Tom’s home was foreclosed: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of its vacancy was signed by the bank, the property management company, and the Utica police.

For a week or more we noticed there was a large dumpster in the driveway of our neighbor’s home and he was nowhere to be seen. Its a tough time in the Detroit area and these things happen. A property management sticker, the housing equivalent of a cadaver’s toe-tag, hung from the front door and the lights started turning on and off with the precision that only a collection of timed switches can provide*.     Shortly thereafter Heather began noticing a cat. It was jet black, and was normally laying under the tree in the front yard or sitting on the porch. In the days that followed we speculated that, perhaps, this was just a neighborhood cat that Tom had been feeding and it was visiting the home from habit and hope**. The days turned into a week and still the cat watched us coming and going, a black silhouette with moon eyes shining from the porch every evening; the cat had been abandoned.

You want to read the rest of ‘(Bob) Xavier Cat’ so CLICK HERE!

Riley, shown here completing a work schedule for a local family restaurant.

I’ve recently stumbled upon the design for a new weapon.     First, locate a crying toddler.     Second, pick up the toddler and hold him/her under your arm with the noisy end pointing toward your enemies.     Congratulations! You’ve assembled your very own Sob Cannon.     This surprising* weapon is capable of clearing public restrooms, busy shopping aisles and other public spaces.     It may be an effective form of self defense against obsequious wait-staff or commissioned salespeople as well, though I’ve yet to try it on anything more threatening than a timid waitress who apparently was immunized as a child. I found that in her case a stern glare was just as effective but deprived me of a much-needed coffee refill.

Unfortunately, it seems to have the opposite affect on my parents and other older relatives.

* Surprising in that no one expects a Sob Cannon attack. NO ONE.

Jun 8, 2009:     Today was Samantha’s 8th birthday.     She was sent to school wearing a tiara: an opulent plastic tiara with imitation diamonds made of simulated glass* and bearing a box of Hannah Montana cupcakes–something I’m certain delighted the little boys most of all**.     Heather bought Sam some nice printed bed sheets. Instead of wrapping the pillowy and awkwardly shaped sheet-bag, a covert operation was successfully executed to dress her bed in the middle of the night. So during the day Heather surreptitiously laundered the new sheets and secreted them within our bedroom.     At approximately 10pm I scooped her little sleeping form up in my arms along with a tag-along teddy bear, carried her silently down the hall and laid her in our bed. It was a few minutes later that we’d removed the several dozen books from her bed, stripped it, and carefully installed the replacement sheets, pillow case and comforter.     I then gathered the little birthday girl up in my arms, carried her back to bed and laid her down amidst the new bedsheets.     In the morning she spent a few seconds in confusion and a few minutes in delight. Any more time than that would imply an attention span my little girl simply doesn’t have.     In the evening we laid waste to a local Chuck E Cheese per her specific request.     It was here that Riley lived some anxious moments fearing the animatronic rodent and then wasted about a half-hour attempting to get its attention. Samantha ran wild; like a gazelle with opposable thumbs and a slight mean streak.     At night-night time I read her the first two chapters of a new Lauren Child “Clarice Bean” book and thus ended the eight anniversary of my initial parentage.

* The plastic was simulating glass, the simulated glass was imitating diamonds.

** That’s sarcasm folks. The average 7-8 yr old boy would rather eat raw broccoli than admit to interacting with the various tween queen personalities littering today’s media environment.

    In the last month I’ve had not one, but two rounds of a toddler disease known colloquially as “Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease”. Not to be confused with “Hoof-and-Mouth”, a fatal bovine illness to which I am immune due to not technically being a cow or horse at this time. The symptoms are as follows:

• Initial stage (lasts one to two days) fever and splitting headache.
• Stinging, itching sores on your hands.
• Stinging, itching sores on your feet.
• A large assortment of exquisitely painful sores inside your mouth and throat.

    The first time around I found my various boo-boos interesting from a purely intellectual standpoint: I’ve never had an illness cause sores on any part of my body before. I worried at the little bumps on my hands constantly, counting and re-counting their number on a periodic basis.

    Within a few days, however, the fascination gave way to annoyance as the skin on my hands and feet began peeling off as if I’d been sun-burned. Perhaps I was molting; I thought to myself as my epidermis slaughed off like an Ikea-manufactured surgical glove. To be on the safe side I measured my hands to establish a bench-mark in case they were going to become slightly larger after the molting process completed.

    I was disappointed to find that while my hands were pink, soft and fresh, they never hardened and were, as far as I could tell from the readings I’d taken with my my crude plastic Smurf ruler and fabric tape-measure, the exact same size as they were before my ordeal.

    A couple of weeks went by, marked by nothing much, and I seemed to have made a full recovery. Then, last Thursday I noticed that I was starting to get the chills and began to get that same headache again. Something seemed amiss. So I was not exactly surprised when I received a call from Riley’s day care telling me that we should not bring her in to school on Friday as it appears that she has contracted Hand, Foot and Mouth again.

    The headache wasn’t as intense this time, and I never got any sores on my hands. Fortunately I’d taken Friday off of work on account of Samantha having a piano recital in the evening and arrangements had to be made.

    A piano recital is a sort of mass exhibition of rudimentary skill followed by cakes and coffees. Friday was the assigned day. for it, and the cakes and coffees were unlikely to spontaneously manifest. So Riley spent the day with me, at least two hours of which were taken up by a trip to the family doctor for the two of us while far less time was spent obtaining cakes and coffees.

    Doc Fortune said there was nothing to worry about, its only contagious during the first stage (fever and headaches, in case you weren’t paying attention) and that we should drink plenty of fluids and take it easy. Oh, and please pay the $50 office-visit co-pay on your way out, thank-you-very-much.

    Home I went, a bit poorer for the experience and lighter in the wallet area. And while I d been spared the sores on the hands this time around, I was plagued with a massive number of sores in my mouth.

    I tried counting them but gave up around twenty. A veritable constellation of tiny, white, prickly little pin-points with two or three super-novas of exquisite agony thrown in for good measure, my mouth was such a disaster area that I sucked down an entire package of anesthetic lozenges and started administering shots of Chloroseptic three times an hour.

    I survived on a diet of warm coffee mixed with instant-breakfast for the weekend, with the only solid food I was able to consume being a bowl of tofu-laced rice and vegetables at a mediocre sushi shop in Toronto, Canada.

    Did I mention I went to Toronto on Saturday?

    She continually asks to see Jews, which is pretty strange since she hasn’t been to any comparative religion courses and we’ve yet to discuss the various monotheistic cults humanity has developed.

    The first time it happened, I scribbled a Star of David on the blackboard in the kitchen, pointed at it and asked if that’s what she meant.

    ”Star!” she said, which seemed to confirm her knowledge of the ancient symbol.

    ”That’s right, RIley. It’s the Star of David. But we’re lapsed Lutherans, so it doesn’t really apply to us. Our cult symbol is supposed to be a cross. Can you say, cross?”

    ”Jews!” and then, more plaintively, “JEWWWWWWS!”

    Oddly enough, we later discovered that the only way to get her to stop asking for Jews is to give her some apple cider or lemonade.

    According to my lovely wife, Heather, we have paid the final payment to the birthing center where we exchanged her distended stomach and ~$10,000.00 for a small human named Riley.
    The expensive, tiny, useless and quivering thing has slowly inflated with flesh and has been gaining new powers and abilities day by day. Above, you can see her kicking cute little shoes while bearing a glowing, wide open smile and twinkly little eyes. And now that she’s paid for–free and clear–I no longer feel a bitter edge of regret while fighting the urge to hug her and kiss her widdle cheeks.

    Sing it to the tune of “Everybody plays the fool,” and you may giggle just a little. Under your breath. Provided you are an idiot like me.

    In the meantime, let me tell you how much it sucks to be married to SafeTinspector:

    First, SafeT gets the flu on Sunday, so you end up with no assistance with the general production of proper parenting during the all-important second half of the weekend. Production schedules are off, backlogs grow long, and shareholders threaten you with lawsuits if some quality nurturing doesn’t get made RIght Now.

    Second, both your daughters get sick on Tuesday, with the toddler being so pitiful that you can barely catch your breath from going, “Awww….” all the time. And, of course, by this time SafeT is back at work so you get to tend the flu-ridden without his assistance.

    Cap this off with the near absolute certainty that you, yourself, will soon be afflicted with the flu (probably just in time for the weekend) and we have the orgasmic bliss of SafeTmarriage. Hats off to you, Heather!

The picture above was taken with Heather’s cell phone and sent to me with the caption, “I don’t feel good, Daddy!” I felt bad, but I still smiled.