toby of the day, something about a sunday

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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.