Therapy for mom

Updates to the update have been going in the comments of the Update blog post.

Just for mom -- the rest of you, don't try to understand or bother the link -- we have a therapeutic sound effect and a surprise to bring.

Update

... some of you ... may not ... have ... heard. ... dad ... has been ... on his own ... for nearly ... 60 ... entire ... hours.

Ham steaks ... mostly gone. ... Cereal stocks ... exhausted. Milk .... gone. No ... bratwurst. Limited .... beer. boydog ... here ... Asian ancestry. ... still have .... peanut sauce?

No ... shouldn't grill ... child. ... must catch ... and trap ... squirrels ... or seek ... supermarket.

Ooh, pudding. OK. Feeling better.

So, while dad is starving to death, mom is whining about something or another. Apparently she doesn't like to be covered in baby vomit at 6 a.m. on an international flight. And she hasn't even said what time zone she was in yet! If she was in Boston/Atlanta time, she'd only had two hours before landing. Geesh. It's not like the three hours if she were on local time. Unless it was.

Yeah. So we're still waiting for pictures (presumably, not of vomit) from Brazil, but dad is told that Lil' Genghis should be feeling better soon. Whether it's from antibiotics, fresh-picked bananas from the backyard of Grandpa Rinaldo's home, or from medicinal doses of Cuarenta Y Tres, we're not quite sure. Hopefully we'll hear more soon.

In the meantime, let's all think sweet thoughts of mom and Lil' Genghis our globe-trotting (but not yet globe-conquering) adventurers.

On an unrelated note, a final round of pictures from the last month is slated to be posted Sept. 4. dad hopes to post more of the (much older) pictures in the near future, as soon as he finds more pudding or eats boydog ... or just goes shopping.

Lil Genghis hits Taunton

mom and dad lived in the city of Taunton, Mass., for a while, shortly after they got married. Aunt Donna's wedding shower became a great excuse to return for the first time since Easter. Yes, our little girl got, er, lei'd.


IMG_0720 from album 080725 Eddie bday, Donna bridal shower, Hynes playground



IMG_0722 from album 080725 Eddie bday, Donna bridal shower, Hynes playground



IMG_0733 from album 080725 Eddie bday, Donna bridal shower, Hynes playground

There's the groom-to-be, Uncle Ed, who is clutching a foot. Last time the two had been together, there was an unfortunate diaper explosion. Then again, is there really such a thing as a fortunate diaper explosion?


IMG_0731 from album 080725 Eddie bday, Donna bridal shower, Hynes playground

And there's Aunt Donna, the honored bride.


IMG_0743 from album 080725 Eddie bday, Donna bridal shower, Hynes playground

She wants to be sedated.

Annnnnd more parks!

IMG_0790 from album 080801 Caroline and Kate, the Malinis babysit, mall



IMG_0811 from album 080801 Caroline and Kate, the Malinis babysit, mall



IMG_0819 from album 080801 Caroline and Kate, the Malinis babysit, mall

Cousin Oliver gets luvins from his mom and dad


IMG_0825 from album 080801 Caroline and Kate, the Malinis babysit, mall

Bath time, and more parks!

Rubber ducky, you're the one, you make bath time so much fun ...


IMG_0833 from album 080808 Bath, Auburndale Cove, onion rings, Cindy



IMG_0857 from album 080808 Bath, Auburndale Cove, onion rings, Cindy



IMG_0865 from album 080808 Bath, Auburndale Cove, onion rings, Cindy



IMG_0901 from album 080808 Bath, Auburndale Cove, onion rings, Cindy


Hey, now a video ... Make this one full screen and get really close, Uncle Rodrigo:

Rollin' and tumblin' and even bubblin'

Lil' Genghis has enrolled in a gym -- called Gymboree, to be precise -- that lets her hang out with other kids, bounce around, walk along planks, climb mountains of foamy things, dance underneath a parachute ... all sorts of fun, tough to describe kinds of things. Fortunately, we got some pictures a few weeks ago:


DSCF2254 from album 080814 Gymboree



DSCF2256 from album 080814 Gymboree



DSCF2257 from album 080814 Gymboree



DSCF2241 from album 080814 Gymboree

Heeeeeere's Bella!

American author Stephen King called it "The Shining," and British filmmaker Stanley Kubrick kept the name intact when he made the film -- except he made it "Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining.'" Brazilians know it as "O Iluminado." Lil' Genghis knows it as a fun day in the park:

DSCF2374 from album 082408-Fun at water park




DSCF2363 from album 082408-Fun at water park



DSCF2360 from album 082408-Fun at water park



DSCF2358 from album 082408-Fun at water park



DSCF2343 from album 082408-Fun at water park

Yeah, the focus is off, etc, etc, but this is still kinda cool, eh?

And there's this introspective one here:

DSCF2350 from album 082408-Fun at water park


We also got some videos. The one in which she runs from an erupting water spout is just priceless.

Tech update/pictures coming

Whoops.

dad earlier promised a bunch of pictures coming ... and got hamstrung by a weird technical problem. mom's "new" digital cameras takes pictures in a really inefficient format, and the 1gb file from a 9-minute video was crashing our photo gallery software -- it just wouldn't upload.

Behind the scenes, we've done some significant upgrades to the photo gallery, though it should look and act pretty much the same. It officially has built-in PicLens support, which makes it easy and kinda neat to browse through the galleries.

Meanwhile, we're trying to swap out some of the big videos for a different video format. Take a look here -- we've actually got a video of Lil' Genghis coming down a slide in less room than a single still picture -- and it looks and sounds pretty darned close to the original video.

Those other photos are coming, we promise. =)

Pebbles

Pedrita., originally uploaded by Bel and Ana.

Cousin Aninha in a nice afternoon at the petting zoo. Auntie can't wait to kiss and hug you, sweetie!

Lotta pictures coming

dad realized he's been blogging about non-Genghis stuff for the last month or so, and you guys surely want to see more pictures of the little lady. They're coming, he promises -- the plan is do post pictures every few days to get the interest of you, Dear Reader, up again, so you'll be checking this blog regularly in anticipation of the latest cute pictures, and after a certain period of rewards we'll crush your soul completely and go another month without pictures of Lil' Genghis. Sorry. That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and we need Lil' Genghis to have strong people around her as examples.

Speaking of strength, we have a cute chance to ridicule Uncle Rodrigo's semi-sorta-adopted second or third country, Norway. Norway, you'll remember, is the country that entered World War II one morning and gave up by lunchtime. They were so incompetent, in fact, that the puppet wasn't puppet-y enough.

So it's with little surprise politically and militarily, but lots of delight from a childish standpoint, that Norway is boosting the military role of one of its penguins.

There's a great video here. This picture, through CuteOverload.com with an unknown original source, seems to capture things nicely.

New additions (update)

Come to think of it, "New additions" is a bit repetitive, isn't it? Hrm.

At any rate:
Aunt Vanessa and Uncle Emerson are doing well, as is Cousin Valentina! The little lady's mom wrote:

Queridos amigos,
Aí está a nossa amada Valentina!
Nasceu no dia 08 de agosto com 3,210 kg e 48 cm.
Uma fofura!
Beijos a todos,
Vanessa, Emerson e Valentina

For us Americans, it's important to note that she didn't give birth to a new Hummer -- Brazilians just don't recognize a decimal point as a decimal point so they stick commas in strange places. So Little Valentina is 7 lbs 1 ounce and 18 inches long. And you can see the family's already revised its e-mail stationery. How cool is that? =)

So here's a picture of the little lady:


Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Nice work, guys.

Meanwhile, Uncle Rodrigo got some probing done by a veterinarian (oh, how dad loved to write that sentence) and so it's official ... Aunt Melissa has given birth to a son, whom they promptly named Cousin Linus Schrödinger, after the inventor of Linux and a physicist who speculated that his cat was both simultaneously alive and dead, depending on the quantum state of something or another somewhere something. Let the record show that by giving their cat this name, the parents have:

• proven they're truly hardcore nerds
• given birth to a zombie

Anyway, Cousin Zombie Cat is doing well, apparently getting some functions out of his brain besides a desire for, er, other brains. Here's one of his first videos with a new toy. Enjoy!

---

EDIT: Aunt Melissa has already responded to the "Zombie Cat" comment. But let's look at this analytically ... The theory is that a cat in a locked box, which can't be seen into, with a 50-percent chance of being washed in acid, is both simultaneously dead and not dead, a state that can't be determined until the box is opened after a set time. It's an illustration of quantum mechanics, which suggests that something can be in two contradictory states simultaneously.

So the cat's dead and not dead at the same time, which is another word for zombie. Fair 'nuff. OK.

But as soon as the family discovered the cat was indeed male, they named him after Schrödinger, thus affirming the zombie status. Zombies are considered neither alive nor dead, sorta -- perhaps something like a virus, which is capable of some basic acts of life but isn't considered to be alive in the general sense. Things that aren't really alive can't be sexed.

So at the same time, then, the cat is both dead and not dead, it's also both male and non-sexed. So do we refer to the cat as he/it and him/thing, if it exists in both states simultaneously? Or should we recognize that both states are valid at any given point and thus either becomes fair game?

More to the point, given that mom will certainly kill dad as soon as she discovers he went from a beautiful new baby to a discussion of unsexed zombie cousins in just a few paragraphs, do we consider dad to be dead or undead? Now we see how the zombies spread so quickly in the movies, and nothing is to be trusted.

Welcome again, Cousin Valentina, to a very loving, but sometimes nerdy and always weird extended family.

New additions

We haven't heard yet, but we know Aunt Vanessa and Uncle Emerson were scheduled to meet their new daughter yesterday, 8-8-08. The little lady has a cousin with a birthday of 5-5-05, even. We hope to get some good news and a photo soon.

Meanwhile, Uncle Rodrigo and Aunt Melissa have taken their first child home.

They haven't settled on a name yet because they're not quite sure of the little, er, guy's sex. A veterinarian will help them out soon, we hear. More kitty porn here.

Meanwhile, let us all offer congratulations to the two newly expanded families, and once again encourage Rodrigo to propose to Melissa so their child can grow in a wholesome environment.

Hrm.

The world agrees: dad is very right

Years ago, when dad worked with Uncle Joe and dinosaurs roamed the earth, dad just knew his colleague was an awful writer. Now Uncle Joe is being held up to the world as an example of one the worst writers ever -- or at least certainly this year.

Uncle Joe's wife, Aunt Cady, notes that, well, "i guess i’m supposed to be proud." You gotta start some place, lady. Anyway, she's got some more details and opinions over yonder.

The winning entry, for those paying attention:

Timothy Hanson, Commander of the 43rd Space Regiment in the 52nd Battalion on board the USAOPAC (United Space Alliance Of Planets Attack Carrier) and second in command to Admiral L.R. Morris of the USAOP Space Command, awoke early for breakfast.

Way to, er, go, er, Joe. Yeah.

Other amusing entries include:

Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.

-- Garrison Spik, Washington, D.C.

"Die, commie pigs!" grunted Sergeant "Rocky" Steele through his cigar stub as he machine-gunned the North Korean farm animals.

-- Dave Ranson, Calgary, Alberta, Northern Suburbs

Mike Hummer had been a private detective so long he could remember Preparation A, his hair reminded everyone of a rat who'd bitten into an electrical cord, but he could still run faster than greased owl snot when he was on a bad guy's trail, and they said his friskings were a lot like getting a vasectomy at Sears.

-- Robert B. Robeson, Lincoln, Nebraska

Nobody knew just who the steely-eyed stranger was, where he came from, where he was headed, or what his intentions were while he was in Dodge City; but he wasn't an hombre you'd want to stick your tongue out at or flip off, and any man who tried to tickle him would be asking for a long stay in a pine box, if you know what I mean.

-- David McKenzie, Federal Way, Washington

I heard her husky breathing as she came up the stairs, breathing exactly the way a sled dog breathes after competing in the Iditatrod as she sauntered into the room her hips swiveling from side to side like a Sherman M-4 tank with a 75mm gun forcing its way through the hedgerows of Normandy after D-Day in 1944.

-- Bruce Hannem, Citrus Heights, California

And of course, we should point out at least one of the guys that Uncle Joe beat:

Lightning flashed from the blue-black sky of this alien world and shattered the engines of the spaceship, destroying Reninger's last chance of escaping and reminding him of the time his sister returned from New York with the tips of her hair dyed blue, except for the part about the lightning and the spaceship.

-- Mark Murata, Kirkland, Washington

Let's hear it for our loser!

For those who just need absolutely more, dad can't recommend highly enough the beginning of Bad Hemingway, a collaborative effort that started off bright but fizzled pretty quickly. And if you like that, you might dig Naked Came the Manatee, a book by Carl Hiaasen, Dave Barry, Elmore Leonard and the heads of Fidel Castro.

Paws, South and furry

Yesterday, Grandpa John got a special birthday present: A card signed by his beloved granddaughter ... with her left hand. (HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA!) Left-handedness, which isn't believed to be strongly genetic but somehow runs in dad's family, proves that Lil' Genghis will be more likely to be out of her right mind.

People who use their left hands are often called Southpaws. Sometimes Southpaws are disparaged; sometimes, as with economics and intelligence, they may be advantaged. Certainly when Lil' Genghis gets her first bullpup rifle we'll have to do modifications. However, when she's writing in Arabic from right-to-left, it'll be easier for her not to blur the lettering. All this is premised on her staying as a Southpaw; not owning a bullpup rifle or not learning Arabic are not really options, naturally.

And now on to the furry paws.


Uncle Joe and Aunt Cady had to watch Cousin Julius fade away last night. Often left in the shadow of his brother Dizzy -- generally acknowledged to be the only feline charged with domestic terrorism -- Julius was always the sweet guy, the cuddler. In her blog, Aunt Cady writes about how Cousin Julius just adopted himself into the family. Part of her touching tribute:

my parents found julius abandoned on their road and, after he ran right up to them and jumped in their car, they brought him to my apartment. my landlords were wary at first, but they soon fell head over heels in love with julius. i’d look outside in the afternoons and see them playing with him. when i moved, they didn’t want him to leave. he was just such an endearing cat.

Julius was preceded in death by a brother, Caesar.