A Hot Saturday In September

There are various sites on the web that will tell you about what was going on in the world on the day you were born. I'm sure you've seen them. I've used them before, it's fun to know what was playing on the radio the day you sprang forth into the world wet and balling, or that the moon in the sky was all about "waxing gibbous".

But one I tried recently maybe told me something I really didn't want to know:

"Your date of conception was on or about 19 September 1964 which was a Saturday".

I guess my parents were a little busy during the week, so they waited until the weekend to get their groove on.

Nice. Now I'll never get that image out of my mind.

Going For Multiple Stumpings

I pride myself in being able to stump the grocery checkout person at least once during each shopping trip. If there is a strange, exotic, or rare item in the produce section, I'll get one and the poor employee will stare at it, completely dumfounded, until he or she gives up and asks me what the hell it is. Sometimes I get more than one stumping in a given checkout event. My record is five.

My past triumphs have included lychees, tomatillos, habanero chilies, Syrian cucumbers, jicama, chayote squash, and golden beets. Occasionally, more common items such as cilantro or mustard greens will elicit a stumping. And every now and then you get a poor sap who doesn't know what parsley is.

I don't like that. That's not a challenge. That's a tragedy.

About Last Night...

Last night started out crazy, what with the pall of the artificial eye having been draped over the evening. But it got worse. I had a really hard time getting to sleep and just as I was nodding off I heard a strange series of noises coming from Zach's room. I could tell he was already tossing and turning because it's amplified rudely by the monitor. So I was paying close attention listening for possible seizure noises.

But then I heard him get up, walk across the floor and step on something wet and that was followed by a big splash and gurgling noises. Then shuffling and squeaking.

I bolted across the floor and over the dog gate like a rocket. Around the corner and down the stairs too fast for safety. Then down the hall and over Zach's gate like a sprinter. I saw that he was in bed. Walking across his room I stepped in water. He had a lizard that grows in size if placed in water, and we had put it in a bowl on his floor the previous night. It was spilled over.

Zach was in bed, fast asleep.

I groggily attempted to reconstruct the scene. I guess he had walked towards his door half awake, stepped on the lizard-water, and ran back to bed before I got downstairs. I checked under his covers and his foot was wet.

I laid with him and fell asleep hanging half off is bed for a while. When I couldn't stand the discomfort any more I went back upstairs to bed. I didn't sleep well at all. I had dreams of flying over parking lots of cars, flapping my arms wildly and looking for something, but not exactly sure what.