The Bug, or Dee Dee

She arrived with the name Nietzsche. A small black and white package, a blur really, darting around the apartment in search of safety. It was my brother-in-law, observing her small feline size, who remarked that she was quite like a little nugget. And so she became just that: The Nugget, or simply The Nug. Names, however, have a way of constantly evolving in our house, and because of her diminutive size and nervous behavior, her name continued to transform from The Nug to The Bug. This last moniker actually seemed quite apropos-- reflecting her size, demeanor, and general presence. And yet it didn't prevent the further, and inexplicable, morphing of her name into Dee Dee. Don't ask me how, no one seems to remember. But that's how we ended up with a small black and white cat named The Bug, or Dee Dee.

Over time she became more comfortable, no longer appearing as a nervous blur, but also never seeming to be completely at ease. While our other cat, Kitty, would stretch out on the living room floor like a lion taking an afternoon siesta in the mid-day sun, Dee Dee would spend most days huddled up in the darkness of our bedroom where she knew no one would enter until evening. When she did get up, it was only to tip-toe to the living room for a quick bite, and then to retreat back to her cave.

Admittedly, this submissiveness and continual need for safety kind of irked me. After all, it doesn't get much safer than our house, and I wanted Dee Dee to realize that. I wanted her to be comfortable. I wanted her to be at ease. And so I would be overtly physical with her, assuming on some subconscious level that my aggressively affectionate nature could force the awkwardness out of her and replace it with self-confidence. I was wrong, but it didn't stop me. I would scoop her up in my arms and launch her into the air. She would sail four or five feet through our bedroom and land with a dramatic 'Meow'-- always a little embellished, I thought, for effect-- on our mattress. Without fail, she would follow this up by shooting me a look of considerable annoyance, which was my cue to grab her by the nape of her neck, push her down onto the bed, and kiss her all over her face. This was the antithesis of what Dee Dee liked-- too much human contact was deplorable, and especially when it wasn't on her terms. As I explained to her repeatedly though, if you live here you're going to get kissed and hugged. And as I kissed her repeatedly, and as she yielded to it without any resistance, I often thought she looked as though she was smiling.

Maybe that was the wrong approach. Looking back, perhaps my 'rough love' technique was insensitive and I should have been more accepting of who she was, on her terms. But Dee Dee was an unusual cat, and as such, we had a somewhat unusual relationship. Casual annoyance dominated our day-to-day interactions. She was annoyed with me for being so forcefully affectionate, and I was often annoyed with her for being so relentlessly fixated with water. Yes, odd as it may seem for a cat, Dee Dee was completely infatuated with water. It was the one thing from which she refused to back down, refused to take no for an answer. Her obsession with water, and her need to have every available spigot in the house running at once, was, to put it mildly, merciless.

When I came home late at night from work, she was waiting for me in the bathroom, meowing up a storm that threatened to wake everyone, and demanding that I turn on the bathtub. When I woke in the morning and stumbled toward the kitchen for my morning tea, she was waiting on the kitchen counter, swatting me in the face with her tail, and demanding that I turn on the kitchen sink. No amount of fatigue, no severity of illness, no extenuating circumstances could ever take precedence over Dee Dee's water. And if turning on the water actually solved the problem, or even reduced the problem, well, lets just say that I probably wouldn't be complaining about it now. But in fact, turning on the water would only multiply the problem. Once one faucet was running, she would frequently move to the next one and meow until it too, was turned on. And if the water wasn't running too hard, she would often dip her head in and let it cascade all over her face. While seemingly cute, this practice was much less than practical since having a sopping wet cat walking about the apartment, dripping and shaking water all over our bed, sofa, clothes, and floor, is not exactly appreciated for a number of obvious reasons.

As Dee Dee grew older and her kidneys went downhill her demands for water only multiplied. And so our annoyance with each other grew accordingly. One of the truly unfortunate realities of life is that far too often the real value of our relationships is only realized after the relationship comes to an end. And in Dee Dee's case, that end came surprisingly fast. Over the course of just a few days, she lost the ability to eat, drink, or move, and it became clear that she was suffering. Exactly one year and a half after Kitty died, we said goodbye to Dee Dee.

In general, I'm not a fan of cliche's. I don't like taking solace in fabricated notions of reality. And so it's hard for me to admit, because it's really quite silly, but I sometimes imagine launching Dee Dee into the air, and watching her sail serenely through space, landing in a big grassy field somewhere. And as she lands, she turns and shoots me an annoyed look over her shoulder. But then she looks around and sees Kitty, sees the sun shining, and feels the warm wind blowing through her fur. A stream flows nearby with a steady trickle of water for her to drink from. And as she goes to take a long, cool drink from the stream she seems comfortable, completely at ease, and maybe, just maybe, as though she is smiling.

Our First Interaction

Tuesday July 31, 2012

Me: Hey Mylo.

Mylo: What?

Simple. Straightforward. An unremarkable transaction in every way except for the fact that it was our first, our very first, verbal interaction. Oh sure, there have been interactions prior to this one. In fact, there's probably been a lot of them, but this one marked the first literal, english-language, cause-and-effect interaction we've ever had. No grunts, no hand signals, no grabbing and tickling necessary. This one was all language. And it blew my mind. Absolutely incredible. May there be many more to come.

Hastings 2012

Ukelele? Most definitely. Harmonica? Not so much. What can I say-- the boy knows what he wants to play. Father's Day 2012 was a gorgeous day in Hastings, complete with musical instruments, sandboxes, and much running around.

Transit Museum

What better place is there to go on a rainy Wednesday afternoon in June than the NYC Transit Museum?

The Adenoids

The adenoids. Two mischievous little glands whose existence, only a few short months ago, I was blissfully unaware of. They live somewhere in the back of your throat (or is it the ear canal?) and, from what I understand, their function is to fight off bacteria and other unwanted intruders. However, they can also get infected and enlarged, and in fact frequently do in young children, causing myriad problems and wreaking general havoc on the upper respiratory system.

After a seeming endless parade of colds and runny noses, interspersed by short periods of calm, catch-your-breath healthiness, Mylo's doctor diagnosed him with enlarged adenoids. If that led to a quick cure then that would be the end of this blog post. Alas, it was not. Possible solutions included a round of antibiotics, surgically removing the adenoids altogether, and nasal sprays. After carefully weighing our options, we decided to go with the nasal sprays. We picked up some Little Noses saline nasal mist at the pharmacy (to flush out the nostrils) and then bought a $75 dollar steroid spray intended to be used after the mist in order to shrink the adenoids. Ahhh, how naive we were back then...

To those who have never tried to insert something into the nose of a 21 month old boy, may you never have the misfortune of being weighted with such a task. If you happen to have seen any of the battle scenes from Braveheart you might have a sense of what's in store. Or if you've ever wrestled an octopus. Or rather, a team of octopi. Underwater. In the dark. With your hands-- well you get the picture: it is an epic struggle, complete with tears, screaming, flailing arms and legs, and throughout you are filled with terrible guilt that, even though you are the one losing the struggle, you are the one responsible for this ordeal existing at all.

The good news is that, aside from some minor congestion, Mylo's been feeling fine as of late (he did come down with a mild case of Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease which he then passed on to me for one excruciatingly unpleasant week, but it was not related in any way to his adenoids and so I'll save that drama for a different posting). And in the absence of any colds Reedu and I have been hesitant to start up the nasal spray battles again. Although, admittedly, we've become somewhat neurotic about checking his forehead for fevers, and every cough, sneeze, and sniffle gives us a moment of anxious pause as we wonder if this is the beginning of something new. But, truth be told, this has been a fairly calm, healthy period. May it please, please stay that way for a while longer.  

The offending parties

Haircut

Mylo's hair grows fast. Real fast. And we love his golden curls, we really do, but summer's hot and money doesn't grow on tree's (dear God, I sound like my father) and we needed to get a little more return on our haircut investments. So on a warm Saturday morning in early June we took Mylo to Mini Max Toys and Cuts on Atlantic Avenue and we told them to give him something that would last us until September. 

I think the boy's never looked more handsome.

Back on the Guac

The boy's eating habits could be likened to a roller coaster ride-- he finds something that he likes, straps himself in, and devours copious amounts of it. He then discovers one fine day that he no longer wants to eat any of that kind of food, and so the search begins for the next thing his palette desires. Previous winner's that now find themselves in the collection bin include corn, sweet potatoes, yogurt, snow peas, toast, grapes, and bananas. The flavors of the month are eggs, mac-n-cheese, and whole wheat crackers from Trader Joe's. He also tried edamame recently and, oddly enough, seemed to relish it.

I'm most pleased to see, however, that he's rediscovered guacamole. And so his green-toothed smile has given me hope that maybe all these things are cyclical, and one day sweet potatoes will be back in style.

Also, it should be noted that a) this video takes place in Chipotle-- Reedu's favorite haunt, and b) we're working on the double-dipping issue.

Weekend at Poombah's

I have just about no time to write these days. But here's some pic's of a trip we took to see my Ma and Alain-- or as Mylo calls them Poombah and Goombah.

 

On an Average Morning

I awoke this morning to Reedu vomiting in the bathroom. She had the stomach flu that's been going around. I threw on my pants and went in to Mylo's room. He was standing in his crib with a small reservoir of diarrhea contained inside his pajamas. After an emergency-cleaning in the bath, I handed him off to Reedu (who had finished vomiting at that point), put the leash on Ella, our ever-needy pitbull, and took her downstairs for her morning business. I returned shortly after with a bag of dog excrement, threw it in the garbage can behind our apartment, and went directly to the bathroom to scrub the diarrhea off of Mylo's pajamas.

I handle more bodily fluids every morning than most people do in a... well, I really have no idea how many bodily fluids other people handle on a daily basis, but suffice it to say that I handle a lot. And nobody said a thing about this to me when Mylo was born. No one said there would be a veritable cyclone of bodily fluids flying around me every day. And that many of those fluids would require my direct involvement in some manner. Not a thing. There were a lot of snarky little comments about how little sleep I was going to get. There were a lot of jokes about babies being 'game-changers'. But there wasn't a chapter in any book, not a conversation with any older dads, not a thing anywhere about preparing oneself for the sheer tidal wave of biological matter that was fast approaching. Now, in all fairness, a big part of this reality comes from the fact that I am a Dad/Pet Owner. Having a dog and a cat is a big part of the equation. But just the same, I could've used a warning. Not that I could've done anything about it, I'm just saying... someone ought to put the word out.

As the old saying goes, 'from shit, grows flowers'.

Stuff

The bread is in the dishwasher. The maple syrup can be found in the bottom drawer of the TV console. And our spare keys basically live in the watering can we use for our plants these days. Why the odd assignment of objects to places that they have no business being? Because objects have no contextual meaning to Mylo, their only value lies in how much noise they make when jiggled around, or how well their shape allows them to be perfectly jammed into some other random space. And so there's a wonderful kind of disconnection that forces one to look at everything in a totally different light-- you thought spatula's were used to flip pancakes and were contained in a pot on the kitchen counter? Nonsense! Now they're used to swat living room furniture and they live in your sneakers by the front door!

The daily objects of our lives, the things that we've taken for granted and absentmindedly assigned so much meaning to-- the healthcare bill, Reedu's jewelry, my checkbook-- are wrenched out of context, their intrinsic meaning thrust aside, and used simply as, well, objects. Stuff. The healthcare bill's only value lies in it's existence as a white rectangle with a cellophane window that makes a great noise when you crumple it up. The crystal's on Reedu's jewelry-- passed down from her grandmother-- apparently feel very funny when you put them on your tongue. And my checkbook makes a terrific noise when you tear apart the cardboard box. This is their value, their meaning, their only worth.

The compulsive, orderly side of my brain is, of course, driven mad by this constant chaos. But the other side of my brain (whatever side that is) loves it. All the everyday items that we take for granted, that we have assigned such significance and purpose to have, essentially, been turned on their head. All the stuff has been rendered, simply, as stuff. You thought your belt was perfectly designed to keep up your pants? Silly you! Belts are intended to swing around one's head and drag across the floor in ever increasing circular motions. And they can be found under the dining room table when not in use.

Toothbrush, iPod... need I say more?