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Onomonapiea

Last night, our family had dinner with a Florida family who went through the Chinese adoption process around the same time as we did, and went to China to get their little girl Zee just a week or so after we went to get the Ladybug.  The Queen B had met them online early on in the adoption wait through one of the many adoption sites she frequented, and they have since become good family friends. 

It was a charming evening.  The little girls played in the pool, and Zee’s mommy showed me the magic of water wings, which so befuddled the Ladybug’s many attempts to drown herself that she quit trying and actually started to swim on her own; and when their fingers had pruned up sufficiently, they headed to Zee’s room to have make-believe tea parties with dolls and animals.  The adults, meanwhile, ate a fine feast of chicken and pork and drank Sangrea from little vacuum-sealed cubes, which were like juice boxes for degenerates.  We watched the Olympics in China and swapped adoption stories, and eventually watched their China movie, chronicling their experiences in adopting Zee.

Soon — too soon, it seemed — it was time to go, and so I politely excused myself from the living room to go upstairs in search of my daughter.  As I did so, I passed a small wooden carving on the wall: a cross, into which had been carved the name Jesus, like so,

which I found to be a particularly noteworthy design, for two main reasons.

First, it’s a clever combination of both the name of the Christian savior with the iconic image to which He is most associated.

Second, it is precisely how I imagine the word “Jesus” spelled whenever I hear a televangelist say it.

Negative space

After we said our goodbyes, we piled back into the Nana B’s little SUV and headed back to her home, which was a half hour’s drive away.

One portion near the end of the drive took us on a straight, two-laned road cut through the primordial swampland of which Florida seems mostly comprised.  It was a dark stretch of road without street lights, illuminated only by the moon and the occasional neon signs of small business that sporadically punctuated the sides of the road: tacorias, dry cleaners, bargain stores, and so on.

Then, on the north side of the street was a small, lonely office building with a tiny parking lot, almost completely obscured by the pitch black of night except for a bright red neon sign that proclaimed

ARIAN EMERGENCY MEDICAL

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that.  Was there a sizable white-power population in sothern Florida I did not know about?  Was this a building that only helped neo-Nazis with medical conditions; or did they only admit patients with medical emergencies brought on by neo-Nazis?

I was confused as hell, and I didn’t figure it out until the following morning when, as we drove along the same stretch of road to fetch water wings for the Ladybug, I saw the same lonely office building with its small parking lot full of cars, and its bright red neon sign that read

VETERANARIAN EMERGENCY MEDICAL

with some of the letters burnt out.

Reminiscing

That story reminds me of a time several years back, long before the Ladybug, when the Queen B and I were again in Florida visiting her family: her folks, together with her sister’s family.  We had all arranged to spend several days at a bed and breakfast in Key West, and so we assembled into a number of cars and drove down the long, bridged expance of Highway 1 that connects the tip of Florida to the slivers of floating beachs called the Keys.

As we drove along Plantation Key, we passed a high school.  In its the parking lot was a small retaining wall on which was inscribed, in large blue letters,

CORAL
SHORES
HIGH
SCHOOL

which appeared just above the phrase Home of the Hurricanes! and just left of a picture of an anthropomorphized hurricane vortex. The letters themselves where made of plastic and attached to the wall by a series of short rods, so they they appeared to hover inches in front of it, casting irredenscent blue shadows obliquely behind them. …well, all of the letters except for the first C and first S, which instead of being formed with the raised plastic letters, were simply painted on the wall with a matching blue paint in a mathcing font.

I found this a tad bizarre, and asked my brother-in-law — a life long southern Floridian — if he knew what that was about.

“Yeah,” he answered.  “Kids from the rival high school kept smashing those ones off.”

I was about to ask Why? before it hit me, and then I laughed all the way to Key West.

The Ladybug has been having a blast in Florida visiting her Nana B.  She’s also been a neverending source of comedy while we’ve been here.

TGIF

The Ladybug has always enjoyed playing in water, and she’s been particularly drawn to the pool, where she’ll spend hours splashing on the steps, walking along the walls, and throwing herself into the deep end in the hopes that I can get to her in time to prevent her from drowning.  As a result, whereas she leaves the pool energized and wanting more, I leave the pool exhausted with significantly grayer hair.  So one day after a round of particularly hazardous waterplay, I removed the Ladybug from the water and sent her into the house.

“No!” she said.  “I want to swim in the pool.”

“I’m tired,” I replied.  “Maybe tomorrow.”

“No, daddy.  Tonow.”

“What?”

“I want to swim in the pool tonow.”

Very frequently, the Ladybug utters collections of sounds for which I cannot immediately ascertain a definition.  In such cases, I simply ignore them and continue.

“No, Ladybug.  I’m tired.  Maybe… maybe… we can go tonight.”

“NO!” she insisted.  “Tonow!”

“What?”

“I want to swim tonow!”

I tried to figure this out again, but failed.  “What?”

“I want to swim.  Not to-morrow.  Not to-night.  Not to-day.  To-now!”

RTFM

The other night, the Nana B gave the Ladybug a toy keychain.  On it is a small black-and-white spotted cow with a small button on its head that, when pressed, causes the cow to moo while a bright beams of light bursts through the nostrils, as if in the midst of some horrific bovine exorcism.  The Nana B demonstrated this to the Ladybug.

“Moooooooooo!” went the cow.

“Hee hee hee!” laughed the Ladybug, who took the cow and shook it around, expecting it to moo and light up. When it did not, she stood straight up and inspected the toy with a comical degree of precision, trying to unlock its secret.  After a few minutes of nonactivity from the cow, she walked over to me, held the cow out in her hands, and announced, “I need help.”

“You need to push button,” I said.

The Ladybug eyed the cow for a moment, finally noticing the pressable little bump on the cow’s head.  She stabbed it with her index finger. Suddenly, there was a quick flash of light and a quick “Muh–” from the cow, which surprised the Ladybug enough that she let go of the button, and the light and sound stopped.

Realizing that this was not correct, the Ladybug screwed up her face in concetration and tried to fix the problem, experimenting with different ways to hold the cow or the button, but always releasing it the minute the cow made noise, earning only a rudimentary stroboscopic lightshow punctuated by “Muh–… Muh–… Muh–… Muh–… Muh–…”

After a few more minutes of this, the Ladybug walked over to me, held the cow out in her hands, and announced, “I need help.”

“You need to the hold the button down,” I suggested.

The Ladybug eyed the cow with a look of disbelief.  Finally, with a resigned look, the Ladybug sighed and bent over at the waist.  She then held the cow at arm’s length, grasping it just a few inches above the ground, and stabbed the button again.

RIP

It’s nighttime, and I’ve just finished reading the Ladybug her bedtime story — Noah’s Ark, as it happens — and tucking her in, surrounding her with her menagerie of stuffed animals and dollies.

“Good night Ladybug,” I say, and kiss her gently on the forehead.  I then click off the light and walk out of the guest bedroom, where the Ladybug is sleeping while we’re in Florida.

I close the door and start to walk away, but within moments, it reopens.  The Ladybug is standing behind it, her hand on the handle and her face concerned.

“Daddy!” she cries.  “Daddy! Daaaaaaaaddy!”

I spin in a panic, and rush back to her.  “What? What is it?”

“I need something,” she says.

I go through my mental checklist of bedtime necessities: Pajamas? Check. Teeth brushed? Check.  Bedtime story? Check.  Toys? Check.  Blankets tucked in? Check.  I don’t think I’ve missed anything, so I shoo her back to bed. 

“Go to sleep,” I say.

“But I need something,” she insists.

I relent.  “What do you need?”

“Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…” she says, looking up at the ceiling and trying to think of something.  “Water?”

Nice try, I think.  “No water after 8 o’clock,” I remind her.  I scoop the Ladybug back up, put her back in the bed, pull the covers back up to her neck, and kiss her goodnight again.

“Good night, Ladybug,” I say, and close the door.

As I walk away, I hear the sound of the door reopening, followed by the Ladybug’s cries.

“Daddy! Daddy! Daaaaaaaaddy!”

“What?” I ask.

“I need something.”

“No you don’t.  Go to bed.”

“But,” she insists, “I need something.”

“What do you need?”

“Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…” she says with a sly smile.  “Cookies?”

I grab my daughter and deposit her in the bed again.  I pull the covers up to her neck, give her a quick kiss, and walk out the door.

“Good night kid,” I say, and close the door.

As I walk away, I hear the door open, and my kid wailing.

“Daddy! Daddy! Daaaaaaaaddy!”

I spin around, irritated.  “What?”

“I need something.”

“No you don’t,” I say, and snatch her up to redeposit her in bed.

The Ladybug squirms in my arms.  “But I really need something,” she pleads.

I put her in bed, throw the covers over her and give her my best stern-daddy stare.  “What?”

“Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm… I love you?”

I close the door, and this time, I lock it.

After my mother-in-law, the Nana B, visited us for a couple of weeks and headed home to Florida, she went online and read about her exploits here at komplexify.  In doing so, she took a little offense at the suggestion that she was perhaps excessively foo-foo-frilly, and suggested that I exaggerated the extent to which she keeps her home in a state of hermetically sealed perfection.

On the one hand, I am given to fits of hyperbole here at the site, willfully caricaturing the people and places involved in the stories I tell for what I hope is comedic purposes.  As my dad once told me, the least important parts to any story are the facts.

On the other hand, the Ladybug and Queen B and I have just arrived in Flordia to spend two weeks visiting the Nana B, and the first thing I see when I step into the guest bathroom is this on the wall:

I leave it to you to decide if I was exaggerating.

It being late in the summer, we’ve finally received the teaching evaluations our students filled out in the Spring semester.  Here are three of my favorites.

Third place

Because SOHCAHTOA and the unit circle are so, like, sixteenth century.  Guh!

Second place

I’d like to see this become the official motto of Komplexify U.

First place

That one oughtta help my tenure prospects.

Today was the annual Black Hills Duck Race, wherein some fourteen thousand rubber duckies lazily work their way down a mile long strecth of Rapid Creek in the infinitesimal hope that one of them will earn some lucky person a million dollars.  And as usual, no one did.

However, since the Ladybug purchased five of the rubbery racers, she and I headed out to watch them wade downstream.

As usual, the race starts with all fourteen thousand ducks being dumped via tractor from an overpass directly into the creek below in a single, somewhat unceremonious sploosh.  Also as usual, the duck race was held on the seemingly hottest day of summer so far.  Connecting these two observations with the faculties of logic with which I have been blessed, I decided that this year I woould watch the race start from inside the creek, rather than on either shore.  So the Ladybug and I waded in and watched as fourteen thousand ducks rained down in front of us, covering us with a healthy spray of water and an acute sense of just how stupid standing below fourteen thousand falling ducks actually is.

In years past I have actually followed the ducks along their hour-long journey down the creek, but since I had the Ladybug in tow, and she has a definite aversion to all things hot and humid, we decided only to follow the vulcanized vultures for the first quarter-mile or so before heading to the air-conditioned comfort of (first) McDonalds for soda pops and (second) the car as we drove to the finish line.

There, we plunkered on the shore just downstream of a poster indicating that “The Duck Stops Here!” and waited for the ducks to cross the finish line. When they eventually did, the Ladybug was less disappointed that her duck didn’t come first than more ecstatic that she didn’t need to sit and watch ducks anymore.  Now was the time to play with them.

Ever wonder what it looks like to pick up fourteen thousand rubber ducks?  This.

Ever wonder what it looks like to have the Ladybug help pick up fourteen thousand rubber ducks?  This.

Ever wonder what it looks like after helping pick up fourteen thousand rubber ducks?  This.

Happy duck racing, everyone!