Langer Loksh

Know Why? Chicken Eye

Pink eye is the new ringworm. Summer has contracted pink eye (and an ear infection), and if you think it's hard to put ointment in a two-year-old boy's eye, that's nothing compared to putting ointment in the eye of the raging drama queen diva who has been told that she is not allowed to touch her new pet chicks for 24 hours. I know that house finches get pink eye in the wild, and it kills them, so I decided to play it safe with the chicks. Summer had to stay home from school yesterday, but wasn't permitted to hold the chicks. Most unpleasant for everyone involved.

Today Summer awoke cheerful and bravely submitted to the eye ointment. She lavished the chicks with cuddles--she's the only one who can hold feisty Rosie--and performed some sort of agility tests on them involving an upside down milk crate. The one in the picture is Annie, the sweet one. I can already see how these chickens are going to boost Summer's confidence outside of school, which I hope will translate to the classroom and the playground.

Tonight Summer and Jeff went off to the daddy/daughter princess ball. Summer was a glittering pink vision, an entirely different creature than the one throwing fits and refusing to take her earache meds last night. To be fair, an ear infection is just about the most uncomfortable thing I can think of. Getting through it is part of growing up, and for Summer, raising chickens will be part of growing up too. As Jeff could tell you, nothing keeps it real like chipping the ice off your chickens' water in the winter.

Know What? Chicken Butt

On the way home from Dan and Saham's, Summer assured me that she would be the chickens' mother, which I was glad to hear, because I don't think I can handle anymore responsibility at the moment. Jeff is taking the lead on the whole chicken thing--he's bought and built everything we need--though I did purchase a copy of Chickens in Your Backyard and found it to be quite informative.

Tonight we have already been put to the test. Summer fell asleep on the couch, which mothers are not allowed to do. (My mom did that when I was a toddler and I painted the couch with a banana.)

"Jeff, there's a problem," I called from the kitchen. "Problem here!" Charlie called. Jeff came in from the living room. "Bob has poop on his butt and I'm afraid he's going to get stopped up. It's like rock. I can't pull it off," I said.

Jeff took Bob to the sink and examined his (her) butt. "It's just sticking to his fuzz," Jeff said. "Look." And he showed me Bob's little butt hole, which was unobstructed. "You know," I said, "That's the same hole the eggs come out."

"I know," he said.

I said, "I read that in Chickens in Your Backyard."

Peep! Peep!

It's a brooder. For chicks. That will grow into chickens. And lay eggs. In our back yard.

Our friends Dan and Saham got 25 baby chicks and gave us five. One of them is some sort of Easter egg chicken that lays blue eggs. The rest of them are regular. At the moment, their names are Bob, Dandy, Annie (named for Julie and Tom's baby Antonia), Rosie, and Angel. They are all girls.

I'm fairly certain the cats will eat them, but Jeff said, "I can outsmart a cat." Then he said, "Raccoons are smarter than Jim." When Jeff was a kid, they had chickens. He tells hilarious stories about Jim chasing raccoons away with a bow and arrow. He still remembers watching a raccoon pick the lock on the chicken coop.

My dad loved the one about Jeff's tardy note in first grade: "Please excuse Jeff, he was chasing his chickens."

I plan to bring them to kindergarten on Monday; this is as cute as they'll ever be.

And they're really, really cute.

Because Avian Flu is So Much More Interesting than Ringworm

Hm, I wonder what Summer, Charlie, and Daddy are building in the basement? Come back tomorrow night to find out.

Happy Birthday

to Mr. Johnny Cash!*  Who of course is no longer living.

If I lived in NYC, I'd have been here last weekend.

If I lived in LA, I'd have been here last weekend.

Since I live in Massachusetts, I think it is incumbent upon me to start planning for next year's Johnny Cash Birthday Blowout in... Worcester? Or perhaps I'll shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

*Thanks Maggie!

Monkey on My Back

Not sure why, but I have become totally consumed by Johnny Cash. I've watched Walk the Line twice and I'm going to make Jeff watch it with me now that he's back from Utah. We have a Johnny Cash boxed set with over 100 songs; it's in heavy rotation at the moment. It's a bone fida obsession--it's a monkey on my back, for real. As I fall asleep, and when I wake up, it's, "We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout..."

Last night I forced myself to take a break and put on Ol' Blue Eyes during dinner. Summer wanted the Hairspray soundtrack instead, but before I could change the music, she reconsidered, cocking her head towards the iPod as Frank crooned. "He's a good singer," she said approvingly. Damn straight, sister.

Stick to the Status Quo

Today we went skating at my friend Abby's house. We took Neighbor Mia along. Note Summer's choice of skating costume--the fanciest dress she owns.

Something happened this week that really shocked me. Summer started talking about cutting her hair. She wants to look like Ashley Tisdale, who plays Sharpay in High School Musical. Points for any reader who recognizes the title of this post. Clearly we have moved on from Disney Princesses to Disney tweeny boppers. "I wish I was in high school," Summer sighs at least once a day. "That's exactly what my high school was like," I tell her as the East High Wildcats burst into song in the cafeteria.

Let's put aside Summer's questionable taste in style icons for the moment. Summer has never had a haircut, ever. And I always thought that I was annoyed about it. I can't count how many times I muttered to her as she squirmed through a post-bath detangling, "You are the one who wants long hair."

But!

I must not want her to cut it, because I felt very strange when she started talking like that! My mom, a longtime proponant of at the very least a trim, told Summer that girls always bring pictures of stars to the beauty shop and their hair never comes out looking like the picture. I told her that she has to think about it for a few days because it is a big decision, and also, she has to wait until Daddy comes back from Utah, because she'll need both parents' permission.

As ratty as it is, Summer's hair is her identity. I won't even recognize her if she cuts it! She'll look way too old if she cuts it! Have I been the long-hair enabler all this time and not even realized it?

Lord of the Rings, Heart of the Lion

Wearing two sweaters, a scarf, hat, and gloves, I dragged a porch chair into the backyard, pulled my sleeping bag up over my boots, and watched the eclipse through my binoculars. The moon looked like a perfectly toasted marshmallow--unless you're like me and you prefer your marshmallows burnt black on the outside and liquid on the inside.

This afternoon while I sat in the car at Roche Bros. (with Charlie asleep) and my mom ran in for that butternut squash puree she has to have every time she visits, the sky was lumpy and gray. But when I looked out the living room window at 10:00, the stars popped out of the clear black and there was that marshmallow hanging up there.

I watched for a while, listening to the dry leaves dragging on the frozen snow. The train whistle blew far away, and then the bells rang at the crossing on my street. Finally the bottom of the circle got bright again, which is how the moon is supposed to look, but for some reason it surprised me.

Saturn was there, as was, apparently a star called Regulus that's in the constellation Leo, so an astronomer named Jack Horkheimer told the AP that this was the eclipse of the moon, the lord of the rings, and the heart of the lion. I thought that was really poetic. I probably would have called it the Jet-Puft eclipse.

Here on Earth, Summer has had a fever, but I could tell it passed when she flung her blankets off the couch, leaped up, and pumped her arms in a perfectly choreographed finale along with the fresh-faced teens of High School Musical. Charlie is, miraculously, very patient with me as I poke him in the eye with ointment three times a day. I've avoided the pink eye myself thus far, though Charlie managed to, in one smooth motion, jab his own eye and then plunge his finger right into mine as I put him to bed.

Pink Eye Blues

Right now you are so jealous of the pink and white tie dye sweatshirt blanket. It is cozy!

Based on the fact that you all didn't abandon me for being like six years behind in movies when I told you about Traffic, I'm going to tell you now that I watched Walk the Line this weekend and I am very enthusiastic about it. LOVE IT. Run right out and rent it if you are one of the three people in America who hasn't seen it. LOVE IT.

Here is something I don't love. Charlie eyes are oozing snot. I didn't notice until 6:00 when of course the doctor's office is closed. I am quite certain he has pink eye. So he will not be welcome at day care tomorrow. Which means no work for me. Which makes me feel a little frustrated. But not as frustrated as having an infection that makes me want to claw my eyes out. Poor Charlie. He was rubbing his eyes when he went to bed. I told him that he might wake up with his eyes all crusty, and that he shouldn't panic, because I would help him. "And I have nother snack at wake up time!" he said cheerfully.

Now I'm watching American Experience on Kit Carson with my history buff, Summer, whose eyes are thus far goop free. Actually she's not watching it; she's fallen asleep on the couch. Good thing she drank all that orange soda and didn't brush her teeth. Ah, school vacation week.

Wash your hands, everybody.

Rah Rah Rah

Last night I went to an alumni cocktail soiree held in the student lounge of my esteemed journalism school. Before I left, I asked Summer if my outfit was good. "Who are you going to see?" she asked, sizing me up. "Just some old classmates and professors," I said. "Oh, then that's good enough," she said.

I changed my shirt.

It was really fun just to be there. (I finished nine years ago. My diploma is jammed between my desk and the radiator, rolled up in the red tube they used to mail it to me.) I saw a couple of my classmates and three or four professors, and met some new people. My favorite was a guy who covered technology for the Wall Street Journal for a long time and now freelances for Fortune. "Do you have a card?" I asked him. "No, I don't," he said. "I'm like, just a guy. I'm  like... a person." I passed around pictures of Summer and Charlie, and everyone clucked appreciatively.

After my one plastic cup of white wine, I hit the campus book store. In my year and a half in J-school, I never purchased a single article of logo apparel. But I was seized with the sudden desire to outfit my children head to toe in spirit wear. When I woke up this morning and saw the pink and white tie-dyed "sweatshirt blanket" draped over the Big Papi sectional, I checked the receipt in my wallet and realized I'd spent $115 on hideous university merch. "You were essentially beer goggling," my friend Jonathan pointed out. Good thing they closed the bar at 7:00 p.m. or who knows what I would have brought home.