Laid-Off Dad

It's a treat to meat and greet in the Minnesota mud

The air conditioner hasn't been on—or even thought about—for three straight days. After such a rancidly humid spell of weather, there is truly no better tonic. So let's be clear: Team LOD had a terrific time in the Midwest, home of logic-defying casseroles and tubular, processed meat. (I'm sure someone out in the Upper Flyover saw "Brat Camp" in the TV listings and thought it was a cooking show.)

The only real drawback was all that time in transit. The plane experience, four people in three seats, went about as well as could be expected. (Which is to say pretty goddamn cramped). But we also clocked 1,017 miles in the car, and TwoBert spent around 600 of them resenting his bondage within his little baby bucket. He showed this by giving his signature moan, which is not a cry, per se. It's more of a loud grimace that makes him look and sound like he's just eaten bad sardines.

During the longest leg of our trek, TwoBert woke up and began moaning. Robert put on his Older Brother hat and hoped to soothe him by singing Bob the Builder's theme song. Soon, my wife and I joined in, because those lyrics are tattooed onto our brains for life. It was a lovely family moment, three people hurtling down I-94 and singing the praises of "playing together, like good friends should." And TwoBert was indeed calmed—for approximately 49 seconds, during which he was presumably too busy wondering about the lame-ass troupe of Pollyannas he'd been born into.

When we weren't on our way someplace, we had a ball. We immersed ourselved in Lake Culture, oohing and aahing over the fishing boat's depth-finder and exhibiting the requisite alarm when zebra mussels were found in Lake Mille Lacs. (We didn't even question why it's pronounced "Millacs" or why a lake would be called "Lake 1,000 Lakes.") We went to a colossal family reunion, after which some local cousins invited all 2 billion of us over to their farm for beers and buggy rides. And Robert caught his first fish, a bluegill with the fight of a lion but the size of a Pop-Tart, while Daddy beamed in approval and chomped on a homemade venison jerky (one of the most exalted members of the meat-tube hierarchy).

That's life in Big Ten country: The time passes slowly, the people are incredibly hospitable, and a jerky is just a jerky. I heartily recommend it.

Return from Wobegon

We've been back from vacation for a few days now, and it's taken us that long to re-tox back into city living. When you spend your days by the lake and your nights by the campfire, huddling for warmth and gazing up at the wide-open sky, returning to the swelterous urban canyons is a real drag. Especially since I can’t write when I’m grumpy. Or sticky. Or both.

We were gone for a week, but the languid pace and quirky locals made it feel like a month. We stopped to eat at a roadside restaurant, for example, and each table had a little plastic sign urging us to "try our special, home-brewed espresso!" When I ordered one, the waitress said, “You want that in a cup or something?”

It is clear that Garrison Keillor does not make his stuff up.

More as mood dictates.

Design despair at the Laid-Off Lair

My wife and I have diverse attitudes toward interior design. I swing toward Bauhausian minimalism, which means I like stashing everything away and promptly forgetting where anything is. My wife embraces a more "vertical" filing system, whereby she likes everything piled up out in the open, and anything that she can't see no longer exists. This is the same woman who never looks in the fridge before she goes to the grocery store and then wonders why we have seven bags of baby carrots in the crisper.

Do they make Lucite fridges? Because I'd buy one. Seriously.

If you're at all intrigued by a tiny glimpse of the Laid-Off Lifestyle, read more at DesignPublic.

From flopsweat to fleece

It's been ridiculously hot and soggy in the city these past few days. How hot and soggy? TwoBert recently communicated to me (through a sophisticated father-son telepathy we've developed) that he preferred a wet cloth diaper to freeballing, for the relative dryness.

When the City That Makes Its Own Gravy becomes this oppressive, it's time to pull up stumps and evacuate. And what a voyage we have planned.

Robert was about three months old when he rode his first airplane, and it went off without a hitch. The plane was in the air for about 90 minutes, and he slept and/or nursed the whole way. "Egad!" we chortled. "We are amused by the simplicity of kid-laden air travel!" At this point I was content to keep our trips at this wonderfully low-maintenance level. But my wife is from the Midwest, where there is so much dead space between interesting things that people think nothing of driving over several degrees of longitude, having a quick cup of weak coffee and a doughnut, and turning right around and driving back again. All in the same day.

In her view, now that TwoBert is of age, it is time to push the envelope.

So our upcoming plane trip, our first as a foursome, is a real whopper. We have to change planes, our flights are longer, and once we finally touch down there's the small matter of a five-hour drive. We'll stay there a few days, then drive seven more hours to our final resting place--where temperatures are predicted to peak in the mid-60s (and drop into the 40s) all week long. So there may be several hellish travel days ahead, but they might just be worth it if I can take a shower and have it actually mean something.

We'll stagger back in a week or so. Until then: You stay classy, Planet Earth.

Dreck the walls

Congratulations to Alice and Mrs. K., who among others will be holding forth on the head-splitting paradox of parenthood and interior design on Design Public's new blog. Inspired, I am working on my own decorating style, tentatively called "Piles of Crap Hanging From Huge Nets Bolted to the Ceiling." It combines the sensibility of clutter-free surfaces with the refined elegance of a novelty seafood restaurant.

This is my idea, OK? Mine. If some put-upon flack at AD swipes this idea and launches a whole new trend with some clever headline like "Offal Good!" splashed across the cover, hoo-boy will I be pissed.

Appetite for construction

These are heady times for Kid Charisma, because he's become aware that his brother TwoBert is no longer a passive little poop factory. The wee one is learning to interact. He likes to regale his parents with spine-tingling Tales From the Womb, which he often punctuates by raising his eyebrows and yelping. He laughs a lot, between the teething fits and the torrents of drool. He likes to sit facing me on my lap and work my thumbs like one of those hulking Matrix shoot-em-up robots.

TwoBert is now a threat, an Eve to his Margo.

Apart from the occasional vituperative outburst, however, Robert seldom acts out on this anxiety. Rather, he's learned to sublimate it by obsessing about "worker guys":

• He rips through reams of printer paper drawing "blueprints."
• He piles up all loose toy parts within an arm's radius and calls them "materials."
• He 's lost interest in Sesame Street and Clifford, in favor of This Old House and The New Yankee Workshop.
• And Bob the Builder, whom he has fetishized. (More on this later.)

And because construction sites must be be roped off, the little autocrat will fashion anything into some sort of barricade and urge us not to breach the perimeter, lest we risk terrible bodily harm. This is his way of staying in control, of drawing a line in the eroding sand of his authority. He must tell the world that even though his home may have been invaded by a bald, driveling stumblebum who can't even sit up by himself, this is still his domain, and he is still its master.

No such barricade is complete without "caution tape," which can be fashioned from pretty much anything: belts, binder's twine, kitchen garbage bags, clothing. One day I left him alone with a roll of Scotch tape while I washed the dishes, and 10 minutes later he'd overwhelmed the living room with a gigantic spider web that could have mummified a sheep.

Enter the in-laws, who came to town knowing that all the deflected attention of TwoBert's baptism would bend Robert's nose out of joint. So they brought him some "caution tape," which was actually just two rolls of old software stickers. Robert was ecstatic, because here was 100 feet of fencing that could be stuck anywhere, to anything. And my wife and I smiled, because Robert was happy, and we really don't have much regard for our furniture, anyway.

So that's how we're rolling during the dog days, people. The little one likes being walked around to soothe his teething pain, the big one strives to block us at every step, and nasty things keep pouring out of the cat. It is truly the American dream, writ large-ish.

It's all about the Hamiltons, baby

Over the weekend, while much of the distaff blogosphere gathered to name each other's knockers, I was engaged in an erudite discussion about America's Founding Fathers. During this discussion, held over a game of whist in our sumptuous drawing room, I was made aware that Alexander Hamilton, the immigrant bastard love child who invented American capitalism, was only 49 (or possibly 47) when Aaron Burr shot him. This was disquieting news, since I'll be 40 next month and I haven't done dick.

Actually, this isn't entirely true. I am very proud to have sired two strapping boys, both of whom can now thumb their noses at the Devil with impunity.

Formerly, this was a tender subject. For weeks, the families pored over their schedules and tried to set the date for TwoBert's baptism. And Robert, who'd already pledged God's fraternity, delighted in taunting his little brother over his lack of salvation. (Lording it over him, if you will.) TwoBert usually responded with something like: "Arl. Oot. *belch* Ha-ee." Which, loosely translated, means: "A strange man will soon strip me naked and immerse me in a slate-lined, orthagonal basin of water, thus nullifying all Satanic encroachment. So up yours, homey."

Yesterday was the day. TwoBert was drowned, gowned, and passed around. And if the Devil did indeed reach out for my younger son, he most assuredly got one of those loud, sparky electric shocks. You know, like when the Wicked Witch of the West tried to grab the ruby slippers.

The same Wicked Witch, it merits noting, who was played by Margaret Hamilton. How's that for full circle?