Zen and the Art of Sitting Up

Okay.. some non baby-related content tomorrow (maybe). For now, we have two teeth appearing, so things have been a bit stressful around the place. But with all that, we still found time to practice our new skill of sitting up.

 
Girls Just Want to Have Fun

We went to our first party as a family yesterday. Moiya's daycare held a Christmas party for all the kiddoes... and there were LOTS of kiddoes. Plenty of food, presents for all the children. Very nice, really. And a very, very sweet thing to do for the kids. Must have set Dawn back a mint

Moiya however reacted just like her old man when confronted by the noise and movement of people she doesn;t know in an enclosed space. She fixed me with this "Get me the hell outta here!" expression and burrowed into my chest. A party animal she is not -- at least not at this age. Perhaps next years she'll be making noise with the rest. Hopefully not. It was kinda nice to have someone to be terrified with. The only other person who hates parties as much as I do is my former Father-In-Law, and since the divorce I don't have an I-Hate-Being-Here buddy anymore.

Moiya did come out of herself a bit when it came time to open prezzies... though as the accompanying clip shows, the present itself was not the object of her attention.

Opening Presents

 
For the Scrap Book



Play is SUCH tiring work!

Clean and Pretty

 
Oh Dearie Me...

There is an old saying -- from the Latin I believe -- that "those whom God wishes to destroy He first makes mad."

To which I would add "But those He really wants to mess with, He allows to discover that they've been standing in front of a classroom full of nuns all day with their fly hanging open".

 
It's Good To Have Friends

This just cracks me up. I was fiddling with our little digital, which also takes movie clips, convinced that Herself was going to start crawling (she didn't) and I looked up just in time to see this. The baby was fussing, frustrated by her inability to do what she had set her mind to do. And little Duncan just came over and laid down next to her and snuggled. Funny... we were so sure that Wicker would be the one that fell in love with the baby.

Whatever. It's good to have friends.

 
Note to self: When starting child out on her first fruit, prunes are NOT a good choice.

 
On a More Prosaic Note

This one is for friend Kelly, who is a chef, and who inspires me to try these things :)

And just so My Girl knows in years to come what a cheap old bugger her Pop was, I must record my deep joy at getting somethin' for nothin'

Woo-Hoo!!!

Boiled down the Thanksgiving turkey carcass... never understood how anyone could just throw it away. Absolutely the most valuable thing in my kitchen. (Aside from chopsticks... I use them for everything. And wooden spoons, and Mom's cast iron. What a Godsend!... but I see that I digress).

Made a huge pot of the most wonderfully aromatic turkey stock. Then I chopped up all the leftover veggies for the week: carrots, celery, green onions, mushrooms. I cheated and bought two potatoes. Added a little white wine and some good egg noodles and spice and cooked it all afternoon.

End product: soup you could die for.

I love making soup, I really do. And this was one of my best batches EVER. And all for the price of two potatoes.

That just tickles me :)

 
Cries in the Night

Not that I'm questioning the Author of All Creation (more than usual) ... but I have the same reaction to teething that I had when I first learned about sex: "What was (He/She/It/ Insert your preference here) THINKING?!?"

This is just terrible! Moiya hasn't slept in days and hardly eats (and My Girl, like her Daddy, likes her food). All she does is cry pitifully with wide, accusing, and very confused eyes that just eat my soul.

And for three days we've held her constantly, trying everything under the sun to ease the pain. At times, when you tickle her tummy, she smiles, but cries at the same time. Which even now brings tears to my eyes.

Thankfully, at the moment (2 a.m.) she's finally asleep. Sleep seems to be the only time she doesn't hurt. We like sleep. A LOT.

This is terrible.. I've never loved anyone anywhere near this much, nor hurt so badly and not been able to do a thing about it.

Poor Jacq has borne the brunt of the past few days, rocking late into the night, whilst I've carried on with the business of keeping the place running. Thankfully, she is sleeping now also.

Whoever designed this system.. IT STINKS!

Maybe I'll go and try this sleep thing now.....

 
Treebeard Forever

I'm of two mind concerning artificial Christmas trees.
On the one hand, they keep us from butchering real trees. On the other hand...

I'm kidding... there is no other hand. I'd love to tell you all about my fond childhood memories of harvesting the sweet-smelling fir. But that would all be rubbish. We had a fake tree for years and years

When you live with severe allergies, you learn to be pragmatic about these things. Do artificial trees smell as good? No.

Do they stop your breathing? Also no. The latter wins.

So I grew up with fond memories of the family (all three of us) gathered around to assemble the Christmas tree. I learned pretty much all of my best swear words from that. We all hid when Pappa started to hang the lights.

But this tree is pre-lit :)

(By "pre-lit", of course they mean that it has 800 or so lights and miles of wire woven into the branches... and three plugs that make it all work that you can't find if your life depended on it)

Have rarely had a tree these past few years. The house is tiny and the holidays wereusually spent somewhere else. But this year we've got Moiya and were determined that she would grow up with a tree. And so I set out the what is refered to as the top shopping day in the year: the Day after Thanksgiving.

I should have just shot myself in the head.

Suffice it to say that ater three hours of driving, parking and cutting my way through walls of human flesh, I finally purchased a tree. Then I spent the next half hour trying to wedge this MASSIVE box into the car

Ended up dismantling the baby seat, the full size seats and everything else I could find and slamming the boor repeatedly against the box to ram it the last few inches.. Got in, started the engine, then realised I didn't have enough room to release the parking brake... had to get out of the car to do that.

And now we have a tree! It looks good, we've started a new family tradition... and by the time it wears out, Moiya will be old enough to get her own damned tree!

 
Giving Thanks

Bet you can't figure out what we're thankful for this year.

More baby footage here
File is 1.8 M)

 
The Countdown Begins

Twenty-eight days till our sweet girl is fully ours!

Not a great day. Arrived for an onsite at 8:03 a.m. for a 9 a.m. class. I pride myself on always being scrupulously punctual, and I leave a one hour period to set up and prepare for class.

Imagine my astonishment to find the room full of people waiting impaitently for me to arrive. Seems the Account Exec agreed to an earlier start (8 a.m.) to the second day of class, but forgot to pass the word along.

On the other hand, tonight has been blessed: a gentle, steady rain with a soft, cool breeze. The Girl has been a dream. I laid her down for her nap and turned the radio on to the classical station. With the door open, I could hear her cooing to herself, she could hear my typing, and we both could hear the music. The animals were sweet and serene. In all, there was a blessing of Peace on Innisfree tonight.

And Jacq. got to come home earlier than we had figured she would! Nothing is as good as when we're all together at home. Even now, the soft sound of the rain against the window makes me smile. Tonight has been one of those nights you live for and your souls feeds off of for a long time to come.

 
Seeking the Middle Ground

Okay.. Here's the deal. This is my blog and I have thoughts, feelings and opinions. One of the reasons I started this thing was to give myself someplace to freely vent.

Unfortunately, since this became a clearing house for news of Moiya, it has become no longer my own. My Mom (and her family) have radically different world views from mine. And while I respect their opinions and defend their rights to have them (however misguided) I DON'T want to read them.

Now that they know where I stand, they've finally (mostly) gotten pretty good about not forwarding their rants to me. Unfortunately, if they come to my blog they are going to be exposed to mine. They don't want to read it, but the Moiya stuff is right in the middle. I understand their dismay, but at the same time, I get understandably peeved when I keep getting complaints from my family essentially saying that I can't write what I please in my own bloody diary.

SO.. I'm creating a branch unit, The Innisfree Rant. When you see it, you'll know that my political opinions are expressed inside. You can skip over it, if a conservative (as most of my family is), or browse, if a Liberal (as most of my friends are)

Now hear this:
If you are of a conservative lean and you deliberately choose to visit the Innisfree Rant, KNOWING that you will most likely be offended, then it is on your head. I don't want to hear a WORD outta you. K?

Seems like a fair and happy compromise to me. I get to say what I think, and my family doesn't have to read it.

 
A Kneecapping by Don Cortisone

Note to self: When you go to the doctor to have your cholesterol and BP checked, don’t ask about your knees.

Age is encroaching. Maybe it’s the 20 years spent kneeling on concrete floors pinning hems.. but my knees are shot. Especially the right one. Oh, the arthritis in my wrists comes and goes as it has for the past 10 years. But the knees have gotten bad. Really bad. Bad to where I can't hide the grunts and gasps from my wife. Some days I can barely crawl upstairs to bed without Jacquelyn ’s help. And going downstairs in the morning (especially if I’m carrying Moiya) fre3quenlty brings gasps and tears.

So as an afterthought, as I was getting dressed, I asked the doc about me knees. He felt the one, rotated it, bent it, and finally asked “Do you want some cortisone?”

Well hell… I dunno. I thought he’d just give me some pain pills. I don’t know cortisone from Corti-slim.

“Ummm.. Ok” I say “If you think so.”

Spoken like a man of action.

Sez the doctor “This will hurt”

Oh hell!! They NEVER say that. Plunge a spear through yer belly and it’s “You’ll feel a little prick.”

“This will hurt??” Oh Dear.

So he goes out and comes back and jams a needle in my knee. It hurts, but I grip the table and am mum. The shot seems to go on forever, then ends with a gush of fluid. I fancy that it is blood, and that the doctor is cleaning me up. I think “Eh… that’s not so bad.” I’m a bold man, I am..

Then I look down. The fluid is the nasty orange disinfectant they use. The doctor is pulling on surgical gloves.

Oh Dear. Oh deary dear.

Suddenly the doctor whips out a needle the size of a railroad spike (roughly) I close my eyes at the same time I grip the table and hang on.

The first pass strikes the kneecap and bounces off. I don’t need the doctor to tell me this, as I can feel the scraping of metal on bone. “Sorry” sez the doc. “Mphuuph umph!!” sez I.

Another icy stab, more grinding. Apology. Stab, dig, grind… grind… grind .
“AH.. there it goes!” as the metal slides below my kneecap.. then out.

“Yea! It’s over” is the my first thought. Followed by “Oh dear.. I’m going to throw up!” Followed by “Oh dear.. I’m fainting!’

Some time later I stagger woozily out of the office, much to the amusement of the nurses.
“Wow.. you’re really pale!”
“I’m Irish… we don’t tan.”
“Well I’m Irish and I’m not as pale as you.”

I resist pointing out that people who are going straight to hell have a healthy glow.

Now it is later.. I cannot help but favor the right knee.. but flinch at the memory of that needle. Somewhere I’m convinced that my kneecap will fall off if I’m not careful.

But on the other hand.. I can carry Moiya up and down the stairs now.

That’s worth a lot..

 
More Baby Pics
Moiya's first Halloween costume, and another of her fetching hats.

 
Milestones

Moiya's first little snow outfit, and her first time able to grasp (and hold) her bottle.

 
Saving Private Values

(Warning: There are opinions expressed herein. Readers of a delicate nature may wish to turn away)

Sorry Mom... I've got opinions, and it's my blog.

Don't know if you are even aware of it, but several hundred ABC affiliates (20% of the total) decided not to show "Saving Private Ryan" as part of a Veterans Day tribute to (as Tom Brokaw would have it) the "Greatest Generation" that fought WWII, for fear that the FCC would punish them.

I thought it was just a case of knee-jerk station managers trying to make a (badly conceived) point. Till I learned that several conservative Christian groups -- including OneMillionMoms.com and OneMillionDads.com had threatened a flood of FCC complaints if the movies aired.

People.. we are sliding down that slippery slope. Yes, there is a need to be circumspect in what is sent out over the PUBLIC (not private) airwaves. Yes, the networks have been moral whores (America has been ruined by the Advertising Council, IMHO). But for pete's sake! As one veteran whose letter I read put it:

"With all the garbage on television, shame on Channel 8 for not showing "Saving Private Ryan." The film is a masterpiece dedicated to the brave men who fought in World War II, especially on D-Day and after. Thanks to them and people like them down through our Nation's history, we enjoy freedom. To shy away from showing the real cost of that freedom is cowardly. - Michael R. Murphy, Midlothian"

This ranks alongside the refusal of an entire broadcast network to air the Nightline episode in which the names of our honored dead were read and their sweet faces shown.

SHAME!

And on Veteran's Day!!

I want my little girl to be moral. I want to shield her from the excesses (or even the commonplace) of "popular culture". But I would die a thousand times over before I would have her be a moral coward.

What are we becoming? I thought I lived in the "Land of the Free"

I need to reread Fahrenheit 451 this weekend. Despite the (unfortunate) association with Michael Moore, this classic of 1954 is just one of many stories Ray Bradbury told of a future in which things that make one have "unhappy thoughts" are outlawed.

How silly I thought them in the 60's when I first read them.

"Gee, Mr. GI... I'm sorry you suffered and died for me.. but it's disturbing. Could you please go away quietly?"

 
Running Deer and Feisty Rabbits

(I think they were leaders of the Sioux uprisings of the 1870’s)

Was cleaning out my car the other morning in preparation for an onsite (where I currently am). I often have to carry upwards of ten computers, and now that I’ve got a baby seat too, there’s no room for ANYTHING else. Saw something over my left shoulder and glanced up in time to see a full-grown deer, full antlers and all bounding out of the subdivision (as Marci says, “McHouses”) across the road in front of our house, through the side yard and into the woods.

I stood stock still for the longest time and watched the woods, hoping for another view. Was rewarded by seeing his white tail as he clambered up the hill. We usually have several females, but I hadn’t seen this big guy before. I hope he lays low during hunting season. And it reminds me that I need to go out and get a salt lick for them. I bought one a few years back and told Jacq. That I couldn’t figure out why they never had anything to do with it. She said “Well, where did you bury it?”

Apparently you’re supposed to bury the things and let the salt leach into the soil. Who knew? Jacq. Just gave me a pitying look and mumbled something about “city boys”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I don’t know why we keep buying toys for Hettie. Turns out her favorite one is her litter box. I have to buy a new one every two weeks or so, because the minute I put it in, she goes to work gnawing the front off, letting the litter spill out all over the cage. She’s very particular in house she arranges her cage: ALL of the corncob litter HAS to be piled on the left side of the cage, leaving the floor exposed on the right side. All he toys have to be put in her little wooden “cave”, and the front of the litter pan has to be gnawed flush.

At least it saves me having to clean that nasty mess out. By the time it begins to stink so badly that the cats complain, it’s time to throw it out and get a new one. Sometime, just for amusement, I spread the corncob litter out evenly, just to watch her hop down off her “throne” and furiously start throwing it back where it belongs. I can’t tell if she’s enjoying the exercise or furious… but it amuses me. ?

Here There Be Dragons
The day started badly. As we are in transition at work, lots of things have been falling through the cracks. One of these is the paperwork we’re usually given before going out to teach on site.
Case in point: there was no map this time. Not an issue, really, since I ‘ve never trusted the directions they give me ever since they sent me to a location 40 miles away from the actual teaching location. I always generate my own maps from the internet (which gives me distance and travel time as well) and then check them again the city map I carry in the car with me at all times (a sensible precaution for those of us who are “directionally challenged”)

This has always worked aces before today. This morning I started out at 6 for an 8 a.m. class, which should have given me an hour setup time, a half-hour driving time, and at least 15 minutes getting-lost-and-finding-my-way-back time.

Round about the time I should have been arriving (having followed the directions to the letter) I was in the middle of a hellish landscape dominated by a massive chemical plant. Dante never imagined anything creepier that this place… huge black towers belching evil-looking gasses, massive metal structures lit weirdly from below. (the entire area, I’ve since learned, is a mass of chemical plants, referred to locally as “Rubbertown”.) And since I was teaching class at a place that manufactures shirts, I said to myself “Self” I says, “This ain’t right.”

So I backtracked and tried again. Same result. Backtracked again, throwing in a slight change. Things got worse. Started expecting to see the bleached bones of cattle.

So I pulled over and pulled out my trusty map, only to find that it ends just as it gets to where I was going) So I thought I’d call the contact at the company and pulled out the meager documentation I’d been given, only to find that the phone number was the one for New Horizons.

Called NH and got through to the Account Exec who’d made the sale, found that he wasn’t sure he HAD a phone number (WHAT??) and waited while he looked it up. Called and got directions (“You’re WHERE?” The answer elicited much laughter) and arrive at 7:30.

Four Degrees of (Moiya) Happy

1) Big toothless grin, mouth open
2) Big toothless grin while curling up body (aka “The Full Body Smile”)
3) Laughing out loud
4) Laughing out loud whilst holding the arms rigid, and flailing both legs like mad.

I live for all of them ?

 
The Swarm

One of my favorite annual events is underway. Our house, it seems is some sort of mecca for ladybugs. They are an absolutely constant presense here. I think there must be several huge colonies in the atic.

Which is fine with me, because it tickles me so when they swarm each year.

We were lying in bed at story time, Jacquelyn, Moiya, Duncan and myself. And I was reading the story of "The Grouchy Ladybug", which I like enormously (Moioya is somewhat indifferent). I was just finishing up the story and pointing to the picture of the ladybug, when I glanced up at the ceiling, and there they were.

The number is a bit off this year. Sometimes we have several hundreds of them meandering over the bedroom ceiling. This night it was only 50 or 60, just wandering around, visiting, trading gossip, and just generally going about their ladybug business. It reminded me of nothing so much as the night sky in reverse.. a vast white field with all these tiny dark pinpoints.

The next day, our back yard was simply amazing. I tried to take footage, but the light was against me. When they swarm in the warm afternoon sun, the effect is like snow. The air is simply thick with tiny little creatures, sailing merrily on the breeze. Occassionally thy land on the window for a time to catch their breath, then sail offf again. I found one in my drinking water this morning, waving his little feet. So I lifted him out, dried him off and sent him on his way.

I love the little guys and am just srooy Moiya isn't old enough yet to enjoy them with me. But on the other hand, by next summer she'll be just old enough to sit with me and watch the fireflies sing their silent song through the dark grass.

Now THAT will be worth waiting for!

 
It's Good to Have Friends


From the sublime to the ridiculous. I looked over at the rocker (where kitties aren't supposed to tread) and there were the two girls -- who shortly before had been hissing and spitting at one another -- curled up in identical poses, asleep.

That's what cracks me up so about them... They will strike the same pose, and when I come across them, turn their heads at the same angle, with the same "who me?" expression :)

 
And the Hits Just Keep On Coming

What a great week. Just got word that Jason has resigned, effective next week. At this point we were like family. The mutual support and camaraderie were best I'd ever known.

Now there are only two of us, James and I.

I'm starting to understand how the last two dinosaurs felt. I keep looking at this room of ours which once held our happy band of maniacs.

It's starting to echo in here....

 
Black Day

I have never been so disgusted by my fellow countrymen, nor in such dispair for the future of my country as I am at this moment in time. However this election is eventually decided, that Bush et al could still amass such numbers after its record it a testament to the seemingly infinite capacity of people for self-deception -- hearing only what they want to hear and seeing only what they want to see.

I fear in my soul that the great unwashed mass of the American public has roused itself from its TV-induced slumber, spied its shadow, and now we will have four more years of winter.

Today the glory has passed from the people of Israel and they stand among the nations ashamed, as Cain was, at their unnatural deed. [Eph. Rhy. C. Jud. 8)

Alas for you, lawyers and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like tombs covered with whitewash; they look well from outside, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all kinds of filth. So it is with you: outside you look like honest men, but inside you are brim-full of hypocrisy and crime.
Matthew, ch. 23

Your father is the devil and you choose to carry out your father's desires.
He was a murderer from the beginning, and is not rooted in the truth:
there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie he is speaking his own language,
for he is a liar and the father of lies. But 1 speak the truth and therefore you
do not believe me. Which of you can prove me in the wrong?
John, ch. 8

NOW all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honour bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbours’ eyes?
W.B.Yeats

 
Well, we did it. Moiya and I tromped out through the storm and the rain and stood in line and waited and finally voted. She was a very good girl through it all.

Now it's like Christams when I was a kid... go to sleep and wake up in the morning to see if Santa brought you a bright shiney prezzy, or a lump of... coal.

 
A Prayer

Spent the previous day researching the polling place, and making sure all my paperwork is in order. I must not mess this up.

I don't care what the polls say. I have faith that all may yet be well, and our poor, dear country may yet be returned to its ideals. Heck... if I got a baby, anything is possible. :)

But Thy will, Lord, be done.

 
An Observation

Happy Samhain, all. The Celitc New Year begins tonight, when all the hearth fires in the land would be extinguished and then relit from a common bonfire, the flame passed from family to family. In this transitional night between the old year and the new, the veil between the worlds was at it's thinnest and one might see into the future or revisit generations past.

She Who Must Be Obeyed wore her bunny costume to daycare. I'll get pictures up sometime soon.

Anyway...

Don't know why this didn't stike me before... but when a music box plays the same tune over and over for days and weeks on end (thank you, Ellen) it begins to do weird things to your mind.

"Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" is the same tune as "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" is the same tune as "The Alphabet Song."

That was it. That was my observation.

We're really very dull people. :)

 
Baby Pics

Lisa sent the prints from the 35mm shots she took (which is really nice since I've not paid her yet. It's been a BRUTAL week.. but more on that in another post. I don't have a lot of friends, but those I do have are golden :)

Again, if you need a good, local photographer, contact Lisa here.

And though we didn;t plan to photograph Duncan, she wouldn't leave the baby's side. We always thought Wicker would be Moiya's buddy. She's such a loving dog. And she may well be when Moiya gets to be a little older and can roughhouse. But little Duncan just loves that baby. Where Moiya goes, Duncan goes.

Odd side notes. I said that I wanted to raise our baby with books and with critters. And she has taken to both. When Duncan is around, Moiya watches her with rapt attention. And she gets so excited at story time each evening when I let her hold the book that I sometimes have to take it away in order to get her calmed down for bed. It reminds me of my parents' descriptions of me with magazine pictures when I was an infant.

Gosh I love this parent stuff! I have never been as happy as I am at this moment.

But on to the odd part: Jacq. went to visit her Mum last weekend with The Girl and Sheila wanted to know what Moiya's favorite TV programme was. Jacq. explained that she doesn;t have one. We don';t put Moiya in front of the TV except very, very rarely, and then only with a Baby Einstein DVD (I'm partial to the Baby Mozart and Baby Neptune DVDs myself). Moiya has never really expressed any interest in the TV and we don't intend to encourage it. Jacq's Mom acted like we were beating the child.. seemed to think she was so deprived. And I thought "What odd notions people have." There's a baby at daycare that's about the same age as Moiya, but who takes no interest in her surroundings. She seems almost retarded by comparison. And the only difference that we can see is that her mother just doesn't seem to interact with her much. I wonder how much tv she sees?

I remember, you see. I remember reading the National Geographic articles many decades ago about the experiments with baby monkeys (though it makes me nearly weep to remember). The ones they didn't cuddle, grew warped and stunted.

I remember things. Things I have read. Things I have seen. Things my parernts taught me. I have prepared for this job my whole life. You don't wait 50 years for a child and then screw it up.

Also.. we got the papers. The court hearing is definately ON for December 16th. And the motion has now been filed to change our baby's name to Moiya Kathleen Eagan.

The prize is almost within reach.

Okay... here's the pics. And a shout out to my friend Kelly, who has been down. Big huge hugs to ya, Sweetie:

 
No Longer Black and White

WARNING: POLITICS AHEAD!

Well, I feel better. I just could not figure out how the Republican Party, of which I was once a member, could have fallen so very far from the principles it once stood for. I could not figure out how people of even normal intelligence could listen to what this administration says, and look at what they do and not see the vast dichotomy between the two.

But I just stumbled across an organization of Republicans who are finally standing up and saying out loud the the Bush administration does not represent the core values of their party.

Of the many public statements I have read of late (including one from Ronald Reagan's duaghter), the most thoughtful, lucid, and powerful is this from the son of President Dwight Eisenhower, which I here reproduce without further comment:

"THE Presidential election to be held this coming Nov. 2 will be one of extraordinary importance to the future of our nation. The outcome will determine whether this country will continue on the same path it has followed for the last 3½ years or whether it will return to a set of core domestic and foreign policy values that have been at the heart of what has made this country great.

Now more than ever, we voters will have to make cool judgments, unencumbered by habits of the past. Experts tell us that we tend to vote as our parents did or as we “always have.” We remained loyal to party labels. We cannot afford that luxury in the election of 2004. There are times when we must break with the past, and I believe this is one of them.

As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.

The fact is that today’s “Republican” Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar. To me, the word “Republican” has always been synonymous with the word “responsibility,” which has meant limiting our governmental obligations to those we can afford in human and financial terms. Today’s whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion does not meet that criterion.

Responsibility used to be observed in foreign affairs. That has meant respect for others. America, though recognized as the leader of the community of nations, has always acted as a part of it, not as a maverick separate from that community and at times insulting towards it. Leadership involves setting a direction and building consensus, not viewing other countries as practically devoid of significance. Recent developments indicate that the current Republican Party leadership has confused confident leadership with hubris and arrogance.

In the Middle East crisis of 1991, President George H.W. Bush marshaled world opinion through the United Nations before employing military force to free Kuwait from Saddam Hussein. Through negotiation he arranged for the action to be financed by all the industrialized nations, not just the United States. When Kuwait had been freed, President George H. W. Bush stayed within the United Nations mandate, aware of the dangers of occupying an entire nation.

Today many people are rightly concerned about our precious individual freedoms, our privacy, the basis of our democracy. Of course we must fight terrorism, but have we irresponsibly gone overboard in doing so? I wonder. In 1960, President Eisenhower told the Republican convention, “If ever we put any other value above (our) liberty, and above principle, we shall lose both.” I would appreciate hearing such warnings from the Republican Party of today.

The Republican Party I used to know placed heavy emphasis on fiscal responsibility, which included balancing the budget whenever the state of the economy allowed it to do so. The Eisenhower administration accomplished that difficult task three times during its eight years in office. It did not attain that remarkable achievement by cutting taxes for the rich. Republicans disliked taxes, of course, but the party accepted them as a necessary means of keep the nation’s financial structure sound.

The Republicans used to be deeply concerned for the middle class and small business. Today’s Republican leadership, while not solely accountable for the loss of American jobs, encourages it with its tax code and heads us in the direction of a society of very rich and very poor.

Sen. Kerry, in whom I am willing to place my trust, has demonstrated that he is courageous, sober, competent, and concerned with fighting the dangers associated with the widening socio-economic gap in this country. I will vote for him enthusiastically.

I celebrate, along with other Americans, the diversity of opinion in this country. But let it be based on careful thought. I urge everyone, Republicans and Democrats alike, to avoid voting for a ticket merely because it carries the label of the party of one’s parents or of our own ingrained habits.

 
A Light at the End of the Tunnel

As of now, it looks like we have a court date of Decmeber 16. The adoption should be finalized at that time. All other hurdles have now been cleared and we are into the home stretch.

 
TGIF

A long a dreary week grinds to a close. Rain for three days.. a steady, gray, London drizzle. Ordinarily I'd like this.. the cool breeze, the leaves turning to glorious color.. the smell of the rain.

And I do love this time of year. I drive past fields of corn and wheat and soy (those that have not been turned into condos or strip malls) and watch the great havesting machinery plodding along, leaving neatly shorn stalks in their wake, like some overlarge barber. Sometime crows or other birds will walk along after the combines, pecking at the fallen grain. It is the end of the Celtic year, when the Green Man must die so the the year can begin anew. I love fall.

But see.. I still have this list of stuff I haven't done. And while it's raining, I can't make any headway! Grrr... I was at least starting to get some of the bulbs I bought into the ground, then I suddenly realised that you're supposed to plant them AFTER the first frost (oops) So I stopped... something else left incomplete.

The vegetable garden is finished. I harvested the last of the tomatoes and okra and we had a feast, but the time has come to put it to rest. So much to do as nature winds down. But, I love fall. I need to clean out the stove this weekend and call the chimney sweep. Soon I get back to splitting and stacking wood for the fire.

Not much else to tell, really, Jacquelyn is still in great pain. Her car repairs have finally begun from the deer strike. And Moiya is still the best part of any day.
I can't believe how much I look forward to driving home, just knowing I'll get to pick her up and hold her close. I can't believe I can love someone so much. She's gotten so big! Her head is perfectly steady mow, and she regularly reaches out for things that interest her and grabs them. During "tummy time" she can suport herself on her elbow nicely. And always so alert.. so interested in everything around her.

Tonight I grabbed a bunch of nearly-empty shampoo bottles and floated them in the bath with her and watched her bat them around. She is finally starting to discover splashing... and the fact the she can splash old Dad makes it all the funnier.

And always there is story time before we put her down. She actually focuses on the books now, and if I hold them near enough, she reaches out and get terribly excited about handling the pages.

Gosh, I'm such a sap :)

Note to self: ALWAYS make sure to take the garbage cans to the curb on time. Missed the pickup last week and consequently was not able to empty the diaper pail (which wwe have dubbed "Chernobyl").
Oi! Never again. Tried hosing it down with Lysol and the fumes just ate the Lysol, burped and laughed.

OK.. enough. To bed I go.

 
There Is No Joy in Mudville
Just a bad day all around. Failed to pass my Adobe Expert Certification exams. This is just a MAJOR humiliation.

Got screwed by a customer in the scoring after busting my behind for him in class.
No idea why.

And Jacq found out that, after they gave her the position of inventory control manager to see if she could handle responsiblity when she asked to be considered for Assistant Manager... and after she raised her store up about 23 notches to #1 in the district ratings -- while simultaneously on family leave in Lawrencburg during the Kentucky Hostage Crisis -- they are now saying that they just aren't sure and maybe they'll consider it again after Christmas (translation: she doesn't put out like the trailer trash they usually promote).

And since Moiya isn't old enough to get a flu shot, I had to get stuck today to protect her... after having had to argue with a receptionist who kept trying to tell me that "Caretaker of a child below the age of 6 months" meant only childcare workers, not parents(!?!). Fortumately a nurse came by and set her straight. Idiot!

But my sweeties are on the way home now and I'll soon get some Moiya snuggles. They make so many thing better.

 
New Pics

The first (digital) results from the pics my buddy Lisa took. As soon as the 35mm stuff comes available, I'll post it here.

Not much news. Jacquelyn has been down with an awful ear infection. Despite meds from the doctor, she continues to awaken in the night in tears.

She Who Must Be Obeyed is chowing down on cereal, veggies and formula now, and spending longer periods of "tummy time" each day, holding herself up and looking around. She should begin trying to crawl soon. I'll try to post movie clips soon.

And fall has arrived. The weather is cool and gray and wet. I LOVE IT. Going to clean out the stove this weekend and see if I can't round up some firewood :)

BTW: Give a break to a starving and very gifted artist. If you reside in the Louisville area and need a photographer, drop Lisa a line by clicking here

Also, I'm pleased to report that Lisa is having a public showing of her work in Frankfort, October 29. The press release is located here.

 
"The Great NHL Massacree"

Before I took down the site, I wrote that Regina had been sacked. That weas really only part of the matter.

It's been a wild week. The first we knew of any change was a note we recieved from Bob via e-mail, summoning us all to a mandatory meeting. I wrote back and joked that "as long as you aren;t gonna givce us all our pink slips." He assured me that he was not.

We are still in business because we joined with two more profitable New Horizons, Dayton and Cincinatti. And as the bad business decisions from Louisville kept coming (us rank and file have known all along that the policies being persued were disasteroous), revenue continued to drop and we sank further into the hole.

Finally Dayton got tired of subsidizing us. They identifeid the same problems that us ground troops had two years ago and took action.

By the time we arrived for work that Monday morning, the entire administrative staff had been fired (ok.. Bob - the owner - had been "retired"). And Dayton sent down two of their best performers to take the reins.

So.. everything is up in the air. Jodi and Allen are running the show, after a tearful departure of the old crew. The newfolk seem to know their business, and we are all hoping that they can put the place back on its feet. But everythin, everything, everything is in a state of flux. As Lao Tsu said, Change is what life is all about. (I still don;t like it much, though) :)

We'll just have to ride it out, wait, and see what develops.

 
Work in Progress

Sorry for the interruption... but there were over 100 posts on this blog and it was well past time to archive some of them. I tried getting Blogger to do it, but because it is channeling the script back into my web site rather than its own, it rather scrambled the lot. This left me no option but to sit down and hand-code the whole thing, rearrange all the files on the site, and then upload Innisfree all over again.

The blog entries have been archived by year. And the comments section (a third-party plug-in that never worked right... it was supposed to left me know when an entry had been made, and NEVER did) has been replaced with a link directly to my email. If anyone knows of another script that works better, I'll be happy to try it.

In case you haven't ever seen what web pages look like divested of their pretty trappings, here's what I've been doing for two weeks:


The 2003 and 2002 sectrions came out all right, but there are still quirks on the template for the main ("Recent") page. I'll eventually track all the "fiddly bits" (as Slartibartfast called them) down and fix them. But it will be slow going. Have patience.

In January, I'll archive the 2004 stuff, but it should be an easy matter by then.

 
Brave Heart

Sorry to hear of the passing of Christopher Reeve. While not a fan of his, I admired his courage and outlook on life.
As Sir Winston said, "Never give up."

 
Good Kitty

In what has become part of our morning ritual, as soon as Jacquelyn laid Moiya down on our bed to change her clothes for daycare, Duncan came trotting in and hopped up beside her. She nuzzled Moiya with her head, at which point the baby reached out and grabbed a handful of fur.

Now, I can tell you from personal experience, when she pulls the hair on my arm, it hurts like hell. And yet the cat just sat there and let her do it. And instead of backing off when Moiya let go, she just nuzzled her again and laid down beside her.

 
Reporting In

For no other reason than that I have nothing really to say, I pass along my situation report from my three-day onsite.

At Innisfree, nothing is really new. Moiya continues to grow (we went to the Dr. yesterday and got our shots. I had not been there before and the sight of the tray with 4 hypos on it was almost as harrowing as hearing my baby cry). She has decided (despite my very best efforts to persuade her otherwise) that breakfast is to be served at 4 a.m. And she has finally taken notice of "the girls" Or more particularly, Duncan.

Duncan has to come and be part of the bedtime ritual now. When we prep Moiya for bath and story-time and bed, Duncan comes running and circles Moiya, rubbing against us and sniffing her. Not sure why. But Moiya is utterly fascinated. Whereas before she was aware in a sort of vague way, when Duncan now comes into view, her eyes lock on and she turns her head around to keep her in veiw.

The other morning I was changing and dressing Moiya to take her to daycare and Duncan hopped up beside her. Moiya got suddenly quiet and turned her head to watch. She reached out a chubby hand to Duncan and petted her fur. Duncan for her part held still and allowed this, which endeared her even more to me.

So interesting all this is. And I am reminded every day of the great fortune I have to be sharing this home with the souls that I do... however many legs they walk on.

Oh... almost forgot. Ms. Moiya has now gone from formula to rice cereal, to (as of yesterday) squished veggies -- which she likes!

Have also been playing with getting our home movies (as well as photos, family records and the like) preserved digitally on DVD. Burned my first disk last night with only a few errors. Can now share more things, preserve my Dad's memoirs, and will shortly begin scanning and saving all the family photos I can lay hands on. If the paper fails, I want to have a backup for my girl.

Ok.. enough serious. Here's my report on the last three days at work (onsite):

"Technically, a real disaster. Two machines wouldn't even boot and one was simply hauled away, never to be seen again (so one student was simply "un-enrolled" and sent back to work).

Still using multiple different versions of Excel.. a problem compounded by the fact that they replaced the workstations on the back row with some rather ... um... vintage?... desktop units that were not only running different versions of Excel, but also different versions of Windows. And they didn't seem to be set up quite right, as the entire row kept locking up and generating myriad error messages, "this feature not installed", "pivot tables are for sissies", "yo mamma likes Macs", etc. One guy (whose computer would only produce a thin, white band across the screen when asked to generate a chart) just gave up after the second day and looked on with another student.

Other than that, class was just peachy-keen-o. Filled in the time with as much extra stuff as I could think of that they might find useful. Answered all questions ans stayed after on the last day to work through some formulas for one student. Some of the guys were bored (at first... but then I found out that they knew what "Talk Like a Pirate Day" was, and we had fun after that. "Arrrrr.... Scurvy damned computers these be! Arrrrr...". Two ladies just looked affronted to be there at all (on rereading the above line, I can maybe understand that). One really seemed to know her stuff, but the other was the sort of clueless person who seems inclined to blame the instructor for their dumbness. Both seemed to have had their sense of humor surgically removed. (Perhaps there is a black market trade in it, like body parts?)

On the other hand, one brave guy was from the mfg plant and didn't have a clue at all about computers, but he worked hard and did very well (as I told him). I really admire that kind of spunk and stayed near him to make sure he could keep up ok.

Lousy computers, nice facility otherwise (free Mountain Dew!). And Amy French (our contact) is just a sweetheart of a person. ILM was fine. No Elvis appearance, though. I think he really did move to another plane of existence. However I did very briefly channel the spirits of Millard Fillmore and Howard K. Smith."

Okay.... off to add another coat to the deck before I pick herself up from daycare.

 
Season's End

Hard to believe, but fall is here already. 2004 will go down as the "Summer That Never Was", as far as I'm concerned.
Oh, I had such plans.. so many things that I was going to do to bring the grounds under control and make our house look a little less like (as I put it) Dogpatch, USA (oldsters will understand).

But I had not figured on so many things. We never really do, do we?

The going joke when I was in therapy (one of the MANY times) was Q: How do you make God laugh? A: Make a plan.

Good stuff, that!. But I really did know the plan... I just didn't know the timetable :)

And now Autumn is upon us. This is my favorite time of year, and always has been. The air turns crisp and clean. Mornings are chill. The leaves begin to turn those GLORIOUS colors. And all the world slows down just a little. Each day seems more immediate and real.

In some ways, I miss my ancestral past (which I never knew but which seems encoded in my soul), when life was governed by the pace of the natural world. We lost something vital there, when we gained indoor lighting and moved away from the farming world.

But in spite of modern intrusions, autumn is still a time of thought and refelction. It is a time for gazing into the fire (and of lighting them. Have you ever noticed that people with fireplaces light them more often in Autumn than in Winter?). A time to process all that summer was, in preperation for the spring. In that way, perhaps, it serves the same function for us as dreams, which process the events of the day and clear the slate for the waking world of morning.

Whatever.. I only know that my heart and soul are far more alive now than at any point in the year. My senses are alive and my wicked mind in balance for once. With no disrespect meant to Saint Paxil, you gotta enjoy that while it lasts!

Maybe it has to do with the old Celtic tradition that held that day began at dark and the year began at the end of summer. Maybe I'm just gearing up for the next round, eh? Maybe this is just the breather before whatever else God has in mind for us (and make no mistake... there is more)

One thing is certain... as God promised, it will always and forever be an adventure.

And I'm up for it! Today I got a shipment of bulbs I'd ordered way back when. Now is the time to plant them. They say that a garden is the ultimate sign of faith in the future.

And so I was thinking: when these come up and flower, the little bundle sleeping in my arms will be up and actually walking! I'll be able to wander through the garden with her and teach her what flowers are.. and oversee her gathering a few to take back to her Mommy (as I have with Katie.. not that her mother cares).

Damn! It just doesn;t get any better than that!!!!!!

Gosh... I like this Fatherhood stuff :)

 
Prayers
Prayers are requested for our business manager, Regina. Regina is a good soul, who has been very accomodating during our long period of refuge. Regina does my teaching schedule adn, true to the form that you never know who your friends are till the chips are down, did everything she could to cut me slack in that most difficult period.

Last week her Dad was diagnosed with colon cancer.. and the following day her uncle (aged 55.. barely older than me) dropped dead of a heart attack.

So prayers are requested for her and her family. Please. It would mean a lot.

 
Patriots
!!(warning: politics ahead)!!!

Just drove into Corydon and made sure all my voter registration stuff was in order. Whatever your feelings and whatever your beliefs, GET OUT AND VOTE.

• Whoever you believe should win, VOTE


• Whatever your political leanings may be, VOTE


• Whether you like your choices or no, VOTE

If I had my way, any sorry-assed idiot who doesn't vote (and I get so tired of the twenty-somethings whining about how "I don't like either of them so I'm staying home") would be shipped to Iran.

People died to give you this right. Even if you lose (even if the other side rigs the vote in Florida and you lose) remember this above all: people DIED to give you this right. And most of the world would gladly trade places with you if they could. So don't you DARE give it up!

There has been much big-mouthing these past few years over what is and is not "patriotic" and what it does and does not mean to be "a true American" Well here it is, children. Voting is your duty if you live in this country and enjoy the rights you do here. Get up and vote.

Now, that having been said, and proper respect paid to getting BOTH sides to vote (and despite the fact that I bite my tongue... erm... pen? daily to keep this blog a relatively politics-free zone) ...and I do apologize Mum.... and.... despite my respect for all the folks who care enough to have opinions in this debate...

But dammit.... I now have a daughter's future to think about... and I do... a lot), so I feel real no guilt about slipping this item in:

If you care about our service men and women, you really should read this column by Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col. USAF (ret.) that appeared recently in Militaryweek.com Lord knows you won't hear this from the big-business-owned commercial media. (And before you say it... she's a Conservative).

So flame away. I now return you to you regularly-scheduled baby-pictures :)

 
Still More Smiles

Thanks to teamwork yesterday, we were able to get a few more pictures of baby smiles.

The picture in the crib is with what has become "her" bear. My friend Lisa (of long, long ago.. back when I was working at U of L) sent it to her because, as she said in a letter: "I knew that Mr. Pooh would be a favorite cause he grabbed me while I was in his store and said "take me to Moiya, I am her bear". He will be a good friend to you. "

And so he is. If ww put him next to her she just snuggles in and goes to sleep.

My other friend Lisa (who is a gifted photographer and a curator at the Derby Museum.) is coming next Sunday to take pictures. I have tremendous faith in Lisa's work... and she can't (on her worst day) rival the garbage we got from the J.C. Penny "portrait studio" where a Goth chick fumbled around and eventually took some pics of a terrified and most unhappy baby. And then delayed delivery for a month. (Jacq told them to get stuffed).

In the last few days Moiya has now found both of her feet! She doesn't put them in her mouth (yet) but likes to grab them both and roll around like a Weeble. And this morning she found her tongue.. and spent the morning lying in bed talking and sticking it out at us:) Pretty funny stuff. Wish I'd had the camera ready. Still... we're doing ok documenting our little girl, I think.

Not that I necessarily think the wqhole world is as fascinated with this stuff as we are.. but I'm keeping this little entries documenting our little girl, and burning them to a DVD for her with pics and footage. And someday it will be important to her :)

 
Full Body Smile

Mom took the only picture we have thus far of our little girl laughing :)

 
Worth 1000 Words

 
Moiya Speaks

Got a tiny digital camera that, as it turns out, does movies clips with sound. This is a good thing, as The Girl tends (when she is in a good mood) to talk LOTS. Don;t have a tape deck. And any time I get near her with the camera, she clams up. But today she was in her playpen, and with the mesh sides, I could see her but she couldn;t see me. And so I got a clip of her smiling and jabbering to herself.

The original is sparkling clear.. but at 14Mg I thought I ought to reduce the size a bit. Still.. it's clear enough. At 2Mg it still might be too large, but we'll see.

Click here for the clip.

 
Things I have learned in the past three months

• Never, ever hold a baby over yourself unless they are fully diapered.


• Rice cereal is just as good as giving a baby valium... and cheaper.


• Not only can you tell your baby's cry in a room full of infants, you can also tell if it's your baby's diaper that needs changing


• Babies have no conception of the meaning of the words "Just a minute."


• In the name of mental health, no man should ever have to walk in on his Mother-in-Law talking about "boiling nipples"


• Babies are a portal to another dimension. When they start vomiting, WAY more stuff comes out than could possibly have gone in.


• Holding a baby close at the end of a hard day is also better for Daddies than valium. And cheaper

 
On Morgul Blades

(Sigh) Dark thoughts of faithlessness and old betrayals have come and gone all day. As Frodo discovered, some wounds never do heal. You push on and do what you must. But they never heal.

More writing when this wretched mood passes....

 
Trsut is a Four Letter Word

I was reminded by an email today that it is my fifth anniversary at New Horizons. And that deserves some small comment.

I came to New Horizons destitute and desperate.. at the literal end of my rope in every conceivable way. I bald-faced lied about my experience, desperate for a job (and knowing that everyone else had already turned me down).

And they hired me. Everything good since then is an extension of that sinple fact.

I've tried ever since to pay back that chance and my gratitude. And Lord knows I've learned So much SO fast. I don't think I've ever had a job where I knew what I was doing when I started. It must be nice. All I know is this: You paddle quickly when the water threatens to close over your head, eh?

My boss of bosses posted this today:
"Listen my friends and you shall hear of the teaching saga of Michael Eagan. On the 15th of September in '99, hardly an employee is still here who can remember that famous day and year!

FIVE YEARS! Of excellent teaching. Always entertaining, never phased by cell phone usage or periodic Elvis apparitions. (inside joke here.. I often report Elvis having appeared in my end-of-class reports. No.. I don't know why) Several times on the list of top ten applications instructors in the NH network. Many times in five years Instructor of the Month. Cares about what our students learn.

Thanks Michael for five years of teaching! Michael is on an onsite today so Please remember to say a word to him when he is back in the office."

And while I am at it, I need to make this remark:
When I was with the school system, I gave more than my all. In 17 years I was consistently derided and insulted and overlooked. On principal told me that he could order me to do "any damned thing" he wanted. Another told me that I and my "little friends ought to be damned glad you have jobs."

The work and the work conditio0ns were unspeakable.. and I wish I had quit fully 10 years before I did. But the worst cut was this: my coworkers we just evil; though I considered many friends, the infighting and turf-wars were endless and bitter and unreasoning. I spent half my time negotiating alliances between warring parties that later joined forces to denigrate me. And when I left and most needed the friendship of those I had supported, I found that I had no friends there. Only allies of convenience -- and I was no longer convenient.

But at NH, for all its faults (and they are many) I have been treated with (generally) consideration. I have been rewarded when I have done well (until Bush put the economy in the crapper). I have been lauded and my opinions listened to. I have prospered by my wits more than by my ability to curry favors.

And best of all, I can honestly say that I love the people I work with. Many have come and gone. And many I love have gone. But at this point, we are a band of brothers. There has never been a group of people I have felt more comfortable with... have trusted more,.. or been more supported by.

When Jacq was stranded downtown, my collegues went and got her.
When I have been sick, my collegues have covered me... or swapped classes with me when my schedule was too arduous. Few people can get me mindlessly giggling as much as my co-workers. And when we were caught between two worlds and trying to make life work with our girl.. my bosses and collegues bent over backwards (in a quiet way) to help out.

So... Despite my frequent complaints:
The Few.. The Proud.. The Slightly Weird.
The staff of New Horizons Louisville!

Bless 'em all.

"Though I've belted and I've flayed you
By the living God who made you
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din."
~R. Kipling~

 
Brief Update

Woof! Tough times. Moiya is in the process of teething.. weird; she smiles while she cries, and drools quite astonishing amounts of.. um... stuff... constantly.

Still trying to settle in. Still haven't found places for all of the tons of baby-stuff we brought home... much less the stuff she had ALREADY outgrown. I've bought a gizmo that converts video to computer files so I can edit them.. and then burn them to DVDs. And Jacq tried to print the pics we had taken to put in thank you cards.. only to find that the image quality is not suitable for printing.. so now we have a pricy digital cam which I have NO idea how to turn on.

But when I do.. pics and movie footage will be right here.

 
Spooky

And here I thought that the only two people reading this were my wife and my Mother (and sometimes my buddies Kelly and Ellen)

Just got a note from Mariana, who worked with me on Pinafore in... um... 1885 as my best guess. Who reached me from here.

What a wonderful thing this Web is!

And hugs to you all!

 
The Eyes Have It

As Leonardo noted (but is seldom credited with), the eyes are the windows of the soul. They flash.. they cloud, they shake the world. But until Moiya, I have never seen them change color.

In the Dr. Who novels, writers often comment on the fact that the 7th doctor's eyes darken in anger. I always thought that it was a writer's conceit.

But when this little girl is really focused, her blue eyes turn nearly black!

Just an observation. As Melville said (in the Confidence Man, for those of you who check): "Something more may come of this."

 
Bridging the Gap

I was thinking on the drive home today.. "what's my absolute favorite thing in the world?" And the answer was simple and easy to come by: I love holding my daughter.

But if I had my druthers, I'd have another, more "favorite" thing: I'd love to be able to talk with her.

Forget the forebrain and opposable thumbs. Speech is what makes us human. And much though I love the written word, it is only a form of speech. And an imperfect one.

Something I rmember from my childhood... though I cannot recall the source: we are not very old before we realise how very alone we are. Or as Orson Wells said "We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone". Each of us is enclosed (or marooned) in a shell of bone. We can never EVER know another being directly. We are only as joined to others to the extent that we can accomplish through words.

Perhaps that is why I was an English major and why I continue my love affair with and fury at the sloppy abuse of (and the sly use of, Mr. Bush) language. English is my first and dearest love, prior to Moiya. Mess with her in front of me at your peril. I've gotten into more arguments over her than anything else in life.

So I guess those are the twin themes of my life: time and words.

Sometimes (and any dog owner can attest to this) Wicker will come up to me and look into my eyes. She looks directly, with an unaccustomed sense of urgency, or focus. It is so clear that she is willing me to know what she is thinking. The fact that she assumes that I CAN gives me pause as to what dogs can tell of us. Everyone knows of some dog story in which they seem to be able to read our minds. And I sometimes wonder... can they really? And is that why they so obviously assume that we can read theirs?

But alas, I cannot.

I can come close.. but ultimately, as much as I love my dog (or my cats, my wife, my daughter) they are utterly seperate from me.

Except for language.

I remember when I began to read (though not to hear... which important as it was, is lost to me as a memory). One day words were funny squiggles on paper. The next day they resolved themselves (with a shock I will never forget) into words. And from that point on, I was able to glimpse other minds and share (however dimly) in the emotions of other souls. Some of my best friends in troubled times became those who had passed on.... but who had left their thoughts and views behind.

Is is any wonder that I love language?

I felt a similar pull on the drive home as I listened (as I often do) to music sung in Gaelic. This is the language of my forebears... from the 1300s to the 1900s. And yet I cannot coax the meaning from it. As with my pup... I know that there is so much there to be told.. but I cannot divine anything beyond the most basic intents.

And that is what I most want from my daughter. I adore holding her sweet self... I love the feel of her and the smell and the sound of that little person. But what i really crave beyond words is the ablity to touch her mind. And to have her touch mine. I want to see the world through her eyes and share the view through mine. And that I can only do through language.

I love talking to my neice, Katie.

Katie is three and has finally grasped language. I've known her from birth... but only now has she opened to me as a human being. Every chance we get we sit and play make-believe games. And i love listening to her explain the games to me; the insight into her mind and self just takes my breath away. Most of the other adult patronize and talk down to her, as though she is something less than they.

But to me she is like a Faberge egg.. intricate and suprising.. multifaceted and... and... pure magic!

And .. oh Lord.. the day I can sit and converse with my own little girl!

So.. yeah.. I love to hold her. I love to talk to her and hear her coo at me. But some day we will actually talk... and then my life will finally reach its high point.

 
AUGUST 2004 INSTRUCTOR OF THE MONTH IS...

Michael Eagan


Michael continued his march on excellence in August. His postclass eval scores exceeded everyone’s for both the overall and instructor areas in MTM, well exceeding the New Horizons standard in both areas. While doing so, he taught the second largest number of students this month as well. Somehow, he managed to pull this off while traveling East AND West on an almost daily basis awaiting approval to do the border crossing with their new baby. Michael also has my personal thanks for keeping the Instructor Team on the right track during my absence the last two weeks of the month.

Hopefully, this month will be a bit less stressful for all the Eagans as Michael, Jacqlyn, and Moya have now <> settled in across the border. . .

F.

 
Over the River and Through the Woods..

I was so afraid something would go wrong. I've been trying for 50 years to give my Mama grandbabies. But children are so special.. and it takes a special person to raise a child. (Sometime soon I'll sound off about my niece.. and how I think her parents are dirt).

But I've looked to 50 years for the mother of my children. And when I was led to her.. it seemed we would have no children. And then when the promises I had been given were fulfilled...

Well....... hell.. there IS such a thing as performance pressure ya know!

But Moiya was an angel. And all went well. And my Mama got to meet her grandbaby after 50 years of waiting. And I understood so much better what my Momma and Dad went through in raising me. And doubtless I'll know more with each passing day.

But enough. Each generation carries the stamp of those that came before.. and each stives to be unique. I have posted what we know of the past and the present and the future at www.caindyer.com

For now.. my Moiya met my Momma. Here are the pics and a tiny clip. Jacq's little still camera can take crude movies. I took the girl to see my Dad at his gravesite as well.. but much though I love you all... you were not invited to that.




Sleepy

Hi Grandma!


And what this clip lacks in quality it makes up in for in tenderness
Meeting clip

 
The Best Laid Plans..

I was looking over the todo list I carefully made out at the beginning of summer, back when I was scheduling my vacation time.

Hmmm... don't seem to have accomplished much over the summer.
Something must have come up....

 
I watched the antics of the RNC last night and it made me want to weep for my country.

As Mathew Henry said in his commentaries on the Book of Jeremiah, "There are none so blind as those that will not see".

Nothing more. Words simply fail me.

 
It's been a rough week.

Moiya has settled in beautifully at daycare. They are very sweet with her and she seems quite taken with them. Then only drawback seems to be weekends, when for reasons unknown to her, we throw her schedule all out of whack. Man! I thought the dog and myself got stroppy when our schedules changed. The two of us are pikers compared to the Moiya-girl.

And of course, as we were warned, it was no time at all before she picked up a bug. Whatever it was didn't seem to lay her too low, a little fever and a tummy upset (although I now know what an "up-the-back diaper" is) -- nothing a little baby tylenol couldn't cope with. But of course it knocked Mom and Dad down like a brick. Jacquelyn still has her cough a week later.

In fact overall, Jacquelyn had a worse week than I did, I think. Last Monday, in the wee hours of the morning as she was taking Moiya to daycare, she hit a deer. This is a very rural area and such things are non utterly unexpected. But there was the threefold shock of having a wreck, having a wreck with her baby in the car, and killing a living thing.

I think the last two were the worst for her. Fortunately the baby slept through the entire incident, so it was obvious she wasn't much traumatised by the incident. But the death of the deer really got to her. They are such pretty creatures, and innocent. And sudden death is such an ugly thing. There was apparently blood everywhere, and "chunks" of deer caught in the grill. Thank God the deer was killed. If it had been maimed and in pain, I'm sure she'd have had an even harder time of it.

If you've only seen pictures of deer, or only seen them at a distance, you really have no sense of how large they really are. I've been about 15 feet away and these things are the size of a small horse. A direct strike at 65 would total your car. Fortunately this was a corner strike... but it's still going to cost a fair amount to restore the hood and fender and headlight.

Anyway. The police officer showed up finally.. whereupon according to Jacquelyn Moiya woke and and proceded to "flirt shamelessly" with him. This tnedency will bear watching as she gets older, no doubt.

A few days later I was congratulating myself on being the sole healthy member of the household when, as I was getting ready for work, I proceded to decorate the bathroom with my breakfast. But the following morning I was running 103.3 and Jacquelyn was packing ice around me to bring the fever down.

I was raised in the old school... we sweated the fever out with lots of blankets. But this is apparently no longer in line with current medical thinking. Ice is the thing these days. The challenge however is in getting an extremely stubborn, cranky, little man with extreme chills to hold still whilst you peel away his nice warm blankets and pour ice over him.

Apparently I "scream like a woman"

 
That Good Night

My little girl did not have a good night last night. She does not understand weekends and only knows them as disruptions to her routines. And when her routine has been disrupted, getting her to sleep at night is a long, slow slog.

I wish my Dad was here to see her. He's be so proud.

I think of him at the strangest times. Like him (and like Moiya), I don't easily go to sleep at day's end. For exactly that reason: it is the day's end. Naps are fine. Naps you indulge and enjoy and then the day goes merrily on.

But if I close my eyes at night, when I open them again it is a new day and the old one is gone forever. I hate that turning loose... that giving up of something that cannot be gotten back. I hated it as a child, and now in my fifties I hate it just the same if not more.

And so as I watched my little girl fighting sleep.. flailing her little arms and legs to try to fend it off -- I had to smile at the recognition of the impulse. And I was suddenly reminded of the line from Dylan Thomas
"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And I remembered what my Mom had said of Dad's last trip to the hospital as he was dying. How when she turned away to get a wheelchair for him she turned back to find him struggling to fight his way up and out of the car with his failing strength. And how she couldn't understand why he wouldn't wait for the wheelchair.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

And I know why. And I see it in my daughter, fighting off sleep. And I smile. Dad would have been so proud.

As I say.. I think of him at odd times.

 
Moiya Smiles!

Another small clip. Pretty fun stuff for a $30 camera from WalMart and the free movie editor in Windows!

Smiles.wmv

 
Moiya Movie
Had to put the baby in front of the web cam. Of course she decided to just sit there like a lump... but that's always the way. Cute things only happen when the camera is off. But this was done the day after she arrived here. I just wanted to be able to show her herself in later years. It's a part of the Tardis I'm building for her. This clip has been "dumbed down" to a small file size. The one she will one day see is of higher quality.
moiya comes home.wmv

 
We lost some battles

We have won the war.....

We are home and starting to settle in. All is still very much up in the air. But at least.. and at long last... we have made a start.

Innisfree is delighted. She has waited a long time for a family. And her sense of fullfillment is palpable. The critters are, as always, sweet. They have basically been on their own for 2.5 months, and to their credit have only begun to "go native" the last 2-3 weeks. Their training is a little hazy. But it is still there, and time will sort that out.

Moiya is in NO way threatened by the fur racing all around her. The Simon doesn;t care (Moiya can't pet her), The Duncan is fascinated (she sits and either stares or sniffs) and the Wicker thinks we brought home a baby just for her. If the baby cries, she sits outside the door and cires too. If we cant hear the baby cry, she will race back and forth between us and the baby like Lassie, until we check on her.

Basically, our lives are still utter chaos. But we are all HOME. The family is finally, utterly, together.

 
"Thus began our longest journey together."
Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird

Just got word from our Indiana lawyer moments ago. The seige is over.
We can go home.
We can go home.

Oh! We can go home!!

 

On This Day in History
I want my daughter to look back on this journal and see more of the summer of 2004 than the angst surrounding her entry into our lives. Life goes sweetly ever on, whether we will it or no, in good times and in bad, without regard to our petty problems. So here are a few snaps to show what Innisfree has been up to in our absence.
	The onions and garlic and beans did not fare well. But the okra and tomatoes are very happy. Thus far I've put up 3 big freezer bags of okra nad cherry tomatoes. And I've canned 7 quarts of tomatoes. Canning is pure magic to me. How amazing to open a jar in winter and smell the freshness of summer. More of the "time standing still" stuff I love so well!
	The lilly bed we planted last year, though sparse, has returned. Now that I know what will grow in that bed, I've more on order and will be planting in bulk in fall. Stay tuned for this time next year!
The cuttings I took and rooted from my Father-In-Law's willow trees have grown from cuttings (which I put into the ground when we got Moiya) into young trees.
	If all else dies, we can always grow black-eyed susans, and oregano. Massive blasts of Round Up simply make them smack their lips and exclaim "Mmmm! Spicey!"
	Woah! Serious expense, Dudes! We bought a crib! The devil to transport and assemble (especially with two cats "helping") it seems bigger than our own bed. It will (supposedly) convert in due time to a toddler bed, a day bed, and an full-size bed. Winnie the Pooh bedding on mobile may be less attractive then...
	And of course, here's the reason I'm up late writing this drivel..

 
The Message

Got one of my periodic "messages" this afternoon, just after I put the girl down for her nap. "Gather your belongings" it said. "The end draws near."

Weird to be on the recieving end of this sort of thing... but I have never been steered wrong since I began listening.

The siege will end this week. Depend on it.

 
Kentucky Hostage Crisis Day 73

Well.. the assurances we were given week before last that we would be home by last weekend turned out to be worth every bit as much as all the other assurances we've received.

The seige continues into its TWELVTH WEEK with no end it sight. We are both back to work this week, so it's another mad emergency scramble to keep everything together. Wicker will have to go into storage again, whilst the cats, bunny, and house fend for themselves. We had hoped to be out of here at least by the time my In-Laws return from Hungary this weekend.. but that is now very much in doubt.

We have heard that the papers have been sent to Frankfort.. but there they appear to be languishing on some faceless functionary's desk. If they are ever approved, they must then go to Indianapolis for Indiana approval....

 
Day 64
More baby pics

Sleeping Like a Baby


Chewing Daddy's Hand


Who..Me?

 
Baby Smiles and Kitty Love

Life just keeps getting weirder. As Jacq's has to be back at work this week, I've got to do a lot of shuttling. She takes Moiya to work with her at 3 and I pick her up after I get off at 4 and drive her back to Lawrenceburg. This leaves our four-footed girls pretty much on their own for now, except for today and Thursday when I have to prep new class (which I can do at home... at least till three when I still have to go get Moiya). So this morning I took Wicker in to be groomed and boarded. She loves our vet and the staff, so she was excited to go on a car ride AND see her friends. But dear Lord! If I thought that the house was empty before!

Innisfree is getting unhappy. You can tell when you walk in the front door. The spirit of the place is growing faint and morose. She wants her children home.

Laid down a few minutes back intending to take a 30 minute nap. Studying manauls aboout color calibration of computere monitors tends to make me sleepy and I've found that a short nap is more effective than fighting it. I was a little leery. The last time I laid down for a nap I laid on a wasp that had crawled in for.. I supposed a wasp siesta.. I don't know. This time, no wasp.

But shortly I felt hot breath and purring in my ear. Under other circumstances this might have been pretty nice. But since I knew I was alone with two cats....
I pretended to be asleep, hoping Simon would give up, but no dice. First she pretty much stuck her nose in my mouth (she isn't happy till she can smell your breath). So I petted her and scratched her ears. Then she decided to groom me.

This is really pretty big stuff to cats.. the ultimate expression of affection. So I hate to fend her off for fear of hurting her feelings. I mean... she doesn;t even groom Duncan. Hell, she doesn;t even groom herself. But here she was, studiously licking my left ear. Most have been pretty dirty, because 15 mintues later, I still had a cat tongue working furiously in my ear (raspy little thing, too). I tried to slowly roll over, to move my ear out of reach, but Simon just kept stretching. So now I'm lying on my back with a cat lying full length across my face, vigorously cleaning out my ear. And I got the giggles.

Do these things happen to other people?

Finally got my ear out of reach, so she started on my nose and eyebrows. I finally sat up when the inside of my nose looked likely for a show of kitty affection. :)

On the other end of my universe...

Moiya has learned to smile. Not smile like she does when she's pooping or has gas -- real smiles. And she knows me now. I talk to her every day by phone when I'm away, and it seems to have helped. When I pick her up and look in her eyes and talk to her she just grins hugely at me. And of course I melt. Now that Mommy is working nights again, Moiya and I have been on our own at bath time. I don;t do things as well as Mum apparently, but she mostly forgives me as long as I sing Gilbert and Sullivan to her whilst I warm her up after (she likes the bath, but does NOT like coming ouot into the cold, cold air). And she takes lots of naps on Daddy's tummy while he reads.

Hmm.. clean ears and baby smiles. Despite everything, life can;t be all that bad, I guess.

 
Digging In
 
Every time I think it can't get any worse,  fate tinkles on our heads again.
 
As of 2 p.m. today,  Kentucky decided that it wants a social worker to go and interview the birth-mother and write a report. Then when they get that bit of paper they will want to review all the materials again. Then God only knows what new hoops there will be to jump through or what the idiot lawyer will lose, forget to do, or screw up.
 
And this is not for the adoption. This is only to let Indiana take over the adoption process.
 
We're not sure what to do now or how we will cope. Jacquelyn is out of leave time and must return to work on Monday at 40 hrs per week, so I have to cover looking after the baby rather than the critters. We cannot afford to board to dog for what now seems to be an indefinate period (we've been given so many time estimates -- all wrong -- that we've given up trying to plan around them). The Indiana daycare is holding open their last  slot for us, but will only do so for so long. 
 
I don't know where we go from here. I've always told Jacquelyn that and Irishman's revenge is just to "outlast all the other bastards."  And I guess that's what we have to do now, if only we can figure out how.  We have faith, but no more cheer or optimism left. 
 
I do have a fair amou