This just in: Steve Wozniak to appear as one of the contestants on Dancing With The Stars. Programming genius? Run-of-the-mill broadcasting folly? I give him two shows before he's out. Ever since I dedicated myself to the fine art and grandeur that is salsa dancing, I have newfound respect for the craft. This man won't be able to cut it compared to me.

Wozniak is one of the founders of Apple, computer geek l'originale, if you didn't know. His story is a colorful one (here's the Wikipedia link.) He and Steve Jobs fashioned the original Apple computer out of used pinball machine parts (or something) in Jobs' garage back in the '70s, and when their little garage band went public in 1980, the two Steves became multimillionaires overnight.

A year later, Wozniak was in an airplane crash (he was piloting a craft illegally) and suffered amnesia. He credits his girlfriend and computer games for resolving his memory. (I find this hilarious, because if there's anything that messes up my memory, it's women and computer games.) Anyway, he didn't go back to Apple after the accident. He went back to college and finished his undergraduate degree. Obviously, he was sufficiently traumatized in the plane crash.

My cousin knows him! Or claims to know him. I have a bunch of relatives living in Silicon Valley, of all places, and most of them have worked for Apple at one time or another. My cousin has hung out with "The Woz" on several occasions, and was telling me about it over Christmas. I don't know if they're really buddies or if it's just a groupie sort of thing, but it was a crack-up hearing the stories. Evidently, Woz doesn't really have a job anymore -he just works the professional lecture circuit on Caribbean cruises and such, and nowadays spends a lot of his time perfecting practical jokes. My cousin told me about one time where Wozniak had several hundred (real) two-dollar bills glued and bound together in notepad form. I understand he got busted by the Secret Service in Vegas when he was tearing off one bill after another and handing them out as tips. Evidently, they thought it was some brazen counterfeit money pad. Ha!

I hear he's a nice guy, though, active in several charities and a member of the Segway polo team, the "Silicon Valley Aftershocks."

Segway polo. Good Lord. If I only had the time...




~

The rain started at 3:30AM, I was later informed by the household mommy, who mentioned it with the authority of someone who had witnessed it firsthand. In the dim morning twilight you could hear it smacking the window, and impossibly so, given the state of endless drought and global warming we're in. Our house was up to 2 inches by yesterday afternoon, and we're looking for a couple more today, but that's not what got me out of bed. The Little Ditchman got me out of bed. She came down the hall and climbed up on top of me and whispered, "It's raining again," and then, "Come on Daddy, let's go downstairs so Mommy can sleep just a little bit longer." She's so considerate.

But she wouldn't let me watch the news with my coffee, she wanted me to read her a book: Franklin Says Sorry. It wasn't my first choice. I'm not a fan of these "Franklin" books, with their eerie animals, always smiling, talking, walking upright. The bear, the fox, the turtle, the beaver, the snail -they're all friends, see, not like in real life. But just like in real life, one of them screws over the other ones and then has to say he's sorry. I read the whole thing, but by the time we got to the end, the part where Franklin says he's sorry, the Big Finish, the Little Ditchman was done with it. She was distracted by something else.

So what would you do? Finish the book anyway? Force her to pay attention and get the lesson? Make her apologize for dominating your coffee and wake-up time? A real life lesson! I let it all go, of course. I'm pretty sure she's been through this story before. I was just bummed that I had to start the day with those pictures of Franklin in my head. They spook me.

Anyway, Handy Manny was on. This show rides the line of exploiting the Mexican laborer stereotype, has anyone noticed? No one seems to be complaining about that, but hey, at least Manny can get consistent work. The show is one of a score of those new children's series where the things look like they're drawn and animated by faceless, unfeeling robots, with characters every bit as engaging. (At least Disney had the wherewithal to employ Los Lobos to write that snazzy theme song.) I bring it all up because I wanted to mention that there is a curious sexual tension between Handy Manny and Kelly, the hardware store owner. No, really -my wife noticed it, too. Don't believe me? Even Wikipedia mentions their mutual attraction, played in the shadows, as subtext. I try not to picture anything too lusty in my head. The images have all the sensual form and romance of mating Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade balloons.

Just thought I'd mention it. What's on the agenda for this rainy day? More of the same and then more of that: work, phone calls, orders placed, potty training, and the usual odd tasks that keep piling up around the house. Add to that the regular periods of laughter, followed by the whining and whimpering, and then more laughter, and then more screaming, crying, and the incessant belligerence of toddlerhood.

And, hey, someone pick up these toys!


"No, Daddy. It's a Dinosaur Trip!"


Which is exactly what I'll be doing later if these aren't picked up.


~

Overheard downstairs this morning:

"Don't clean up, Mommy."

"Honey, I can't not clean up. It's what mommys do."

I don't know why the Little Ditchman wanted mommy to stop cleaning up, but it would be easy to get her to: just stop leaving a mess around! I think Mommy was cleaning up in front of the tv while Tigger and Pooh was on. Oh, can't see the tv? Hold on while I get some compression bandages for my bleeding heart!

People don't realize that when you decide to have kids, you're really applying for the worst janitorial job in the known universe. (I'm waiting for the Dirty Jobs episode where Mike Rowe becomes a single father of two for a weekend. He will run screaming.) You work 24/7 for twenty years straight, no pay. Job responsibilities include: the preparation of all food, followed by the cleaning up of all eliminated food wastes, the washing of perpetually soiled laundry, the bending over and picking up of a vast array of small plastic objects, repeatedly, until your knees and back scream out in anguish. Hazzards include being urinated upon, vomited upon, berated, incensed, and ignored by your subordinates. I could go on and on. I won't. It does.

WE HAVE A MILLION TOYS. We don't buy any of them, they're just given to us, mostly by people who don't have kids, and they accumulate in baroque piles in the corners of the house -upstairs, downstairs, everywhere. The Little Ditchman knows each one and if a tiny part is lost, she is aware of it. Sometimes these toys break and we have to pry the wretched things out her little clenched fists. She's two, and we've started her early: "Oh, honey, looks like that toy is broken beyond repair. We're going to have to throw it in the trash. Come on." And then we walk her to the garbage can, toss it in, and say farewell. We didn't have a choice. One day a while back the kid opened the trash can and saw one of her old things, which we hated and had tried to get rid of. We caught her reaching in for it. "Hey! Did you put this in the trash, Mommy?" Busted! Sometimes I find things in the toy pile that I know I threw away yesterday. For a while I was sneaking busted kidstuff out to the curb to cram in the trash can, under the cover of night, during bathtime.

Anyway, these little girls will turn in to your grandma with their piles of junk and newspapers stacked around them until their dying days, if you're not careful. You've got to start them early. Have little funerals for the toys. This item has run its course and served its purpose, child. Say goodbye. It was fun while it lasted. Hold my hand and sing with me: "To everything turn, turn, turn... There is a landfill, turn, turn, turn..."

The act of picking up the toys is a daily one, inescapable and unrelenting. To those of you who claim that they will teach their kids to pick up after themselves, I congratulate you on the millions you will make when you publish the book on it. A good child will clean up some of their mess, surely, but a smart child doesn't make a mess. There is a singular purpose to the meticulously organized array, and the child will explain it to you, speaking from her high horse, shaking her head at you, oh dumb and feeble-minded parent. You just don't get it.

An example.

You come around the corner:


A mess of toys on the kitchen floor, right? Well, clean it up!

But wait... Not so fast. Upon closer inspection...


Yes, that's right. Clearly, it's a dinosaur breakfast. Do you want to interrupt the dinosaur breakfast? Believe me, the wrath of the little girl will be much greater than that of the brachiosaur and the dimetrodon. You let it go for now. This mess is cuter than the others. Get the camera.

So it goes. I often clean up the toys after I do the dishes at night so I can sit on the couch in peace. I move them to the other room entirely, so I don't have to look at them. It's haunting, those dolls piled up in the corner staring back at you with their lifeless eyes. Every now and then one of them will make a noise, totally spontaneously, uninitiated by you. Just the other day I was shutting down the house at the stroke of midnight and I turned off the last light at the foot of the stairs. Out of the silent darkness, the tiny mechanical voice of a Little Einstein cackled from beneath something else: "HOORAY FOR ROCKET!" and my heart skipped a beat. I quickly turned the light back on and saw... nothing. I shook my head and flipped the switch off again, and immediately the voice of another Einstein: "GREAT JOB, ROCKET!" Damn these toys! They're messing with me!

Turns out it was some new-fangled talking puzzle (a talking puzzle!) that was being activated by the ambient light in the house. Of course. Right. Knew that. All the same, the fear lingers: one day you're going to throw away one too many toys, and those things are going to come alive at night, looking for revenge. It'll be after a long day and an extra beer. You'll feel a bit wobbly from exhaustion, and something plastic with wheels is going to do a slow roll over to the top of the stairs and wait there in the dark. And wait....

And wait...

Try not to think about it. Have a splendiforous weekend.


~

"I'm not making dinner tonight," was how she put it, unambiguously, when she arrived home from work and I was handing off the kids to her and leaving for my own late afternoon appointment. It struck me as odd since I knew she had nothing else going on this evening.

"You're not making dinner tonight?" I asked, with only a hint of supplication. And she said, "No." which I observed as very plainly and simply put, given that what she meant was I worked all day and I'm sick and I'm sore and I haven't had more than three hours of sleep at a time in months and you're leaving me here with these kids who won't stop screaming and if I have to make dinner tonight I'm going to throw that six quart stock pot through the dining room window with such force that it will ricochet off the neighbor's SUV and imbed itself in the tree where it will stand for all eternity as a symbol of this mother's rage and as a call to all mothers in suburbs across this land to rise up and not take crap from anyone anymore especially overly demanding family members!

To which I responded, "Okay."

I love to cook, though I stopped years ago when we started the business and I began to take making a living more seriously than making dinner. Before Mrs. Ditchman and I wed we would cook together, which makes for a sumptious courtship. I bought her an elaborate set of pots and pans for her birthday back then, and we use those things to this day. They're all bent and scorched and beat-up now, but they still work. She toils over them day in and day out, like me on the job site with my tools. I noticed her boiling baby bottle nipples in the sauté pan the other day, and I thought of the time back when we were dating and we sautéed scallops and in that same pan we made that unforgettable creamy red sauce with the freshly chopped basil (that was the secret.) Back then we would try out a new fish recipe every week and a new bottle of cabernet every evening. We've come a long way, it seems.

So I stopped at the store on the way home from work and picked up something for dinner. I gave the meal some thought and struggled to come up with a desireable dish that would impress and subdue. I found myself crossing the store from corner to corner, diagonally and twice back (which is absurd in a supermarket), picking my ingredients and keeping it as cheap and simple as possible. Pork chops, mushrooms, cauliflower, rice... It was obvious to the other shoppers that I was as wobbly and rusty at this as the old shopping cart I was pushing.

Got home and set it all on the counter, actually looking forward to the process. An old friend once told me that if you can convince yourself that cooking dinner is a relaxing endeavor, it'll add years to your life. "Seriously. You leave the day behind you, you take in the scents and sizzles, you relax. You'll find you digest your food better," he said. "And if you learn to love to cook, you won't ever eat that greasy, overpriced pigswill you have to tip them for!"

I don't think he had kids.

But I do like to put on some old music, (like The Pasadena Rooftop Orchestra, a new favorite) open a bottle of wine, (a 2005 Adelaida Cellars viognier) and light a candle (the pretty, white one on top of the Sparkletts bottle.) This all makes a difference, (especially the wine part) even if everyone is screaming like caged banshees. I lathered some finely-tuned spice rub on the chops. I sliced the mushrooms into perfect qaurters. I melted butter and crushed garlic. I took the kitchen flashlight out into the garden and stole some fresh parsley from the gods. And I cut an onion and browned the rice with a manly, graceful flair. It was awesome.

This is not the way Mrs. Ditchman makes dinner. She makes it hard and fast, with a baby in one arm and a toddler pulling at her leg. Oh, she'll light the candle on the Sparkletts bottle, too, but she does it and it won't fall off and spill hot wax on the Little Ditchman's head. My wife: she's got her eye on the ball and throws her back into the swing, and with the other eye she winks at the pitcher. Dinner plates go a-flying and every cupboard stays open until she's done. Dishes get washed as she goes, and sometimes she's on the phone negotiating our mortgage policy or our health insurance or tomorrow's playdate. If you get in her way to get a beer out of the fridge, the glare from her will keep you from enjoying it, and you'll be left with a full bottle in one hand and your dignity in the other, while you try and act grateful. Cheerful. Anything.

So I poured her a glass of the viognier and took it to her on the couch. She had a sip, enjoyed it, and was busy with the kids again. Then she carried them upstairs for bath time and bed, leaving her full glass on the window sill and me to my own devices, with a nearly ready, perfect meal. I sipped the wine, blew out the candle, and turned down the music so the kids could sleep.

She returned later and suggested we eat on the couch. The rice and the cauliflower were cold, the chops were a little dry, and the sautéed mushrooms were good, though a bit on the soggy side. She was grateful, and didn't have to be. I put on Lost. A moment later she was leaning back, chin up, mouth open: asleep, dead and away.

At least for the next hour or so.




~

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' "Doomsday Clock" currently reads five minutes to midnight, indicating how close the world is to total nuclear annihilation.


I am about half way through the Great Archival Project, Wedding Edition. Over 500 pics have been scanned, and it takes about four minutes a pic. My scanner can go four pics at a time and it's the perfect project for the past week, as I've been home with the chillun whilst Mommy is out selling the warez. I can start the scanner on four negatives (2400 dpi), walk away for fifteen minutes or so, and then return whenever and swap out the negative. Except for the Photoshop corrections, I've got it down to a habit. But it's an interminable one.

I'm in a hurry because the end of the world is coming. I feel the need to report on this, since this blog has always been titled what it is, and there are few things as significant as TEOTW. First, this warning sign: "Mystery Roar Detected From Faraway Space". Has that ever been a good thing? Large, friendly, gentle whale-like creatures bellowing "bonsoir" from the nether reaches of outer space? I think not. Then there's "Powerful Solar Storm Could Shut Down U.S. for Months" set for 2012, or thereabouts, for all of us wondering about that Mayan calendar mystery. By the way, if you're wondering why a solar storm is so dangerous, it's because the very large "Magnetic Field Hole Could Cripple Communications". Put Al Gore on it. If you were planning on the results from the LHC to answer some of those galactic "roar" questions, well, "Scientists Not So Sure 'Doomsday Machine' Won't Destroy World" (You have to just love that title.)

This was all found on the FoxNews web site. Not sure why they're big on TEOTW type stuff, but I'm sure it has something to do with their right-wing agenda. If you aren't convinced yet, FoxNews has this article just to hammer it home: "Five Ways the World Can End". Don't bother reading it, I'll spare you: nuclear war, volcano, asteroid, black hole, and expanding sun. Pick any two for good measure. (Note right-wing agenda: "Global Warming" not among the five.)

Also, there is the ongoing alien problem. Seems there's been a lot of this lately, did you notice? First there was the "Video of 'UFO' at Inauguration Gets Internet Buzz" and then there was "New Jersey Under Alien Attack — Maybe" and then there was "British Wind Turbine Possibly Hit by UFO" and for good measure: "Alaska Town Abuzz Over Mystery Sky Explosion". All of these stories just in the last month! Coincidence? Coinky-dink? You tell me.

Also, President Obama predicted trillion-dollar deficits for years to come. Spend like it's your last days on earth! Come on world, it's not so bad, we're just in a global rut! To paraphrase Emerson: I know in my head that it's Doomsday, but in my heart it's the best day of the year.

~

So I've been sucked into the realm of "Facebook" which casts you into cyberspace in a manner (at least partially) of your choosing. I mean, how much time does an average person spend on selecting the photo that reveals themselves to long lost acquaintances (now upgraded to "friend" status)? My brother doesn't have a photo of himself on Facebook. He's just an empty cypher with a name. He might be my brother, now that I think of it. Anyway, he hasn't accepted my friend request.

I love all these people who show up from the distant past whom you thought never noticed you. (I am one.) They have so many friends, too! And all the people whom I regularly hang out with, people who were in my wedding, like my wife -they have so few friends by contrast. I am at once more popular and less popular than I ever thought.

The social graces of cyberspace have yet to be sufficiently elucidated, by the way. Do I really want to be "friends" with people that are in my family? If I turn down a friend request from an in-law, I'm pretty sure my wife won't write on my "wall" for a week, much less share my bed. Imagine how the whole network would change overnight if, when you received a friend request, you could just click NO THANKS. MAKE ACQUAINTANCE. Then again, it probably already exists as a feature for established users. I haven't heard back from a few folks.

Yes, it took me a while to get hooked up on Facebook, I mean, obviously I'm a dinosaur, still spending my time in the Jurassic blogosphere. My immediate instinct is to blame my age (Verging on 40! There was no email in college!) but then I noticed a bunch of my friends' parents on there, so it seems I've arrived late to the party. "Izza 'bout dang time!" someone scribbled on my wall. I can see it: a month from now I'll be like where'd everyone go? and everyone will be over at "Spacebook" or "FaceReunion" or "MySlice" or whatever the hip domain is. Me, I'll probably still be over here with the blog. So passé.

But it's been fun connecting with all those people I haven't seen since high school and college and summer camp and Starbucks yesterday. I admit there's a part of me that wishes I had just picked someone more popular and successful than me and started an account with their good name and an old high school photo of them. (Wait a minute: who says I haven't?! And I'll resist the temptation to do a Facebook search on myself, as I doubt it's happened to me.) Anyway, it's amazing how so many people who've crossed paths in the past can come together so easily and so often and have so little to say. Does anyone out there ever just stop and go, Whoa. We're all here sitting inside staring at our screens. Why don't we meet at the beach? And then I realize I'm the only one with perfect weather in February, ten miles from the beach. I've been online with the service for only twenty-four hours and people are coming out of the woodwork, and from around the world. So it's Facebook: the phonebook that writes itself!

Of course, there's always the virtual beach invite and all the "poking" that goes on. Poking? Are we back in class? Is this what "friends" do? Okay, so, it's cute, but I'm not sure I need cute. I've got cute here in droves: my two-year-old just peed on the couch. And yesterday someone on Facebook requested to "kidnap" my profile and -I'm not sure- either hold it for ransom or molest it altogether. Request denied. (I put a lot of thought into what year I didn't graduate from college.) But I will buy a virtual round of exotic cocktails from a virtual Polynesian pool bar at sunset, brought to you on a virtual gold platter by erotic models of the opposite sex, for everyone I've ever met, and redeemable until the end of the ages.

It's just a matter of time before I make a complete steer's ass out of myself on Facebook, as I do here on Blogger on a weekly basis, so wait for it. At least I have another venue to share eccentric interests with long lost friends without having to exit the house or spend a dime. Leave it to the Internet to drag meek nerds out of the cellar (or leave them there) and organize them into some sort of community. I propose an Internet collective for those of us with interests in all things botanic, but who are too embarrassed to join local gardening clubs because they can't get anything to grow. I will call it: "Faceplant".


~

February came yesterday and wasted no time in upturning the routine with the wild interceptions, irreverant gestures, and blinding stagelights it has such command of. It was a beautiful day, a Superbowl day, if one cares about such things, and we headed out to church with the demanding Little Ditchman in the back seat. She's the vociferous DJ of the highway, if you didn't know, and I was forced to withstand the head-swelling sounds of the Veggie Tales, which is like the Alvin and the Chipmunks for the faithful. Seriously, it sounds like a high-pitched miter saw cutting through metal at full volume, and somewhere in there are the lyrics: JESUS LOVES THE LITTLE CHILDREN ALL THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD... It's awful. It compels one to sin.

In the pew I was able to collect myself, late, near the front. No sooner than we sat down did Mrs. Ditchman get up and have to cart off the Little Digger to the cry room, and when you notice everyone watching you, you want to head there as well. But I stayed put, and the choir had a hymn of their own that put my heart at ease, and seriously so. Midway through the song my eyes actually got a little watery, and I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for all the blessings of life, seen and unseen. Anyway, strangers noticed, but I held my head up, unashamed. I mean, seriously, isn't church just the big Cry Room of the world?

It was a communion Sunday, and I was relieved to see the Holy Host up there at the altar. The pastor suggested we pray in earnest for a multitude of things, and I obliged -so much so that when the bread came around, broken for me, I masterfully passed it to the congregant next to me, whispering with authority how this was "...Christ's body, broken for you..." -at which point I realized that I had forgotten to take some.

I think everyone around me noticed, since of course they'd been staring at me since I entered the sanctuary. Poor soul, they must've thought, Look at him with his head bowed. The man must really be hurting. Won't even accept communion. And that poor little family of his!

When the wine came around (Christ's blood shed for me...) I was so confused, I didn't know whether to accept and take some or just let it pass. Does half a ritual do any good? It's not really wine, anyway, it's grape juice -which Jesus Christ decidely did not use. Did everyone think I'd completely lost it? Did God Himself care? I decided I needed it, asked for forgiveness, and went on with life like the rest of the dumb sheep. At least I had the wherewithal not to take two. I'm pretty sure both God and Mrs Ditchman were shaking their heads.

Got home with a thousand plans, shattered in an instant by my wife with plans of her own -but it wasn't so bad. We put the game on, explained football to the two-year-old, watched Springsteen at halftime with her on my lap, ate guacamole and barbecued some tri-tip at sunset. Opened a bottle of wine, unconsecrated. Drank some. It tasted good. Started a Facebook account, and suddenly had a hundred more people staring at me from the ether.

What a world.


~