#116 In which our hero talks about random junk.

Blah. This is about the fourth time I've started a new posting, but got bored halfway through it and started over. I enjoy Web sites that have longer, coherent stories with a beginning, middle and ending... but I'm discovering that my mind works in spits and spurts, and isn't always conducive to this kind of thing.

So, to make my mind happy and to alleviate my guilt in not posting in more than a week, I present a virtual grab-bag of stuff.

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There's a little boy at the girls' daycare named Loki. Yeah, Loki. As in the Norse god of mischief. Anyway... he's a little older than Lily and they have become fast friends. But, for whatever reason, Loki has become the scapegoat for just about everything that bothers Lily. For example, if she's walking and trips and falls, she's say, "Daddy, Loki pushed me down!" I was a little worried that this kid was trouble, because every little bruise or scratch was because, "Loki kicked me!" or the like.

This came to a head yesterday. I was changing a nasty diaper when we had this exchange:

LILY: Ow, daddy!
ME: I'm sorry, does that hurt?
L: Yeah!
ME: What hurts, honey?
L: Loki put his finger in my 'gina.
ME: Loki put his finger in your vagina?
L: Yeah!
ME: Dear god, I hope that isn't true.

I mean, of course it isn't true. But still, it was just about the most alarming thing I've ever heard come out of my child's mouth.

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Our shower has some of the little girls foam letter shapes in it right now, left over from the last mommy-daughter shower. The Scientist and I took turns spelling things and letting the other discover them during their shower. Since the selection was just W, G, N and U, the combinations where limited. I was pretty proud of my WUGZ (turning the "N" sideways so it looked like a "Z") until the next day I saw that my wonderful wife had turned the U upside-down (so it sorta looked like an "A") to spell WANG.

When I got into the shower this morning I saw that the shower wall now read MY JUNK. I accused The Scientist of purposefully bringing in specific letters, but she swore that it was just a random handful before the last shower. This excuse was given a little credibility when I noticed that there was a leftover V and G.

I, of course, took this opportunity to alter her message to say MY GUNK. And to really drive home the point, I positioned the J to be violating the V.

This is why our marriage works.

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And in an odd synchronicity, just as I was racking my brain for one more item to fill out this posting, I came (again) across this tagging/meme thingy, (most recently here), and figured I'd jump on the bandwagon, too.

Four jobs I've had:

1. Busboy
2. Water-treatment plant worker (which was exactly as glamorous as it sounds)
3. Phone customer service drone
4. Chef garde manger (threw that in just to sound fancy)

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. The Incredibles (which is fortunate, since Lily demands to see this flick at least once a day
2. Streets of Fire
3. The Shawshank Redemption (which makes it seem like I'm copying Midwesty, but I'm a sucker for buddy movies anyway... add in a little anal rape and I just can't resist)
4. Napoleon Dynamite

Four places I've lived:

1. On the campus of The Ohio State University
2. Near the campus of The Ohio State University
3. Grandview Heights, OH
4. Cleveland, OH

Jeez... not exactly well-traveled, am I?

Four TV shows I love:

1. My Name is Earl
2. Battlestar Galactica
3. How I Met Your Mother
4. Survivor

Four places I've vacationed:

1. Allegany National Forest Reserve, PA
2. Various North Carolinian beaches
3. Honolulu, HI (honeymoon counts, right?)
4. Richmond, VA

Four of my favorite dishes:

1. Pfaltzgraff diner plate (Heritage pattern)
2. Pfaltzgraff soup tureen (Heritage pattern)
3. Pfaltzgraff "cereal lovers" bowl (Heritage pattern)
4. Pfaltzgraff large platter (Heritage pattern)

Four sites I visit daily:

1. Google (homepage)
2. Defective Yeti
3. Laid-off Dad
4. PVP
   

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Home, playing with the girls
2. Home, hanging out with my wife
3. Home, trying to finally finish Pharaoh
4. The BP on the corner, picking the Mega-Millions Jackpot winning numbers

Four bloggers I am tagging:

1. None; papa don't play that.

#115 In which our hero has problems from head to toe.

My optometrist doesn't take credit cards. I am completely incredulous about this... I mean, I can buy my morning coffee (cost, $1.60) with my credit card, but I can't pay for services rendered by a licensed eyeball doctor? How does that even make sense?

So, yeah, went to the eye doctor yesterday. I have to go every four months or I'll go blind. Well, not really, but she has managed to put the fear of God into me about my sight, so I go. I don't remember if I've written about it before, but I suffer from ocular hypertension. "Suffer" is a misnomer, though, since the condition doesn't cause me any discomfort whatsoever, and it was discovered by accident during a routine check up.

Ocular hypertension is when that the pressure inside your eye is too high. This means that the fluid in my eye is forced out of the only opening, which is in the back where the optic nerve snakes out of my eyeball and up into my brain. The problem is, the overly-pressurized fluid pushes on the nerve and, over time, can damage it. This is what causes glaucoma. And glaucoma makes you gradually go blind, diminishing your peripheral vision until it seems like you're looking down a dark tunnel (or so I'm told).

But I'm far from blind. Matter of fact, my eye doctor stressed yesterday if anyone asks, I should say that I do not have glaucoma. She made it sound as if kids might tease me on the playground for being different, perhaps chanting,

Excess pressure in the eye
Causes your optic nerve to die!
Blindness! Blindness!
Glaucoma now!

Anyway, the condition is easily treated (at least, in my case) with medicated eye drops I put in my eyes every night.

But, I still have to go every four months and do the terrible puff of air in the eye test, which I hate. They also put in these burning eye drops which numbs the surface of my eye so they can poke at it awhile more. But, my pressure has been really good since I started taking these drops, so all is well.

Speaking of medical issues, I'm currently gimping around like a wounded animal. I don't remember if I've written about this either, but I suffer from gout as well. And when I say suffer, I mean fucking suffer because when I have a gout flare-up it's just about the worst thing in the world.

I managed to bend the nail of my big toe last weekend, and apparently this pain caused a gout attack, which is a new one for me. And now, the big black toe nail doesn't really hurt me at all, but the gout damn near makes me cry when I put on a shoe.

I've been to several podiatrists in the past, and the general consensus is that I've got the big toe of a 60-year-old man.

So I hobble around and wait for the drugs to take affect. I'm lucky in that I have a flare up maybe once or twice a year, and the drugs I've been prescribed fix the problem in a couple of days. But until then, it's a careful dance around toys on the floor and active children... once of which really likes to kiss my toe and make it "all better." I really appreciate the offer, honey, but when you bend the joint back and press your lips against it?

That does NOT make it all better, and there's words that daddy doesn't think you should learn just yet.

#114 In which our hero is tired.

Good lord, I am I zombie today. Macey is teething and none too happy about it. I don't remember Lily being this bad... Macey will go from sleeping soundly to a 110 dB scream of pure fury in the blink of an eye. I think I woke up once and actually said, "Jesus! What are you doing to her?!"

Bottom line, The Scientist and I aren't getting much sleep. And while that makes my lovely wife lethargic and out of it, not getting enough sleep turns me into a big grumpy dick.

So... I feel the need to post but can hardly construct a coherent sentence. What you get is a few snippets without any real theme... and don't give me any lip about it, jackass.

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What you need to know to understand this conversation:

1. A couple of days ago, in lieu of giving Lily a bath, The Scientist took her into the shower with her.
2. Lily wanted to take some toys with her, including her Dora the Explorer tub toy.
3. I find Dora's giant pumpkinhead disturbing.

I get out of the shower, and The Scientist notices that Dora is still in there, among other toys.

THE SCIENTIST: How did you enjoy your shower with Dora?
ME: It made me uncomfortable. She kept looking at my balls.
TS: Why'd you keep her face up?
ME: Well... I had to piss.

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I've started playing DOOM with Lily (who is, of course, two years old). It doesn't appear to frighten her or make her nervous... actually, she often runs up to me and says, "Daddy, I wanna play scary-monster-game." Which means she wants to sit on my lap as I play. The Scientist worries that it will give her nightmares, but I think I'm just instilling good, solid self-defense skills for later in life. Remember, honey, always use your chaingun when facing cacodemons.

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Ugh... that's all you get. I am exhausted. Here's some previous New Year's Eve memories.