It's a good thing we had a boy this time. It's a good thing we had a boy this time because this morning The Little Ditchman actually asked to watch Dancing With The Stars instead of Little Einsteins. Mommy saw this as a cute she's mommy's little girl thing. Dreams of going off trail and scampering up steely boulders deep in the Sierra with my son are now vivid and pronounced.

Seems the two-year-old will get to stay up a little later on Monday and Tuesday nights (and Wednesday is dance class, of all things.) She caught a glimpse of the Hollywood dancing a few weeks ago and was transfixed. Last night she overheard us talking about it and climbed up on the couch a few minutes before it came on, and when the show began... all was stillness, mouth agape. I watched the first dance and then cleared out when the Little Ditchman commented on the nice "red tap shoes" of one of the dancers. She was eating M&Ms at the time. So there they were, Mommy and daughter, sitting on the couch eating chocolate, watching Dancing With The Stars, and commenting on the shoes. Like I said, I cleared out of there. With a beer.

I suppose it was inevitable. "That's my show!" she exclaimed, over and over, after she got out of the bath and prancing naked in the hall before bedtime. So I got the dinosaur book out this morning (a good one -one from my childhood -one I was keeping in reserve) and tried to interest her in some Jurassic pursuits, but eventually she just asked to watch DWTS. I put Little Einsteins on and went upstairs to get ready for work. With a beer. (Just kidding.)

It's just as well. I want to make a woman out of her and Mrs. Ditchman is more qualified to emphasize the feminine parts than I am. But I will teach her the dinosaur names for good measure, just so she doesn't fall into that trap of being unduly impressed by all the precocious boys out there, with their X-Boxes and Bionicles. She'll hold her own. I've already got her waving her hand and saying these aren't the droids you're looking for, so we're off to a strong start. Next spring we'll work on the Alec Guiness impersonation.

But no DWTS for Little Digger. I'll go back to watching Fringe, with all it's sci-fi gore and gunfire, if that's what it's going to take. We're gonna make a man out of him.

And I suppose he has this to look forward to, along the merry way to manhood (from Lileks):

When I was growing up Jane Russell was the old lady in the bra ad. It lifts and separates! It’s an 18-hour bra! These were mysterious concepts. What happened after 18 hours? Did it burst into flames? Did it drop and smush? Even the word PLAYTEX was strange, like some sort of moist clay-like plastic.

Bras are very unnerving to boys of a certain age. A trip to the department store often meant some red-faced time in Bra Land with Mom, looking up at acres of bras hanging like scalps from some strange war only adults knew about.

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Wanton, unapologetic Spoiler Alert.

At the beginning of 24: Redemption, which I watched last night, the screen says: "The following takes place in real time," and it says it completely without irony, given that after this episode, the show takes a two month break, no doubt well-deserved after the two-year CTU-free intermission we've recently enjoyed out in tv wasteland.

Jack Bauer is in Africa (!) in that famously war-ravaged country of Senegala or Sri Kanya or Mozamboku or something, and there is about to be a military coup. Will Jack stop the coup? No -he's busy saving the children of Africa and, no, he doesn't save all of the children of Africa, though you might expect he'd try if given enough time, which is that elusive little thing that he never has. Twenty minutes or so into the television "event", our hero is strung up in a jungle shed and being tortured until it looks like he's going to break, sobbing and blithering until he reveals everything he knows; everything from where the children are hiding to the Pentagon secrets to Season 7 plot points and the color of Tony Almeda's gym shorts, but he escapes with the old break-the-torturer's-neck-with-the-legs routine. Genius! I guess the writers had to rough him up early on to get him good and mad for the next twenty-three and a half hours, for which they are also saving their own creative powers.

Mrs. Ditchman noted how hot he was, at about this point. She couldn't put her finger on what it was, exactly. She mentioned something about his masculine physique. If I had pointed out that a stoic hero of Jack Bauer's magnitude would probably be no less helpful around the house than yours truly, I'm sure I would have gotten the line, You're no Jack Bauer, honey. Uh, no. I'm not.

Because if I were, you'd be dead by now, honey. All of Jack's friends and family are dead, or mostly dead. (It's their most defining trait!) Early on in Redemption we meet a guy who's a friend of Jack's -old special forces buddy- and this guy seems like a real winner; really looking out for Jack, wants the best for him, wants the torture within to be easier than the torture without, etc. But an hour later they're all escaping with the African children and the guy steps on that heretofore unnoticed dramatic plot device, the land mine. After an emotional exchange, ("Go on without me! There's no time!") Jack turns tearfully and leaves his sorrowful buddy behind, standing there immobilized in the jungle. Minutes later in the distance: Boom. The sound of closure in a Jack Bauer relationship.

A bad guy came on screen. I recognized him from the red beret. Then another bad guy came on screen. Mrs. Ditchman recognized him from General Hospital. She said "he was bad on that show, too" so the poor bastard was typecast, but hey there's a paycheck in it. (Or perhaps she was referring to his theatric abilities.) And then there's the new president, who may be bad or good -we don't know. She (yes, she) is about to be sworn in at the inauguration, so any political maneuvering can't be dramatically instituted until she takes the oath later on in the show. Meanwhile, Lame Duck President is having his last oval office whiskey while plotting the opposite of whatever it was she was plotting (there's a coup brewing in some African nation, remember?) They meet. They talk. They admit nothing. They smile menacingly. And then he gives her the notebook with all the presidential secrets. Seriously folks, it's all in a notebook. With a metal cover. (But not the codes, he says. Evidently, that's a different notebook.) Anyway, I was glad to see they got a new president. This show has had ten American presidents in the past seven years and I, nor evidently anyone else in the writer's guild, don't see any reason to stop electing new ones now.

So Jack escapes Africa with the children but in order to cover the cost of the iconic evacuate-the-embassy helicopter ride, he must give in to the bureaucrats and agree to suffer the torturous fulfillment of a congressional subpoena on torture. Earlier in the show he took a white hot machete to the ear and moments later he was on the phone, but he fought bravely against giving in to that subpoena. It was for the kids' freedom that he relented -for the kids! He didn't have a choice. In the end, they all escaped on the helicopter which should have just picked them up out in the jungle an hour earlier. Other refugee children were left at the gates, arms outstretched between the bars. Jack looked down as the chopper lifted off. He couldn't save them all, dammit, but he did what he could. Our forlorn hero.

Great show! The Season 7 promo alone looked better than all of Season 6, but a world with a nuked Valencia is probably an easier venue for a good thriller. I'm looking forward to it! It showed Jack in DC and I fretted over the fact that the first twelve hours of the season were going to be on an airplane, but then Mrs. Ditchman explained to me that this was a 24 "event" and not officially bound to the parameters of the new season -so they have the liberty to reset the clock. Whew. (But will six hours of next season take place at a congressional hearing? Tune in for non-stop Jack Bauer action!)

If you missed it, the DVD for 24: Redemption comes out tomorrow because, hey, Christmas is coming.

(Incidentally, Season 7 begins on Sunday, January 11th -the week before the real inauguration. Coincidence? I think not. Coinkeydink? Yes.)


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I gave up on Fringe this week. You know, Fringe? "The show everyone's talking about!" It was on and I had the opportunity to watch it and I just didn't. Mrs. Ditchman said, "Your show is on," and I just said "No thanks," and went upstairs. She put on DWTS (which is on two nights in a row, in case you were wondering.) It was a strange, slightly guilty feeling giving up on the show like that -like breaking up with a cute girlfriend who you wanted to like but though she claimed to be enamored of you she always treated you with a mild, underhanded contempt. We were mid-story, and I just found myself not caring what happened and resigned myself to never finding out.

In a similar vein, or perhaps not, I am about two-thirds of the way through a book and reached a couple chapters I had already read. They were the chapters that got me hooked -I picked up the book a while back and just started reading somewhere in there and found it all compelling enough to start from the beginning, (which is saying something.) Now I've reached that section, and I'm wondering if I should just skip ahead or re-read. It doesn't matter, but I'd be finished faster, I guess. I'm not someone who puts back books just to grow the list, rather, I want to get something out of them. Is this one giving me anything? Meh. It's merely a good read. I can tell, because I started to skim those chapters and found that I only recalled, like, half of it.

And so if these are the things that trouble me most in life, then I'm a lucky man! But truth be told, I have other troubles, and relaying them here would be a sour, pessimistic way to end the week and have a weekend. It's Friday! And I have as much work to do today as I've had all week and half the energy to do it! We're all still sick here, some of us seem to be fairing worse, and even the cat's sick -which has us worried. He's old. And what do you do for a cat? It's not like you're going to give him a Tylenol, wrap him in blankets, talk sympathy and lovingly feed him Campbell's Chicken Noodle -no, he just has to suffer through the illness. Poor cat. He's lucky too, though. I mean, he's 19 and what's the lifespan of a Persian Cat in the wild? Ahhh, the wilds of windswept Persia, where prides of Persian Cats roam -among the fittest players in Nature's awesome display of the daily struggle to survive in the animal kingdom. Now there's a TV show I'd watch. On Domestic Animal Planet Network.

Have a purrrrr-fect weekend! (Sorry.)



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Came home last night to find the baby answer book opened to a page that said something like "endless crying," so that's what it's been like around here.

Also, we have router problems with our ethernet. Meaning: our net access is being routed into the ether. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not. We're being routed! No time or patience for any of this.

Still feel like I have a ten pound rock in my stomach, which makes it hard to bend over. Since most of work is "bending over", this makes for a trying week. Now, if we could route the endless crying, there might be hope.


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Perhaps TODAY IS THE DAY! that the sickness leaves me entirely. Boy, I sure hope so. I won't get into the ugly specifics, but I can tell you that it's working its way through the system. (A Porta-John on the job site today may be necessary after all.) New theories posited are that it was this year's version of the flu, and though some of us got the shot, we got it in that two week timeframe where the vaccine doesn't work if you fall ill. So can I get my twenty bucks back? Anyway, I just hope the kids don't get it.

The new little digger is three weeks old today, and he's already gained a pound and an inch or so (of attitude)! Sleeping schedules have yet to be ordained, if you're wondering, so life here on Eastview remains challenged. The Ditchman Formerly Known As Little is benefitting from it all with more available TV time and the remaining Halloween candy (which we dole out in scanty portions.) She doesn't seem to understand that Halloween is gone, buried and interred (mostly) for another year and it's kind of sad to have to explain it to her. We always end with, "but Christmas is coming!" which she doesn't remember from a year ago, but she knows the drill all the same, "with Santa and presents and Christmas trees..."

Little Keaton has been receiving mail, which is an odd thing. I remember the same when the Little Ditchman was born -you come home from the hospital with this new baby and it's only a day or two before letters addressed to this new person arrive in your mailbox. It's kind of jarring, really, to see it in official print, at your address, not typed by you -but fun all the same. If you want to know, it's the insurance companies that have the kid's name and numbers, and they don't waste a second: Welcome to the world, two-day-old! BALANCE DUE... etc. With baby #1 we got a letter from the governor, thanking us for increasing the numbers of his constituency, but with baby #2 Arnold has sent us nothing as of yet. Budget cuts, no doubt.

Thanks again to all the well-wishers and local moms who made us dinner for the past couple weeks! It was seriously awesome of you, and though I'm sure we could have managed without, it made my couple weeks off a lot more relaxing, if not energizing. I was sad for a moment to think about how first-time moms aren't in any moms groups ('cause they have no kids) so they don't reap the benefits of the support chain, but then it occurred to me how much more work it is when you already have a child or two, and the sympathies of commiserating moms are that much greater. Thanks again. I don't know all of you personally, but I appreciate you all the same.

Eighty handmade baby announcements have been mailed! If you didn't receive yours, it's because you are most likely one of my countless Google stalkers who would prefer that I didn't have your current address. Or we could chalk it up to patent family oversight. My apologies. Email us your address and a beautiful photo of the most precious child of the season is yours. Suitable for framing, or better: the refrigerator door!

It's been a happy time, outside of the illness, and thanks again to everyone who has been so kind and tolerant of this growing clan. Have a good James A. Garfield's Birthday (1831).


(And thank you, Arnold. I will feed them "nourishing foods".)


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The answer to the question is "yes" there is something "less fun", and I spent a good portion of last night relinquishing my innards unto the bowel waste transfer receptacle in the master bedroom. There was a sweaty moment of hesitation, as I had to decide which bathroom to use. We're fortunate to have three here, and I knew that after I barfed up my leftovers Mrs. Ditchman would ask which privy I had fouled so that she could avoid it. I didn't think there was any avoiding it, actually, seeing as the germs themselves had intently managed to tag along with us over a hundred miles to infect neighboring counties. Well, it was a good weekend, however any memory of the niceties are obscured by the image of myself in a deep and profound porcelain embrace, moaning submissively.

The original source of the bug is still under some consideration. At one point we had localized it to the Weaver's second floor bathroom, but further discussion landed the blame on possible bad cheese and uncooked meats. I suppose it hardly matters anymore, but when you suffer so, you immediately want to cast blame: WHOSE?!

It wouldn't have been half bad if my aluminum supplier hadn't been so darned reliable yesterday, turning around my "urgent" request in less than 24 hours. Damn! Now I have to run out and meet the driver at the end of the road in Escondido, where I suspect he'll be lost (it's not in the Thomas Guide.) Prepping the job won't be particularly fun today, with my stomach still in knots. And, of all things, the customer phoned me late yesterday wanting to know if we provided our own Porta-Johns. "No," I had to admit, which discouraged him (as the concrete guys had) and probably struck him as downright unprofessional. I assured him that I was the only worker and that I had no need to go inside his home and that "I could manage my self" -though it didn't seem to settle right with the man. It's a large cover: 25 feet out, 55 feet long. I think he was suddenly more disturbed that I would be building the whole thing by myself. (And holding my pee all day, to boot!)

But I've done better with less under harsher conditions in worse weather with broken tools, so stand back -watch me work. I'm a trained professional. I'll relieve myself down the street at the taco stand, but I brought this bucket to throw up in.

And I'll be out of here in time for Thanksgiving dinner!


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If there is something less fun than cleaning the cat box of an aged Persian afflicted with an unstoppable case of diarrhea, it's placing the largest aluminum order of the year the week before Thanksgiving. The cat is not my fault, though I can take the blame for not getting this order in sooner. I procrastinated, and now everyone pays the price in this week's pre-holiday heatwave.

Had a swell weekend with some of the best folks in the Southland. I would type all about it, but nay, thar be no time. Argh.


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