Legos Again

[This is an update of an earlier post, "Happy Boom Day".] I ended up buying my daughter two Lego sets. One is a basic set of blocks, which comes in a blue plastic box with a lid, wherein the tiny, cat-attracting Legos may be safely stored so as to prevent loss, or "shrinkage" as Wal-Mart calls loss (I have worked at Wal-Mart, in produce, and I hope never to work at any Wal-Mart ever again, but I digress). The second set is part of Lego’s "City" milieu; essentially, sets that, when put together, form a functioning Lego city. I bought a set of people. They include a deliveryman with a hand-truck; a woman with a ghetto blaster; a uniformed policeman with a megaphone, white hat, walkie-talkie, and a mustache; and one fellow who I can describe only as being a liberal arts professor, given the appearance of his hair, sweater vest, neck tie, full beard, and a briefcase. The city people set also comes with a traffic signal, three road signs, a park bench, and a fireplug (all of the latter must be assembled). It’s delightful! We’ve had great fun swapping the people’s hair. The professor wears the woman’s hair (which I assume is "Princess Hair") and she wears the professor’s hair ("Prince Hair"?). A bit later, Liz bought yet a third Lego set, a Front-End Loader, which comes with another Legoman. This one is a construction worker in an orange jumpsuit. He has a rough beard and a sly expression. He resembles an escaped prisoner. The Front-End Loader kicks ass. You can scoop things with it; namely, a pile of small Lego bricks. Thus far I have built many Lego vehicles of questionable utility. They generally have oversized tires and as many lights and funnels and tubelike devices attached to them as I can add.

Habits

I am awash in bad habits. Sometimes I eat too much. This can elevate my blood-sugar. High blood-sugar makes me sleepy. I’ve been sleeping too much lately. Not tomorrow though. Tomorrow I refill another prescription for long-acting Vyvanse (12-hour speed). I have gone without these pills for more than a week. Withdrawl symptoms reinforce bad habits, it’s true. I have read a lot this past week. (Reading is a bad habit sometimes.) I finished Moby-Dick, along with two books of non-fiction (Methland and The Curve of Binding Energy). I’ve been growing a beard. A spider lives in the downstairs bathroom. We’ve finally replaced the van: now we own a 2008 Chevy Malibu. It’s a good car. Why have I read so much non-fiction this summer? Look at my list: Five books of non-fiction, one book of philosophy, two story collections, and but a single novel (albeit a goddamn great big novel). On a lighter note, one of the nestling robins I mentioned in a recent post did survive the opossum attack. I found the nestling at the bottom of one of the basement window wells and scooped it out. The parents were dive-bombing at the time. Baby birds are so ugly. It pooped when I tried to pick it up.

Someone Always Has it Rougher Than You

Until tonight there was a robins' nest high in the bushes in back of the house. But not high enough. At about 11:00 p.m. we heard chicks crying out. You never hear songbirds' nestlings at night unless something is trying to eat them. I went out with the flashlight. The oppossum was fully involved in the nest and not in the slightest intimidated by me. It ate two-and-a-half chicks and left one-and-a-half for me to find. I'm glad I'm not a bird. I'd hate to have to fuck around with hungry predators like oppossums, skunks, racoons, etc.

In the aftermath I took some pictures, like a forensics analyst at the scene of a crime. I won't post them here. Nobody wants to look at that.

Happy Boom Day

My daughter is making the transition from toddler-Legos ("Duplo" blocks; or, oversized blocks) to the tiny, miniscule, easily lost, cat-attracting Lego blocks which we all know and love. She has two sets: The Krusty Krab (featuring Spongebob, Mr. Krabs, and Patrick Star Legomen) and a dump truck set (an oversized ore-hauler truck with two Lego boulders and a driver Legoman). She is playing with them in the den as I write. The cats are congregating therein.

The temptation to purchase more of these Lego sets tickles my pleasure center every day. (She just brought me the Krusty Krab to reassemble after the roof broke off somehow.) You should see some of the Lego sets available nowadays! One can purchase, for example, the Millenium Falcon Lego set, which has over 5,000 pieces (including Chewbacca!), for $500.00. Who would buy this toy which is obviously not meant to be played with? Also available is the Death Star (yes, Death Star) set, not quite as grandiose as the Millenium Falcon, but costing about $350.00 nonetheless.

No. For my daughter I’m thinking much smaller-scale in terms of cost and number of tiny pieces. I’ll admit this as well: I want to play with them too. I love Legos. I’ve never been able to build anything except with Legos or words. I am inept when it comes to construction, carpentry, putting together, taking apart anything generally. No good at it. Easily frustrated. Annoyed!

At the website you can order entire sets. Also you can order individual pieces, "bricks", as every piece apparently is called: "Beard for Mini Figure", "Bat", "Brick 1x6", "Brick 2x2", "Brick 2x2 White Dec.Eyes", "Brick W. Shaft 1X8x1", "Camera", "Cherry", "Circular Saw", "Corrugated Pipe 16Mm, Black", "Croissant", "Crossbow" [21 cents!], "Dragon’s Fire", "Dustbin", "Flat Tile 2x2", "Flower Transparent", "Flying Goggles", "Head for Skeleton" [24 cents], "Left Roof Tile 2x3", "Left Shell 2x6 W. Bow Angle", "Life Jacket", "Megaphone", "Metal Detector" [24 cents], "Mini Body Lower Part" [in black, white, blue, red, or green; blue and red cost 35 cents while the other colors cost 31 cents, for some reason], "Mini Cape", "Mini Head" [14 varieties, including a transparent Head, ranging in price from 8 cents to 24 cents], "Mini Upper Parts", "Mini Wig Man", "Parabola 6x6", "Plate 1x10", "Plate 2x10", "Plate 2X4x18°", "Plate 8x8", "Pneumatic Hammer", "Princess Hair", "Quiver", "Rim Narrow W. Hole Ø8", "Rim Wide W.Cross 30/20", "Rocket Step 4X4x2", "Roof Tile 1X1x2/3, Abs", "Roof Tile 1X2x3/73°", "Round Brick 1x1", "Round Plate 1x1", "Skater Helmet", "Skeleton Body W. Shaft 3.2", "Snowy Owl", "Space Skeleton Arm", "Spear", "Spider", "Swim Fins", "Technic Brick 1x8", "Tyre Low Wide Ø37 X 22", "Undercarriage 2X2x2", "Wall Corner 1X1x1", "Whip", "Wig Boy", "Wig, Ponytail", "Windscreen 2X4x2", and others among a total of 1,491 individual bricks. One can purchase accessories for cars; hardware; lumber; corpses, skulls, and body parts; deadly weapons; tools; food; animals; fire; rocket components; new identities; and a whole host of amenities. From nowhere else can you find and purchase such a broad range of things, legal or otherwise.

So anyway, I’m tempted to buy another set for my daughter. By which I mean: for my daughter and myself...I would like to buy skeleton heads, Mini Upper Parts, Mini Wigs, Mini Body Lower Parts, various Mini Helmets, tools, swim fins, spears, Princess Hair, and the like...Maybe I should just stick to a set.

Boo.

Turkey Crossing

This week my daughter began going to a summer school program for three hours in the morning, Monday through Thursday, at the edge of civilization in North Mankato. After I dropped her off this morning I was heading home, careening down Lookout Drive, when a large bird moseyed out from the foliage and into the road. At first I thought the bird was a peacock. But when I slowed and finally stopped, the dangling wattle clearly spelled out turkey. Okay. I waited for the turkey to wander out of the road. Another van was approaching, actually hauling ass uphill in the other lane. Not slowing down. Then a gaggle of chicks (if I had to guess, I’d say there were twenty of them) burped up from the grass and scattered aimlessly into the road. I had stopped; the oncoming van had not. The mother turkey seemed confused. The chicks seemed confused. I could hear them peeping. At what appeared to be the last moment, the oncoming driver braked. No birds were squashed. The man rolled down his window and ogled the turkeys, shaking his head as if they were trying to wash his windshield. By now the hen had returned to the brush from whence she came, but three or four chicks continued to run in circles. They peeped. They stood as tall as they could and looked around. They peeped some more. At last the chicks retreated in the proper direction, and joined their mother in the bushes.

Eine Schlange ist durch den Holzhaufen geschlängelt

"A snake slithered through the woodpile."

Today. A few hours ago. From the bathroom window I saw a snake, about the length of my forearm, slither into view from under the porch. It crept along, over the dwindling woodpile. I got my daughter and we watched the snake from the back door, until it disappeared. The snake was black, with yellow racing stripes along the length of its body. Beautiful.

Play Areas

In the mall there is a crossroads, between Barnes & Noble and Scheel’s, and in this crossroads there is a great circle. The circle has but one opening, an ingress point at which stands Dr. Bear in all its loveable menace. The bear wears a doctor’s coat but not pants. Just inside the circle, on either side of the opening, there are cubby holes, ostensibly for the storage of children’s footwear, and a single hand-sanitizer dispenser. Padded benches line the circle’s low wall most of the way around. The carpet is spongy, but firm. Around a necessary structural pillar a padded mat has been attached like a bootie. And of course the playthings themselves: an ambulance, a thermometer, a stethoscope, a blood pressure cuff, a Band-aid, a building in the likeness of the Mankato Clinic, and a teddy bear the size of a great big fat man. The playthings are made of a pliable material both soft and firm. Everything in the circle rebounds, with the exception of the cubby holes and the structural pillar itself.

Watching a rampage of children play in the arms of the circle is like looking into a moshpit from balcony seats, except no one is smoking cigarettes or drinking beer or wearing earplugs. Adults behave no differently from children as far as I can tell. The distinction is that adults have learned how to control themselves to various extents. Among children, drama unfolds quickly, plays itself out, and soon evolves into another game. Adults squeeze drama out of drama, drama out of rocks, drama out of thin air. It is refreshing how quick children are to judge, like cats. How many times has the play area carpet been puked on? The absence of visible stains suggests that puking incidents are quickly cleaned up, rarely happen in the play area, or do not happen in the play area.

My sister would tell you a story about me, when I was seven years old. I had just eaten a bowl of cherry cordial ice cream. I shouted, "I’m a human vacuum cleaner!" and instantly fell on the carpet in complete imitation of the vacuum cleaner. In a matter of seconds I had inhaled something, a piece of fluff or fuzz, on which I choked. Coughing didn’t help much, not right away. The fluff or fuzz stuck long enough to teach me a lesson, and then I threw up all the ice cream I had just eaten, on the carpet I was attempting to clean. Why am I telling you this?

Morning Unliveliness and a Chance Encounter with an Arachnid

Why does getting older come with diminished capacity to wake up in the morning? I don't suffer from "bright-eyed bushy-tailed" syndrome like I once did. A good shower will take care of this problem. Yesterday I saw Al Franken walk through the Student Union. In person, he looks like . . . Al Franken. He's that guy I watched on "Saturday Night Live" when I was a kid: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me." That guy. Richard Ford today. I plan to have autograph the copy of Rock Springs that he already autographed some time in the distant past. As soon as events set in motion that cannot be undone (shower, take a shot, eat). Yes that was a sentence fragment. A few minutes ago a wolf spider got tangled in the hair on my back. The legs tickled. Was the spider mountaineering on my office chair? Or did the spider fall from the ceiling with the misfortune of landing in the jungle? I have no problem with wolf spiders living in my office. I'm rather fond of them. But if it had been one of those goddamn Minnesota centipedes that look like a mustache, I would be wide awake at this point.