Finally

I've been out of action for the last little while, partly because I've been looking for a new job but also because I'm still a little bit in shock after learning that Fuckstress and Fireangel are the same person. I had an inkling, but I wanted to believe that they were two different people.

Anyway, I haven't been to see any new movies lately, although I did go to see The Animation Show by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt at one of those "members only" theatres with some friends after a potluck. I brought rugelach. The shorts were all well done, my favourite was Rabbit by Run Wrake only because there was a brown bunny that used to hop around the parking lot at my old job, and I saw the film the day after I got fired. The above photo reminds me of No Neck Joe, a character by Craig McCracken featured in the old Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation. Good times.

After months of anticipation, Ali has finally set a date for her and Foxy to come to New Jersey, permanent like. Sometime toward the end of October, they will be coming with Mrs. K. and she is not happy about it. She would rather be staying in Manhattan where there are more shops to visit. We made concession after concession: At one point she was going to stay with Genya, but that wasn't practical. Eventually, she agreed to stay in Newark with Ali and me, as long as she got the master bedroom. So I'll be roughing it in the den, just trying to keep out of my mother-in-law's way. At least Foxy will be here before Thanksgiving.

Some weeks ago, I happened to mention to Ali that I didn't care how much the tickets cost, as long as she got here as soon as possible. Well, she decided not to come as soon as possible but still book three first class tickets (1 round trip). I know that was not a miscommunication. I probably should have made myself a little more clear. Too late now, she had my credit card number.

I got Foxy to watch me on Skype today. Actually, I got her to watch Pooh Bear on Skype today. Apparently, she knows about Pooh and likes to watch the funny man shake a Pooh Bear rattle in front of the camera. At least I think she liked it, she definitely paid attention to it - the rattle, not the funny man.

Foxy's Changes

Today I went to the local fire station to have Foxy's babyseat checked. I was a day early for the workshop. I have a problem with dates, not dates in general but today's date. It has something to do with my line of work. Nobody cares about what's happening now, they only care what happened before or what's going to happen later.

And this is why firefighters rock: One of them checked the seat over. He couldn't actually certify it, but the fact that he took time out of his day to do me a favour really made my day. He actually told me that I should have got a better seat, and then told me where I could get the same one he got for his kid. But he also said that when my seat is installed properly, it will be totally legal.

I went to the place that he mentioned because I had to get some storage bins anyway, and I found the seat on sale just like he said. The only seat your child will ever need - it's a dual-facing seat that will accomodate the child as an infant, toddler, tyke and whatever you call a nine-year old. It claims to be the only seat approved for airplanes, which might make Ali happy, BUT there is no carry seat. NO SALE! When Foxy is old enough to walk, I'll consider it. I'm a little tapped after a trip to IKEA yesterday. Ironically, everything I bought yesterday was completely free according to my bank, but before I ran out and bought some lottery tickets I took the more prudent stance and assumed the worst. My debit card had been skimmed. Of course nobody can get to the bottom of this until at least Monday. I'm trying to put my trust in Customer Service, but I'll have to continue due diligence and follow up tomorrow. Right now, I could be buying a Bentley and I'll never get to see it. Patience....

Cue the photos: After many, many requests for photos of Foxy, Kohei finally sent me a disc with all the photos he's taken since I left Tokyo. It occurred to me that I could put up some photos to show how much Foxy has grown and changed since she was born. It's been quite the ordeal for her so far, at least two earthquakes and last week a typhoon. Just for reference, we'll start with a photo of her when she was born - after they cleaned off all the icky bits:




















And here's one taken the day after I left. Yes, she had a bit of an acne problem:















And here's one two weeks later:















And then about a week after that:















Two weeks after that one:















And this one was taken the next day. It's been retouched because Grandpa Kohei doesn't understand about camera flash and babies' eyes. From day one, he's been using a high powered flash for all of Foxy's photos and some of them have red-eye. He retouched this one:















And this one a week later:















And this one almost a week after that:















A day later. Foxy was so tired after a day of taking over the world:















A couple days more:















And then a week after that:















It doesn't seem like a lot of change going on, but when you compare the first and last side by side...

I'm a Cat Person

I love cats. Dogs? Meh. Cats are better at cleaning up after themselves, and they stink way, way less. The little fuckers die though, and that's harsh. So when Randy called last week and asked me to look after his little fuzz ball of love, I was more than happy to do it. Nevermind that I already had a full Sunday planned and the opportunity for a rather expensive practical joke now presented itself.

Saturday I was down in Canal St. on my quadrennial outing to visit the tailor for a fitting. We settled on five very nice shirts that will be ready the first week of October, and I told him NOT to make any allowances for my muffin top, though we did joke a bit about girdles. I needed motivation to get in shape and this was as good a reason as any. So that pretty much ate up my Saturday afternoon. One afternoon just on shirts, I was a little behind schedule given that it was holiday hours.

I had to go back the next day to the suit shop, and even though somebody had generously plugged the meter for me, I cursed every minute I was in there that I hadn't let Kohei buy me a suit in Akihabara like he had offered. After comparing different trousers, and perceiving that the salesman was a little uppity, I took the trousers into the dressing room as he waltzed across the store to fetch the nice pin stripe I had eyed on Saturday. He got about half distance when he loudly inquired, "You're about a thirty-four, correct?" I wanted to play smashy smash with my head and the mirror, but instead I muttered, "Bloody bastard", and congratulated him on his powers of perception. It's a bit of a sensitive issue right now. He chalked me up and decided to give me a discount because he didn't like the quality of the cloth. The cheek! Trying to fob inferior quality trousers off on me. He back tracked quite heavily and said that these were perhaps the finest quality trouser by that marque in all of New York City. Hey, I'm no hard ass and a discount is a discount so I let it be.

As we moved onto the suit, I tried on several different ones because I wasn't exactly sure I remembered what I saw on Saturday and the salesman was a different guy. I think he tried to up sell me. He brought out a natty English number that was a little more fitted and had a really sexy inner lining but I got out of it by showing disdain at the lack of a third button. We went back to the original suit. He took it in at the sides and he had a sale. I'm pretty sure that's the one I saw on Saturday. Too late now, it's been chalked and paid for. What I really wanted actually was the suit that Bobby wore to my wedding, but it probably only looks good on him. About a thousand bucks later and all I got to leave the store with was a pair of socks. That's why it's only once every four years (or more). On the way out of the shop I noticed a nice little lemony seersucker jacket, but the salesman saved my wallet any further damage by quickly mentioning that it was a size 38. I was a size 38 once - at my freshman mixer in high school! I took my socks and walked out.

Oh okay, right. The cat. So I was in Canal St. and I had to get over to Randy's place which is so not near Canal. But first I had a stop to make. I called a model friend of mine and talked her into helping me pull a practical joke. I said it would boost her portfolio, and I'm surprised she bought it. Honestly, though I had fully intended to hand over the digital copies of any and all photographs taken that afternoon. We had the cameras, the nasty props and the photo processing place was on stand-by. We got to Park Slope and got inside alright. Randy had warned me that I might have a problem with his upstairs neighbour, but not a peep. I had my cameras ready, and that's when I noticed the six pack of Red Stripe on the kitchen table, warm as beer should be, and a thank you note. I couldn't do it, the practical joke was off.

Originally Marisol, a vision from Puerto Rico had agreed to make herself very at home and I was going to get a little personal with Randy's stuff, and we were going to leave behind photos. Oh, and feed the cat and whatnot. But the case of Red Stripe technically made it a contract - though the thank you note might indicate that the beer was in fact a gift - and I had to tell Marisol that the gig was off. I was now bound by my sense of agency to carry out the cat wrangling as professionally as possible. I paid Marisol sixty dollars and she waited in the car.

It's been a pretty productive weekend so far: all that and Ali has finished a rough draught of her first immigration form. Pepper had some shmutz so I washed the car and had a nice chat with Danny my gay neighbour. He has a thing about cars, and when he noticed that I was washing Pepper and not Baby, I had to give him the full run down. Double, nay triple gasps when he discovered that I was in fact married and a parent. He laughed hysterically at my Hervé Villechaize joke... at least someone did. We talked about Ali's pending immigration, and the green card issues that a Japanese neighbour had. He made me promise to force Ali to speak English when she gets here, or else she'll be marginalized. I used a very famous line from Dirty Dancing which I won't repeat here because one of the distributors of the film is trying to sue anyone and anything that "profits" from it. My neighbour blanked. I thought for certain that he had seen the movie. Who hasn't?

Here's A Couple More of Foxy Around the House

You can hear Grandpa Kohei laughing in the background because Foxy's got the hiccups from nursing too quickly.

Ali Sings to Foxy

Here's another video. This is all I got because the DVD Ali sent me isn't recognized by my DVD reader. She sent me another care package, but this time all I get to enjoy is the boil-in-the-bag donburi and instant noodles.

I'll probably go to Hell for saying this, but lately every time I see a video of Foxy, I wanna say Hervé Villechaize lives! I know I'm not the only one. Don't worry, in this video, you'll get to hear Ali sing to Foxy. Except that Ali uses Foxy's Japanese name because like 99 percent of the people in Japan, [f] is an impossible phoneme to her. Instead of using the voiceless labiodental fricative [f], they use the voiceless bilabial fricative [Φ]. Savages. So it's like impossible for Ali to say Foxy. Part of the reason I named her that is so that I can get a little chuckle everytime I hear Ali try to say it. The difference between [f] and [Φ] is very subtle, and you don't even notice it unless you watch the speaker's mouth. Ask any Japanese person who isn't fluent in English to say Fuji. Watch their mouths, don't listen to what they say and you'll see what I mean.

Of course, Ali got her revenge by giving Foxy a name that is next to impossible for English speakers to pronounce. Aoi [aoi]. How do you pronounce a name that has no consonants? I've heard one gaijin say it perfectly on the first try. Everyone else, especially those in my family let their Yiddish take over and say something more like "Oy" [oιj]. Or the more gentile members of my family break it down into two syllables and spit out "A-oy" [aʔoιj]. Fascinating stuff!