Author: Alex

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Alex / / Alex

I’ve just added a sidebar widget [update: that one turned out not to work so well.. this other one works better and does more] that imports “tweets” from a twitter account I opened just for this purpose.

None of this would be more convenient than logging in to either twitter, Facebook or wordpress (oh my), were it not for this great Firefox add-on called “twitter bar”, which lets you type any text into the browser’s address bar, click a special little button, and it posts it to twitter.

The reason for all this: often I’ll want to post something brief but don’t like the time it takes to log in – is this uber-American laziness, or what?  It’s silly, but that’s a real limiter for me.  And this will make posting short text and circulating it very snappy.

Ah, Capitalism

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam

Dad, why didn’t you buy a toy?

Do you have an idea that we buy a toy every time we go to a restaurant?

.. No.

Well, this is one of the times we didn’t.

Mago mopes and kneels face down on the bench.

Do you want this sandwich?

He shakes his head, sullen. After a few minutes and a few more invitations, he’s still sullen. Time for Harmless Distracting Untruth.

I happen to know you wouldn’t like the toys here.

He sits up and looks at me, slightly wide-eyed.

Yes I would!  I’ve never had any toy I don’t like!

Hm. .. I think you wouldn’t like this sandwich either.

Mago is mildly alarmed, and his eyes grow wider.

How do you know?

Mm.. I just don’t think you would.

But maybe I would!

No, I don’t think so.

Why?

Because it has turkey, bacon, lettuce, cheese, and whole wheat bread.

Well maybe I would like it!

Mm, I still don’t think so.

I haven’t decided!

You don’t have long.

A minute or so passes, and I continue the reverse-pitch.  Next I know, Mago is wolfing down the sandwich.

Cha-ching!

Nap

Alex / / Alex, Nem Nem Niamh

This was my conversation with Nem-nem just now.

Nem, did you have a good nap?
Yes.
Did you sleep well?
Yes. I did go to sleep in my bed, and then princesses came in my room, and then I did wake up.
Did you dream about princesses?
Yes. And they did come into my room, and then they had babies, and they were mommies, and then I did wake up.

As I wrote this, I heard a whack and a loud scream, and found she’d hit her brother hard on the head with a play tea set plate. For that, you get to sit out on the front porch in the cold for a minute until you remember how much you like a warm room and your brother. It came back to her attention.

Princess training takes time..

Fix

Alex / / Alex, Mago Elf Liam, Nem Nem Niamh

Nem-nem comes running to me.

Nem: Dad, [Mago] took a flashlight from me.

I pick her up.

Me: What did you do?
Nem: I did something mean. I said [scowls and yells] I! WANT! THAT! FLASHLIGHT!
Me: How are you going to fix that?
Nem: Um, hug.

She lowers herself out of my arms and runs off, calling her brother’s name.

Fire and Water

Alex / / Mago Elf Liam, Nem Nem Niamh

Nem-nem stands on top of a two-foot tall bureau. Mago is on the floor. Nem switches the light for the room off, and squeals. Mago crouches down in a ball and starts shaking his head, or wiggling around on the floor.

Mago (squealing and whimpering): WATER! I’M UNDERWATER! I’M UNDERWATER! AHH! HELP! I’M UNDERWATER!
Nem (brightly): Oh, I sorry!

Nem switches the light on. Mago stands up and starts waving his arms, twirling or running around.

Mago (still squealing and whimpering): FIRE! FIRE! I’M ON FIRE! HELP! I’M ON FIRE!
Nem (again, brightly): Oh, I sorry!

Nem switches the light off and squeals. Mago crouches down in a ball, and the whole cycle repeats again, a dozen times, or two dozen, or more..

More mouses, please

Alex / / Critters, Mago Elf Liam, Nem Nem Niamh, Tia

1. About a week ago while Tia was out on an errand with the kids (I was home alone), I crossed the hall into the kitchen, and when I arrived, I heard a small, high, but loud “EEEK!”, and in the same instant a smallish brown blob (for all I could see) darted from the wall above the stairs very fastly past my boots and made a BANG sound thumping into the folding door in front of the dryer – but that was the last I could see of the mouse.

When I told Tia, she made sure the traps were still set (they needed resetting).  We caught the mouse a few days later, and released him the same as the first.  I was going to bring the video camera for this but discovered its battery needed recharging, so I couldn’t capture the event.  However, it wasn’t as exciting – the mouse was larger, dark brown, and moved more like a squirrel – again past my boots on escape, only much more slowly.  Since it was slow I wonder if it was the same mouse I heard shriek ..

Snake

Alex / / Critters, Mago Elf Liam

Mago’s grandma Helen caught a garden snake in her garage, and donated it to him (after seeing his interest when she donated another captured friend to other grandchildren).  It’s home is a big plastic ice cream tub.

Mago left it in his room with the lid too loose some time earlier today.

Loose enough for the snake to push up.

It has escaped.

In a great big old house that is a small creature’s hide-and-seek dream.  Or nightmare.  Current theories are that it must be trapped in a heat ventilation duct – it could easily fit down one, but back up and out, I don’t know.  I believe it may die – unless it’s much cleverer and agile than I think (it’s around 20 inches long, I’d guess) – in which case it will simply find its way into the wild.

I do not believe it will turn up, but we may try buying a live mouse (re last post, ironically) to put in a snake trap to lure it, on the chance it is still around.

Mouse

Alex / / Alex, Critters, Mago Elf Liam, Nem Nem Niamh, Pictures, Tia, Video

About a week ago Tia saw, late at night, a mouse run around the corner of the bed and toward a wall.  We turned over everything we reasonably could at a late hour (in our tiredness) but didn’t find the mouse.

So the next day she bought some humane mousetraps, a type that merely shuts a door on its prisoner instead of smashing its brains out.

(I shudder – never mind such traps are far easier and less disgusting to manage.)

Over the next few days the kids eagerly awaited the capturing of mice (Nem: “More mouses, please”).  One morning Tia found a trap set off, but it seemed so light, and the traps had previously been set off without capturing anything, so she opened the trap door to reset it – and a mouse scurried out and ran and hid in a corner, behind and under some things.   She managed then to trap the mouse in a shoebox, which she taped shut.

We set off to Rock Canyon, the kids very eager to see the mouse as we would release it into the wild.

I videotaped this release, which (edited) footage follows, with some walking and playing with the kids afterward.  After the mouse’s escape Tia asked me if I’d captured footage of  something particular (and very remarkable) about it on tape.  I hadn’t noticed, and thought I hadn’t captured it.  But it certainly showed in the lens and on the camera’s video display.  I only noticed by playing it back frame by frame, and for only six frames (at the frames per second rate multiplied by 5, and to put it more technically, that something like the “blink of an eye“).

You may also miss it on the first pass – this render will repeat the surprise in slow motion.  Here is a still – please only show this after watching the video. [spoiler](Link to image file)[/spoiler]

(It also starts off with a relevant silly clip from a video game I played when I was a kid – exported from an emulator.)

For a higher quality video click the link that says “play in new window” after “(hifi)”.