Alan Keyes, Rick James, Some Assembly Required, Und So Weiter
So, yeah, the Grotty Old Plutocrats have finally picked themselves a candidate for Senate in Illinois and it is of all people Alan Keyes running against Barack Obama. Some people are reacting - without thinking, I have to guess - by saying, hey, cool, either way an African-American's going to be the Senator from Illinois! I gotta say, that's right up there with hey, cool, it's Martin Luther King vs. Idi Amin! Win-win! For those who may not have observed this yet: Keyes is a loon of even-greater-than-Ross-Perot proportions. I think his chances of beating Obama are pretty close to nil, but I want to be on record as saying that if Obama is to lose the seat, I would have preferred he lost it to the rich guy who wanted his hot Borg wife to have sex with strangers in public.
And Rick James died. I guess I'm not really qualified to comment beyond a perfunctory "bummer, dude," as the sad truth is, I'm more familiar with his arrest record than his actual records.*
Another thing they don't tell you about parenthood: you spend a lot of time assembling stuff. This fatherhood stuff poses the danger of a slippery slope towards handiness, I think, but I'm steeled to go no further than hewing to easy-to-follow assembly instructions. I'm chagrined to admit, though, that the crib assembly did cause me to purchase a wrench - quite possibly the first time I ever bought something at a hardware store other than batteries.
Yesterday, our latest hope for a panacea against fussiness arrived, the Fisher-Price Aquarium Cradle Swing (see it here). This is an incredibly baroque infant-soothing apparatus that looks rather like a lunar module for preschoolers. Baby sits in a carseat-type cradle and can swing and rock while looking up at a dangling assortment of little stuffed animals and a liquid-filled glowing globe. This last is advertised as a "light show," which led me to expect it would come with lasers and Pink Floyd. I'm either relieved or disappointed (can't quite decide) to report that the light is just a gentle glow in shifting colours, and the music is a medley of baby standards (the Rock-A-Bye one, the London Bridge one...you know, all the hits). There's also a white noise setting...heartbeat, babbling brook, wave sounds, things like that. Baby Dog seems fascinated by all the bells and whistles, though I think they might all be a little too stimulating to lead to sleep which is, after all, the main objective.
Still reading Fifth Business. Read a couple chapters while soothing Li'l Puppy to sleep yesterday. It's good stuff. The only Robertson Davies I had read heretofore (and years ago) was Tempest-Tost, which I recall not liking much. At the moment I'm inclined to seek out the rest of the Deptford Trilogy, but I guess I should wait until I finish part one.
___________
* What we called CDs when I was a pup.
And Rick James died. I guess I'm not really qualified to comment beyond a perfunctory "bummer, dude," as the sad truth is, I'm more familiar with his arrest record than his actual records.*
Another thing they don't tell you about parenthood: you spend a lot of time assembling stuff. This fatherhood stuff poses the danger of a slippery slope towards handiness, I think, but I'm steeled to go no further than hewing to easy-to-follow assembly instructions. I'm chagrined to admit, though, that the crib assembly did cause me to purchase a wrench - quite possibly the first time I ever bought something at a hardware store other than batteries.
Yesterday, our latest hope for a panacea against fussiness arrived, the Fisher-Price Aquarium Cradle Swing (see it here). This is an incredibly baroque infant-soothing apparatus that looks rather like a lunar module for preschoolers. Baby sits in a carseat-type cradle and can swing and rock while looking up at a dangling assortment of little stuffed animals and a liquid-filled glowing globe. This last is advertised as a "light show," which led me to expect it would come with lasers and Pink Floyd. I'm either relieved or disappointed (can't quite decide) to report that the light is just a gentle glow in shifting colours, and the music is a medley of baby standards (the Rock-A-Bye one, the London Bridge one...you know, all the hits). There's also a white noise setting...heartbeat, babbling brook, wave sounds, things like that. Baby Dog seems fascinated by all the bells and whistles, though I think they might all be a little too stimulating to lead to sleep which is, after all, the main objective.
Still reading Fifth Business. Read a couple chapters while soothing Li'l Puppy to sleep yesterday. It's good stuff. The only Robertson Davies I had read heretofore (and years ago) was Tempest-Tost, which I recall not liking much. At the moment I'm inclined to seek out the rest of the Deptford Trilogy, but I guess I should wait until I finish part one.
___________
* What we called CDs when I was a pup.
posted by PapaDogDuvalier | 9:40 AM
2 Comments:
So, yeah, the Cradle Swing thing does seem a bit too stimulating... or, even worse, likely to lead to the wearing of tie-dyed T-shirts. Perhaps if Baby Dog were allowed to sip a brewski from her sippy-cup while lying on Papa Dog's tummy on the sofa during a baseball game? Seems to work for grown-ups. Or she could be made to read critical theory late at night? May I suggest Homi Bhabha?
Ideally, one would like to be able to halt all street construction, drive-by mega-bass, and neighbors' home improvement projects while the pup sleeps alone in her own bed, but I've read that new parents should acclimate their child to the sounds of a busy household, rather than tiptoeing around lest the pup wake up. Therefore you should make sure to vacuum, bang pots and pans in the kitchen, have tense phone conversations with your parents, and blast the afternoon game shows on TV while the offspring snoozes on the floor in the living room, where you have to step over her every couple of minutes to get from one room to another. When she grows up, she'll move to Manhattan and refuse to go camping because she "can't sleep -- it's too quiet." But you probably won't have to worry about her slitting her wrists because the neighbors refuse to fix their leaky faucet.
Oh, I forgot to comment about Alan Keyes. Just want to mention how much fun it is to sit around the lunch table with my Republican co-workers when they remark on how "articulate" Keyes is.
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