15 years from now, this posting would probably show up on Facebook titled "After the first frat party"

Angela and Xan left last night for the road trip to Cape Cod, with an overnight pit stop in New York. The trip was uneventful and actually fun for everyone involved. (If I'm not mistaken, Angela has not had quite the solitary summer road trip experiences with Xan -- with optional emergency issues -- that I have had in the past.) They arrived without incident early this afternoon and he took one look at the grandparents' backyard, said "I need to mow," and clicked back into his summer groove. Apparently, he has also managed to completely scrape up one knee less than 6 hours after arriving. Beautiful.

After putting him to bed and checking her email in another part of the house, Angela went to check on Xan in his bed as she normally does. She fumbled around in the bed for a little while in the dark . . . only to discover that he wasn't there. For a moment, she got confused and a bit worried, wondering if he had perhaps gone in with his grandmother? maybe? did I put him here?

And then she heard some light snoring coming from elsewhere in the room.

At which point she found the boy in the following position:


Naturally, the whole family was called to witness this. Many photographs were claimed to have been taken. A beer was almost placed into his hand. Please make note of the seeming cat-skin hat perched on his head: to get the full effect, you must also know that the kid-snores were accompanied by the obsessively purring cat (not Vega; this is good ol' [friendly] Cous-Cous).

Angela called me about this. How can he sleep like that? she asked incredulously. I really don't know what you mean, I replied, but he sure looks like a drunk frat boy to me.

Dustin' crops where there ain't no crops

We recently bought a new car, which actually means that we bought a newer used car than the one we had before. We actually like the 92 Honda LX that we inherited from my mother-in-law: it ran well, we knew it had been kept up well, it was a standard, and it had a horrible blue paint job that ensured that no one would ever think of stealing it. It had been having more problems of late, however, so we started thinking about getting a new car; when our last visit to the mechanic required yet another $400 fix, we decided to actually purchase a new car.

Our new car is a mossy green 98 Mazda 626 that we purchased off of a former UMD grad student. I won't go into the full details, because they're depressing and because I'm likely in anger to put the per's real name for everyone to see, but suffice to say that we learned our lesson to never purchase a car unless your mechanic checks it out first -- that to not wait for him to come back from vacation first may be a mistake. Lesson learned.

In any case, over a grand later, we have a car in good condition -- with one exception: replacing the bad clunking is a cute little hum, like a mechanized bumblebee. I now have identified the sound as more akin to what a Vespa sounds like or, as a colleague here said where I described it, like a cartoon car.

I must admit, however, that my first thought was North by Northwest.

For some reason, I originally thought the hum sounded like one of those propeller crop-duster planes. Being a kid from either the subrubs or the city, I have never actually seen one of these, but I have seen Hitchcock's film, which is good enough for me.

What really amuses me is that I now think of myself as driving that crop-duster. This also means that I'm looking out for Cary Grant. Because if I see him, I'm going to have to try to machine-gun him down. In case you think I'm kidding, I actually am looking out for Cary Grant. Me and my malevolent mossy green Mazda. Hee hee.

Suffice to say that I shouldn't take this too far: if, indeed, I do encounter Roger Thornhill, the movie also tells me that this story does not end well for either the plane or the pilot. Nevertheless, I would warn all Cary Grant lookalikes living in Takoma Park, Tenleytown and the area around Walter Reade to stay at home.

When you really need the emergency lane

KC just reminded me that I meant to detail one more story about this summer's journey. This involves the final leg of Xan-and-me-alone, from Rochester to Cape Cod. Angela was already fretting that I had decided to leave on the 2nd of August rather than the 1st, and we had gotten a late start out of Rochester: suffice to say, we were a little behind schedule. After stopping around Albany for lunch, I called Angela once we arrived in Massachusetts.

She was not pleased. "You should have left earlier."

"I will be there as soon as I can."

"No more stopping, OK?"

I agreed that I would not stop, thinking that even if I had to stop, it would be realtively short anyway. We lept driving. That part of the Mass Pike is actually quite beautiful and we were missing the gigantic thunderstorm that broke the 100+-degree heat in the Northeast, so life was going pretty well.

Somewhere around exit 8, around Worcester I think, I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw Xan scrunch his face up in a familiar way. (At this point, I should clarify that I figured out how to turn the rear-view mirror so that I could see him, he could see me and I could still see the cars behind me. Ah, the amazing things you learn to do when you have a kid back there that you need to amuse...) it dawned on me that we had not had a "major" diaper alert (i.e. good ol' number two) for going on 36 hours, so I knew what that face signified. I couldn't smell anything, but I made a mental note that I should probably stop and clean him at the next rest area. I looked back again and saw that his face was back to normal, and that he was looking down at something.

And then his hand came up.

With poo.

Smiling, he brought his hand to his other hand and started mashing them together.

It is at this point that I screamed.

Basically almost causing an accident, I veered from the left-most lane all the way over to the breakdown lane while saying, "Nononono! Notinthemouth! Notinthemouth! Nono!" I then proceeded to change his diaper and subsequent clothing and attempt to clean the car seat (which basically consisted of me putting all of our dirty clothes on it so that he wouldn't get any messier). I admit that I was seeing the humor in all of this and laughing my head off as I was trying to do what was patently riduculous on the side of the road, with tractor trailers whizzing by at top speeds and large ants crawling up our legs.

With mission accomplished, I all of sudden realize that there was an emergency vehicle coming up to me to see what was wrong. The guy in the truck yelled at me, saying that my stop did not constitute an emergency. I mean, really: if that wasn't an emergency, I don't know what is.

What I learned on my summer vacation

And oh, there were many things to learn....

• It is possible to drive eight hours alone in a car with a toddler. No, I did not die, nor did I kill the boy. In fact, the most successful trip was the first day, which was also the longest. The plan -- for everyone else out there -- was to have none. We jeeped him up all morning long before his nap (having him literally run around, walk all over the place, sing and yell, etc.) until he was so tired, he could barely move. At that point, we threw him into the already-packed rental car and got going. He was asleep before we hit Silver Spring -- and didn't wake up again until we got to Pennsylvania... when it was time to stop for lunch! We stopped, ran around a bit, got back on the road.
  
  About and hour and a half later, he got antsy. This took more creative methods -- but luckily (the only time I have ever thought this was a good thing) I was on a toll road. I got off the Pennsylvania Turnpike and asked the tollbooth operator if there was a park nearby. It turns out that, indeed, a very nice park was closeby. Xan had a ball playing all over this place.
  
  Back on the road, he got antsy again in another two hours -- just in time for dinner! After another hour eating and running around a rest stop, charming absolutely everyone (and my, but those rest stops on the Ohio Turnpike are nice!), back on the road again. Here's where the "plan" went a little wrong, because I then expected him to go to sleep. He didn't, staying awake the whole rest of the way until we got to Michigan. At 11:00 PM. Yikes. Nevertheless, he did so quietly, without complaint. And it only took him a day to get back onto schedule. Success!
• This method may not be feasible for shorter trips. By the time we got to the Cape, Angela and I decided for a family trip to Provincetown -- and quickly discovered that (a) the method described doesn't work with Xan when there will be traffic, because he wake up when the car stops, and (b) there is no need to expose him to cute tchochkes, quaint cobblestone streets, nice beaches, and so many shirtless, buff men that I felt I was both overdressed and not doing justice to my sexuality by wearing a t-shirt... at least until he's old enough to appreciate all of this. Maybe at 5.
• Nature is fun to appreciate. The first week, Xan and I spent some time at my parents' apartment, which they recently moved into. They are on the ground floor with a great view of a duck pond. Like many of the residents of this senior community, they spend a considerable amount of effort making sure there is bread handily available for feeding the ducks. Fresh off learning the word "duck," Xan took to this really well. Although he never quite grasped the concept of feeding the ducks since, after helping Oma rip up the pieces of bread, he would feed himself instead of the ducks. This only led my mother to laugh harder.
• Nature is really fun to appreciate. After arriving on Cape Cod, Xan and I discovered that this summer there were very few mosquitos out and about -- which meant we were out as much as possible. In Xan's case, this meant cavorting all around their rather expansive backyard. This also meant that he has acquired a whole assortment of cuts, scrapes and bruises all over his body, confirming the fact that, yes, he is a boy.
• Nature is sometimes too fun to appreciate. While in Ann Arbor, my old friends Bonnie and Brian (and their firecracker daughter Kyleigh) invited us to go to a quiet lake about a half hour out of town. We were having a wonderful time -- Xan has taken to water quite well... to the extent that he will run into water pell mell without regard to whether it is too deep or not -- and at one point I stayed a little ways back while Xan went exploring up a narrow path leading to the parking area. Brian had gone up in that direction earlier and only now mentioned, "You know what I saw earlier? It seemed to be a rattlesnake -- a little small, but with a definite rattl..."
  
  And at that moment, no joke: I heard an unmistakable sound. And I looked up and saw my son bending over with his usual curiosity about two feet away from a rattlesnake. Which was reared back, shaking his little tail off.
  
  Yowza.
  
  Putting aside for the moment the notion of "what the hell is a rattler of any size doing anywhere outside the Southwest" (a notion I later found was just incorrect), I leaped closeby, plucking Xan away. This annoyed him. Only a few minutes later did I think, "Damn. That could have ended badly for both of us."
• Ice cream is a great way of meeting new people. As usual, we perused the several neighborhood ice cream shops around Angela's parents' place on several occasions. The tip jar at the Whistle Stop Ice Cream shop in Pocasset mentioned that it was to support college funds for some of the summer workers. We've seen this before. This year, the three schools listed said "Fairleigh Dickinson - Boston College - American." Lo and behold, I left a note for the soon-to-arrive freshman, who emailed me a lovely note.
  

That's it for now. There's more, surely. But this is already getting too long. And the semester is soon to begin. Have to get back into the swing of things -- including more regular posting!

Ah, summer. We hardly knew ye.

One for the road

So why haven't I been posting of late? Well, folks, that's easy: because on Friday afternoon, the computer decided to go kaputski. I couldn't start the machine again in any sort of mode, safe or not. When I finally brought it into the IT folk yesterday at campus, they basically figured out that my hard drive had melted and that there was little I could do.

This made me extremely happy that I had taken some time out on Wednesday to back all the important Word files onto my campus file space. Whew!

I did lose some amazing baby pictures (which I had not backed up on Wednesday, thinking I would do so when I had more time on Monday... oops...), but most of the early stuff was backed up in May, so I'm also OK there. Double whew.

And, as it turns out, I was due for a renewal on my computer since, apparently, the campus replaces them when the warranty runs out after three years. So I'm now typing on a new laptop (looking all space-agey) and trying to remember all the bookmarks I had saved on the old computer. (Still, I'm a-likin' this new one.)

And why might I not be posting for a few weeks? Well, see, tomorrow I am leaving for Ann Arbor, Michigan to see my parents.

Driving.

Alone.

With Xan.

Followed by my driving to Cape Cod.

The straitjacket for when I finally arrive on Cape had already been sized and ordered. In any case, I may not be posting for a little bit because either (a) I'm having trouble finding a good, free Internet connection, or (b) I have gone plumb nuts. Either way, wish me luck.

Musings on what should have been a bad day

The whole family had been invited yesterday to the Annual ADE Conference, put on by our friend Cardo. ADE stands for the Association of Dumpling Eating -- so yes, this was an eating event, one to which we had been invited to for at least the last couple years. Something had always come up -- last year, for example, Xan appeared -- and we have not been able to make it. I resolved that I would go this year, no matter what. Since she is off to a conference later this week, Angela almost decided not to come -- but then realized that between my conference last week, hers this coming week and all the work we have had to do, we have not had any time for each other in recent history. So we thought this would be a good time to socialize not only with other good folks, but with each other. Plus, Ric lives in Annapolis and the day was scheduled to be sunny, warm and lovely -- a perfect day for an outing with the family.

Our first problem was expected: we ran late. Or rather, Xan's sleep schedule did not coincide with our departure schedule. He decided to nap for two hours instead of one, so we called saying that we would be late running out the door. Ric said, no problem, it is a rolling event anyway.

When we left, I remembered that I did not have to go up to 495 via New Hampshire Avenue; rather, I could just continue straight down 410 from our house and we would eventually cross it. Unfortunately, I forget that I am not supposed to take Ager Road, which only leads us back into DC. We end up semi-lost (Ange was nice and called it a "detour") in what turned out to be a lovely part of NE DC (Brentwood, I believe?), with me insisting that we would eventually have to cross New York Avenue, which was also Route 50, which would take us to Annapolis. Ange navigated using our handy-dandy DC street map; as we got to West Virginia Avenue, she noted that we were going by a prison -- and then looked up and noted that every business around there had super-barbed wire surrounding. Yikes. At least we would not have to stay here very long. We turn onto New York Avenue, whoop it up for a moment and finally think we are on our way...

...and then the car starts to wobble uncontrollably.

We realize that, oh my goodness, we have a flat tire.

We pull over right beyond the National Arboretum. I do not know how to change a tire. I turn to Angela and ask her if she knows. She says no. This is, in fact, the first time that either one of us has gotten a flat. Crap. We realize we are perhaps not in the most savory part of town (although not exactly near West Virginia Ave). We call AAA; they say someone will show up in less than an hour, to hang tight, that they will put a priority flag on it. Ange carts Xan -- who has been a trooper through all of this, happy as a clam on another new adventure -- off to the Arboretum, while I sit and wait for someone to come.

A semi-beat-up car then stops in front of me. A man steps out, smoking a cigarette. "It looks like you have a problem here."

"Yeah," I say. "A flat. And stupidly, I don't know how to change it."

"I can do it for you with no problem."

"I already called Triple-A."

He looks at me and laughs. "Man, I'm a mechanic. They ain't coming here anytime soon. You'll be here for three hours, at least. I'll have you done in ten minutes."

I am entirely unsure about this. The guy has weird teeth, I'm not in a great neighborhood, my wife and child are nearby but not here, I have a grand total of one (one!) dollar on me and I'm clearly going to have to give him money. Plus, AAA is (in theory) on its way. This is probably not a good idea. My instincts from living in Peru in the 80s are kicking in and say, No no no, just make him go away and wait for the official people to arrive. But before I can protest too much, he gets out my jack and my doughnut and starts changing my tire. I call Ange and tell her to come back.

Indeed, he is done in less than ten minutes. And, having shown me what to do -- really, it was simple after all -- I have learned something. I am really grateful. "How much do I owe you for this?" I ask.

"What do you want to give me?" he asks.

"Look," I say, and show him my wallet. "I have a grand total of one dollar. I'd like to give you twenty. Let me see what my wife has. If worse comes to worse, maybe we can find a bank."

It has already gone through my mind that this was a bad idea in the first place, that I could possibly get robbed or worse, and Ange and Xan are there with me, too. Ideally, I would have cash on me and that would be it -- but no, now I could go to the bank and this guy could ask me to drain my bank account for him. Holding my family hostage, I would probably give him anything. All sorts of scenarios run through my head. Like I said, child of Peru in the 80s. But, also, fair is fair: I need to give him something.

Ange comes back. She has nothing. The man says, "Look, you need to find a service station anyway. Follow me, I'll lead you to a bank that is right next to a service station." We agree, pile into the car, follow.

He leads us to a Bank of America on Kenilworth Avenue. I get a $20-bill from the machine, pay him. He directs us to the service station across the street. I finally ask him his name: he says James. He says goodbye, and drives away.

My trust in people remains intact. There is no way that James would be reading this, but thank you, James, truly.

But wait, the adventure is not over. James seemed to think that our flat was caused by a puncture and that the tire could be fixed easily and we would be back on our way to Annapolis in no time. Mind you, we still have not eaten lunch because, well, we were planning on loading up on dumplings. In the service station, however, we find that the tire has literally just slashed itself -- I said, "Slash? Someone slashed our tires" but no, it was on the inside -- and that we needed a new tire. These, however, were Costco tires purchased just three months ago. I asked if my doughnut would make it back to College Park so that I could just have them reinstall it for free. The guy said yes.

We make it to Costco. No problem fixing it, it's also under warranty. The wait, however, will be around two hours.

We have no other form of transportation. We agree, and gear ourselves up for a massive wait within Costco. At this point, we also call Cardo and say there is no way we could get there before Xan would melt down. Once again, dumplings are denied to us! We then spend two hours (and nearly a hundred bucks) on stuff at the store, taking a considerable amount of time to fill up on the samples, feed Xan on the display model of a porch swing, read a story from one of the open books and generally cavort.

Here's the funny thing, and why I am blogging about this at all: as we were heading home, sans dumplings and with a new tire, Ange and I looked at each other and could not say that it had been a bad day. In fact, we were still in a good mood after all this. Xan was still doing fine (if by now a tad cranky), having chalked it all up to yet another adventure. And we still got to spend some family time all together, if not precisely the way we planned. I am not entirely sure that this is because we are optimists (after all, included in this equation are not one but two Dadaks, and I say that with love), but it was actually nice to come to the end of the day and still think things are good.