Tag: Princess Sack of Potatoes

Scooby Doo and the Heat Index

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I was informed by “AccuWeather” that today’s forecast high temperature would be 99 degrees Fahrenheit.  But it was further stated that it would feel like 114 degrees Fahrenheit!  Now I once spent a summer in California and we did several times reach 114 degrees.  And as far as I can remember this was nothing like that.  99 degrees at 100 percent humidity and 114 degrees with bone dry air feel nothing alike.  One is a blast furnace and the other is a steam room.  So, what is the sense of this scare temperature of 114?  The weather dweebs on my local cable provider were running in circles warning of impending climate catastrophe and exhorting me to shelter in place.  I was especially amused by New York’s Mamdani begging his citizens to protect themselves from the heat but also commanding them not to set their air conditioners below 78 degrees.  Apparently, the electrical grid in New York is experiencing brown outs and everything must be done to avoid a black out during Taylor Swift’s upcoming nuptials at Madison Square Garden.  Something tells me that the wedding party will be excused from obeying the 78-degree mandate.  Can’t have a middle aged pop diva sweating at her wedding.  Think of the poor groom!

So, I finished off the rest of the lawn this morning with my push mower and as soon as the gas tank emptied, I changed the oil on that little Briggs and Stratton powered trash mower.  This will buy me some time until the tubing for draining off the oil from my riding mower arrives from my friends at Amazon.com (tomorrow they say).  I had to suspend the mower upside down and at an angle to avoid something to do with the spark plug and I looked distinctly goofy holding it in that position.  But I only spilled a couple of drops and voila!  She sounds as good as new (sorta).

As I was watering the plants in the pool area, I saw a little frog jump in so I fished him out with the pool net and threw him into Camera Girl’s Pond.  Now this was slightly after her evening feeding frenzy so as soon as he fell in, there was a boiling, bubbling panic around him and he jumped straight out into the high grass behind the pond.  Well, he probably did the right thing.  If he wanders back into the swimming pool, he can take solace from the knowledge that being chlorinated to death is a quiet peaceful end compared to being hacked to bits by the Piranha Brothers.

Tomorrow we will have Princess Sack of Potatoes and her parents here to swim in the pool before all of the grandkids head off for a week by the seaside.  A little rest and relaxation for us is good but it will be a bit quiet without them.  This week I sat through several hours of Scooby Doo cartoons that I’ve already seen too many times and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 which I probably could have skipped too but with them there enjoying this ridiculous entertainment I kind of felt like part of the gang.  Which is pretty cool.

Wheelbarrows and Ogres

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We had Princess Sack of Potatoes over today.  She’s finishing off her Spring vacation from school.  And we haven’t had much of her time in a while.  Sure, she was here for Easter but her cousins were also here so I didn’t get much chance to spend time.  But today we had fun.  I’m installing a 270-gallon pond liner for Camera Girl, so I’m digging a big hole in the ground and working with a shovel, rake, pitch fork and a wheelbarrow so it’s like incredibly exciting for a little kid.  She wants to help and I have to find something that isn’t dangerous or too hard for a little girl but seems useful to her.  So, I told her to rescue earthworms from the pile of grass turf that I stacked up.  Perfect!  She can get her hands covered with dirt and give Camera Girl some worms for her hideous African Clawed Frog and I’m free to move some rocks and dirt.  After about an hour she had enough and went inside to bake chocolate chip cookies with Camera Girl and I continued on until lunchtime when I finished for the day and took a shower.  So, after lunch she wanted to watch the “Minions” movie which I’ve had enough of.  So, we went our separate ways.  But after that she wanted more movie time so Camera Girl suggested “The Princess Bride.”  The little girl agreed to watch it and I decided to join her to see how she reacted to this time capsule of a movie.

And it was pretty funny how her initial reaction to the movie resembled the behavior of the “grandson” played by Fred Savage when his grandfather (Peter Falk) began narrating the story.  Both the real and fictitious grandchildren were annoyed by the story beginning with a love story introduction.  And her reaction also resembled the child character whenever it seemed that the “heroes” of the story were losing to the bad guys.  There was a sense of outrage and the desire to quit the story.  It was only with great persuasion that I convinced her to hang in there after Wesley had been killed by “the Machine.”  And so, I was immensely pleased when by the end of the movie she was very satisfied with the happily ever after ending.

And after the movie I discussed her opinions about the film and she declared that her favorite character was the “Ogre.”  I corrected her by saying that Fezzik wasn’t an ogre but a giant.  And that André the Giant who played the part was a professional wrestler.  She was very interested in how he did some of the stunts.  I explained to her that the “holocaust cloak” wasn’t real and he was never on fire.  And I said he didn’t really have to climb “The Cliffs of Insanity.”  And the reason she liked him best was because he seemed very jolly.

After that she joined her grandmother in several very competitive games of checkers and then it was time for her to go home with her mom.  After she left, I inspected several of the historical photos of the Princess festooning our refrigerator and looking at a noticeably younger me and a tiny little girl in one picture reminded me very powerfully that the clock is ticking at an alarming rate.  But it was a good day to be a grandfather.

Serenity Now

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So today was finally the day.  I had an appointment to get that bad tooth pulled.  I drove myself there with Camera Girl riding shotgun.  The understanding was she’d drive home after I had been dosed with enough lidocaine to allow me to chew razor blades.

We got there and the dental assistant immediately found a problem.  My dentist had listed the wrong tooth.  So, there were more x-rays and phone calls and running around in circles.  Finally, the oral surgeon walked in looked at the x-ray, looked at the tooth and said, “Serenity now!”  So of course I replied, “Insanity later.”  And he started to laugh uproariously.  If I were the type to worry maybe I might have taken all of this as a bad sign.  But I’m a Seinfeld fan and I figured that a Middle Eastern oral surgeon who likes Seinfeld must have hidden depths of wisdom.

Well, the man did his job flawlessly.  He numbed my mouth completely, pulled the tooth in one twist of his wrist and installed the implant post in nothing flat.  He was good at his job and cheerful to boot.  And a few hours later he called my home to check in on me and answer questions.  He was like the opposite of my dentist who can’t do anything and avoids contact like the plague.

But that implant post means that for the next few days I’ll probably be living off “Ensure” and very carefully avoiding the healing tissues around the implant.  Also, I’ll be on antibiotics for another week so I won’t be at my most robust.

When I got home, I decided to walk around the yard to take my mind off my medical issues and I came upon one of the preying mantis egg sacs that I planted on various branches six or eight weeks ago.  And what do you know?  The little critters hatched out today.

Now there’s scant assurance that even one of these tiny critters will make it to Labor Day.  There are just so many insects, spiders, other invertebrates, frogs, toads. salamanders, snakes and even rodents and birds just waiting to devour them that if two of them survive it will be a miracle.

But I like to bet on long shots.  When school ends and Princess Sack of Potatoes arrives to visit for the summer, I hope to point out some thriving mantids in various areas of the yard.  She is particularly enamored of the preying mantis ever since she saw one in a story book called “The Very Quiet Cricket.”

Tonight “High Noon” was on tv so Camera Girl and I watched it.  I had forgotten that Grace Kelly (playing his wife) actually shot one of the outlaws in the back and scratched the face of the head villain just as he was about to shoot Gary Cooper.

Now I’ve been aware of the political leanings of the director of “High Noon” and how the townspeople leaving the Marshall to his fate was a metaphor for the lack of support that the blacklisted film industry people got during the McCarthy era.  Well, I’ve never placed much importance to this subtext.  But I will state my opinion that Gary Cooper’s character getting help from his wife in the way he did brands him as terminally low energy.  He might as well have been Jeb Bush.  A total loser; very sad.

Well, anyway it was a very successful day and hopefully my recovery will proceed smoothly.  Serenity now.

Plotter and Pantsers

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Here on the other side of the bright line of demarcation that is the post-2024 election decision I selected outlining the plot of my poor neglected novel “Sniper” as this morning’s project.  Last night was a long planned and greatly enjoyed family party celebrating Princess Sack of Potatoes’ sixth birthday.  It was a good-sized gathering of about thirty people and featured the Princess’s food of choice; multiple versions of pizza.  Now I personally do not believe that something called “mac and cheese” pizza could actually be considered pizza.  It is an abomination in the same league as anything called pizza that contains pineapple.  But I am a tolerant man.  If the children demand mac and cheese pizza then so be it.  I found a giant box that contained something that was garnished with sausage and pepperoni on it and so I was content.  And I even managed to introduce the grandchildren to a small snippet of the classic W.C. Fields movie “It’s a Gift” before it was drowned out by the torrent of talking that erupted when their parents followed us upstairs after the majority of the guests left.  Well, I’ll just have to wait for an opportunity during the Thanksgiving or Christmas holidays to screen that cinematic gem for their viewing pleasure.

And because that gathering ended late, I had no time to look around for a theme for last night’s post.  And honestly, I was exhausted.  And if I had tried to post something in that state it would have been stale and derivative and a waste of everybody’s time.  And in this new regimen of mine that is anathema.  I’ll write when I have something I want to say.  And when I don’t, I’ll work on my projects.

And getting back to the theme of this post, my project for today is to review “The Sniper” holistically and identify plot line and character development and quality issues that need to be worked on.  And come up with an outline for the whole story and an outline for the series of stories in this “universe” and then a plan for completing this novel this winter. And then scheduling this work to be finished by some reasonable date.

And this is exciting for me.  It’s an intellectually interesting process that I’ve never tried before.  Up until now I’ve been what’s called a discovery writer or more colloquially a “seat of the pantser” or just a pantser.   This is the opposite of an “outliner” or a plotter.  A discovery writer just sits down and starts writing based on some idea or even just a gestalt of a story and keeps writing and let’s the story write itself without any direction from the author’s conscious mind.  I’ve always done this.  The positive side of this process is that the author’s natural creative instincts are in control and many exciting characters and plot events bubble up.  It is the natural method for producing realistic dialog and emotional insight into the characters.  The negative side is that the story direction is kind of random and you very easily can paint your story into a corner that can only be fixed by a massive re-write which is lethal for story-telling and for the morale of the writer.

And as someone who has run up against this dead-end scenario several times, I have decided to make the effort to do a formal outline and learn the skills it takes to plan my story in a disciplined way so that it won’t fly off the rails at the end and cause me massive mental anguish and confusion.  If I find that working on this outline is interesting, I’ll probably write more about and might even consult some of the sci-fi fans in the audience for their opinions on some of my story choices.

So here I go.

Weaponized Cuteness

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My five year old granddaughter, Princess Sack of Potatoes, learned “Feliz Navidad” in kindergarten.  While she was visiting I went to YouTube to play the Jose Feliciano version as an historical record for her, but opened this one by accident.

She was fascinated by this pint-sized crooner.  And so it goes for every generation.  Well, no harm done.  Her mother and her grandmother and her great grandmother had their crooners too, whether it was Frank Sinatra or Paul McCartney or whatever singer was out there.  But so soon?

 

Dead Pile and the Angry Polar Bear

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Today was a busy day.  Princess Sack of Potatoes wanted to play Dead Pile, and later on, The Angry Polar Bear.  The latter is a very taxing business where I chase her around the house growling and trying to carry her away to the “Ice Flow of Death.”  All that growling takes its toll on my larynx and the dogs go nuts trying to defend her from this seemingly homicidal activity of mine.  But one does what must be done.

As you can tell by the descriptions, death has become a part of her imagination.  Of course, all those who end up in the dead pile are the bad animals, never the good ones.  And the Ice Flow of Death has only ever been fatal for the polar bear and even then, he always seems to be brought back for an encore.  It’s funny how little kids imagine things for which they have very little experience.  Other than a hermit crab, her little world has been untouched by death.  At least as far as she is aware.  She’ll be spared knowledge of actual deaths that have occurred while she was too young to even understand the concept.

Of late Camera Girl has introduced the concept of dog heaven to cover the eventuality of what to tell her when our older dog does die.  And she is very curious about it, “Will Kaylee have anyone to play with?  Will she get her favorite treats?”  All these were manageable reactions.  But then she asked about herself going to heaven.  That was a bridge too far.  We assured her that she wouldn’t be going anywhere for a long, long, long time and she should stop thinking such things.

And that passed.  Now we’re back to the cheerful mayhem of dead pile where bad velociraptor and evil giraffe get their comeuppance but never is heard a discouraging word.  She has introduced some innovations that may be a form of humane treatment or possibly just safety precautions.  Now before any of the bad animals are hurled onto the dead pile, they are first “put to sleep.”  This sounds suspiciously like pet euthanasia.  I hesitate to ask where she got this idea.  Maybe one of her friends had a dog or cat that had to be “put to sleep.”  But we’ll let it slide for now.  Dead pile has been wildly popular but I think the first waning has begun.

And just in time.  It’s rather repetitive.  And it’s time for the princess to begin to read.  We’ll start with the ats (at, bat, cat, fat, skip gat, hat, mat, gnat, pat, sat, forget tat and finish with vat).  And then we’ll do a few more families and it’ll be on to Dr. Seuss.  We’ve got to hurry because before you know it it’ll be September and she’ll be off to kindergarten.  And then she’ll be too old for The Angry Polar Bear and too sophisticated for her old pastimes.

Well, that’s the way it should be.  Her world is opening up.  School and friends and all the joys and sorrows of childhood.  And I have to wonder if she’ll remember all our games and play.  She is a very intelligent child.  Maybe her memories will last.  I hope so.  I feel that my existence is bound up in the memories of those who are close to me.  My children and grandchildren will be the extension of my impact on this world, just as I passed on the existence of my parents and grandparents to them.

It’s a great privilege to get to interact with your descendants.  You can see their traits and sometimes recognize yours and your spouse’s.  You can tell them stories and things about themselves and about their parents and you can share things that you enjoyed when you were young.  Yes, it’s a rare treat.  It’s the payoff for all the hard work you did raising your own kids.

Well, it was a good day.  Busy but good.

5DEC2022 – OCF Update – More Focus Stacks

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Today I was part of the long chain of knowledge that begins with the “the master of those who know” and extends all the way to my four year old granddaughter.  In the spirit of Aristotle we recreated the dialectic on the various animal classes.  I tried to explain the reason why a grasshopper was different from a mouse.  We talked about the higher animals and the lower animals and I even got around to explaining why dinosaurs are related to lizards and birds.  After about a half hour she’d had enough and we went back to a match game for dinosaurs.  And after that back to Candy Land.  Well I’d still give Princess Sack of Potatoes the intellectual edge over Plato but I think I need to get some high quality color phtots of different animals to make the discussion more compelling for her.

Once Camera Girl led her granddaughter into the kitchen to bake some pumpkin bread I decided this was a good day for some macrophotography fun.

So I took some focus stacks.  I had a tiny old Roman coin and a long dead beetle lying around so they were my subjects.

15DEC2022 beetle stack
15DEC2022 coin face 2 stack
15DEC2022 coin tail stack

The focus intervals don’t seem to have been sufficient to give a perfect stack.  But i’m using a Sony Remote Commander and it doesn’t have any calibration for the focus change.  I have a little program I can use while tethered to my laptop but the A7 IV requires a USB 3 cable and I only have USB 1 or 2.  So I’ll have to go out and get one.  But still a nice exercise.

All in all a day well spent.

12NOV2022 – OCF Update

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Today is Princess Sack-of-Potatoes’ birthday party here at the Compound and there will be about thirty people and I’ve been elected to grill duty.  After a day of heavy rain and wind we’ve been blessed with sun mild temperatures and a light breeze so everything looks good.

So stay tuned.  I’ll be back with some things to say later on.

Playing With Three-Year-Old’s Is Not Child’s Play

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Men of my generation generally have very little practical experience raising children.  Being born in the Silurian Epoch meant that back then wives were stay at home moms who raised their children and only complained if the paychecks stopped appearing on time.  Sure, on weekends and at night we would meet up with the next generation and attempt to play with them to some extent but we always had their moms there to mediate any difficult situations.  And at night the toddlers were already winding down toward sleep and on the weekends, we could bring them outside where our longer legs meant that just by virtue of walking, we could burn off their excess energy.

But here I am forty years later and generation two of Camera Girl’s great science experiment is winding down and I find myself at the mercy of Princess Sack of Potatoes and her edict that she must be amused.  Currently this involves me portraying an Angry Polar Bear (racist stereotyping some might say) by growling feebly and chasing her in a circle between the kitchen, dining room, foyer, hallway and back again.  Now this doesn’t sound particularly strenuous.  And so, I believed for the first five minutes.  But she has stamina.  I can get a one-minute reprieve every five minutes or so.  But she can keep this up for half an hour.  And even at the end of this ordeal I felt I had acquitted myself admirably and survived the experience unscathed.  But after lunch I suddenly found myself lapsing into unconsciousness.  Even the addition of caffeine seemed powerless to restore my flagging energy.

In my defense I have to assure you that I make an effort to remain active.  I will spend thirty minutes a day on the rowing machine and also work out on a lat-machine and do some calisthenics.  And even right after these exertions I feel fine, even invigorated.  I was forced to admit something unthinkable, raising little kids is harder than real work.  I even admitted this to Camera Girl.  I could see the look of scorn in her eyes.  She had probably been waiting most of her life for this moment.

But after a little reflection I’ve gained a new insight on this phenomenon.  God and nature had shaped men and women to fulfill their differing destinies.  Men were made heroically strong and courageous to fight off saber-tooth tigers and repo men while women were given the patience and stamina it requires to cook the saber-tooth tigers and repo men we provide and also to run in circles after three-year-old’s for hours at a time.  This newfound insight calmed me and restored my sense of balance in this topsy turvy world we live in.  I quickly explained this new theory to Camera Girl and how this meant that my fatigue was just the universe’s way of saying that I should save up my titanic strength for the next zombie apocalypse or asteroid strike that was sure to be coming around the bend anytime.  It’s funny, that look still seemed to be in her eye.  Probably my imagination.

So, I have initiated a new game with Princess Sack of Potatoes.  Instead of chasing her in circles I pretend to be sleeping on the floor.  And if she gets too close, I grab her by the shin, pull her down, growl at her and tickle her mercilessly for twenty seconds and then release her to run away.  I find I can keep up this game for any number of cycles without the least effort.  These women are so inefficient.