Ooooooooooooooooooo-Weeee!

I'm posting this picture in anticipation of the next bloom. This Phaleanopsis is one of the ones that are budding.

Looking at this beauty takes my mind off the skunk. My family is obsessed, sniffing Tye's fur to make sure he smells okay, buying new backpacks and washing their coats and sniffing around the house. They smell little whiffs of skunk everywhere. Sniffochondriacs!

I smelled him before I opened the back door to let him in, but the smell was so strong it overpowered my olfactory system and for a minute I couldn't smell it. Tye came in and staggered around looking really embarrassed, and the kids began to erupt into a frenzy. Febreeze spraying, match lighting, shower taking, let-me-into-the-bathroom yelling, goof-balls I live with!

I, of course, rationally, began to cuss like a sailor and yelled for tomato juice to pour over Tye. I got him into the shower and poured tomato sauce through his fur, rinsed, repeated, toweled him off and took a sniff. Ouch! Foul smelling wet skunk dog stink! So, Tye and I went downstairs and he sat and reeked at my feet while I surfed for assistance. I found:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2170385_remove-skunk-spray-odor-dog.html

"When Fido tangles with our cute little white striped friends, he will lose every time when he returns home to his owner. But don't worry, removing the smell isn't as hard as you might think. The process is inconvenient, messy and annoying, but the odor is not impossible to neutralize."

Very reassuring prose, thanks. And don't fucking call him FIDO! Apparently dogs tend to turn their heads when sprayed by skunks and often catch the spray on their necks. The oils have molecules called tuols that are hard to break down and smells can last up to two years. Hydrogen peroxide and baking soda, mixed with liquid soap foam up and break up these tuols and allow shampoo to work.

Tonight Tye is back on Caitlin's bed. I bought two backpacks and a binder tonight because Tye lay down on them when he was all skunky. We are washing and spraying Febreeze in spots. I'm beginning to consider what is worse, funky smells or chemical smells.

Tye has always loved to have me open the sliding door quickly so that he can shoot out toward the back fence and chase critters. He has caught several rabbits this winter. Tonight I let Tye out and he dashed . . . to the edge of the patio. . . and looked carefully around, trying to act nonchalant. I believe he remembers Mr. Skunk.

This is the other orchid that's about to bloom. I'm going to my happy place now.

Growing orchids and 16 year old humans

Orchidialia (If the prior orchid posts were flower porn, I shudder to think how we must classify the display of "juvenile" buds.)

It's the end of January and time for the Orchid Update! These are the grey, monotone times when the hardy consider the merits of suicide, these cold months of snow, ice and chill. One of my antidotes is these plants of mine. I have a few herbs, a rehabbing rubber plant, and my orchids.

As the faithful reader knows, I got interested in orchids when I bought my little green scary one at Target. It lived, despite my efforts, and eventually bloomed again, and that hooked me. I got another one from my mother in law, Donna, and ordered two from http://www.orchids.com/ . (One of those got the rot.) I also went to the sale at Pearson's and picked up a couple more. By this time I was getting the hairy eyeball from Robyn, and from my son, author of "Real Dad's Don't take Photos of Flowers."

Orchids bud really slowly and the buds are waxy and smooth. The one on the left is the Phalaenopsis, the second one I grew. It will have yellow, white and pink blooms. These orchids bloom in tree bark and like it pretty moist, pretty consistently, with distinct periods of dryness in between waterings (in other words, don't keep them soaked).

Dendrobium, on the other hand, live where there is a cool, dry season. Between November and February you're not supposed to water them much at all. Then in March, you begin watering and fertilizing and they bloom again. I figured this out in mid-December, so I think I may have to let them stay dry until mid-March. I narrowly avoided a rot-and-die scenario with these babies, but they're looking better under the new regimen of near-neglect.

These are the buds of the other Phalaenopsis that is blooming. It's going to be a showy yellow one with delicate burgundy accents. It's one I photgraphed excessively last time it bloomed. It's a little fuzzy, but you can see the first bud from the left starting to take shape and think about opening. The stalk will get longer and should give us quite a few flowers. These buds are all the result of pruning after the first bloom died. You count back two "joints" in the stalk and cut, and then the plant most often re-blooms.

My original orchid, the refugee from Target, is an earth growing, or terrestrial, orchid. Its soil is more like dirt and watering it is less an issue. It justd needs watering weekly and likes a little neglect as well. It grows one new bloom in a "lady's slipper" shape, which sprouts from a new "foot" of leaves. The new leaves are well on their way toward producing, and are getting bigger than their predecessors, which is the idea, I think. The bloom is exotic and strange, which is, of course, why I like it.

Sixteenishness. Last night as I was writing much of third post, Caitlin and something like 30 of her friends were occupying the majority of the house, celebrating her 16th birthday. Caitlin is beautiful and strong, with a raft of solid, interesting friends. We are fortunate that the crowd that came to our house were more wholesome and trustworthy than we ourselves once were. I like Caitlin's friends, and they think we are pretty tolerant, not understanding that Robyn and I , by comparison, wrote the book on fooling around. At one point I came downstairs and someone had blown up a condom and they were bopping it around the room. It came toward me and I gave it a few kicks, hackey-sack style, commenting "it's been a while since I used one of these." Apparently, I made Caitlin proud. It's a tough responsibility being a "cool" parent.

The night before Caitlin was born, I went out to George's Buffet (bar) with my friends Chris Berg and Mark Jensen and drank for distance, walking home early in the morning at about a 45 degree angle to the sidewalk, leaving my car parked in the lot by Gilpin's. My thinking was that it was a little under four weeks until her due date and that this would be a good time to let off some steam in time to be a ready and responsible parent.

The next morning, I awoke to an arid, dry mouth, pounding headache and aching muscles. I spent the day re-hydrating, taking aspirin, and going to get my car. I was very tired and went to be early, grateful for my bed and some rest and recuperation. At 12:30, Robyn's water broke and Caitlin arrived, three and a half weeks early, tiny and pissed off, at 9:30 the next morning. I didn't sleep the whole next day and that evening, Chris and Mark and I went back to George's to collect free drinks for my new fatherhood. I guess there's a pattern here.

We were profoundly unprepared for what Caitlin would bring to our lives, for our role in raising a human, and in continuing to raise ourselves. Caitlin helped us figure it out. She gained weight from her original 4 lbs. and 8 oz., and went on to become a force of nature. She helped us raise Walker, who was, thanks to Caitlin, the recipient of significantly less experimental parenting.

But, like growing orchids, it's all experimental. Sometimes the results are quite pleasing.

Sorting pictures

It was the day Robyn and I married, and Dad was glad to be there, but feeling awkward. Someone he didn't know very well, probably LeRoy or my sister in law Michelle, asked him to stand for a picture. Mom is teasing him, I can tell from her expression. Looking at this picture, I remember the complexity of their relationship.




At this time, Dad was battling with paranoia, combatting delusions and fears he knew were unreal, but which he could not ignore. Coming to an event with many unknown folks and an immense volume of small talk would have been very hard for him. Mom's helping out her by giving him "the ass," sotto voce, as it were.



Nineteen-and-a-half years ago, this is what they looked like. My mom was 51, only two years older than I am now. Dad was 59. I feel as though I am looking back through a very long lens, but it really hasn't been that long, has it?



Michelle gave my father-in-law LeRoy the gift of sorting and categorizing his photgraphs, using I multiple-drawer filing system. I was truly amazed and appalled, as I think I mentioned, by this effort. Michelle struggles with an anxious and controlling nature and this gift sort of personifies her, in that she got to take someone else's stuff, put it into categories of her own choosing, and then sort all of it. I am sure it gave her great pleasure. As she demonstrated the results, we stumbled upon these picture of my folks.


I love this picture of my Mom. This is who I remember from the good old days. My bullet-proof, teflon Mother, capable of finessing any situation, of handling any obstacle, sure of her place in the world. She was witty, smart, insightful, and I didn't know as much about her as I thought I did. I had it all wrong. I saw Mom as the reasonable parent, the one who could handle Dad's idiosyncracies, could penetrate his isolative nature, could hold everything together.


I didn't know that my Dad was the memory, the detail guy, the tax preparer, check book balancer, medication tracker. I didn't know that Mom was at least as inclined to withdraw from others, to isolate and become secretive in a crisis. I didn't appreciate that my father was not the most stubborn partner in this marriage. Children don't know their parents. We know what we wish to know, attribute to them all sorts of qualities they may have half-earned, qualities we need to think they have. In the end, like us, they are fallible, flawed, feeling their way along the dark corridors, just as we ourselves find we must.


In 20 years, what will our children discover about us? What will they have presumed about who we are? What photos are hidden in drawers, boxes, trunks, waiting to be sorted by some busy in-law intent on a favor? Who will we turn out to have been?

Burn and fade

Laphroaig. Single malt, Islay scotch, rough and peaty, with smoke and other intangibles. What a wonderful thing to sip with a pal! I celebrated Kevin's birthday and my new sober-at-home status by tipping a few with Kevin last night at his home. This, as a faithful reader will know, is consistent with my resolution not to drink at my home (with a clause for special occasions, during which I must remain conversationally tipsy and charming).


I'm thinking of going to Kevin's every night until that bottle of Laphroaig is empty. It makes me purr. So does hanging out with ole' Kev, but the Laphroaig makes him seem even more charming. I'm sure I seemed equally erudite.

This is a picture of the fire I built at my friend Fish's cabin in Decorah. A place held sacred by me and other middle aged men.


Caitlin had a boy over last night, which was one of the reasons I vacated the joint. Walker and Robyn were trapped upstairs for the most part, so that Caitlin and Nathan could bill and coo. Nathan is a strapping lad who plays football and runs track for Mt. Vernon. He seems okay, although I had to put my foot down about his pulling into the driveway and not coming to the door. I have it on good authority that there was smooching going on. I myself witnessed flagrant hand-holding.

Walker was on patrol. He doesn't like to think about these boys kissing his sister, let alone anything else that must eventually happen, we suppose. If some young friend from school tells him something unflattering about his sister, he becomes worried. I'm tempted to tell him about chivalry, that he should punch out any young man who impugns his sister's virtue. I suppose that's outdated. My friend Jeannie commented that she is naive enough that she is the one person left in the office who doesn't belive a couple is having an affair. I like to believe the best of people, too, especially my daughter. That's part of my job. In fact, I still may punch that little shit.

The boy, Nathan, behaved well enough and left around 11:30 p.m. He seemed harmless enough.

This morning, Robyn got a call from her mother, who may have suffered a small stroke. She had weakness and numbness on one side and felt funny. Robyn took her to the hospital and the rest of us kept busy. We're not ready for her to fade away, or burn out, just yet. Last we heard, things were fine and they are going out to lunch.

Beauty and Boeuf (sp)

This is what happens when one looks away from one's curly-headed little girl. Now she can make mysterious eyes at a camera. Hmmm. How did that happen?

Pretty soon I'm going to burst into Sonny I Miss You or Watching Scotty Grow, or some other sappy Bobby Goldsboro hit from the sixties. Bobby was a popular singer of sentimental songs about kids and made a bundle, but unfortunately he was convicted of molesting one of the little tykes. That sort of took the momentum out of his hit machine.

Famous Pedophiles, for fifty, Bert!

I came to the conclusion the other day that drinking half a fifth of scotch a night was perhaps excessive. Also a factor was my falling asleep in my chair and not being very much fun to have around. Not going to teetotal, mind you, avid reader, I. I just need to think about why I was drinking so much alcohol.

It was very easy to do. I just kept the ice full and the glass got cold and it was just so pleasant. A good blast after work, one after dinner, and one before bed. Snork. Last Sunday I polished off my last two beers and quietly switched to water. Robyn noticed, but I don't think the kids have. It hasn't been very long, but I don't think I'm going to need a medal or anything. I have to ask myself "if it was so easy to get under control, how come it took you so long to do it?"

Or mabye it isn't under control. Maybe I'm going to really get big bad cravings. Writing about that scotch made my mouth water. That first drink tastes so good! It will also taste good when I go visit folks, or when we go to a bar or something. For a while, though, drinking needs to be an event, at lest marginally remarkable. We'll see how that works.

I look pretty "remarkable" in this candid photo, snapped by Caitlin.

My friend John emailed me the other day, and he's had a hell of a year. Quit his job (didn't get that story yet), had toe surgery, had a "nasty fall", had gall bladder surgery, and has a cat who had a false leukemia scare. Man. That's suffrin'. Here's to a better year, buddy (lifts a glass of . . . fucking ice water. . . no, really, it's okay)!

John says the worst part is walking like an old man. May this, too pass.

Bobby Goldsboro also wrote That's My Boy. Hey, I'm not making this up!

Let it snow tonight. Let the suburban vinyl be covered with a soft blanket. Under the streetlight it comes diagonally down. I am home safe with family and dog, drinking fucking ice water and feeling glad to be here. I hope you are, too. Glad to be here, that is. Drink what you want.