After dinner last night, we decided to go check out the Linens N' Things closing sale.  I was looking through the mostly-empty prints section when a really unpleasant odor wafted up to my nose.  I looked over to see Elliott waddling by.  Maybe just a fart...until he walked by again and there it was again.  OK, maybe more than a fart.  Linens N' Things is maybe 2 miles away from my house, so K just left the diaper bag at home, figuring she wouldn't need it for such a quick little outing.  At this point, there was no use crying over spilled poo nuggets, the damage was already done.  While we were already there, we figured we might as well just spend a few extra minutes walking through the store to check out more of the sale.

Just moments later, from the general vicinity of Colby, came a Pbbbrrrt! noise.  Then another one.  Then, sitting in the shopping cart, Colby's eyes narrowed into an intense focus and the color drained from his face.  Grunting and panting, Colby eventually topped Elliott by not merely soiling his diaper, but also leaking runny poo through his diaper and onto his pants. 

Now unlike most of his stuff, Colby's carseat isn't a hand-me-down from Elliott.  We bought him a brand-spankin' new Britax Boulevard, which is like the BMW of carseats.  Or the Toyota Sienna if you're Young.  The point, of course, being that I wasn't going to willy-nilly let Colby just get his carseat dirty.

We had no diaper bag, no change of clothes and we were surrounded by tons of ever-so-useful stores like Barnes & Noble, Cucina! Cucina!, Trader Joes and Petco.  So it was time to put on my McGyver hat.  I thought for a bit and went back into the Linens N' Things and asked the checkout girl to cut the corners off of a plastic bag.  She was happy to help and I took my makeshift baby-slipcover outside and pulled Colby's legs through the newly-cut leg holes and tied the bag snug around his back, like how a Hooters girl ties her t-shirt.  We put both boys into the car and drove home with all the windows down the whole way.

Colby, oblivious and happy. 

A rear-view of the bag and my knot.  I wasn't ever in Boy Scouts.  But I did spend the night at a Holiday Inn... 

A side shot of Colby.

This picture is actually from another night, but Elliott had a funny expression on his face and he loves those new pajamas, so I put it up too.

grandson?!

Gramma looked back at the rock in her hand, and then trained her steely momma-bear gaze onto the snake...

...and now there's a quarter-cup of garter snake-puree mashed underneath a rock in my backyard...

Here are some pix I've taken and one or two that were already on my mom's laptop:

Like nearly-narcoleptic aunt-Lora, Elliott used to spontaneously fall asleep in random places like restaurants. Here, around Thxgiving 2006, he fell asleep during dinner as he often did in those days.  K & I improvised pillows out of our jackets, scarves, dinner napkins and other items we've had to scrounge up on the fly.

Around the same time as the previous photo, Elliott and I are playing a hybrid version of Hide and Seek/Peek-a-boo.  We took turns ducking under our respective sides of the laptop screen and popping up and "surprising" one another.  Don't think he realized that when he ducked, I could still see the top of his dog hat...

From my mom's retirement party, taken 1/26/2006 about a year before she passed away.  My mom actually really enjoyed working before she retired, because the work wasn't stressful and she had some good friends at the office.  OTOH, I remember her telling me that retirement was like an awesome pot of gold at the end of the working rainbow.  Lest there is any confusion, my mom is the one in the middle, with the black outfit on. =) 

My dad and I, a couple weeks ago, at Bugaboo Creek steakhouse.  He looks a little better than this right now; at the time this was taken he was having some pretty bad aches in his jaw.  Those aches have since been largely relieved by the magic of antibiotics...

This is Mr Sun, whom I shared some stories about in an earlier blog entry.

Mrs Pei, my dad's cook/housekeeper.  She's about 4'11", so roughly 2" taller than Karen. :)  She's a chubby, chipper, cheerful woman and she is to chinese cooking what LeBron James is to dunking basketballs.  Pictures don't do her handicraft justice, but here's one I took:

Left to right, beef brisket & potatoes, soup, a chinese cold-cuts like appetizer, stir-fried cauliflower with dried shrimp, a spicy whole fish dish, a tofu & pork mix-it-up-with-your-rice-awesomeness thing.

A picture of me with my birthday mug (ty K!) sent from K.

And Lucy, my sister's dog.  In the last few weeks, I've taken her for walks, bought her dog treats and brushed her coat out several times.  You know those stories where mother gorillas nurse stuffed animals or raise kittens or whatever when their gorilla baby is taken away or missing?  Brushing Lucy this morning, it occurred to me I might be projecting my inner mother-gorilla onto Lucy while my kids aren't around...

• My sister handles his bills and getting his medicines into his pill container.
• His helper, Mrs. Pei cooks his meals and does some light cleaning.
• His other helper, Mr Sun (sun, mister golden sun) helps him get in and out of his wheelchair and drives him around.  He also helps him go to the bathroom and shower and sleeps in the same room with him overnight in case my dad has any sort of emergency.
• He also has a hospice support worker who comes to check on him, makes sure his meds are delivered, checks his blood pressure and if anything unusual is happening (e.g. pain, constipation, diarrhea, fatigue, etc).  There is also a hospice nurse and chaplain available, though my dad doesn't use their help yet.
  
• There's also oral surgeons (he has an abscessed tooth and exposed bone at the base of his upper jaw), his oncologists as well as his general physician.