Skating

After a bit of a transition from vacation, things are back to Normal around here. Everyone has returned to work and school and the weather has returned to freezing. Argos and I have worked off our vacation weight. Also, Argos is off his reduced diet, and has lost interest in stealing (poisonous) food.

As part of our midwestern experience, I really wanted the boys to ice skate. Today we finally went. Joseph was a total nightmare when we got to the Pepsi Cellular One Skating Center. It seriously made me question why I keep hauling this kid out of the house to do anything (maybe we should all just stay home until he goes away to college?) However, Sam really likes getting out and trying new things, so I don't want him to suffer because of Joseph's reticence. At the rink Joseph was crying and screaming about how he was scared of ice and scared of wearing skates. He made a huge scene and everyone was staring at us (although it was mostly families with older kids, so they had kind of sympathetic and nostalgic smiles). After we finally convinced him to put on the skates, he had another freak-out when we got the the ice. Eventually, Danny and I got him to "skate" (actually, to hang like dead weight) between us.

After a few laps, he started to cheer up, and by the Zamboni break, he was really enjoying himself and actually skating.


Sam had a lot of fun. He skates in kind of a shuffling, businesslike way, but he was getting faster and more confident over the time that we were there.



I was worried that I had forgotten how to skate. Although I used to skate as a kid and in college (free skating at Oberlin!) I haven't been in 10 years. As it turned out, I can still skate. Also, I have never skated with Danny, and although he had previously told me that he can't skate, he actually can skate quite well. What a surprise!

Argos meets the turkey baster

Argos is on a diet this week due to his recent excesses at the dog spa. So I suppose it was hunger that drove him to steal an entire batch of chocolate chip banana muffins. I walked in as he was eating the last three (of 36). Because chocolate is poisonous to dogs, we had to induce vomiting immediately. Also, because Argos weighs 110 pounds, we had to quickly get him to drink 2 cups of 50% hydrogen peroxide solution. Turkey baster to the rescue! Shortly after pinning down Argos and siphoning the H202 into him, it looked like a flotilla of jellyfish had washed up on our kitchen floor. Argos seems to be fine.

As an aside, I have met dozens of people who say that their dogs have eaten chocolate without any adverse effects (some in excess of the lethal dose of the most toxic types of chocolate, too). I have never met anyone, or even a friend of a friend who had a dog that died from eating chocolate. I know that chocolate is supposed to be poisonous to dogs (hence the induced vomiting), but if chocolate is so toxic, why are there so many dogs that have eaten it and been fine? I asked the vet this question, and he told me that the effects of chocolate were cumulative, and that one day, these chocolate eaters would just keel over and die. I tend to think that maybe the vet was bullshitting me because he didn't know the answer to my question. Perhaps the answer is not known. I suppose that doing animal research that involves poisoning dogs for the purpose of improving knowledge of dog health would be morally problematic.

Newsletter 2007

Here is our 2007 Newsletter, for anyone who may have missed it. (Of course you will need to click on the pages to enlarge them to readable size.) I must say that writing a blog has sucked out all of the creative energy that used to go into writing the newsletter, so don 't get too excited about it.

Return to Normal

Well, we're home. The drive was uneventful. Due to Joseph's digestive problems at the start of the trip, I made sure that the travel snacks provided decent fiber. However, after 12 hours of eating fresh fruit and vegetables, and "Quinoa Quee-runchies" or "Flatul-O's" or whatever, the car was pretty toxic (and no dog to blame, either).

"It would take over two and a half million bowls of your oat bran cereal to equal the fiber content of one bowl of Super Colon Blow"


I was shocked when we picked up Argos at the kennel and found out that he had gone from being underweight to being visibly overweight. It sounds like despite our assurances that Argos never fights, even when provoked (or attacked) the kennel was nervous about letting him play with other dogs, and he probably did not participate in "doggy play time" regularly. (This is especially disturbing, given that we liked this fancy-ass kennel which cost us a half-month rent because of their outdoor play facilities.)


However, I must add that I also got a bit of a gut from so many excellent meals in New York and Baltimore.

An excellent meal indeed.

"I can't believe I ate (and drank) the whole thing!"

I feel like Mike Myers' Middle-Aged Man from Saturday Night Live: "You're looking at my gut, aren't you?! Well, I'm working on it!"

So Argos and I are both running extra this week.

The weather in Baltimore (and New York) was beautiful. In my grandmother's words, it was "not too cold, but cold enough to make you frisky." It was disheartening to drive back to Illinois. The closer we got to home, the colder, grayer and snowier it was. When we left Normal, it was in the 20's (and the temperature dropped to 0 while we were gone). Before we left, running (and walking) conditions were rather perilous, with alternating periods of ice, slush, deep snow, packed snow and ice-coated snowpack. Danny and I were thinking about buying a used or cheap elliptical machine because we were having trouble getting enough exercise. Oddly enough, the warm temperature followed us back to Normal: it was up to 55 degrees today, and all of the snow has melted. Although it is not springy--there was a strong wind and everything is waterlogged and slippery with rotten leaves--it is kind of like an extended fall.

Another attempt at a family picture.

Joseph plans our next trip.

Happy New Year

So what did we do for New Year's Eve in Baltimore? We watched the television and drank champagne. As usual, my mother complained about Dick Clark's decrepitude and my mother and my grandfather railed against "that modern music" in the "Rockin' New Year's Eve Celebration." I have no idea what music they would want to hear given that my mother only listens to easy listening soft rock, easy listening classical and light "jazzy" (note: not actually jazz) music. My grandfather only listens to the loudest and most dramatic of classical music: coming into my grandparents' house is like being confronted by a shock wave of sound. I imagine that their preferred New Year's Party would be Neil Diamond singing Wagner?
Actually, they both seemed to like the Plain White T's singing Hey There Delilah (Listen Here).

Baltimore nostalgia

I have been to Baltimore at least once a year since I was a born. Now that I don't live anywhere in particular, I was feeling a little nostalgic. Danny and I drove around Fells Point and Charles Village, visiting my (and our) old haunts.
Danny and I had drinks in a bar in Fell's Point. We were sitting next to the cook, who had "Sine" tattooed on his hand. I was dying to see if he "Cosine" tattooed on the other hand, but I couldn't get a look.

Danny and I went out to look at all of my my old apartments around Johns Hopkins University. You can clearly see my old window in this excellent picture.

Charles Village is very different since my undergrad days. Although undergrads live in the apartment buildings and row houses around the university, the area did not have a lot of places to shop and hang out. (The Wawa has been replaced by a huge Barnes & Noble.) Danny and I went to an unremarkable bar near JHU where I had an (almost) undrinkable bloody Mary. This is Danny describing what it would be like to be a cotton ball millionaire.

Waterworks

I was getting ready for dinner in the basement and I heard a gush of water behind me. Apparently, after the kids finished their bath, the bathtub upstairs started leaking into the floor, and the water was pouring through the recessed light fixture directly onto our bed. I quickly turned off the overhead lights, however, every person who came downstairs to see the leak paused to turn on the lights, so that they could see better. Luckily, no one was electrocuted, and the leak was repaired. However, the boys had to take a bath in a Rubbermaid tub.

Sightseeing

Here are pics from some of our East Coast adventures. Here Sam and I are doing a simulated ELISA at the Liberty Science Center in NJ. Sam told me that we looked funny in our costumes, which was kind of sad, because I have an even uglier lab coat and set of protective goggles at work.

We went on the Staten Island Ferry. It was cold (not IL cold, though) and drizzly.

We walked around Battery Park in Manhattan, and had some nice pastries and coffee.

In Baltimore, we went to the Lotte Asian Market, where Danny fell in love with a giant tub of garlic. Joseph wanted me to buy an octopus for dinner, but I was not sure how to cook one, or who would want to eat it.

We went down to the Inner Harbor to the Baltimore Maritime Museum. We visited the 1936 Coast Guard cutter Taney, The 1944 submarine Torsk, the 1930 Lightship Chesapeake, the 1854 USS Constellation and the 1856 Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse.

The Torsk has an engine named after me (of course).

The kids tried out the sleeping quarters in all the ships except the hammocks on the Constellation.

Joseph enjoyed hearing about the exploits of "Skunk," "Sparky," and others in the exhibit on naval dog mascots. (There was no "Fleas Navidog.")

We celebrate Joseph's tantrum atop the Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse.