23:00.000-08:00

Sometimes on Sundays we look at houses. We find them accidentally as we wander around the neighborhood, or in once in a while we even search them out on craig’s list. Mind you, we are nowhere near solvent enough to ever buy property here in the city that is not part of a superfund site. We just like looking. Anyway, the other day, on our way to go swimming, we stopped into one. We used to be somewhat self-conscious about doing this and would comb our hair or at least wear deodorant but mostly we don’t bother anymore. On this particular day, jon and toby were both wearing their swimsuits. I was wearing my “weekend” pants. I should point out that my job, which mostly involves me sitting in a room by myself all day, has absolutely no dress code. Consequently, for me to have decided that a particular pair of pants is somehow inappropriate for wearing during the week says a lot about that pair of pants. This pair of pants I had designated as “weekend pants” more than a year ago. They are not pants worn to impress people. And most certainly, they are not the pants of someone looking to spend 1.5 million on a house. Or so we thought. Whether it was a sign of the friendliness and tendency to avoid stereotyping here in San Francisco, or the utter desperation created by an abysmal housing market, I can’t say, but the realtor would not let us leave. Of course, it never helps that when people ask what we do, and we say we are neuroscientists, you can almost see the dollar signs fall over their eyes like some cartoon as they immediately imagine that we are neurosurgeons. we are not neurosurgeons. Anyway, she just kept handing us stacks of business cards and leaflets and telling us about the school system, suggesting that maybe we should consider a condo if this wasn’t quite what we were looking for and giving us contact information for her finance guy (who I imagine would be unable to control his laughter when we told him our income). Finally some more gawkers arrived and we were able to slip out the back. It did give us plenty to chuckle about during our walk up the hill to the pool, who knew a housing crisis could be so much fun. Maybe next time, I won’t wear any pants at all.

toby of the day, why we no longer answer your calls

2009-01-24T21:17:00.000-08:00

Recently we got a new telephone. In addition to providing us with a phone that will actually charge, it has lead to a new game where toby points at the phone while yelling “hide it!” at which point I hide the receiver while he pushes the page button. Sometimes the game continues as toby searches the apartment following the sound of the phone, although just as often he is immediately distracted by books, balls, or pieces of lint that he encounters between the page button and the phone receiver and the phone just beeps for a few minutes before finally giving out. Regardless, it has made the entire phone answering process more challenging since now after ensuring that the person calling is someone we might wish to speak to, we have to scurry about and find the receiver before the person talking to the answering machine just gives up. I feel that these types of daily adventures are what are going to keep the Alzheimer’s at bay, at least until we become crazed hermits because we’ve lost the phone entirely. In any case you should always leave us a long message to give us time to dig through the closet or crawl out from under the bed.

toby of the day, extremely belated holiday edition

2009-01-24T21:06:00.000-08:00

In addition to the towels and singing card, toby also got some puzzles from my father. Having watched the video of toby hurling balls around the living room, my dad decided to play it safe and buy him puzzles rather than potential projectiles. However, little does he know that most anything reasonably round can constitute a ball, for example the small radish from the vegetable puzzle is almost a circle and therefore spends it’s time flying through the air to screams of “a ball!”

Jon and I used to wonder what sort of holiday traditions we would follow because while we don’t believe in either of the magical men associated with Christmas, we do have fond memories of the holidays from when we were kids. Fortunately, it turns out that toby has decided on our holiday tradition for us: we will spend our time off huddled inside and full of phlegm. Last year, we canceled our trip to Portland because toby had come down with his first cold. This year, toby’s temperature shot up on the Tuesday before christmas while we were out and about downtown. It was high enough that even after some giving him some Tylenol on the muni, it had only gone down to 102 by the time we arrived at home. After about 30 hours though, he was mostly recovered, and decidedly chipper. This was perhaps because he had managed to hand that cold off to jon and I. Unlike toby, we held on tight to that cold so that even a week later, Jon still had a hacking cough, and I had an upper respiratory and ear infection. Yes, an EAR infection. what kind of adult woman gets an ear infection, you ask. apparently this kind. anyway, maybe next year we can teach him some Christmas carols or actually buy him some gifts ourselves or something and head this whole holiday cold thing off at the pass. I don’t know though, it’s hard to fight tradition.

Happy Solstice!

2008-12-21T09:40:00.001-08:00

since this is toby's second solstice, we now have some established traditions. according to last years solstice post, apparently we open presents, then have some wine and a bath. I guess the wine and bath will wait until later, at least until sometime after noon, but Toby got started on a couple presents this morning. his paternal grandparents "Baba" and "Jiji" contributed to toby's growing obsession with Totoro by giving him a Totoro towel. Similarly, Toby's maternal grandmother has added to his collection of melody cards as well as his college fund. Gifts from both sides are featured, along with some surprisingly rhythmic knee slapping, in this brand spankin' new video of Toby.

toby of the day, 11.30.2008

2008-12-17T21:57:00.001-08:00

Toby has had a number of loves so far during his short time with us. There was the black halogen lamp, the blue lamp, the American analog set poster, Mr. Cow. There are still owls, phones, dogs and pumpkins. But right now, on top of it all, there are balls. There is a corner store at the end of our street (eddie’s discount liquors) that has three baskets of balls that they set out every day. And every time we leave the house, toby is ready to sprint down the hill to find them. We can’t go anywhere near that corner without spending at least a few minutes while he tries to fish a ball out of one of those baskets. Of course, eddie’s doesn’t have a monopoly on balls. In fact, like pumpkins, they’re everywhere. Especially when you can’t tell the difference between something that is simply spherical, such as a decorative stone finial on a handrail or a round glass ornament, and a ball which might be suitable to throw or kick. Yesterday we purchased a ball that is full of water and glitter that shake around like a snow globe when you throw it. It’s actually quite awesome. But still, jon and I did eventually tire of hearing about it. it was all he could talk about in the store, and on the walk home, and after we reached home. and then once we got it home, he would cradle it in his hand like some sort of magic gem before hurling it across the room and screaming “a ball”. I think that is my favorite part, actually. While he may not yet have the vocabulary or prefrontal cortex of a modern human, and while he is sure to break something in short shrift because he cannot catch the ball after he sends it ricocheting around the room, by adding that ‘a’, he is telling us that he is sophisticated, cultured, ready for us to acknowledge his arrival as a person. Of course, we’ll know he’s really arrived at personhood when he calls it ‘my ball’.

toby of the day, thanksgiving

2008-12-17T21:50:00.001-08:00

Today, we had Isaac, Mai and Steve over for squab and an array of vegetables. Jon and I have “discussed” squab for a couple weeks now, mostly I’ve been insisting that we had guinea fowl last year on thanksgiving, and jon says we had squab, and I then insist that we have never had squab, and he says that yes we have, we had it last year, for thanksgiving. Historically, I would have been correct. In fact, much of my irritating stubbornness in cases like this results from having a weirdly precise memory with regards to random and insignificant facts. However, it turns out that I have lost my touch. There, in our wine notes in my own handwriting, is a description of our dinner (squab and a light curry sauce) and our wine (white burgundy, tasting like earth and fruits) last thanksgiving. This is unfortunate since I have no memory capacity for other things (the names of people that I meet, anything that has to do with my job), so my ability to remember random information is all I’ve got. Jon may feel that he has won the battle, but I think in the end he’ll miss it when he asks me if I remember the name of someone we met at a party and I respond by telling him what color socks I was wearing. Regardless, the squab was tasty, the company friendly, and “trapped in the closet” chapters 13-22 were ridiculous. It gave us much to be thankful for.

(photos courtesy of Mai)

Operation bring home the bacon Part 3: bringing that bacon home

2008-12-17T21:40:00.001-08:00

Today: Imperial palace, food market shopping street, curry udon lunch, sanjusangendo, train back to KIX airport in Osaka, 7 hours awaiting my profoundly delayed flight, 7 hours sleeping in my empty row on the plane, and then I was home. well almost, I went directly from the airport to meet jon and toby at a birthday party. I gave toby a bottle cap with an owl in it that I had saved from my beer. He promptly lost it, but regardless he seemed happy to have me back. That was on a Saturday. By Tuesday, while they were interviewing the remaining 8 candidates for the position, I was in bed fighting off a cold. And by Thursday morning, 5 days after my return, I opened my mail, and there in my inbox was ‘the bacon’ if you will. They sure don’t dawdle there at Kyoto University. Toby will be so pleased since this means he could live in the land of rice, nori, and tofu. Of course, it also means that he could be farther away from the land of penne and pumpkins. And we would be far, far away from the people and places we hold dear. But, while I still consider becoming an industry puppet to be my dream job, I couldn’t ask for a better back up plan if all else falls through. Kansai, here we come! maybe.

Operation bring home the bacon Part 2: bacon acquired

2008-12-17T21:32:00.000-08:00

So I made it to Kyoto and the next day, powered by salad, pickles, and rice from the hotel breakfast I found the university. It was full of parked bicycles but strangely quiet and I was sure that some sort of plague or alien had swept in and destroyed all the humans. But I continued on and gave my talk, which I ended by saying “okini” which I’ve been told is kansai dialect for “thanks a lot!” When I said this, the twelve-man panel, who were all vigorously nodding and note taking throughout my talk, laughed and clapped, and I sighed with relief. I was pretty sure I would screw up and say “oniki” or “oishi” or it would turn out that the postdoc that told me to say okini was really just trying to sabotage my chances and so my talk would be met with the sound of crickets rather than clapping. But it all went extremely well, and after some deft question answering, I headed across the street to gather the envelope of money covering my plane fare. A friendly biochemist showed me around the lab space, and I chatted briefly with a young assistant professor who I promptly intimidated somehow (I’m like 5’4” in heels, so I guess it's understandable). While I learned very little about the position, department, or university, I did discover that you have to change shoes when you arrive at work, and you actually have to change them again when you go into some special rooms. I’ve never dropped anything dangerous on my feet in the lab, but I’m confident that once I’m walking around in slippers I will begin to do so almost immediately. Fortunately, as a guest, I didn’t have to change shoes (except of course when I went into the special rooms) so my powers of intimidation were intact throughout my tour. And that was it. I left, ate some ramen, went to kiyomizudera to see the momiji in their autumn colors, ate oyakodonburi, went to the hotel onsen, had a beer in my room, watched some Japanese game shows, and fell asleep.

Operation bring home the bacon Part 1: the long trip to the store

2008-12-17T21:26:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month, I was invited to interview at Kyoto University. Jon and I have sent out more applications than we can shake a stick at, so it is incredibly reassuring to have heard a response from one of them. now at least we know some of those applications must have gotten to their destinations. My interview is scheduled for 30 minutes on a Friday. I’ve tried to determine if it is just my talk that is scheduled to be 30 minutes or the entire interview, which seems terribly peculiar but at the same time, terribly possible. That means that pretty much I’m flying for 21 hours to give a 20 minute talk (and take 10 minutes of questions). It also means that I will be away from toby for 3 full days and nights, a first. And that jon will be alone with toby for 3 full nights, also a first. I think this will be a challenge for both of us, but I have to admit, I am looking forward to 11 hours on a plane without a restless toddler on my lap.

this second photo is of my hotel room. I feel like they could have found a slightly larger picture for that wall.

toby of the day, 11.15.2008

2008-12-16T22:04:00.000-08:00

Today, we went to the beach. I know it’s November, but it’s been unseasonably warm lately. In fact, I think with the current cold front hitting florida, it might be the same temperature there and here. Anyway, in preparation for the beach I packed a blanket to sit on, some plastic cups and spoon to dig with, some water and snacks, and a sun hat. Because the pacific ocean is always very, very cold, there are a number of things I never thought to bring: bathing suit, towel, change of clothes. Mostly, I imagined jon and I sitting on the blanket, maybe having a beer, while toby dug around in the sand. Then we’d make our way down the beach to the park chalet for more beer. Instead, toby seemed unfazed by the freezing temperature of the water, and rather than wanting to sit and dig in a dry area reasonable for a blanket, he preferred to sprint after the receding waves like our own little plover to pick up handfuls of muddy sand. Which wasn’t too bad until he did a face plant into an oncoming wave. And even then, toby seemed to think that was fine, a perfect opportunity to take off his chafing clothes. So there he was, wet, covered in sand, wearing just a diaper that was itself probably full of sand, running in and out of the water. He was pretty ecstatic, it was just jon and I who saw this all as an invitation to pneumonia, or at least all the more reason to move closer to that beer. So we packed him up and headed to the park chalet where I washed him off in the bathroom sink, dried him with our blanket, and dressed him in a sweatshirt, jon’s wool hat, and a skirt fashioned out of the breastfeeding cover we keep in the backpack. He looked lovely. Especially after we got our pitcher.

toby of the day, halloween

2008-12-16T21:57:00.000-08:00

I believe I’ve mentioned previously that Halloween is my favorite holiday, in part because I really like to make stuff. I like the planning part and the construction part, and I even like the moment in the construction where you think that your planning must have been just craziness because this is obviously never going to work, and then I especially like the following part when it turns out that it will work and thank goodness for all that planning. Anyway, I feel as though last year at this time our lives were like some unassembled piece of Swedish furniture sitting in your living room, a pile of wood slabs, bolts, allen wrenches, and a little paper brochure just waiting for you to sleep off your hangover enough to make sense of them, but somehow you never quite do. Consequently, although it made me somewhat disappointed, the best I could muster last year was to send toby off to day care in t-shirt with a monkey on it. This year, we seem to have built that piece of furniture, and while there are a bunch of extra screws and it’s a little lopsided, it seems vaguely functional. The point I’m trying to make is that, what with all the sleeping we’ve been doing, this year I managed to make toby a costume, an owl costume. On Sunday, I took him to a party at the gymnastics place next to his day care where he enjoyed running around and managed not to get crushed by any wayward gymnasts. And then on Halloween proper we went trick or treating in cole valley. Because toby hasn’t the slightest idea what candy is, he spent most of his time pointing out pumpkins, which he pronounces as mummins. You have no idea how many pumpkins there are on the street this time of year, and toby knows the location of them all, and screams in delight whenever we pass near them, “mummins!” Naturally, people think that he has confused that round, orange squash with his mother and shake their heads with a look of pity, but I know he knows what he’s talking about, and that if I were in a line-up with assorted pumpkins, even if they were carved and decorated, I think he could tell us apart. Except of course when I’m wearing a giant orange mumu, but I reserve that for very special occasions, so it’s mostly not an issue. anyway, you can see lots more pictures on flickr using the link on the right.

toby of the day 10.20.2008

2008-11-23T22:11:00.001-08:00

Toby very much likes his new table. He sits there and ‘colors’ which is mostly a process of rubbing crayons against the table then gnawing on them, then rubbing them on the wall. Right now he really likes yellow, which we know only because that’s the color of wax that pours out of his mouth most often when he smiles. You’d never guess that from the picture of course. Here, he looks like an upstanding citizen, one who pushes his chair in and sits up straight, someone assiduously working on an important art project, someone whose cheeks are not brimming with tiny bits of crayon. I guess you’ll just have to take my word on it, or stop by some time and tickle him. Then you can learn all his secrets.

toby of the day, 10.19.2008

2008-11-23T22:00:00.001-08:00

Today we went to ikea to buy toby a little table and chairs for his room. It was quite a long process. The store is set up so that you weave past section after section of goods that you didn’t come with the intention of buying, and after enough wandering you start to let your guard down and then you suddenly have difficulty convincing yourself that you do not need to leave the store with a sofa, not today anyway. After we finally made it down to the warehouse toby and I headed to look for his table and chairs. We were the only people in a huge aisle of children’s furniture, and as we searched for his table, ‘take on me’ by a-ha was playing. Maybe I was loopy from the fumes of the flame resistant furniture chemicals, or eager to add one more allen wrench to our collection or maybe I was just so excited to finally be so close to the exit, but somehow it seemed perfectly appropriate to just dance our way along, toby riding and dancing on the dolly, me dancing and pushing him, as we collected our bright orange table and two little chairs with squirrels on them. thank goodness wham! didn't come on next, or we could have become poster children for consumerism.

toby of the day, 10.18.2008

2008-11-23T21:57:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, we stopped by the hall of taxidermy just to take a gander at the animals. Toby was busy looking at some sort of horned ungulate when an 19 month old boy spotted him and came running over. Toby noticed the charging boy and stood his ground, and so there in full view of the horned ungulate and two sets of parents they had a head on collision. But, instead of tipping over or crying, toby looked up and gave the boy a hug. Someday I’m sure he will face social castigation if he uses such a conflict resolution tactic, but until then it sure is adorable.

After the museum, we went outside where there was a large and awful music festival that would eventually feature mos def, but at the time there were just horns blaring out of the PA. We met up with Isaac and he and I went through the elaborate security procedures necessary to purchase a beer, which involved procuring beer tickets and hand stamps so that we could enter the official drinking area and acquire drinks. Toby and jon met us inside the drinking area. Apparently the elaborate security system mostly involved a piece of police tape around the edge of the drinking area indicating its boundaries. It reminded me of the very fancy cigarette machines in japan that would take your photo to determine if you were of age before selling you cigarettes. According to those machines, toby can pass for 18, as long as you hold him up high enough to look into the camera. Next thing you know he’ll be sneaking into bars, as long as he can find a friend tall enough to hoist him up onto the stool.

toby of the day: animal preservation

2008-11-23T21:38:00.000-08:00

The California academy of science closed right after jon and I moved to San Francisco. Well, maybe not right after, but soon enough that we never made it in. Anyway, it has opened again. On the opening day, the traffic thwarted our ride home from the airport, and the part of the day that we didn’t spend in a bleary jetlagged nap, we watched the hundreds of cars lined up outside our apartment, trying to get to the park, trying to get away from the park, or just trapped in the unexpected traffic jam. We got a membership and even though we have been three times so far, and the museum is not very big, we have maybe seen half of it. The line for the rainforest remains far to long to even consider standing in unless toby is sleeping and the planetarium supposedly has the potential to freak out small children. Instead, we spend our time looking at the taxidermied animals. I had never really appreciated these, because as long as I can remember I have found live, moving animals much more exciting. But apparently, prior to the time in your life that you can remember things, stuffed animals are pretty cool. They’re big and look like animals, but they stay still and sit right next to the window so they’re easy to spot. Toby especially likes hartebeests and lemurs. On our third visit he became vaguely aware of the living, swimming penguins at the far end of the hall of taxidermy, but his interest was quickly taken over again by his new buddy lemur catta who sits in a glass box under a looping video of lemurs. Our friend shelly is in Madagascar, working on a conservation project for some group that didn’t have the foresight or inclination to give them proper maps so I spend my free time trying to hunt her down on google earth. Still, I'm quite jealous, as I’ve always wanted to go to Madagascar. I tell toby this whenever he points to the lemurs, but he seems uninterested. Perhaps he knows that in Madagascar, lemurs run free in the trees, so you can’t reliably find them sitting in their box every Monday morning like you can at the academy of sciences. Or maybe it’s because he’s already moved on and spotted his absolute favorite thing at the museum, the stone cat statues outside in the lawn area. Or it could be that since he’s 15 months old, my rambling is nothing more than blah blah blah blah lemur blah blah blah. that's fine. I feel the same way when I listen to his stories too, so I feel like we have a mutual understanding.

Day 14: uchi!

2008-10-14T22:13:00.000-07:00

Today, we took one last tour of the ramp at roppongi hills and the sculpture at Tokyo midtown, purchased our last milk tea and $4 kiwi, thought about trying to fit in a round of our favorite taiko drumming game but couldn’t wait for the game center to open, received our last notices about phone calls under our door, picked up a final convenience store nigiri, and headed to the airport. We catch the airport bus at the ANA hotel down the street. It is apparently THE place to get married on a Saturday morning, which meant we got to watch a parade of finery (kimonos, hanboks, gowns, tuxedos) while we drank our milk tea and waited for the bus. Not to be outdone, we had dressed up in clothes laundered in the hotel bath, I’m surprised no one mistook us for part of a wedding party. We got to the airport plenty early so toby could tire himself out. Narita has a kid’s playroom where toby insisted on hugging one boy slightly older than himself. The boy just wanted to go down the slide, but whenever he would approach it, toby would run over to hug him and so the boy would jump back onto a bench with his parents, and toby would go down the slide. And that’s about it. I really should end there. But, you’ll say, how was the flight back? Well, not surprisingly, the flight was long, very, very, very long. So incredibly long. There was the “turbulence” which required us to stay seated for the first 4 hours. Toby did not like this much. And then there were the curmudgeonly flight attendants, one of whom accused toby of breaking the plane when, after finally being released from our seats, he discovered a piece of rubber molding that was coming loose from the bulkhead. Jon and I did not like them much. I mean really, if a 2.5 foot tall, 24 pound toddler can “break” the plane, I’m not sure I want to be flying in one. As it is, I’m not sure that we’ll be stepping on a plane any time soon. It was very tiring. It’s two weeks later, and writing about it makes me tired. And to top it off, on our way out we lost one of toby’s new shoes. I’m pretty sure one of the surly flight attendants stole it off his foot as we passed by. bitch. Hmmm, that seems like the wrong way to end this last post. because, those 9 hours aside, it was a fabulous trip. and while spending 24 hours a day with a toddler sure is exhausting, it was awesome to get to hang out with him for 2 whole weeks. But still, it’s good to be home, where everyone can sleep in their own bed. And if some of them, I won’t name names or anything, but if some of them wanted to sleep perpendicular to the normal sleeping axis, they could do so without putting their feet on my head or crawling into my armpit. Unless jon decides that’s his new thing. But that’s what the extra bed is for. See, it’s great to be home. Phew!

here's a taste of some of our homecoming celebrations.

day 13.5: kouri

2008-10-14T21:46:00.000-07:00

Our trip started and ended with zeno. We had dinner with him tonight, ramen at a hole in the wall that jon and I passed on our many excursions to Tokyo midtown. We followed that with a drink at a shochu bar. We were looking for a sake bar and I made the joke as we approached it that they probably only serve shochu, as a reference to our night out in nara where we ended up with shochu and hot sake. Of course it turned out that they did only serve shochu, pages and pages and pages of shochu. Apparently it’s all the rage. So we had a drink. The ice cubes were spectacular. For the entire trip I’ve been impressed at the ice cubes here, they are always perfectly shaped, solid cubes. However, at this place, the ice cubes were perfect spheres about the size of a racquetball. They were amazing. I wanted to sneak mine out in my pocket, but fortunately I hadn’t had quite enough to drink to actually go through with my plan. We then bought some drinks for the road and headed back to our hotel to put toby to sleep (he can’t seem to get to sleep without nightcap these days). Zeno joined us. He did a little dance for toby, the video of which I will save for a rainy day (hmmm, I guess today is kinda rainy. . .). we had some pleasant banter, and of course, not to let pleasantries be the last word, we discussed at some length his impending crowded train ride home where there was a high probability that someone might violate his leg. And then we wished him luck and he was gone.

day 13: inu

2008-10-13T20:45:00.001-07:00

Today we went shopping for gifts for ourselves and others at muji. My dream of remaking myself as a stylish Japanese woman was thwarted by a combination of my body shape and my own stinginess. But we did find some cool stuff. All while toby played on a little toy filled section of carpeting in the middle of the store. We then went to lunch with kunchan and hiroko, friends of jon’s parents who own a 2 michelin star restaurant that only serves fugu. When we ate there a few years ago we were just in time for the peak season of shirako or ‘male egg sacs’. while it was overall an amazing meal, after 5 courses involving shirako, I feel I can now say that pufferfish testicles are not one of my favorite foods, but I do like that I can say so from experience whereas most people can only guess at their opinion of blowfish testicles. In any case, lunch with kunchan and hiroko was one of those experiences that made me wish I spoke Japanese. They are both friendly and funny and appear to tell great stories. If only their stories were about cats, then I could maybe follow along, though I suspect that might reduce their greatness. Toby slept through most of the lunch, though he did wake up in time to meet their dog. Toby very much likes to indicate the presence of dogs, by pointing at them while panting. And often he becomes upset if, after he has indicated there is a dog nearby, you take him away from the dog. But there is a minimum distance that he likes to maintain between himself and dogs such that while he might appear as though he would enjoy petting a dog, once you bring him in close enough he loses interest or becomes frightened and turns away. However, if you were to then move too far from the dog, he would begin to complain. It’s a very slippery slope. Such was our interaction with kunchan’s poodle, who was either too close or too far for toby’s liking. I’m not sure what this means about getting our own dog since I think having to maintain proper distance between toby and a dog would quickly drive me insane. Fortunately getting a dog isn’t high on our agenda in our small, yard-free apartment, so for the moment it’s a non-issue.

Day 12.5: akachan

2008-10-11T20:57:00.000-07:00

For dinner, we met up with andy, a friend of jon’s from high school, and his wife and 7 month old daughter. We of course went to Tokyo midtown because we only spent a couple hours there today. We ate at a place that I would compare to that semicircle of nations at disney’s epcot, except with bland versions of international food all housed in one restaurant whose decorating scheme reminded me of a german cafeteria. It was fine, and to its advantage, toby’s meandering around wasn’t disruptive at all. At one point we let the kids sit next to each other. Andy and his wife sat back and watched, confident that their quiet daughter would sit still, while I hovered close by, confident that, because toby loves babies, he would try to hug their baby and in the process knock them both off the chairs to form a pile of very angry babies on the floor. Fortunately, this did not happen. Whether it was due to my excessive vigilance or not, I don’t know, although I’d like to attribute the absence of an angry baby pile to my meddling since then I can feel like I contributed something other than just getting in the way of the picture taking.

day 12: denwa

2008-10-10T20:56:00.000-07:00

Each time we enter a new hotel room, one of the first orders of business is to unplug the phone so that toby doesn’t bankrupt us by calling argentina. This means that either we are unable to receive calls, or can only receive them on the phone in the bathroom. Until a few days ago, this didn’t matter at all since no one, perhaps with the exception of a toddler playing with a hotel phone in argentina, has tried to call us. Now, we seem to get a lot of calls. Jon’s parents call every day or so to make sure we’re all still fine. And in addition, our good friend mrs. N calls us once or twice a day. Often, she calls when we’re gone or not standing in the bathroom. This results in the front desk having to print out a piece of paper telling us her message, which is usually just that she called and hopes we are well, and slip it under our door. We now have a stack of these papers in our room. toby of course likes to eat them. In addition, today we received a package from her of candies and other goodies, mostly because during one of the times when jon answered the phone and spoke to her, he mentioned that we were looking for a specific kind of candy to bring home as omiage. sadly, the candies she sent were not the candies we were looking for, but we sure do have a lot of them. Having never been stalked by an elderly Japanese woman, I found all of this quite exciting, and lamented that jon had not told her we were looking for something more unusual, perhaps a pet fugu or a small elephant. It inspires me to plug in the phone, at least until toby gets Sweden on the line.

Today we went to the imperial palace. It was hot and sunny and there were lots of spiders. Then, perhaps feeling a bit of withdrawl, we headed to Tokyo station for lunch, which is, yes you guessed it, a high-end shopping center. Toby played with some other children until he got sleepy. as he napped in the backpack, we headed to Tokyo midtown for some coffee and dessert. He awoke while we were there and lead some old ladies in a clapping exercise. As you’ll see in this video, I think he has a future as a guitarist for the kind of stadium playing band that stops playing to clap their hands over their heads and encourage the crowd to clap along. rock on!

day 11: yoguruto

2008-10-10T20:46:00.000-07:00

It turns out that our hotel is situated midway between two very upscale shopping centers, roppongi hills and Tokyo midtown. We stayed at the same hotel a couple years ago, completely oblivious to the presence of either of these places. However, now that we are trying to figure out what one does in Tokyo with a toddler, we have found them to be oases in the middle of an urban landscape that is not generally child friendly. While we have neither the money nor the desire to spend much time in the actual stores, the places themselves are immaculate, full of interesting architecture, sculpture, and other decorations, and have wide concourses and spaces for toby to run through. So we spent the first half of today in midtown. Then after a rest, we headed to the meiji shrine, but because toby fell asleep on the subway, we wandered through harajuku and eventually made our way to yet another high end shopping area, omotesando hills, to taste some sake. On the way, we feared toby might be peckish so we purchased a drinkable yogurt, which, it turns out, is essentially sugar masquerading as a more nutritious food. As jon and I quietly sipped some sake, toby slurped down the last of the yogurt drink, and transformed. I admit that in some respects I was mildly disappointed that he didn’t somehow break out of his clothes or turn into a green lou ferrigno, because that might have provided us with a better indication of what we were in store for. Of course in other respects, I’m quite happy that toby remains regular colored and not lou ferrigno. Anyway, we spent the next hour or so trading off with one of us chasing him up and down the ramps and stairs in the shopping center while the other would sit peacefully, cultivating a nice buzz and watching, bemused, as our sugar monster sprinted past. Just for your information, it’s very hard to catch a sugar monster after a few glasses of sake. But eventually he slowed enough, and we regained our energy enough, to capture him, eat some dinner, and return at last to our hotel, our lesson about the dangers of yogurt related drinking products learned the hard way.

Day 10: shinkansen

2008-10-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

Today we took the train to Tokyo. Toby slept most of the way, which is good since the pay phone on this train didn’t have as good a shelf to hold him up while he punched buttons. We ventured over to roppongi hills where toby continued to work on his ramp walking skills. This particular ramp had some nice round rocks in the adjacent landscaping so he could pick up a handful of them, roll them down the ramp, then chase them. I have the feeling that we could be spending a lot of time here over the next couple of days. Toby has a very elaborate ramp walking regimen that he has to keep up with.

Day 9: gyunyu

2008-10-08T20:31:00.000-07:00

Today we went to kiyomizura where toby was engulfed by a veritable paparazzi of Japanese students from some sort of athletic team. They took his photo alone, then had all of us pose with them, then posed with him individually. Just when we thought they were done, we ran into them again at a different part of the temple, and then again, and then one more time. He was quite the star. Who knows, maybe he’ll be the next Japanese fad, bigger than pikachu or frilled lizards or skirts that look like you’re not wearing any pants.

For dinner we headed to a tiny place purported to make the best oyakodonburi in all of japan. We waited quietly in line while toby befriended a large testicled raccoon statue out front then sat down at two of the twelve seats to eat. And I have to say, it was really good. But perhaps even better, we may have stumbled onto their secret, the key to making eggs, chicken, and dashi somehow transcendant. There are a small number of foods, well actually just one that we know of, that toby’s skin is a wee bit sensitive to. And after a couple bites of the oyakodonburi, he had the telltale red marks on his chin. He’s like our own little hercule poirot, just without the mustache.

Day 8: daruma

2008-10-04T15:01:00.000-07:00

There is a map in the lobby that toby likes. In particular, he likes the picture of the daruma, a little red guy with big eyes and a beard. The map is not to scale and provides only a vague indication of the location of various temples and other sites. However, based on the map, we decided to take toby to visit the location marked by his little red friend. We set out on foot with our free umbrellas from the hotel, various warm clothes to deal with the rain, and a copy of the map. Two blocks into our walk, the rain cleared, and the temperature started to rise, making most of our baggage obsolete. But, we reasoned, the daruma temple can’t be that far, so we continued on. but after another 45 minutes of walking and pestering numerous pedestrians and shopkeepers, most of whom had no idea what we were talking about, we realized that toby would probably be just as happy if we let him chew on the map as he would be if we ever found the temple, so we hailed a cab and headed instead to kinkakuji, the golden temple. It was quite pretty. And golden. Toby was especially impressed by all of the rocks on the ground, which further convinced us that we made the right move to give up on the daruma temple. I bet their rocks weren’t nearly as nice.

Day 7: ba ba

2008-10-04T13:22:00.000-07:00

On our morning walk we saw some of the infamous Nara deer. Most of them were sitting in that refined looking deer pose, legs curled under them, head held high, you know the one. One deer was not. After discussing whether deer sleep splayed out on their sides, completely immobile, we decided that probably they do not and that ended our morning deer-viewing excursion. Because the typhoon seems to have moved on, we then wandered around to see some of the local pagodas and other sites, including a number of healthy deer that were standing on their legs. Toby of course slept through all of this until we reached the covered shopping street. We ate some pastries and headed back to the hotel to pack and catch the train to Kyoto.

Toby’s great grandfather accompanied us to Kyoto where we had lunch with a woman (whom we’ll call mrs. N) and her daughter. Mrs. N had planned to take us out to dinner, in part to repay a favor from jon’s parents, but additionally because she was apparently just really, really excited to meet us. I know this is cynical, but I find it weird when someone we’ve never even heard of is said to be excited to meet us. And I find it more peculiar that someone would want to have long, awkward dinner with us as we spend most of our time trying to calm and feed a squirmy toddler. Such a dinner is not really a favor at all but more of a punishment. So we managed to coax her into lunch instead, where, as usual, Jon and I raced through our meal, this time tiny and delicate bento boxes, so that we could juggle taking toby up and down the stairs to visit the pay phone while everyone else ate in peace. I can only hope that the experience was all that she dreamed it would be.

Once we finished and bid farewell to N-san we headed to our hotel where we also bid farewell to jon’s mom and ojichan. Toby has started calling his grandmother ba ba and every morning when he’s ready to leave our room he goes to the door and says ba ba, indicating he’s had enough of the two of us and is ready for better company. I think he’ll be quite disappointed when he goes to the door tomorrow morning and says ba ba only to discover a maid or an empty hallway or a copy of the japan times. I think jon and I will miss her too, since she’s been incredibly helpful. Although toby’s timing on saying ‘bye’ is usually a little late, often minutes after the person has left, for his ba ba, he managed a ‘bye’ as she headed out. By her next visit, he might even have ‘thank you’ down. It’s something to work towards, anyway.

Day 6: Taifu jusan-go

2008-10-04T13:15:00.000-07:00

Seems the typhoon has followed us here to Nara. This morning, between downpours, we headed over to a covered shopping street and brought back some pastries and coffee for breakfast. After eating them and then lounging around the hotel for a spell waiting for the rain to subside again, we headed back to the covered shopping street to meet toby’s hi-ojichan for lunch. Afterwards, we wandered around window and actual shopping where toby’s grandmother bought him some nifty shoes. In the past 7 days toby has managed to outgrow one pair of shoes and we realized that the other pair that we brought is just too dorky looking to be worn out in public. Outfitted with his new shoes, toby quickly fell asleep so we returned to the hotel for a nap, a bath, and then some puddle stomping in the rain. Toby doesn’t have much experience with rain, so he thought the puddles were the best thing since, well, owls I guess, or maybe that noisy plastic car from Kyushu. After we dried off, we thought we were going to see a different part of town, but it turned out the taxi was just taking us to the covered shopping street area via an alternate route. We may not know much about Nara, but we do know that covered shopping street, which is really helpful if you’re eager to buy tiny, 1 cm tall porcelain cats, inflatable deer, or Frisbee sized dorayaki. It’s the place to go.

day 5: gokiburi

2008-09-25T02:43:00.000-07:00

Today we took three trains to nara. I think toby has trouble distinguishing train from rain, which have both been in ample supply on this trip. or maybe he has them right in his head, but because he pronounces both of them as ‘main’ we can’t tell the difference. Anyway, his favorite part of the train is the fact that there is a tiny room with a pay phone. Pay phones are like a dream come true, combining his love of phone receivers, and large buttons into one single gadget. In this case, he also seemed to enjoy pushing the buttons on the picture of a pay phone posted next to the phone itself. So jon and I traded off, with one of us getting to watch out the window as we glided past the beautiful countryside, while the other was trapped in a tiny stuffy booth holding a 25 pound baby as he pushed buttons. Once we reached the hotel in nara, we were met by toby’s great grandfather doi, which means that toby has now met all four of his great grandparents, so in that respect, our mission is complete.

after dinner, we left toby with his grandmother and jon and I headed out for a drink. We ended up at a tiny hole in the wall where we hoped to have some sake. The only Japanese characters that I can recognize are for entrance, exit, and Kyoto. None of these are of any help in ordering off a menu. Jon knows a few more, well actually many many more since he can actually read and write in japanese, but regardless, somehow we still mixed up shochu with sake and hot with cold so we ended up with a shochu on ice and, even though it was 98 degrees and humid outside, a hot sake. We then asked to try a yuzu sake, which initially ended up in them having to find a tiny glass to let us taste it before we could just get a full glass. In all, it reminded me of a time during jon’s 30 bars in 30 days where on like day 17 we went to a local bar, and unable to come up with the word ‘neat’ when ordering a bourbon, jon said ‘straight up’ at which point the bartender asked to see both of our IDs. In both instances, I think we could only have appeared less familiar with alcohol if we had ordered wine coolers or mad dog 20/20. Along with ordering drinks like schoolchildren, we also managed to leave our shoes in the wrong place, which required the waitress to bring them in and place them in a cupboard for us. In the end though, I would have been more self conscious about the experience had jon not pointed out the cockroach on the wall idling it’s way toward me. while I tried hard to keep track of him while appearing non-chalant I was ultimately successful at neither. I think I hit my tipping point when our insect friend headed over to the shoe cupboard. So we slurped down the last of our yuzu drink, rescued our shoes and headed out.

day 4: matsuge

2008-09-25T02:41:00.001-07:00

Today we bid farewell to Kyushu with a last dip in the onsen, a final sprint up and down the ramp, and the purchase of the noisy car toy from the gift shop. We also visited with toby’s great grandparents one more time to take some photos and further discuss toby’s eyelashes, which are a hot topic here in japan, and are often pointed out in a loud, surprised whisper accompanied by the placing of hands, palms forward, fingers up, near the eyes. This always reminds me of the scary monster with eyes in his hands from pan’s labyrinth, which is probably not the effect they are going for. Anyway, we then buckled in to a van and headed to fukuoka. On the way, while trying to go through a toll booth, the electronic debit card failed to work, causing the van to screech to a halt inches before hitting the gates at the toll plaza. This had the fortuitous side effect of dislodging the ice cream shaped bubble wand that toby had thrown under the seat a few days earlier. So I, for one, was pleased that we did not just bust through the gates, exciting as that would have been. We really need that bubble wand. Upon arriving in fukuoka, we found that jon’s mom’s room smelled of old feet, so we headed out for dinner. It was raining and we were all tired and grumpy, but we ventured out to the yatai (food stalls next to the water) anyway. And it was a lucky choice. the ramen was awesome. So very, very awesome. Even toby thought so, which is good since it provided a little break from his current rice and seaweed addiction. And by the time we returned to the hotel, the foot smell was gone. That right there is the power of ramen.

day 3.5: fukuro

2008-09-18T19:10:00.007-07:00

For dinner we went to yakiniku and I’m proud to say that we did not light toby on fire. But he did start to say “owls” because of some hand-stitched owls we looked at in the foyer. I don’t know what words other kids his age learn, but he’s got a kind of strange vocabulary. Maybe because he’s partial to L sounds. Bubble, noodle, owls. If this keeps up, it will be interesting to see what he manages to put together as his first sentence.

day 3: onsen

2008-09-18T19:10:00.006-07:00

It turns out there isn’t much to do in Kyushu, especially when a typhoon is heading your way, albeit very, very slowly. So far today we’ve eaten a few breakfasts, walked to the supermarket, and visited the onsen. Toby’s favorite things here are going up and down a carpeted ramp in the hotel and playing with a noisy plastic car in the gift shop. I think he’s really getting the most out of this trip to japan.

Day 2: kutsu

2008-09-18T19:10:00.005-07:00

today we headed to kyushu to visit toby's great grandparents. on the way, I learned the following important lesson: do not remove your shoes at the airport security station. even if you're wearing shoes that are so easy to remove you can't see any reason not to, just leave them on. removing them will result in great confusion and concern, as it requires the security person to, after looking confused and irritated, pull out the special slippers for you to wear, and then spend a few minutes deciding what to do with your shoes before ultimately placing them on top of a basket rather than inside because your shoes might tarnish the inside of the plastic basket. I just imagine the day when they do decide to xray shoes, the slipper manufacturers will be making a killing, while the airline industry collapses trying to keep hundreds of pairs of feet properly slippered in the 2.5 meters between the beginning and end of the metal detector and luggage xray.

Day 1.5: uma

2008-09-18T19:10:00.003-07:00

We spent the afternoon watching toby’s new dance which involves saying “ghi ghi ghi ghi ghi ghi” while stamping his feet then falling over while yelling “blllmmgglmblllphhh!” and rolling on the floor. After that toby thought that our day was over and tried to go to sleep for the night at 3 o’clock. He woke momentarily to enjoy a poster in the subway and the flashing lights of ginza, then fell asleep during our fancy Chinese dinner, woke again for ginza and the subway sign on our return, then fell asleep for good back at home. We left him with his grandmother and headed out for drinks with zeno. we had a leisurely walk to a cozy izakaya and drank some very tasty sake while exchanging pleasantries, overall a lovely experience. and then came pony. pony who will live in my nightmares. poor poor pony. let's just say that nothing will shake up your evening quicker than a lengthy discussion of pony, the indonesian orangutan sex-slave (apparently you can google this, although I wouldn’t suggest it). but then again, it would seem almost disappointing if an evening with zeno was just polite conversation, so really, we got what we came for.

Day 1: sebun-irebun

2008-09-18T19:10:00.002-07:00

it turns out that even in Tokyo, not much is open at 4am, which is unfortunate when your jetlagged baby becomes hungry from having already spent an hour playing with the phone in your tiny hotel room and needs to get out to stretch his legs and have a snack. So we headed to the 7-11 in the lobby of our hotel. While I believe this was toby’s first visit to a 7-11 period, I think it’s a whole different experience in japan. For example, instead of having a turntable of expired hot dogs or chemical flavored frozen drinks, they sell nigiri with the nori ingeniously separated from the rice by a piece of plastic that you remove just prior to eating. So far, toby has eaten two. If this keeps up, I’m not sure if my lap can handle him on the trip home. Especially since it’s now only 4:35am.

Day 0: hikouki

2008-09-18T19:10:00.001-07:00

We got here saturday after a 10 hour flight from SFO. Jon and I had both worried extensively about the 11 hour flight to tokyo, but we got in an hour early, which must be why it wasn’t so bad. We had some occasional trouble with toby dropping things under our seats and wanting to steal cups off of other people’s tray tables as we walked the aisles, and being really interested in the emergency exit door handles. But otherwise, it was as easy as spending 11 hours couped up in an airplane can be. Here’s a little breakdown of how toby passed the time: 192 minutes sleeping, 68 minutes trying to sleep but instead grumbling about being too crowded, 118 minutes walking down the aisles and charming the flight attendants, 6 minutes pulling all the tissues out of the holster while getting his diaper changed, 38 minutes playing with the video remote, 32 minutes plugging and unplugging the headphones, 16 minutes actually watching the video screen on the back of the seat, 12 irritating minutes opening and closing the window shade, 35 minutes pretending to blow bubbles with the wand from the empty bubble canister, 13 minutes playing with any of the actual toys that we brought along, and the rest of the time eating and eating and eating. I had imagined we would just have to relocate to japan after the flight because we would want to wait until he was older to board the plane home, but I now think we can make it back. In fact, and maybe this is just me feeling cocky, India here we come!

august in september

2008-09-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

Wow, so august was quite a month. Toby got his own room and now sleeps through the night (finally), jon’s birthday wish to dress as a giant carrot and compete in a mini-golf match ended in a crushing sudden death double overtime loss to a bananna, and we went to utah where despite some rascally attempts by altitude and crazy drivers to maim us, we had a lovely time. I would love to tell you more about all of those events, and perhaps someday I will. I mean, you don’t go to utah every day, and going to utah is like a free pass to make jokes about mormons, although I admit that we don’t actually know if we met any mormons, and all the people in utah were quite friendly, so maybe there’s not much more to tell. But the thing is, that right now, right NOW we’re in japan. Japan! So I’m going to try to tell you things in pseudo-real-time. As real time as my jet-lagged brain and occasional internet connection will allow, anyway.

toby of the day, 7.24.2008

2008-08-31T10:39:00.001-07:00

the first bear jacket we ordered for toby was a wee bit tight in the shoulders, so we returned it for the next size up. I now worry a little about what we're in for. if these sizes are correct, toby will suddenly go from his current, normally proportioned size, to something more akin to an orangutan. we haven't decided whether or not to return this jacket, if only because it's been an endless form of entertainment, watching him try to pick things up through the super long sleeves. and really we only have so many more months of this, where we can giggle as he flounders about because of something we've attached to him, before he starts to remember these episodes and will someday recount them to his psychiatrist or a jury of his peers. so until that happens, we should all enjoy this video of toby the bear vs. the wily TOOTHBRUSH.

toby of the day, 7.20.2008

2008-08-31T10:36:00.001-07:00

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I used to do bikram yoga. Not like once or twice, oh no, I mean like 4 times a week, for two plus years. Indeed, despite all my anti-corporate ranting, I was addicted to corporate yoga. The studio I went to is only a block from our apartment, it’s got an environmentally friendly heating system, has rubber floors (why all other bikram studios are carpeted I’ll never understand) and the teachers and owner are all very friendly. But still, despite the special touches, it is corporate yoga. And even though part of me, the scientist part, would laugh at their exclamations that yoga (but, naturally, only this particular yoga) would cure everything from acne to liver disease as long as you went to enough classes, the part of me that reveled in having toned arms for the first time ever was convinced that it would, and even more, that if jon would just start going, his thrice broken knee would be good as new. The kicker though, the thing that kept me there for so long, was one teacher that I had who was almost run over while riding her bicycle. Somehow she saw the car out of the corner of her eye, realized it didn’t see her, and in the split second before it would have crushed her, she leapt straight up into the air, bounced off the hood and landed on her feet, while the car plowed down her bike and dragged it a block before stopping. Bike: totaled, superhero yoga teacher: grumpy but otherwise fine. Surely with enough classes, I could be a superhero too. But it turns out it doesn’t work that way. Maybe it’s because I switched over to iyengar a couple years back and 10 minute headstands are not the path to flashy superpowers, or, more likely it’s because I have the natural agility of a sleepy turtle and at this point nothing is going to change that. Case in point. Today we were walking on 16th street in the mission. I was multi-tasking: chatting with isaac about some mediocre Italian place we were passing, reading some signs on the sidewalk, and mentally noting the strange trail of blood that we appeared to be following and thinking that there often seems to be a strange trail of blood on 16th and wasn’t that weird, when a bicycle zipped past us on the sidewalk. I looked back to be sure that it hadn’t run over jon or toby and as I turned back around, I saw the panicked face of a 10 year old kid, inches from my own. His mouth was open, his eyes were wide, and he was moving really, really fast. Yes, today I was run over by a 10 year old on a bicycle while walking on the sidewalk. Fortunately I was wearing our incredibly dorky diaper bag backpack, which provided some cushioning as I was knocked flat on my back. And very fortunately I was not carrying toby either in the front or as a backpack. I was mostly alright, a little scraped and bruised. But, my superhero dreams were dashed, unless there is a plan in the works to create a comic book series about a flexible but extremely slow, sleepy, and distractible turtle that saves the world, perhaps by remembering obscure and meaningless details. Maybe that should be my new dream.

toby of the day, 7.17.2008

2008-08-31T10:32:00.000-07:00

prior to toby’s birthday keg, the last time jon and I bought a keg was for our wedding. That night, jon and I did keg stands in our wedding attire, and then passed out, leaving our unguarded keg on the porch where it was stolen by some rascally teenagers. I felt this made for a fitting story, but some of our guests, perhaps outraged that those snot-nosed kids got the best of us, or perhaps just grumpy that their “hair of the dog” hangover cure plans were thwarted, wouldn’t let it go. And so instead of just sitting in bed the next day lamenting our decision to hold the wedding so many thousands of feet above sea level, I got to file a report with the local sheriff’s deputy where he asked me a series of questions to which I could only feebly mumble responses, all while hoping he would quickly realize that my recollection of the previous evening was sketchy at best and that would be the end of questioning. Of course, they never found our keg so my interview with the deputy just resulted in us keeping a copy of his business card next to copies of our invitation and other wedding keepsakes. Today we had to do what we didn’t have to do that last time, return the keg to the place of purchase. I don’t know whether it was the academics or children under 4, but someone at toby's party wasn’t drinking their fair share and so try as we might we were unable to float the keg. But rather than let those last few gallons go to waste, we emptied them into our beer brewing bucket, equipped with a spigot, which is now sitting at the top of our stairs. The beer has taken on the quality of a cask conditioned English ale: room temperature, minimal carbonation. I’d actually say it tastes better than it did on Saturday. Which is good, since it is atop our stairs, you can’t really make it into the house without pouring yourself a glass or two. And so I do, and no crazy kids can stand in my way. Well except for toby. Fortunately he’s not allowed near the stairs yet, so it looks like the coast is clear. Of course, it all reminds me a little of the simpson’s episode where homer keeps nibbling on the last few inches of some 20 foot sub he started months or years before. But jon and I have agreed, the second time either of us has to go to the emergency room for skunked beer related illness, we’ll totally get rid of the rest of the keg.

toby of the day, 7.12.2008

2008-08-15T18:23:00.001-07:00

today we celebrated toby’s first birthday with all of the acoutrements that you would expect: balloons, bubbles, cupcakes, bouncy castle, catered Indonesian food, a keg of anchor steam plus 50 some people to help drink it. Hmmm, so now that I think about it, aside from the bouncy castle and the sign over the chicken satay that said “contains peanuts” it could easily have been mistaken for a 34th birthday party, because nothing says happy 34th like a bouncy castle. But in some respects, it was a party for jon and I as well, because toby has made it to his first birthday with just a little help from us. I’m sure he’ll tell you that he would change his own diapers, make his own milk, and sing himself to sleep if only we would just step aside, but I feel like we play at least a minor role in maintaining his health and happiness. At least until he can reach the knobs on the stove himself, then I figure we can start charging him rent, or at least have him fix us some bacon when he gets up early on the weekends. It was a great party. Toby was a gracious host; everyone was shocked at how well mannered and jovial he was despite not getting an afternoon nap. In contrast, jon and I were shocked to hear that such a thing as an afternoon nap even existed. Whatever. Next thing you’re going to tell me that walking makes babies slim down. Don’t make this into a house of lies, I’ve seen the truth, the chubby, chubby truth. And no amount of walking is going to change it.

toby of the day, 7.10.2008

2008-08-14T22:41:00.000-07:00

do you have any idea what you were doing 1 year ago, around 1:59pm? I do. Not what you were doing, of that I have absolutely no idea. Unless you’re toby, in which case you were taking you’re first breaths of air. Nothing in my life has been the same since. But then again, nothing in his life has been the same either. I imagine that at least a few times in the 9 months prior to that moment, after, say, a meal at spices or a yoga class where I spent a lot of time standing on my head, toby might have had wondered to himself, “what the hell is going on!” But I suspect those moments pale in comparison to the moment he flung himself onto my ob’s lap. Since then he’s learned to eat and drink, roll and crawl, walk forwards, backwards, and sideways, spin in circles, scream in a soft, high pitched voice, scream in a loud, lower pitched voice, pontificate about the ways of the world using only sounds that end in aaaa, smile, laugh, and steal the hearts of muni patrons and pedestrians everywhere. It’s not often that you can pinpoint a moment when your life changes forever. And even though I quite enjoyed the life I had before, and I’ll admit that I miss sleeping through the night and getting to leave the house after dark, but when he walks up to me, already giggling, to show me the piece of carpeting that he has in his mouth so that I’ll chase him across the room and tickle him until he gives it up, well, I just can’t imagine ever going back to my life before that moment. Happy birthday toby!

toby of the day, 7.4.2008

2008-08-14T22:33:00.000-07:00

for the fourth of july weekend we went to boston. And it was crazy. Not like crazy full of keg stands and beer shotguns, and I guess not crazy like toby was screaming and throwing fits or anything, and not crazy as in our days were packed with touristy times on the freedom trail. Ok, so maybe it wasn’t crazy. It was fun though. We saw jon’s parents and his brother micah, his wife stacey, and their daughter sylvia who is 7 months older than toby. If you took toby and stretched him out so that he was 5 inches taller and 5 pounds lighter and you taught him to say a lot more than uh-oh, you would have sylvia. It was pretty cool watching them together, even if toby looks a little bit like a baby hippopotamus next to her. And in case that wasn’t enough family, my dad and his wife betsy came up from florida and my brother came up from new york to enjoy our rare visit to the right coast. The last time they saw toby his repertoire of tricks included laying on his back and pooping. Needless to say, they were impressed by how much he’s progressed. We saw our friend eunjin, her husband brian, and their new baby. If toby is a baby hippopotamus, their son Jacob is something that could eat a baby hippopotamus for breakfast, and he’s only a few months old. We also had a luxurious brunch with our friends kathy and david, who recently moved from san francisco to boston, proving that it is possible to leave the bay area. And given the spread of cured meats, funky cheese, and home baked goods they fed us with, apparently you can even live well. Toby slept through the redeye that took us there, and was surprisingly well mannered on the 6 hour flight home. I think he’s just trying to lull us into a false sense of confidence, making us believe that maybe our 11 hour flight to japan in september won’t be so bad after all. And then, bam, somewhere over the pacific he’ll release his inner hippopotamus. and once that hippo is out, well, you know how hard it is to get a hippo to stay seated even if there’s a good in-flight movie. I guess as long as he doesn’t stampede the flight attendants, we’ll consider it a victory.

toby of the day, 6.29.2008 again

2008-08-02T22:29:00.000-07:00

so when my family first moved to miami from detroit when I was 5, we would swim in the pool all year long. But then, as we adapted to florida's pseudo seasons and lost that insulating layer necessary to survive a Michigan winter, we found swimming during the winter to be too cold. so even though my dad would have to clean leaves out of the filters and algae from the bottom of the pool all year round, we would only take advantage of it in the months when the water felt more like a bath, and the air more like a sauna. We would often get visitors from back in detroit or some other northern clime during what we considered to be the off season who would insist that the water was fine. But I knew better. I mention this because I think lemons are our off-season pool and today toby came to visit them from the yukon. For breakfast, he ate some lemons. And by eat, I mean eat. We let him taste them, assuming that he would make a face and recoil and we would all have a good laugh. And based on the faces he made, it wasn’t that he couldn’t tell that they were sour, or appreciate that sour is a somewhat uncomfortable taste. But he would make that face, that "this is unbearably sour I can't believe you're letting me eat this" face and then immediately ask for another taste, and another, and another. Apparently he believes that if life gives you lemons, you just eat them. I'm not sure yet what he thinks you do when life gives you vinegar, but we’ll let you know when we find out.

toby of the day, 6.29.2008

2008-08-02T22:03:00.000-07:00

lately, jon and I have been watching eurocup games on our computer at night after toby falls asleep. Streaming games on our laptop is akin to watching someone playing soccer on a commodore 64 circa 1984, except with irish accented commentary. there is a tiny bunch of pixels that jump around the screen (for you non-soccer fans this pixel cluster is known as "the ball") and are surrounded by colored blocks of pixels. our best guess is that these are players. But it’s the best we can do, since we don’t have a tv or cable, and there are only so many lunches we can spend in local bars. Today, we watched the finals at kevin and jess’ house. Because I “lived” in spain (ok, I spent 6 months studying art history in Madrid when I was in college), I of course rooted for my home team. They haven’t won a cup final since 1964. Fortunately, I’m writing about this a month late so I suspect I won’t ruin the game for anyone when I tell you that spain won. Of course, much of our time watching was actually spent chasing toby as he wandered into the kitchen to visit the new puppy kevin and jess brought home yesterday. I suppose that's an advantage of taking a lunch break to watch a game in the bar while toby is at day care. at most, at the bar you might have to contend with the occasional drunken regular who would be at the bar, soccer or not. and while they might be mildly irritating as they chatter at you about inane things, usually you don’t have to chase them around to ensure they don’t get nibbled on by a teething puppy while they try to pull on its ears. At least that's been my experience so far.

toby of the day, 6.28.2008

2008-07-22T18:43:00.000-07:00

today, toby went to coyote point with his friends, leaving jon and I alone, adrift, without any idea of how to busy ourselves for a few toddler free hours. Actually, that’s not really true at all. Jon and I both came up with myriad tasks, chores if you will, to accomplish during toby’s field trip. we accomplished none of them. While I was at yoga, the husband of our daycaretaker arrived to get toby. Jon asked what time they would return our boy, and was told 3. this seemed later than we had expected, given that most of the other children with normal sleeping schedules take long naps starting around 1pm, but there was some discussion of saturday traffic and other issues so jon let it go. Daycaretaker’s husband then asked what jon and I planned to do in our free time and jon studiously replied with our list of chores. Apparently, daycaretaker’s husband was not impressed by the laundry list of, well, laundry, at which point it occurred to jon that if we had until 3, there was no reason we couldn’t squeeze in a fancy multi-course lunch before mopping the floors. I got home, we gussied up, and went to lunch, discussing how strange but fortuitous it was that they would be gone so long and wondering if traffic between san francisco and san mateo could really add a couple hours onto a saturday excursion. We ate. It was delicious. As we waited for dessert menus, I checked our phone. And of course there was a message from the daycaretaker proper telling us that she was in front of our house ringing our doorbell, wondering why we refused to come down and collect our child. So I signalled to jon that we urgently needed to leave by cartoonishly swinging my thumb towards the door. We hopped in a cab, sped back across town, and jogged up to our doorstep to find them waiting patiently. We apologized profusely, hoping that we hadn’t turned them off of taking toby on future field trips, since now we’ve figured out that if I’d skipped yoga, we could probably have fit in dessert.

toby of the day, 6.21.2008

2008-07-22T18:29:00.000-07:00

today we went to a birthday party for a boy in toby’s daycare who just turned 3. It was at a park and involved a tour of a firetruck. Toby was somewhat nonplussed by the firetruck, although he did enjoy banging on the enormous shiny hubcaps with a rock. I wonder if this is just a prelude to a story like the one my parents always tell about paying large sums of money to take me to disney world only to have me spend the majority of the time playing with rocks in the planters. He was also not impressed by getting to see the firemen slide down the pole. I, on the otherhand, found it pretty cool, except for a brief moment when one of them was showboating and stopped half way down only to almost have his head captured by the floor as it closed back up. Nothing ruins a birthday party like a decapitated fireman, so I was pleased when he reached the floor unscathed.

Our other excitement for the day was a trip to crate and barrel in search of curtains with ed and michelle. While we were unlucky at the curtain finding part, we did discover the oasis that a furniture store can be with a toddler, full of variously textured rugs, sofas, and coffee tables; I dare say it’s like a dream come true. Toby played peek-a-boo with other shoppers, drooled on some microsuede, and slid across the wood floors on his belly. I think the only trouble came when we got too close to a rack of hanging rugs. Apparently such a rack is almost as frightening as our hideously colored mobile, or that’s at least what I surmised as toby tried to crawl up my leg when we neared it. Fortunately, it stood between him and the dining section so we did not have to spend his college fund on shattered glassware but instead can continue to save it for the all important purchasing of wine. With any luck, ed and michelle will need to buy some finials for their curtain rods or something, so we’ll have an excuse to return

toby of the day, 6.18.2008

2008-07-22T18:25:00.000-07:00

For most of the past 11 months toby has been quite brave. Well maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but he’s definitely not been especially fearful and responds to most things one of two ways: either with complete indifference, or with an uncontrollable urge grab and eat them. At least until today. Before he was born, we received a mobile as a hand me down. It’s got crazy colored animals and plays Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart through a tinny speaker. Pretty much it’s what happens when science meets capitolism, I imagine the box for it must have oozed with exclamations about all the ways this would make your baby smarter. In any case, Jon and I thought it was ugly and since we didn’t have a crib to hang it from at the time anyway, we dropped it in the closet. Well, today we unearthed it when we went to reclaim some closet space, so I pulled it out to show to toby. He’s recently been adding sidestepping and walking backwards to his repertoire and at first I thought he was incredibly enthusiastic about the mobile as he stepped excitedly in all directions while it played its jangly version of fur elise and spun the tacky colored animals around and around. But it then became clear that he really just wanted to touch the giant plastic screw that was holding it in position but every time he got close one of the crazy animals would drift near his head and try to eat him or steal his soul or whatever it is that scares the pants off an 11 month old and he would frantically move his chubby little legs in every direction trying to get clear of the swinging monstrosity. I guess it turns out that toby is as frightened of ugly toys that clash with any reasonably attractive room décor as we are. We’re so proud of him.

toby of the day, 6.15.2008

2008-07-09T19:53:00.001-07:00

today we had a barbeque in the park in celebration of the return from switzerland of our friend maggie and her owners ed and michelle. If you live outside of the 46.7 square miles of San Francisco, the term barbeque might fool you into thinking of a summertime ritual involving shorts, sunscreen and wide-brimmed hats. You would be absolutely wrong. Because it’s summer, we layered toby and ourselves into long sleeve shirts, sweaters, jackets and wool hats and as we stepped into the park, we were already cold. but it was still a good time. I drank two beers, toby ate some flowers, jon made and then ate some delicious coffee marinated skirt steak, maggie ate some kalbi from the people at the neighboring picnic area, and ed and michelle enjoyed a range of non-fondue related food items. I suppose nothing says welcome back to san francisco like a summer afternoon spent shivering in the park, so in that regard I think it was a success.

toby of the day, 6.14.2008

2008-07-09T18:59:00.000-07:00

today toby is working hard preparing for his current dream job as a roadie. Unfortunately, until he can figure out how to carry a full sized guitar, he’ll be stuck carrying gear for jake shimabukuro. But you have to start somewhere. And besides, since one of our babyproofing solutions was to use our bass amp to block access to the fireplace, it’s best if he doesn’t learn to move it too soon anyway.

toby of the day, 6.13.2008

2008-07-09T18:55:00.000-07:00

today is toby’s second Friday the 13th. The first came when toby was only 58 hours old. Mostly, our luck was good for that first one, at least as good as it can be when you’ve just brought home a new human unaccustomed to life on the outside, and his mother, who is unaccustomed to being so swollen she can’t sit down, and his father who may be accustomed to insomnia, but this insomnia turns out to be a wildly different monster. Yes, I think any grievances we had were not based on superstitious dates. This time around was again pretty uneventful. Until the Russian woman and her banana. They say you should teach your children not to take candy from strangers, but they don’t tell you what to do when a burly Russian women pulls a banana out of her purse and you think she might just be showing it to your son before she eats it herself but then before you know what’s happening, and before your husband, who has his hands full of a toy piano that he’s borrowing from the daycare, can get his hands free to intercept it, she’s feeding it to the infant you have strapped to your chest. While we know the whole tainted Halloween candy and razor blade filled apples is an urban legend, and I’m sure she was just trying to be friendly, we’re going to keep a close eye on him for the next few hours, just in case. It is Friday the 13th after all.

toby of the day, 6.9.2008

2008-07-02T09:56:00.001-07:00

tonight, instead of picking carpet strands off the scratching post and eating them, toby brought the strands to jon, one at a time, circling back to get more after handing each one off. I’m confident that fetching me a beer is going to be his next accomplishment, though I suspect that pouring it into a glass for me will take him a while longer.

toby of the day, 6.8.2008

2008-07-02T09:43:00.000-07:00

today we had ed, michelle, kevin, jess, and isaac over to eat bacon. Then we headed to the park for wiffle ball. It turns out that wiffle ball may be more dangerous for your knees than women’s soccer. I’m surprised that it wasn’t discussed in depth in that 15 page nytimes magazine article I read. You would think with 15 pages on knee injuries there would be enough space to talk about wiffle ball, but there was nary a mention. Fortunately we all survived without needing a knee replacement and without crushing toby who liked to rush the field to visit his dad when he pitched. I hope we haven’t instilled any bad habits in him for when we go to a professional wiffle ball game. It would be so embarrassing if toby rushed the field. Almost as embarrassing as it would be to attend a professional wiffle ball game. I have to admit that I’m really just continuing to type because wiffle ball has such a nice cadence in my head. Wiffle ball, wiffle ball, wiffle ball. ok, I think that's maybe enough.

toby of the day, 5.25.2008

2008-07-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

In 2006 we attended our first carnivale parade here in the city. Because it was our first, and because jon was worried that we might miss it, we were two of the first people on the street and we sat quietly on a curb for an hour and a half or so, awaiting the floats full of scantily clad dancers in feathered headdresses. Apparently, the parade doesn't move very fast, so while it might start somewhere at 9, that somewhere was not at the curb where we were sitting. In 2007, we timed our attendance better so that we arrived when the parade was bustling. Of course that meant trying to weave my bulky pregnant belly through the crowds to a place where we could see the action. this year, we were confident our timing would be perfect, until we stopped off at delfina for wine, house cured salume, and pizza (with spring onions and guanciale). during our leisurely lunch, we sat next to another couple with a wee one. Theirs was a daughter a couple months older than toby. They were kinda different from us. For example, as we ate the breadsticks at our table, it occurred to us that toby might enjoy them, so we focused our resolve on not eating them all before he woke up. At their table, when the wee one got a hold of a breadstick the air suddenly filled with panicked screaming as the mom raced over, stuck all her fingers into her daughters mouth, and pulled out a drool soaked (and rather mushy I might add) chunk of breadstick. The panicked screaming was followed by grumpy and uncomfortable crying from the daughter and wimpering apologies from her dad for allowing her to get a hold of the offending breadstick. When we went to leave, the mom asked if toby was crawling yet and I said that, crazy enough, he was actually walking already. She said you mean he’s “cruising”, our daughter is doing that too. Not knowing what cruising was I of course asked, “you mean for chicks?” she gave an awkward laugh and then she turned back to me and recited a line that I got the impression she uses often “well, by kindergarten, they’ll all be walking and potty trained, right?” she laughed awkwardly again. I said I sure hoped so and we handed toby a breadstick and headed off to meet isaac and show toby some scantily clad dancers in feathered headdresses. as we walked Jon and I laughed at how weird the interaction had been and how awesome we are in comparison. of course, moments later we had to stop patting ourselves on the back as we reached the parade just as the last car rounded the corner and headed back to the staging area. we may not be quite as awesome as we thought, but we did learn some things: 9 is too early, 2 is too late, and guanciale is delicious.

toby of the day, 5.22.2008

2008-06-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

Apparently, ted turner’s first word was “pretty” which he uttered while watching a butterfly. He tells this story as demonstration of his lifelong commitment to environmentalism. I wonder if you’re trying to convince people of your commitment to something, if this is a fruitful strategy. I admit that I never really thought of ted turner media tycoon as ted turner staunch environmentalist. But certainly, since I have trouble believing that his first word didn’t involve long vowels, soft consonants, and repeated syllables, I’m not more convinced of his love of the environment after hearing this “pretty” nonsense. Ted turner, expert storyteller: yes. Ted turner, environmentalist: eh, I can’t really say. I also wonder, if the story is true, whether his parents made predictions about him based on his first word, like “maybe our son will be a biologist, or a lover of nature, or an irritating guy who always states the obvious.” I muse about these things because today toby said his first word. It’s a word that may signal his becoming a voice for his generation as they face environmental or geopolitical catastrophe, or maybe it’s just a verbal prelude to his response when we catch him smoking or he finds himself in his first a bar fight. Regardless, I suspect it will serve him well in the future, and will easily fit whatever story he needs it to whether he’s a savvy venture capitalist or an unemployed guitarist. And of course it will serve us well when toby tells us of his dreams to become either a savvy venture capitalist or an unemployed guitarist. That word, of course, is ‘uh-oh’.

toby of the day, 5.18.2008

2008-06-15T19:51:00.000-07:00

today is bay to breakers, an annual “race” where several thousand people “run” from the bay to the ocean. The race begins with actual runners, most of them wearing sensible running shoes and attire, except for a few old naked people wearing only sensible shoes. Actually, truth be told, we have never witnessed this part of the race because they run at the typical running time of day well before we’re ready to even think about leaving the house. So they may be wearing funny hats or something, we can’t say for sure. Regardless, these runners are followed by a second wave of people dressed in clever costumes that they have thoughtfully put together to allow them to run or walk quickly, usually in pairs or trios, along the route. Most everyone is wearing an official race number, including the old, naked people. Some of them carry bottled water. In the third wave, the costumes become less clever and the shopping carts and other smaller wheeled alcohol carrying contraptions emerge. The number of people wearing official numbers declines, as does the number of people wearing sensible footwear. the old naked people are joined by naked people who are less old. In the final installment, most participants either have their own small wheeled alcohol carrying contraption or are members of a float entourage, where they are required to help move an enormous portable bar along the route. You can tell the members of a float entourage because they are dressed as 1) pirates 2) tiki bar patrons 3) vikings. No one has an official number or sensible shoes. Except for the police who follow the last of the “runners” and try to keep them from defacing the conservatory of flowers or passing out in the street. We have never participated in bay to breakers, but instead, each year we sit on the sidelines and watch the parade evolve. This year, toby got to see lots of old naked people, some mildly clever costumes, and a few shopping carts full of beer, though we did take him home before the pirates arrived, lest he get swept away and end up doing keg stands on one of the moveable bars. We’ll save that for next year.

toby of the day, 5.17.2008

2008-06-15T19:47:00.000-07:00

today we went to a birthday party for genki, provider of 85% of toby’s clothes, and 100% of his swings, bouncers, entertainers, and changing tables. Genki just turned two. One of his gifts was a baseball bat and helmet which he wore for protection while he tested the bat on the walls, furniture, and our camera and which he found much more exciting than the book that we gave him. Even though it was a pretty cool book. Cute pictures, funny text. But that’s okay, I can understand. In fact, I’m secretly looking forward to receiving the baseball set as a hand-me-down so toby can bat at our walls, furniture, and camera. of course, then we’ll need is someone to hand us down another camera. On second thought, maybe we’re better off with the book. cute pictures, funny text, no broken cameras.

toby of the day, 5.15.2008

2008-06-08T17:41:00.000-07:00

I hate to say it, but it’s hot. I know that it could be hotter. I know that when we lived in Austin, this would not have crossed my threshold for hot. Certainly, I am not stripped down to my skivvies, soaking the sofa with my sweat, unable to do anything except wonder why we don’t have central air conditioning, and worry each time sweat drips from my forehead that it is my brain melting. But today has been quite warm. To deal with the heat wave, Toby and I spent the afternoon in a shady spot in the park, with toby picking flowers and me trying to intercept his chubby yet nimble fingers before he could eat them. When we weren’t eating flowers, or really, when toby was eating flowers but I was pretending not to notice, we watched a girls soccer team practicing. I just read an article about girls blowing out their knees playing soccer and wondered whether such a fate awaited any of these girls. I wondered this until the coach escorted one of the players to the restroom and while he was gone the rest of the girls took all the cones that had been set up for their drills and wore them as hats. Then they all sat down in the shade drinking water and complaining about the heat. Confident that their knees were safe for the time being, I returned to plucking daisies from toby’s mouth and waiting for the fog to return.

toby of the day, 5.14.2008

2008-06-08T17:28:00.001-07:00

So toby has been kind of shuffling around for about a week. Not quite walking, certainly not for any considerable distance, but also not just standing still. Last night I think he made his biggest advance, travelling upright for a few feet before returning to his standard mobile downward dog style crawl. Then today I picked him up from daycare and denise told me he had been running around all afternoon. Since it had only been 9 hours or so since I last saw toby, I of course assumed she was exaggerating, or crazy. But It turns out she was neither. As I set toby down this evening he essentially took off, waddling his way through the living room. I guess when you’re ten months old, a lot can happen in 9 hours.

toby of the day, 5.11.2008

2008-06-08T09:35:00.000-07:00

Jon and I study birds. Singing birds to be precise. And while what we know about birds may not be nearly as exciting to reveal at parties as the things we know about lizards (for example, lizards have two penises), we know a lot of arcane facts about birds. However, despite our vast bird knowledge, we know absolutely nothing about this bird. We discovered it pecking our sofa the other night. It appears very hungry as it will peck at almost any surface –coffee tables, rugs, your chest. Fortunately it is a large bird, so perhaps we can keep it without worrying that we will return home one day to a pile of feathers and two full cats. If anything, it looks like the cats are the ones who should worry, it might try to peck them next.

toby of the day, 5.8.2008

2008-05-21T20:09:00.000-07:00

the women's restroom where I work is just fine. it's reasonably clean, there are usually paper towels, there are even daily attempts by some insane prude to protect us all from any shameful peeping by covering up the 2mm of open space near the door hinges on one of the stalls. overall, I have no complaints. but for a long time, I have been perplexed by the plaque outside the restroom that touts it as a "nationally designated center for excellence". such a moniker would lead me to expect more out of the restroom. like golden toilet seats, or at least hands free faucets. something. fortunately, they recently added another plaque specifying that it is the breastfeeding room accessed from the bathroom proper that is the center for excellence. although, again, I'm not entirely sure what makes it a center for excellence. sure, it has its perks: the dilapidated vinyl furniture is not too uncomfortable, there is a blue checked cotton privacy curtain so you can separate yourself from the people who come in to nap on the vinyl furniture, there’s a dusty potted plastic flower and some wall decorations including "por favor, no fumes" scrawled in sharpie under the window that is too high for anyone to see out of, and of course there’s the hospital grade breast pump chained to the radiator. but I must admit that excellent isn't a word I associate with the room. drab but functional, yes. excellent, not so much.

Whether it was to increase the level of excellence, or just spruce things up, a couple weeks ago, someone brought in some old issues of parents magazine. it turns out that parents magazine is absolutely terrible. it's as though someone came up with a way to merge People magazine and the ubiquitous "what to expect" book series. in case you're unfamiliar with these books, I'll just say that I stopped reading "what to expect when you're expecting" when it told me that I should never eat tempura while pregnant, because it would make me fat, but instead I should get jon to order tempura and ask him for a taste. I proceeded to eat tempura and use "what to expect" to wipe off my greasy fingers. anyway, back to parents magazine. it's full of tips. from how to potty train your child, once you've determined which of their stereotypes your child fits into (is she the "hippie" or the "energizer") to how to have a DIY pedicure party with appletinis for your friends who have never had a martini (I believe there could not be a more sure sign that I am not parents magazine's target audience than an article implying I might spend my spare time with someone who has never tried a martini). some of the headlines on the cover include: "new burping techniques" and "when wipes are just too small". seriously, I couldn't make this stuff up. needless to say, I now read parents magazine every day while I pump. sometimes I even stay a little longer than necessary to finish thumbing through. it's like a daily visit to the dentist, without the sore gums. the video below is the result of this daily investigation. it turns out that one thing 10 month olds are able to do is brush their hair. well kind of anyway. I'm especially impressed because we often don't actually brush toby's hair, it’s pretty much just wash and go. Which makes me think that perhaps hair brushing isn’t learned, but like all those weird newborn reflexes, it’s, well, reflexive. in fact, I think this discovery could be an entirely untapped area of research: the central pattern generator that controls instinctual hair brushing in infants. This could be my big breakthrough, nobel prize here I come. and all thanks to parents magazine. and that center for excellence. boy, they're sure magic.

toby of the day, 5.5.2008

2008-05-21T19:10:00.000-07:00

This weekend my mom is back for another visit. During her last visit, toby rolled over for the first time. This time, he took his first steps. She, jon and I just watched, open mouthed. I must admit, it means that I’m a little torn about her next visit. In some sense I can’t wait to see what exciting thing he’ll do next. But then again I don’t feel that we need to rush things, because one minute he’s all adorable smiles but then the next thing you know you’re fighting with a surly teenager about whether he can borrow the car, or worse, about why his crazy eco-maniachial parents don’t even own a car for him to borrow. Maybe I can convince him that it’s not necessary perform such grandiose tricks to impress his grandma, and then she can visit as often as she likes.

toby of the day, 4.28.2008

2008-05-19T21:02:00.000-07:00

Toby has become quite a stander. He stands in the middle of the room just waving his little arms. How throwing all that weight around doesn’t make him keel over I don’t know. Then he’ll squat down, pick something up, and stand again. Often he likes to stand at the coffee table, then shuffle his way around trying to reach whatever objects we’ve inadvertently left within reach. I feel that really he is just helping us to center the objects on the coffee table by measuring their distance from all four sides. Admittedly, I could do without his new tendency to stand up in his crib at all hours of the night. Though that may be because middle of the night standing is accompanied by loud crying. If we could get him to just stand there quietly, twiddling his thumbs, it would perfect. Somehow I don't imagine that’s next on his milestone docket, but a girl can still dream.

toby of the day, 4.27.2008

2008-05-17T21:31:00.000-07:00

we spent today in the park with isaac next to the dutch windmill. I specify that it was the dutch windmill as there are apparently two windmills in golden gate park and I wouldn't want you to conjure images in your head of us next to the wrong one. anyway, it was quite sunny, especially by san francisco standards, and so we coated toby in sunscreen, long sleeves, and a hat. Why that didn’t prompt jon or I to also slather on sunscreen I don’t know. I would describe jon as off-white while I’m sort of transluscent blue, both of which are colors of pale desperately in need of sun protection. Needless to say, our lack of sunscreen was a mistake. Compounding my feelings of stupidity, after we returned home, jon called me dumb when I didn't remember a bass line for a song we were working on a few years ago. To demonstrate my dumbness, he went to find the digital recorder where he had, moments before, been listening to the song. But the recorder was nowhere to be found. After thirty minutes of searching and some veiled accusations that I was hiding it, toby discovered it under a frisbee in the living room where jon had hidden it to keep it out of toby’s mouth. I think that makes the score toby 2, jon and sarah 0, at least as long as we don’t lose points for being dumb. If that’s the case then we’re both screwed.

toby of the day, 4.26.2008

2008-05-17T21:26:00.000-07:00

today at swimming class toby tested out a kickboard. Toby doesn’t actually know how to kick, but he did find the kickboard to be extremely helpful at siphoning water into his mouth. And when I wouldn’t let him drink the water, he would just nibble on the board itself, sort of beer and tapas style. I’m working on a song about the deliciousness of swimming. It’s to the tune of twinkle twinkle little star. Or is it baa baa black sheep. Something like that.

toby of the day, 4.25.2008

2008-05-17T21:21:00.000-07:00

Today while waiting for jon and toby to return from daycare, I was julienning some vegetables for hiyashi chuka. I very much enjoy julienning, rapidly turning food into tiny, evenly sized batons. And I thought about this as I made my way through a carrot. Then came the cucumber. There are many foods good for julienning (carrot, potato, apple, pear, daikon). And there are many foods that are not (brussel sprouts, kale, artichokes, mushrooms). As I went to work on the cucumber, I felt that it wasn’t trying hard enough. It could have been a great julienned fruit (it is a fruit, right? Because of the seeds?), but instead it seemed content to squander its potential and just be ok, better than all those other foods, that no matter how hard they tried, would never be any good, but not truly great. This filled me with a tremendous sense of disappointment, and I imagined if I got to grade foods on juliennability how I would reluctantly have to give cucumber a B overall, but I would placate myself by giving it a D for effort. It then occurred to me that here it was, Friday night, and I was not thinking about what bar to go to, or about the talk I have to give on Tuesday, or whether we would manage to finish up the rather uneven season 3 of battlestar galactica, or how to spin my job application to sound more cognitive to get a job in Queensland or Vienna, or how to decrease my water footprint, or how to get toby to sleep at night. I wasn’t listening to music or learning french. I was anthropomorphizing a fruit. And was sincerely disappointed that it wasn’t trying harder. This should teach all of you to never ask me what I’m thinking about, because frankly, it’s like peeking into your grandmothers attic; you’ll find a box of dusty doilies, random buttons, a picture of her with j. edgar hoover, a half eaten sandwich and a family of opossums. And then you’ll try to quietly back down the stairs but it will be too late. I don’t know how half the stuff gets up there, and its really best to just leave it alone. Fortunately, toby and jon returned home before I could get to lecturing the cucumber and then all was right in the world again. And the hiyashi chuka was delicious.

toby of the day, 4.22.2008

2008-05-17T20:21:00.000-07:00

Today I’m teaching toby how to respond to unsolicited advice. Of course this plan will likely come back to haunt me when I suggest that he could work on picking up spares or that maybe he ought to be practicing his subjunctive conjugation or putting more topspin on his backhand, and his response will involve some grumbly complaints and obscene hand gestures, but we’ll worry about that when the time comes. Recently, my father, a minijumbo blog enthisiast, asked a friend of his for an opinion on the blog, and then forwarded that constructive criticism on to me. At minimum, you could say that this information was unwelcome. I have a job based on spending untold amounts of time wrangling over every word I write, every analysis I do, every figure I make, and responding politely to every ridiculous reviewers suggestion. I have no desire to replicate that experience at home. Fortunately, unlike the paper that I’m currently working on, which will likely result in me stabbing my eyes out with a stick in frustration before it goes to press, the only thing that stands between me and publishing this blog is my ability to find a reasonably cute or relevant photo and being able to maneuver the mouse to the little orange circle that I have to click on that says “publish post”. So rather than bore you with a point by point refutation of my blog reviewers suggestions, and certainly rather than improving the blog based on those suggestions, which might constitute work, I plan to just leave everything as is. If you don’t like it, you can always read one of the 1.1 million other baby blogs, including the ones capable of generating 40K in ad revenue (some of which must be good, right? actually, yes. yes they are) indeed, apparently everyone with a uterus that was once home to a kid is on the internet telling the same stories about their developing offspring. But, this is the only one that will tell you those stories about us and our offspring, and the only one that will reveal exciting secrets like what’s been on our netflix queue. So stay tuned.

toby of the day, 4.19.2008

2008-05-07T20:22:00.000-07:00

After swimming today we headed out to hunter’s point to see a life size replica of the board game “mousetrap”. In the game you move plastic mice around a board while assembling a rube goldberg style mousetrap. I played this game frequently as a child. By played I actually mean I hung out by myself assembling and trying to get the mousetrap to work. The life size one had all the key parts, the rickety stairs, the suspended bathtub, the boot, the teeter-totter. Also like my childhood version, it looked as though after hours of meticulous assembly and testing, it had failed to work. While I was disappointed that we didn’t get to see it run, I was relieved that we weren’t there to watch it be stomped to pieces by a giant, frustrated girl in pigtails, which, again based on my own childhood experience with the game, is what I assume must have happened when it didn’t work.

toby of the day, 4.16.2008

2008-05-07T20:17:00.001-07:00

We recently borrowed some books on teaching signs to your kids. “talk to your kids before they can talk!” it says and suggests 5 first words, one of which is flower (crinkle your nose, sniff the air). Flower? Really? That made the top 5? I feel this is like my learning to talk about my cat in Japanese rather than learning the words for bathroom or lost or hungry. Since the Japanese are not like trolls in fairy tales, “I will give you directions to roppongi, but first you must tell me about your cat while your son tells me about the cherry blossoms”, being able to tell them my cat’s name is wendy is not useful information. Until we learn more practical words I imagine toby and I forever trapped in the Tokyo subway, singing songs about lulington the nasubi neko and sniffing the air in search of flowers and our hotel. Maybe I’ll start him with something more practical, like the sign for pachinko instead.

toby of the day, 4.12.2008

2008-05-07T20:14:00.000-07:00

Saturday toby had his first swimming lesson. The use of both the terms swimming and lesson are somewhat exaggerated, although I imagine they couldn’t charge $8 a class for something called supervised splashing. Since the lesson Jon and I have been trying to determine why we were so unnerved by all the singing in the class. Yes, the class description also failed to mention that instead of swimming you would be standing in a pool doing the hokey pokey, or more accurately, moving limbs of a buoyant 9 moths old to do the hokey pokey. And maybe that’s it, since toby and the rest of the kids don’t sing, it’s really just a bunch of parents floating around singing about the wheels on the bus while the kids drink chlorinated water. But toby sure likes it, songs and all. Which is good, since we have another 9 weeks to go.

toby of the day, 4.11.2008

2008-05-05T16:35:00.000-07:00

today was a pretty big day, and surprisingly enough, toby was the smallest part of it. This morning we went in for toby’s 9 month check-up. After 6 months of near exponential growth, toby has gained only 1 pound since January. It makes me think that one day, the only crease in his arm will be at the elbow or that we might not fear losing toys, coins or small pets in the creases in his thighs, although that day isn’t quite upon us yet. But what made this a really big day was our trip out to the bay meadows racetrack to watch some horses race and rock out with perry stevens and the rest of “journey unauthorized” (visit, at your own risk, http://www.journeyunauthorized.com). Well, at least a bunch of people got to rock. Me and toby stayed trackside to watch his college fund lope its way across the finish line. toby's friend emma, shown in the video below as toby tries to lick her, won 100 smackers. That's probably why he's trying to get with her now (is that legal? maybe a little precocious... but they seem mutually consenting). Perhaps in a couple years when toby is emma's age he will be better at picking horses, but right now he's useless. I never should have listened to him. bababababababababababa he said. I told him I was dubious, that 4th horse sure looked like a long shot, but he insisted. gaaaaagamaaagaba he said. so we put down $10 and you know what it got me? nothing. I guess maybe he just needs some more practice, so we'll have to try again. and you know, why not, because there's nothing like a little gambling to bring families and friends together.

toby of the day, 04.05.2008

2008-04-21T21:49:00.001-07:00

Today toby discovered melon. And, like our cat wendy, he loves it. After gumming his way through a number of large chunks, we went to take him out of the high chair when he discovered a piece that had fallen onto his lap which he quickly smushed into his mouth. I await the day when, with a little trail of drool from his mouth he says, “mmmmm, floor pie”.

toby of the day, 04.03.2008

2008-04-21T21:42:00.000-07:00

Jon’s mom is here visiting us again and reveling in toby’s new size and skills. Today we all went to lunch at our local raw, vegan restaurant. Jon and I have avoided this restaurant because, as grumpy curmudgeons we scoffed at the fact that the waiters purportedly make you say why you’re thankful before serving you, and the names of all the dishes are all self-affirming. Our waiter looked a bit like kid rock, but sounded like some new-agey self help book. We did our best not to chuckle or furrow our brows when he took our orders ("I am poised") and repeated their affirming names (“you ARE poised!”). But in the end, I think he had the last laugh as we were all amazed by how much toby loved him. Whether it was the fishnet shirt, the feather in his hat, or his crazy positive, unironic attitude, toby was smitten ("you ARE smitten!"). i searched the menu but couldn't find the right dish for me - “I am dumbfounded.”

toby of the day, 03.31.2008

2008-04-21T21:36:00.000-07:00

We have a scratching post for the cats which we naively hope will keep them from scratching our furniture and rugs, although the state of our furniture and rugs should have convinced us long ago that the scratching post is mostly to make us feel like we’re combating the scratching problem. In any case, a part of toby’s new routine is to meticulously remove all the stray and loose bits of carpeting from the scratching post, one at a time, pinching them with his thumb and forefinger. This means that a part of my daily routine is to grab each strand from him after he plucks it and before he puts it in his mouth. I could say how this training him to use his fine motor skills or teaching him the importance of teamwork (he picks the carpet bits, I add them to our pile), but really it’s just filler, something to keep him busy before he moves on to trying to eat the coasters, reach inside the heater, eat lulington’s food, knock over the bass guitar, or nibble on my shoulder as a sign he would like more milk.

toby of the day, 03.26.2008

2008-04-21T21:28:00.000-07:00

I feel that jon and I are getting pretty good at gauging toby’s demeanor and predicting his behavior. For example, last week Toby had a cold. again. This time it was accompanied by a real fever, which we managed with a little children’s tylenol. One night, he was a bit feverish and crying before bed so jon pulled out the sweet sweet acetiminophen elixir. But I warned against it, predicting that it would make toby puke. To which jon countered that throwing up might make toby feel better. So we gave it a try, and it turned out we were both correct. Toby puked, then giggled, clearly much improved. Unfortunately, while we were quite astute at predicting what would happen when we gave him the medicine, neither of us had the foresight to, say, move him off of my lap or off of his bed prior to proving ourselves correct, and consequently his sheets and I were bathed in old, partially digested, milk. but we were right, and isn't that really all that matters.