Every so often, I go through a phase where I leave doors open. I think it coincides with when is working evenings a lot (the summer), because it’s almost always related to dealing with Rocket, Jr.

For instance, when I arrive home with him after work, he often lollygags about in the car, pushing buttons, turning knobs and pretending to drive. So, I leave the door open and walk up to get the mail. Usually, he’s out of the car and running around the yard when I come back down the hill, so I don’t notice that the car door is still open.

A couple weeks ago, this happened before one of those big rainstorms, and thusly my car ended up with puddles inside. Since then, it’s always threatened to rain when I’ve wanted to air out the car, so there is a lingering mildewy smell. At some point, I’m going to figure out how to counter that, but at the moment I just have a stinky car. Be forewarned if I offer to give you a ride.

We went to New Jersey this weekend, and for all the comments about New Jersey being stinky, it surely was our house stinking up the neighborhood upon our return. It is oh, so important to take out the garbage before you go out of town, especially if some old bananas have been deposited in there recently. We got in at midnight to eye-watering banana-nastiness. I spent a while creating a wind tunnel to flush out the bad smells and bring in the good, and moved the garbage to an uninhabited area where it can safely be destroyed by a tactical nuclear device.

New Jersey was a delight as always. We traveled there for my nephew’s christening, where I acted as godfather. There was a big party after, where I was asked by my sister-in-law at the last second to give a blessing. The best I could come up with was little more than “Thank you all for coming, congratulations to Frankie… L’Chaim!” Never ask an atheist to give a blessing. Luckily, I’d been in Fiddler on the Roof.

LilRocket, his cousin and I spent a fair amount of time on their trampoline. I have a newfound respect for trampolines as vehicles for exercise. I had always underestimated them because it seems like the tramp and gravity do most of the work.

LilRocket amused the family by falling asleep in slow motion at the dinner table Saturday night. He finally slumped over such that we had to check to make sure he’d finished chewing the last mouthful before transferring him to the couch.

On the MARTA ride to the airport Friday night, a man who smelled vaguely of alcohol taught Ro how to stop and start the train using only his mind and some vague hand waving.

I learned it is really difficult to get a 150 lbs. rottweiler out of your room in the middle of the night if he simply does not want to go.

Our 12 year old niece went to Louisanna to stay with relatives for a couple weeks, and came back an 18 year old with colored & straightened hair, plucked eyebrows, mascara, etc. etc. And yet, she and her friends were still hulahooping with the 3 year olds. It’s an odd time of life.

I bought shares of Volcom a while back, partly because my 14 year old nephew swore by the brand and wanted his wardrobe to entirely consist of clothing from that line. This time, he wasn’t wearing a shred of Volcom clothing, so I had to give him a firm talking to.

Ro wants an aquarium, but based on how he wanted to pet his cousin’s fish, I don’t think it would last very long.

My in-laws were possibly the only people on the planet without some sort of spreadsheet or word processing software on their computer. I have rectified the situation out of personal necessity (OpenOffice).

My father-in-law offered me his late 70s pale yellow Mercedes again. He had offered it a couple years ago. When my car died a while back, Stacey called up there to talk to them about it. Instead, my brother-in-law offered to sell me his car. I took it to mean that the father-in-law decided not to part with the Mercedes.

So, I was confused when he offered it to me again¹. Then, I mentioned this when the brother-in-law was driving us to the airport. BIL said that FIL had offered it to him the other day as well, and BIL had given FIL a lecture about what an ugly car it was and how nobody would want it.

Now I think BIL was offering me an escape from the Mercedes by selling me his car, while all the time I was thinking… bio-diesel conversion. People talk, but they don’t communicate.

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I was reading The Speed of Dark at lunch today (a story mostly in the POV of an autistic person), and since then I’ve been hyperaware of physical details.

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My new work laptop has a fingerprint reader. I’ve been logging in and out using various fingers just for the fun of it.

20060815 [15:36]: : My new work laptop has a fingerprint reader.
20060815 [15:37]: : So you don’t have to bother with a password?
20060815 [15:37]: : Right. I can use either.
20060815 [15:37]: : So, I can still get into my computer if my hand has been mangled in a combine accident.
20060815 [15:38]: : You work often with combines?
20060815 [15:38]: : I’m open to the possibility. Luck favors the prepared, darling.
20060815 [15:38]: : I thought it favored the bold.
20060815 [15:38]: : Luck really, reallly likes bold, prepared people.
20060815 [15:40]: : Luck is prejudiced.
20060815 [15:40]: : A bigot, really.
20060815 [15:42]: : Luck needs to get sanctioned under the Civil Rights Act.
20060815 [15:43]: : The problem is, the only people who are prepared and bold enough to do that aren’t rallying behind the cause.
20060815 [15:44]: : Because Luck’s doing just fine by them.
20060815 [15:45]: : Right.
20060815 [15:45]: : Bastards.

¹ His reasoning was “you seem like the kind of person who should be in this car… you know, kinda hippy-like.” I have no idea where that comes from.