PAgent’s Progress

After much gnashing of teeth and downloading of various add-ons, including a compression utility for pngs, I created an animated ad for flotsam:

I did this all by myself. I’m very proud of myself.

Unfortunately, it’s about 170 K too large to use at Project Wonderful.

Curses.

Update: I guess this was a blessing in disguise, as neither Chrome nor Safari can display animated png files. So, here is the gif version:

Which is slim and trim and perfectly cromulent.

Update 2: And here’s one for nonobvious.

The Girl went to band camp at the coast yesterday. Since The Wife had already gone to the coast and back last week, and was still recovering from it, it fell on me to provide transport. In other words, my responsibility as a father required me to drive out to the coast. Bitchin’.

My daughter packed enough gear for an entire week away from home, we loaded her battered tuba into the back seat of the Corolla, and then away we went.

It was a beautiful, beautiful day. The sun was blazing down, but the temperatures were still mild, and there was a lovely breeze. It was a perfect day for rolling the windows down, putting on sunglasses, and heading to the ocean.

As is usually the case when we are alone, my obnoxious thirteen-year-old girl turned into a delightful travelling companion. She has discovered Monty Python, and so some time in the car was spent reciting favorite quotes. We talked about band, and music, and being away from home. It was a great drive. Right now these moments only happen rarely, when we can be alone together, and away from home, but they give me hope for the future. I feel like I can almost see the kind of relationship we might have once she is an adult, and it fills me with joy and anticipation. Just as long as I can keep from killing her before she gets there.

I wanted her to have some lunch before we got to the camp itself, so we stopped in Rockaway Beach and looked for a bite to eat. As we walked up the sidewalk on Highway 101, she suddenly she pointed at a ramshackle little building set back from the street, with a sign indicating that it was the “Old Oregon Smokehouse”.

“This place is great! I went there with Uncle Bear! And they have lots of cats!” I was somewhat dubious, but we were running out of time, so we ordered some clam chowder for her, and halibut fish and chips for me.

I’d like to apologize to the Old Oregon Smokehouse for any reservations I might have had about eating there. The food was exquisite. The very lightly battered halibut was firm, flavorful, and moist. It really had an excellent flavor, the kind you can only achieve with fish that’s painfully fresh. The french fries were crispy nuggets of awesome as well, and served with dipping sauce. The chowder had a strong and distinctive flavor, different from the majority of chowders you find at every cafe on the coast. I’m thinking there was a lot of thyme in there. But most of all it was thick and creamy without being the slightest bit glutinous, which I hate in chowders.

There is a much better picture of the Old Oregon Smokehouse by Justin Hawthorne here on Flickr. If you’re passing through Rockaway Beach, you owe it to yourself to stop in.

Checking into camp went smoothly, and included an audition. The Girl was looking at her music, warming up on her tuba, and generally being very nervous. She was concerned about the audition, but surprisingly also concerned that she wouldn’t know anyone at camp. Fortunately before I left she had already connected with someone from her school band, and I don’t doubt that there were more there.

It’s a side I rarely see from her. She’s got so much self-confidence (perhaps a touch too much?) that I never picture her faltering or hesitating. Maybe this is another aspect of her increasing maturity shining through.

After her audition, we put her stuff on her bunk, and I said goodbye. I know she’s going to have a good time this week. The camp looked like a hotel, with well-tended grounds, a lake to swim in, volleyball courts, and multiple outbuildings. As long as she finds one or two friends to connect with, she should be fine. And I know she will try to get the most out of the music instruction there.

Now that I was without child, I pondered what to do before heading back. Unfortunately, I really didn’t have all that much time, and my knees in particular were bothering me. Nevertheless I went to a nearby state park and hiked over the dunes to the beach.

The wind, which had been a well-mannered breeze inland, was howling across the sand. Aside from the wind-driven sand particles exfoliating my face, the resulting windchill made it a less than delightful oceanside experience. I didn’t spend too much time there before hiking slowly back over the hill and heading home. That was when I realized that the cooling effect of the wind also kept me from noticing how sunburned my forearms were getting. They are glowing a nice cheery red today, thank you very much.

We pick The Girl up next weekend, and I’m honestly looking forward to the concert they will provide. The bickering and fighting after we get home? Not so much.

In case you didn’t know, in addition to managing this train wreck of a blog, I am a contributor to the Portland community blog OurPDX.com. Unless you are a frequent visitor at OurPDX, you can be forgiven for not realizing that it/we are celebrating our first birthday today.

What that means is that we have co-opted Beer and Blog for this afternoon, and you can join us authors at the Green Dragon bistro and brewpub for celebratory libations starting at 4:00 pm.

If the prospect of meeting me in the flesh does not stir you (and frankly, why should it?), I have also foolishly consented to join the OurPDX crew for a special addition of Strange Love Live starting at 10:00 pm. If you miss the live stream, you can always catch it later at blip.tv.

While I am not entirely comfortable with the idea of being on camera, I console myself with the knowledge that I will certainly be sufficiently inebriated by that point that any such concerns will have been dissolved in ethanol.

The Wife was kind enough to snap some cellphone pics of the dog enjoying the beach yesterday. Apparently when he got overheated from bouts of playing fetch, he would cool off by simply dropping into the nice cool seawater.

Happy dog.

One of the things I introduced The Wife to, after prying her out of the midwest and forcibly relocating her to the People’s Republic of Oregon, was tidepools. It was not a difficult transition for her, since an existing predilection for pretty rocks and sparkly things already meant that she spent all of her time on the beach looking down. However, once I showed her the kinds of critters to be found in Oregon’s tide pools at low tide, she became a confirmed tidepooler, as eventually did our children.

It just so happens that this week the Oregon coast is experiencing terrifically low tides, some approaching -3 feet (for you landlocked flatlanders, that is very low indeed. This means that low tide will be uncovering some real estate that usually goes unseen. In addition to the various and sundry shipwrecks and ancient forests that will be revealed, these low tides will also uncover tide pools that don’t usually suffer from periodic exposure to the sun and air.

That is, they should be chock full ‘o critters.

Which is why, in an uncharacteristic fit of spontaneity*, The Wife packed up the kids at 5 am this morning, and drove out to the coast to go tidepooling.

*Okay, The Wife considers this wildly spontaneous, and is somewhat giddy at the prospect of cutting loose in this fashion. Just so you know, in my wife’s case “spontaneous” means she’s only planned it for two days, consulted just a few maps of the area, prepped the car beforehand, and carefully planned her route to and from the beach. Oooh. Go wild.

Since Gus is a dog, it should go without saying that he LOVES the beach, and out of the kindness of their hearts, they took Gus with them. He deserves some time romping in the sand. Although I am sad that I won’t be joining them, I’m glad they’re taking this rare opportunity to explore some cool real estate.

The end result, however, is that when I got out of bed this morning, the house was silent. Completely quiet. It’s rare but not completely unheard of for me to be alone without the rest of the family, but I am almost never home without the dog. I’ve grown so accustomed to his presence by my side that I forget that he’s always there. He follows me from room to room, laying down by my chair when I sit, looking longingly at me when I eat, and pleading with me when he has a tennis ball in his mouth. His presence is such a constant that his absence this morning set me back. I kept listening for the click of his nails on the floor. I kept looking for him underfoot.

As nice as it was to be free of the yelling, singing, bickering, thumping and banging that usually underscores my mornings, I didn’t linger in the house. It was a little too quiet this morning for comfort.

I was out driving the other day when I noticed a bumper sticker on the minivan in front of me. It said:

Well, my first thought was that the van was owned by some crazed cat lady. Some poor scraggly-haired spinster who had focused all of her attention and affection on her little furry “children”. She was probably living in a double-wide that was pungent with ammonia fumes, shuffling through ankle-deep cat shit in faded bunny slippers.

Well, as satisfying as that mental imagery was, that bumper sticker still struck me as remarkably provocative. Clearly, this was a cat owner that wanted to not only brag about how clever their little Fuzzball might be, but was also making a statement about the relative value of my child.

Let’s think about this for a moment. Some schmuck off the street goes into a shelter and picks out some slightly wall-eyed, drooling kitten with kennel cough and brings it home. Over the next several years, if you’re lucky, it learns to crap in a box full of gravel instead of all over your pillow. Beyond that, the intellectual demands on a housecat are fairly minimal.

And the cat owner’s responsibilities are fairly laughable to boot. If you get the damn thing to the vet for shots and feed it twice a day, you’re a loving pet owner. At any rate, the silly thing sleeps 21 hours a day, so how hard could it be?

Contrast that with the work of a parent, which starts with labor and delivery, then through 2 am feedings. The cavalcade of illness begins with ear infections and mystery fevers, often requiring midnight dashes to the emergency room. After a few years of that, you escalate to concussions and broken bones, as your little darling becomes a more accomplished climber.

Don’t forget the diapers, several thousand of them, and all the fun and games that come with them. Like the beautiful finger painting on the living room wall that your child executed in their own crap.

Finally, little darling moves on to daycare/preschool/playdates, and when you pick them up you get to endure the frigid stares of the parents whose kids were bitten by yours. Then the conferences with care-givers begin: “Little Suzie has been acting out a bit. We can’t help but wonder if there’s anything unusual going on at home. Divorce? Abuse? Dark rituals to appease unholy gods?”

In another few years, your darling leans how to lie, and lie convincingly. Now you have to become a detective: Searching under beds, snooping through backpacks, calling teachers at home. Accusations fly, harsh words are exchanged, and you start buying Maalox at Costco.

And through it all you grimly soldier on, weathering calls from vice-principals and angry neighbors, setting limits, then setting consequences as limits are laughingly demolished. Now you’re buying booze at Costco, and spending an unhealthy amount of time figuring out how hard it would be to create a new identity in Latin America.

Then a small miracle occurs. Your child discovers something they like to do, and they become good at it. Screaming fits become nearly reasonable discussions. They might even ask your advice about something. The calls from school become less about violence and theft, and more about congratulations and awards. Their grades creep up, and they actually become interested in their schoolwork.

And then, your child becomes an Honor Student. You look back at all the sleepless nights, the fear, the pit-of-your-stomach dread, and all the angry words. You look back, and you begin to see that it was all worth doing. Little Suzie is going to be a productive member of society. She might even do great things. It was hard, but in the end, you’ve made a good person.

And then some shithead tells you their cat is smarter than your kid. Which is why I ran that minivan off the road and down an embankment. Then set it on fire.

Visiting hours at Washington County lockup are usually 9:00-10:30 am, 1:00-3:30 pm, and 7:30-9:30 pm. Please bring cigarettes, but not menthols. My new BFF Zeke doesn’t like menthols.