Posted by Dan Housman at 07:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our protagonist finds himself sitting on the floor of a Philadelphia airport in the hallway with passing carts moving along plugging his battery weary computer and phone into the outlet he has managed to position himself near. The temporary owner of the other half of the outlet is a nice young man who helped the protagonist to realize that he was trying to plug into a convenient outlet that the airport had decided not to power because it was likely to be useful to commuters trapped in the USAir terminal. Upon attempting to connect to the Internet he found that the AT&T corporation had bought the rights to sell the wireless internet services at this airport for $7.95 but could offer People magazine for free through a slow pipe to him so that he could learn more about the break-up of Reese and Ryan or Brittany and K-Fed. He finally found his name called and entered onto the plane to find himself in the dreaded middle seat of a cramped jet. He is better off than some others on the plane who are discussing how they could have duplicate seating assignments. The cabin door closes and the plane sits on the runway for an hour with little air shooting out of the vent above his head. When the plane finally flies it’s short 45 minute route it takes about an hour to land at Logan Airport. The delay has caused a secondary delay and now the plane has no home so he sits in his cramped seat waiting for the parked plane to find it’s way to a point where he can be dropped off. When the plane finally docks with the terminal another 40 minutes has passed on the ground again with the air slowly leaking out of the vent above him. The woman in front of him mentions that she is ready to tear a hole in the airplane to get out as the back of the plane awaits the exit of the passengers in front. He stays calm thinking of home and his one year old daughter and wife waiting for him. He has been away for three days but it feels like weeks and he is more than ready to be greeted to a familiar place with a familiar smile. He hears the call of ‘da-da’ beckoning. The baggage takes another thirty minutes to return and he curses having brought luggage to work out in but not having worked out in the time he was gone. His neck and back hurts from the backpack on his shoulders. When the line looks long for a Taxi a hotel shuttle van driver shoos him into the back of an empty van. He waits inside wondering whether or how this could be faster than the long taxi line. An old man climbs into the cab. Then a couple of octogenarian ophthalmologists. The driver keeps looking for more people to pack into the van. It drives into Boston stopping first at a hotel in Copley Square then at a location on Berkeley street. By the time it reaches St. Paul street it is nearly nine o’clock. It is six and a half hours since he started a journey home from Philadelphia. He walks in the door to find the baby asleep but his wife is glad to see him and it is time to be home and sleep.

Posted by Dan Housman at 03:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Sunday morning the cat was mewing in an odd way. She was either alerting us of something or trying to taunt Madeline in the other room. The next thing we heard was the dreaded thump. Madeline had managed to pull herself up and out of her crib head first. The basic cause of this was my own ineptitude at having not lowered the crib to the lowest setting earlier. So this week Madeline has had a black eye from the fall. The pediatrician said she should be fine. She didn't show any symptoms of a head injury like vomiting, dizziness, or excessive sleepiness. If anything she didn't notice that she had fallen after the initial shock wore off. But for the week she has been our black eyed pea and she will remain black eyed for the forseeable future.

Posted by Dan Housman at 07:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This morning I put Madeline to the test while she was in her high chair eating breakfast. "Madeline where is the dog?". She turns around to look at the picture of a pug dog and says duh-duh. "Madeline where are the butterflies?" She turns the other way looking at a metal mobile of butterflies hanging from the ceiling and says buh-buh. "Madeline where is daddy?" She turns to look at me and says da-da. "Madeline where is mommy?" She turns to Sarah and says "Muh-Muh".

Brilliant.

Posted by Dan Housman at 03:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was hunting around the web and poked onto a blog referring me to Dogster, a blogging site for pet owners. My best guess is that 95% of the dogs in the world are more popular than I am but I am not nearly as cute as a golden retreiver. This morning Annabelle decided to use my arm as a scratching post and it reminded me of the news I had seen on Thursday night when a woman had been nearly mauled to death by a bear. She was chomping down pretty deep on my wrists and I had to fight to make sure I wasn't the first casualty of 2006 from cat mauling. So our first order of the day, after eating our ritual Brueggers coffee and bagels and picking-up some lightbulbs was to purchase the Trader Joe's cat scratching cardboard with catnip in it. Annabelle seems to like it so far but she is now hiding behind the monitor waiting to pounce on my wrists as I type. I did look longingly at a weiner dog as we were walking through Coolidge Corner having learned that they were bred to chase and kill rats figuring that a dog might be less violent towards me than my dear kitten. But I do like my spunky cat.

Posted by Dan Housman at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)