John & Belle Have A Blog

Adventures in Hanging Out With My Family

Me: "Did the girls say what they were going to do upstairs?"
My Sister: "It's not like there's anything much dangerous up there anyway."
20 seconds later, Violet hands me a tin of Goex Black Rifle Powder from the closet. "What's this?"
So awesome. (Also, don't worry John, ha ha.)

UPDATE: I want to note that I haven't been able to access the internet while in East Hampton, so I haven't been dead or ignoring you all or anything. The ancient cable hookup at my Gdad's wouldn't support nettiness. Strangely, there's also basically no cell coverage on that side of Georgica pond, which has been explained as NIMBY-ish unwillingness to allow cell towers. This seems insane to me as a) can't they just disguise them as trees or something and b) how can it possibly be that the masters of the universe types, who are continually landing at the EH airport in their private planes, are satisfied with this state of affairs? Or is there some reverse cachet in being unreachable specifically because you've been in the east-Georgica dead zone?

All Your Word Power Is Belong To Us

Overhead down the hall ...

Zoë: "What's an intergalactic armada?"

Clearly it's enrich your word power week around here.

What?

Before I had children, I worried about my incredibly foul mouth. Would my kids start cursing like little toddling sailors? This was a bit silly given that my family cursed like mad when I was a kid, but I did not, because I knew I would get in trouble, so it's clearly possible. On the other hand, my sister was nearly expelled from Quaker pre-school for calling someone a shithead at age 2. But then I realized that I could control my cursing if I were in some professional situation, or eating with my wonderful in-laws, or what have you, and I just had to transfer that attitude to my kids. I was justly proud when I dropped a big bottle of soda on my bare foot in the elevator at Gillman and shouted "Oh, crumbles!!!" But I knew yesterday that I had really done a better job than I imagined: our (stray, semi-adopted) cat took a dump right on my BED yesterday because it was 4:30 and we had been out of cat food all day. I groaned and when Zoë asked why I said "Hissfahan shit on the bed", and she said "what's shit?"

Fully Sold--Thanks Be To God!

Sorry about the light posting lately, everyone. We're all OK more or less, except Violet has some kind of mysterious pox on her face and head (not chicken pox). Itchy, but doesn't seem to be bothering her all that much, though it's painful to touch so a little tricky getting cream on it. Well, now that I re-read what I've written so far, that's actually a little pitiful, but she's really not all that sick.

My relentless fascination with various US real-estate markets continues, despite the fact that we're not planning to move back at the moment. It's partly schadenfreude of the sort only sustained reading of the Irvine Housing Blog can provide, partly an attempt to understand the gloomy mood and fortunes of my native land. All my friends in the states say things seem really ugly right now. And then I've always enjoyed imagining that I lived in various houses I might pass in my daily life. Even the Bay Area appears to be succumbing to that harsh mistress of gravity.

Sadly my local dream house was torn down a few months ago to make room for a 30-story condo tower. Singapore is visibly in the stage of the market where you overbuild luxury condos; in the 1k region around my house there is 1 recently completed complex (3 towers) and 9 more complexes on the way in various stages (15 towers of 20 or 30 stories each.) Granted, it's a nice neighborhood really close to Orchard Road, with 2 MRT stations nearby, and it's not really reasonable to expect there to be lots of low-rise, single-family housing this close to downtown. Nonetheless, I just can't believe that there can possibly be enough people to fill all the luxury condos going up at the moment (and my neighborhood is not unique in this respect).

My mom was very amused by one condo now under construction near us (just a hole in the ground and a show-flat when she was last here) with a banner sign saying "Fully Sold--Thanks Be To God!" You'd think He might have cyclones or something to deal with ahead of making sure the Lippo group sells all 100 units, but whatever...

Lonicera Frangrantissima

An article in the NYT Style section on men dyeing their hair in a more natural-looking way by increasing the pepper to salt ratio primed me to particularly notice this woman's white hair. I think it looks so beautiful when women have long white hair, like the my beloved paternal grandmother, or the great-great-grandmother in the Princess and the Goblin. I loved that book when I was young. I used to go to a pre-school in Bluffton, S.C. right down the bluff from our house (I'm pretty sure I've told this story already, but too bad.) It was run by the "Miss Reddy's", two spinster sisters who had taught my dad when he was a kid. I have just a few really vivid memories of the place.

I was standing out by the bluff once and a great blue heron flew up and landed there, just a few feet away. The damn thing was as tall as I was, suddenly looking sinister with its snaky neck. Another day I came to school early and the older of the Miss Reddy's was sitting in the doorway in a chair. They had a huge "Breath of Spring" there over the door, which is one of the sweetest-smelling plants in the world. It blooms in the early, early spring--which is to say, winter, pretty much. Not strong like a gardenia but delicate and intense, and it can carry a long way across a field like a slender thread of sweetness. It would be taking dramatic license to tell you it was February and she was sitting under a huge arch of little white flowers turning ivory as they aged, so let's just say it was September so my memoir doesn't have to be pulped before I can even start peddling my ass on a book tour.

Anyway, Miss Reddy Majora had taken her crown of braids down and was brushing all her hair, longer than I'd ever imagined it was, shining down over her humped back and thin shoulders. It must have been down to her waist. I thought of the Princess's great-great-grandmother and for a numinous while felt like I might be about to step Into a Tale. Sometimes I turn and look at my girls and think that this might be that time for them, right now. While for me it's only--

I myself have inherited my maternal grandmother's hair. It stayed mostly chestnut brown, right to the end.

Just a few family pics

Yes, we're still alive. Just busy. Here are a couple pics from Mei Mei's B-day party. She had a Miniscule cake. I ordered the DVD's all the way from France. Then, when I asked her what her best present was, she said: the balloons.

Musical chairs.

That's the black spider on the cake. If you know "Miniscule", you know who I mean. Here are a couple snaps from the park. I took the girls to ride bikes and feed the turtles and catfish. Catfish and turtles will fight over bread, did you know that?

Safety first.

Happy Birthday Violet!

Weeel, we're improving-ish. It was Violet's 4th birthday on the 22nd, and although this may linger in my bitter memory as the year we put a "4" candle on a pink frosted doughnut from the grocery store, she actually had a fine time and enjoyed lying around on her little water-filled fever cooling mat and watching Barbie Mariposa. The touch and go question has been whether she'll be well enough for her party Saturday and I think she will. I had to do some work today setting up photo shoots at my house for Singapore Home and Décor magazine, and I wanted to cancel it because I'm so sick but I already had to reschedule once with them because Violet was in the hospital, so I just gutted it out and it was OK. If I can just get through the birthday party itself then I can relax. And then...something? I know we're going to get a lot better than this. I've been enjoying the work for the magazine as a "stylist" where I basically do crafty stuff and arrange it attractively. I'll tell you more about it when I feel better.

Words Fail Me

Well, this is so boring and pitiful that I haven't even wanted to post on our blog, but anyway. Zoë got better and went to school 2 days last week, while Violet rocked one solid week of school for the first time in like 3 months. We went over to a friend's house and had dinner Friday, hung out, the girls got to play with my friend's kids' hamsters and see them roll around in the plastic rolly balls (always fun.) Isn't it nice to see Violet up and about! we said, hubristically, imagining her febrile activity was jolly good health. Why not decide to beat the sea with flails while we were at it! Then when I got in the cab to go home and put her on my lap I thought...it felt like she had a fever. Because she did! 103 wonderful degrees of fun! So we were going to take her to the doctor the next morning but by the time we got up here fever was in the danger zone of 104+ so we took her to the ER. Nothing wrong in the UTI front, she's just got a bad cold, basically, which I do too. We've been sponging with water, and waking up every six hours to take ibuprofen, and blah blah blah. Violet's birthday is tomorrow, but her party isn't until next Saturday. If she's too sick to have a party I actually am going to cry, with real tears and everything. The theme of her party this year is Minuscule, a French show about bugs which everyone should watch. It's like silent film, there's no words, only sounds effects, and beautiful animation that combines digital effects with real photos. The flash-based (yet non-terrible!) site looks different in the day than at night and changes with the seasons. There are a few videos on the site, you should watch them. Also, I changed gears a while ago to make this a more family-friendly blog, cursing-wise, but I'd just like to say, what the fucking fuck?

That Last Step Is...

Zoë's doing OK-ish, although I'm having trouble getting her to take her antibiotics. This is only natural since the granules have persistently refused to melt in the water and thus it is like drinking wet sand. I would probably barf that up too.

Moving on to more pleasant topics, you should look at this amazing house in California (watch the slideshow). I really want a walnut ceiling now. Lots of beautiful houses in Bali have, like this one, a pool right in the middle of them, or sliding doors that open onto a pool. It does look beautiful, but isn't it the worst drowning hazard ever? Can you be certain no one with a toddler or small child is ever going to visit you, ever? Even drunk adults might fall in there with bad results, seems to me.

I am Tired

This week we decided to mix it up a bit, so Zoë has had a horrible flu-like thing and 40C fever. Lots of sponging with lukewarm water and being bothered by imaginary bugs. She seems better today. Violet was well enough to go to a birthday party today for her best friend at school, Nora. It was at a stable in Pasir Ris park where you can ride ponies, although Violet felt too shy to ride a pony. She mostly just sat in Daddy's lap; she's still not her bouncy self. I would like my children to both be well enough to attend school for an entire week, both of them. Is that so fucking much to ask?

I'm getting cranky, or some combination of cranky and really worried and upset. I had to go to the doctor myself (naturally) and he was like, you seem a bit stressed. Hmmm, ya think? Our new-ish local doctor is really sweet and  old, with a charming bedside manner, wild eyebrows, and a yellowed diploma from the University of Malaya. He reminds me of my pediatrician when I was a kid, Dr. King. His home/office was right on one of the squares in Savannah, I think maybe the one on Habersham and East President, a brick house with stairs up to the front door. He had been a colleague of my grandfather Dr. A.J. Waring Jr. He had a big...well, glass menagerie, I guess you'd call it. Sometimes he would give us an animal if we were very good, like a little glass zebra with clear glass legs that were shaped like swirls of cake frosting. Here in Singapore they give the children sweets, and I know a Danish mom who complains about it because it's not healthy. I guess I don't care.

Basic Architecture

Zoë did this one freehand, using only a ruler. And a book about Greek architecture.

Speaking of basic architecture: I'm finally getting around to installing Leopard on our desktop iMac. Here's the thing. I actually tried it once and it encountered some problem, causing it to eject the disc summarily at a certain point. Somewhat nervouse-making, when one might be betwixt and between systems. But maybe our machine isn't meant to take it. Our specs are as follows:

Machine Name:    iMac G5
Machine Model:    PowerMac8,1
CPU Type:    PowerPC G5  (3.0)
Number Of CPUs:    1
CPU Speed:    1.8 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU):    512 KB
Memory:    1 GB
Bus Speed:    600 MHz

I would have thought a G5 with 1.8 GHz processing speed was good enough. Supposedly you only need G4 and 800+Mhz. But maybe the Bus speed is too slow. I dunno. Should I just try again?

Will a machine like this run slow on Leopard. It runs just fine with what we've got. Maybe I don't even need the upgrade. What do you think?

We're Home!!

Violet is doing better and we are back home. Yay us. Maybe next week she can even go to school! Zoë missed us, as it was the longest time she's gone without Mei Mei ever (I did go to the states for Thanksgiving last year leaving them both behind, a cruel maneuver in exchange for which I am taking them to East Hampton in July.) I am still very queasy, which is a strangely present-to-consciousness annoyance. Now I can get back to life's simple pleasures, like making fun of Jonah Goldberg. A reader asks, "What works of [Eric Voegelin's] did you reference for your article? Or, what works would you recommend as a starting point?" Goldberg backpedals furiously:

Me: First, I should be very clear: I am not an expert on Voegelin. I have not read most of his writings. For they are numerous and often very, very, difficult.  I have read a bunch of the stuff that I found I had to read for my book. But rather than suggest this or that book or essay, I think a great and very useful place to start would be Michael Federici's excellent book Eric Voegelin: The Restoration of Order (published by the indispensable ISI books). It is very accessible while at the same time being faithful to Voegelin's work — as best I can tell at least. It even has a glossary of Voegelin's most important-yet-esoteric terms. It made reading the primary sources a lot easier, for me at least.

I bet it made "reading the primary sources" a lot easier.

Health Update: Thanks for Your Concern, Internet Friends

So, yeah, Violet is basically OK-ish. Well, she has a valve in her that's not working great, but there's an 80% chance she will grow out of it in the next 5 years, and it's not a severe malfunction. We were worried this weekend that she might have a kidney infection and need to go on IV antibiotics but she doesn't, so, yay! But now Zoë and Violet and I have a stomach bug and are looking pale watching TV and moodily sucking on oral rehydration ice pops. Except now we're out of ice pops and I am improvising with slightly salty, very sweet mint tea. Verdict: not bad. My wonderful husband will get us some more ice pops later, prolly, on account of he's so nice.

The three of us are pretty much sick all the time, either with some random bug, or asthma, or general mysterious your immune system is attacking itself problems. Which is very boring. I feel sad especially for the girls; Zoë complained yesterday that when her friends aren't at school it's because they're on vacation in another country, not because they're sick. Violet has had a terrible month and she asked me at one point "am I going to be sick forever?" to which I said, no, of course you'll get better, etc. but it did make me cry later. But we're not talking about things that can kill you, or horrible progressive illnesses or whatever. And we've got money to pay for health care. Actually, it is a significant factor in our calculus of where to live that the Singaporean medical system is so incredibly much better than the US one. So, nothing really that bad, just a slow, steady piling up of glasses of water and tea and bowls of crackers on the bedside table, and fights about taking pills and repulsive syrups, and skinny little children you have to watch all the time.

UPDATE: Violet has a leaky valve coming from her kidney, not her heart which would be much worse. That was unduly alarming, sorry.

Oh Noes, All My Biots!

Sorry for the light blogging; we're having stupid stupid health problems at the moment. Actually, readers might have advice about this: Violet has to take antibiotics every evening now, half the normal dose, to ward off kidney infection. Is this going to mess her intestinal flora up or something? I guess I can feed her yogurt, but is there something like a supplement that kids can take? Here in Singapore people are really into Yakult and similar drinks, which is good, although I find it mildly revolting. Thoughts?

Merbil & Zoë Draws Like Mary Blair

So Zoë invented the ultimate cute pet. The merbil. Half fish. Half gerbil.

Also, I bought her several Mary Blair books. (I Can Fly; Cinderella; Art and Flair of Mary Blair.) She's learned a lot from it. The following is actually not a copy of any specific Mary Blair drawing but an independent creation, in the Blair style. I couldn't be prouder if she were drawing like Jack Kirby.

Codex Nuttall Sunday

I took The Codex Nuttall off the shelf to give it another look. (Obviously I'm trying to figure out whether 8-Deer was a liberal or a conservative.) Don't happen to be familiar? Check out this site. Zoë asked me to explain what was with this strange comic book. I did my best. Zoë ended up deciding that Zoëland should have its own non-alphabetic script. For example, here is how you write 'Zoë' in Zoëlandish ideographs (pictowossnames).

Z ebra + O ctopus + E lephant = Zoë.

Alternatively, you can do a quick sketch of a plant to = life = zoo = Zoë. Very neat.

My favorite character in the Codex? There's this one yuca (hill). He's obviously a total slacker who needs to be given his own comic strip or, possibly, walk-on in a Simpsons episode:

The scan is from the Dover Books edition of the Codex Nuttall [amazon]. That means it's a reproduction of the famous 1902 facsimile. Not strictly a reproduction of the original, produced around 1000 AD. Still, it's nuts to think that someone was drawing like Matt Groening in the year 1000.

Mei Mei Gives Me Whatfor

Mei Mei and I are really bonding over the whole Looney Tunes thing - which is gratifying, because she still can't draw worth a darn. (But she sings like a bird.) We were watching "Devil May Hare", the first Tasmanian Devil short. I don't think the Devil is anyone's favorite character. Eh. But this one has one great line. Bugs has tricked him into 'digging for groundhogs'. Meanwhile, Bugs is throwing dirt on top. And, finally, a lily. And - voila! - 'That's that.' Except the Devil is standing right behind him.

"Whatfor you bury me in the cold, cold ground?"

Mei Mei was in tears and made me rewind to hear that part again. Then, sitting on my shoulders on the way to the store, she leaned over, gave me the eye, and said in a deep, high-pitched voice: "Whatfor you bury me in the cold, cold ground?"

Mei Mei Contra Anton Ego

I got a copy of Ratatouille - haven't actually managed to watch yet, except a little. Zoë is mortally afraid to watch it, because she knows there is quite a bit of 'arguing', which she can't bear to watch. Mei Mei is more brave, but only held out until the French granny puts on the scary gas-mask. Then we had to skip ahead to the point where 'he cooks'.

When Anton Ego makes his first appearance and says something like, 'I do not believe that anyone can cook', Mei Mei looked properly shocked, looked at me and declared: "He is WRONG!"

Avian Autoiconicity in "Tweety's S.O.S"

Pursuant of our ocular theme hereabouts.

So I'm watching "Tweety's S.O.S." with Zoë and Mei-Mei. You remember. Sylvester paints a Tweety on Granny's cheaters so she'll think he's still in his cage.

Mei-Mei: That's not a very good Tweety.

Zoë: It only has to be good enough to fool Granny.

Mei-Mei: The real Tweety looks like Tweety.

Yes, pace Hegel, nothing resembles itself as much as itself. This theme is eloquently developed in the Prologue to Shakespeare's Henry V.

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment.

Do you think there's a pun on 'O'? The 'O' not just as exclamation but as the name of a shape (like the lens of Granny's cheater): round stage or rounded arch to be the Muse. Obviously, the person who looks most like Harry is Harry (cf. Tweety). So the best performance of the play was the one put on in a Kingdom, with the real King Henry. Just as, in a cartoon, the person who most resembles Tweety is Tweety, not the product of Sylvester's lukewarm Muse.

Ben is going to let me go into space

Belle's baby bro Ben works for Bigelow Aerospace - cool job, eh? And he really came through with a great X-Mas present for Mei Mei this year: a 'real' NASA spacesuit, accompanied by an official-looking letter. Mei Mei interpreted it very seriously, per the title of this post. I Photoshop, accordingly. (Click for larger.) Thank you, Ben!

More pics under the fold.

Christmas Day

We went to the Botanic Gardens after opening presents.

Merry X-Mas!

Here's Mei Mei singing "Rudolph" (mp3).

And Zoë singing "Jingle Bells" in Mandarin.

And Zoë sings a stanza from "Misfit" (from the Rudolph special).

And Mei Mei hums along to the theme from "Miniscule" (French short animation series).

I Take Parenting Very Seriously

You are never too young to start learning about the truly important things in life:

Check Out The Realistic School Uniforms!

Zoë recently drew herself dancing with her new best friend F. She is totally rocking out, there (that's F.'s little sister looking on and obviously thinking "they're so coool!"). I'm really proud of the 3/4 profile thing she's got going--ancient Egyptian people took like 3000 years to not figure that out.

He was a very convincing Harry Potter for Halloween.

In less successful representational news, I've been reading The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, which is illustrated throughout in what is generally a pretty convincing noir-ish style. But here, dear reader, something has gone badly wrong. So wrong, in fact, that I'm not even sure what should be happening. And no, the story isn't about a mutated hunchback gunsel with eight-foot-wide shoulders.

Abcat in (some sort of) a Hat

Obviously this is not your father's lazy, flabby, Thursday catblogging cat from olden days. This is a workout cat. (No, it isn't a mommy cat. I asked. Those are muscles.)

Art, art, art!

Zoë and I have been working on more projects. First, this:

This is amusing because a response to Mei Mei's newly emerging style. She has entered her 'balloon people period'. Here we see Mommy and Daddy.

The King and I

So Zoë's new thing is drawing a Chinese imperial family she has invented. This is lots of fun. We got to take books off the shelf: Splendors of Ancient China and The Forbidden City, plus Chinese Propaganda Posters, which she declared 'rather awesome'. Do you wonder why?

Unfortunately, it's kind of an expensive book. But worth it. Nice essay about Chinese communist propaganda evolving out of traditional woodcut forms, among other things.

Zoë wants pictures of 'princesses' . Forbidden City got us close. It has dragonlady-looking Empresses and lots of Imperial Consorts. I had fun explaining that one. Zoë: "It doesn't seem like a good idea. What if all your wives started asking you questions at the same time. In Chinese." One Forbidden City wouldn't be big enough to hold all that. So, without further ado, I give you: Princess Chang Ee and her imperial father, Chang Shai.

The Eyes Have It

Sunday it is traditional to build fortresses of pillows. A few weeks ago I engineered Pillow Mountain - consisting of every single pillow in the house, plus the long thin mattress from the couch at an angle, making for an excellent slide. Very popular. This morning we were working on a variation with daddy as the intervening 'troll'. On the condition that Mei Mei not jump down before I was ready. She jumped down before I was ready. The pillow cushioned the impact, but my glasses are still fairly bent out of shape. I need new ones anyway. By strange coincidence, Mei Mei managed her first really recognizable face today. Daddy:

Don't get upset

This one's pretty good. Zoë even wrote a poem to go with it, as you see. (We've been practicing reading Seuss, you can tell.) Drawn freehand with pencil. Colored and lettered with Photoshop. (I tried to teach her, once again, to use my patented technique for generating Gerald McBoingBoing-ish 50s-ish animation-style fills. But she just started trembling and said she preferred the other way. No accounting for taste.)

Mei Mei said something funny: she sneezed and covered her mouth demurely. She thought about it. "It's easy to cover my nose when I sneeze." Then she thought about it more. "I'm not an elephant." Belle is on the road, home in America! I am taking care of the kids.

There is generally quite a bit of anxiety and getting upset around the place about that. But it's obviously going to be alright. (Click for larger.)

One More

Zoë did one more nice mouse this morning. A baker mouse, adapted from Mouse Guard.

Mouse MOUSE!

First, Mei Mei demands that I post one of her pictures as well. So here it is: these are 'loop de-loops'.

She wants to see it on the blog.

I got Mouse Guard, vol. 1 for Zoë today. (Here's the official site. Fun book. Mice!) Zoë drew an alternative cover:

But this is pretty much the most awesome yet:

That's based on this image. The mouse thing has led to further story ideas. (Zoë's writing still needs work.)

Thursday Catblogging

Couple more pics.

Happy Halloween

The girls dressed up as our neighborhood stray, calico cats, Fowler and Hissfahan - so I guess they aren't stray anymore. Once your kids dress up as them, they are just plain your cats.

Bonnet

I found this lying on the floor in the study. Evidently Zoë has moved on to drawing girls with bonnets, in profile. Or, possibly, girls in profile getting their heads knocked off by giant badminton shuttlecocks. Or, possibly, it is something vaguely H.P. Lovecraft-inspired.

Machine Gun Snare!!

So, hand foot and mouth disease, not really the worst thing ever. Everyone's pale, sniffling, and has a stomachache and a sore throat, but that's about it. Home is getting boring, though. I set the Thomas train set up in our new looong living room, that's been good. I'm sure halloween decorating will be modestly entertaining. Then we can make cupcakes. And then...I'm out of ideas. Except I better start sewing some costumes. Zoë's going to be Hermione Granger, that's easy. Violet wants to be one of our stray calico kittens (Fowler and Hisfahan.) I need a white leotard I can sew spots onto.

I read this interesting article about Syrian Jews in NYC and their harshly enforced intermarriage ban (basically, if you marry outside the community, even to a convert, you're anathema and your children can't even re-enter the fold.) As sometimes happens, the high costs of remaining in the community have made it very strong, and many community members are fantastically successful businessmen who share the wealth.  I was amused to read this:

The Cayre brothers, from one of the world’s richest families, according to Forbes magazine, got rich in the ’70s producing Latin music on the Salsoul label and then got much richer distributing videocassettes via Wal-Mart. Joseph Cayre was also among the major financiers behind the World Trade Center’s Larry Silverstein.

I'm very glad to hear that someone got crazy rich off of SalSoul records, one of the great labels of all time. Just as long as people like  Loleatta Holloway and Shep Pettibone aren't starving an an alley somewhere.

Please Don't Burn Us On A Heap Of Sheep In Wales

You know what's lame? Zoë and I have hand, foot and mouth disease. It's just like hoof and mouth, except we don't have hooves. Maybe we are magical sparkling ponies inside and so we have magical hooves! Magical hooves with sores! It's not really so awful to have, although it's very very contagious. Poor Zoë's throat is hideously sore and I wish I hadn't followed the doctor's lead in looking in there with a light, because I didn't need to see her soft palate perforated with repulsive holes. Mostly it's just like getting a cold and a mild stomach virus at the same time, with a soupçon of sores. It'll burn itself out after a week. We did get reported to the government, but as far as I know they don't plan to cull us from the herd. I rate Violet's chances of not getting it as 5%. The doctor told me, oh, adults almost never get it because they were exposed at some point, but naturally I have it because I am a fracking mutant. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the girls and I get sick a lot, dawg. I was telling Zoë about all the great things in our life that mean we are actually very lucky despite often getting transitory illnesses, but she wasn't in the mood to hear it. Since HFM can't be transmitted via blogs, feel free to weigh in with cheering messages for Zoë. I will read them to her. Also, if you're at that conference in Chicago, you can tell me whether my husband has gotten into a fistfight with Adam Kotsko yet.

So Young, And Yet She Understands Capitalism Perfectly!

Zoë sometimes tells me about what things are like in the fascinating if imaginary Zoëland. "I think only police will have guns" she suggests. "OK, that's a good idea." "And soldiers, because soldiers need guns to protect palaces!"

Store

OK, MeiMei says it's a 'store', but I still say it's a space station caught in some sort of cosmic storm. I say this is practically ready for prime-time "Heavy Metal" Moebius artwork. (Mei Mei drew the circles and picked the patterns. I showed her different things she could choose. I just made sure the right buttons got pushed.) So Expression is awesome for kids.

The Spanish Non-Prisoner

So this is awesome. The replacement pen for my Graphire drawing tablet arrived. So I was doing some sketching with the kids. Zoë has, once again, outdone herself. I asked her what I should call the file and she said 'Zoe's Masterpiece'. I told her we already had a file called that. Alright, 'The Spanish Woman'. And so she would appear to be.

She really did it herself. I'm teaching her how to use Expression, my drawing application of choice. The download (mac) is still available here. I love this application.

OK, I'm guilty of teaching her how to do the fills in a way that I knew would result in just the sort of result I love best. I coached this "Part-Time Dog"/50's animation style color look by my teaching technique. So sue me. But here's the thing. I was showing her all the different bushes and strokes she could use. For example, you can make the strokes be chain links. 'Like for drawing a prisoner?' she asked. 'I suppose.' 'No.' Very emphatic. 'She is a beautiful and free woman.' Later we used the chain pen to draw a swing.

Mei Mei always wants to 'draw circles', as she puts it. Alas, the poor kid can't draw a circle. (It's not a big deal. She's much better at singing than Zoë was at that age. Mei Mei can sit on my shoulders and really belt out "Clementine".) So I set her up with the circle-drawing tool, to get her over the basic difficulty. And, amazingly, she drew a space station. Then I asked her: Is that a space station? And she gave me the most condescending look. As if.

Feeling Better

Everyone is feeling better, and wearing the sunglasses to prove it. (Hey, Dave Moles, there's your book on the shelf, off to the right.)

Mad Dogs

Thanks again for all your thoughts, imaginary internet friends. Violet's doing better, well enough to go to the playground this evening for a little while. Zoë now has a fever and is wheezing, because we like to mix it up like that. Due to the extremely popular "sick children can sleep with Mommy" rule, John and I are kind of like the dogs changing places guarding the sheep ("mornin' Ralph") and never see each other except for like 20 minutes when he gets home from work. (You might imagine I could just get up after they fell asleep, but they have crazy mommy-detecting powers which allow them to sleep fine while I'm there but suddenly wake up the second I leave.)

In other Singapore news, I found a place in Tekka wet market that has esoteric items such as fresh oregano, thyme, and Italian-parsley, arugula and baby lettuces, and fennel and portobello mushrooms. Now my life in my new neighborhood is truly complete. I walked through the wet market with a new friend from Scotland and a woman from NC because we were all meeting at a nearby restaurant, and they were both totally grossed out. It does smell, it's true, but all the food is nice and fresh. A Singaporean friend introduced me to her butcher, who can cut beef top round into the most extraordinarily thin, even pieces (as if for sukiyaki.) He wasn't even watching his hands the whole time; he was talking to us while he wielded what has got to be one of the sharpest knives I have ever seen outside an expensive sushi restaurant. SGD8 per kilo, people.

There are huge scales on the floor of the wet-market by the fish stalls, which made me think of Bladerunner ("not fish scale! Snake scale!). Wending your way through all that crud on the concrete floor and the road outside does bring home exactly why it is we're taking our shoes off at the door. Truth is, though, I don't want any of that nasty stuff from the street in DC on my floor either. I think our family has permanently converted to the no-shoes-inside thing. But you'll be prying our toilet paper from...um, anyway, we're sticking with toilet paper. (Asian people quite reasonably contend that actually washing off with water is better than wiping, but I'm still not buying it.)

Finally, I decided to walk home from Little India. It's not that far, maybe 3/4 of a mile. Have I ever mentioned that it's hot in Singapore? Crikey, you'd think we were on the equator or something!

MeiMei's OK-ish

Fingers crossed, it looks like Violet can come home this evening. I'm just waiting to hear from John at the hospital. Her fever really spiked up last night and she was delirious. However, looks like it's just a viral infection, so I think the docs will let her come home. I've been sleeping in the cot with her at the hospital, so I'm all for that! (They have a hideously uncomfortable camp bed/folding cot thing for parents. But why? There's only parents spending the night in the hospital with their kids EVERY DAMN NIGHT. Ahem.) My rating of all Singapore hospital food continues apace. KK hospital: poor, though perhaps not as bad as Thompson Medical Centre. On the more important features, all the staff are very nice and gentle. Violet's struggling worse than ever against the inhalers, so I have to hold her hands down with one hand and her head in place with the other, so she doesn't either tear the mask off her face or fling her head back and away from it. I don't like hearing her yell "Mommy you're really hurting me!", but what to do? Happily she gets over it very quickly and it's not as if she's mad afterwards. I think this is one of those things where it actually does hurt me more than her!
UPDATE: yay I'm going to check her out! Thanks for the thoughts and prayers, everybody.

Parvarish

Thanks for all the kind words and well-wishes.

Mei Mei is still in the hospital with intermittent fever, getting her breathing treatments every 6 hours. But she's doing OK. She was doing great this afternoon. No fever. Running around like a mad thing. First, she demanded we put away the "Milo and Otis" video we were watching and watch TV instead. Which meant two episodes of "The Prince of Tennis". Then, an awesome 1977 Bollywood movie: Parvarish!

It looks more violent than it was. The imdb plot summary will have to do:

Dreaded bandit Mangal Singh is apprehended by Deputy Superintendent of Police, Shamsher Singh, leaving behind a pregnant wife, who gives birth to a son, and passes away. Shamsher and his wife adopt the child, name him Amit, and treat him the same their own son, Kishan. Years later, Mangal is discharged from prison, joins together with his bandit brother, Dilip, and approaches Shamsher to get his son back, but Shamsher refuses. Kishan thinks that he is Mangal's son and starts helping him incognito. Years later both Kishan and Amit have grown up, while Amit is a Police Inspector, Kishan is a teacher in a school for blind children, and Shamsher is now the Police Commissioner. Kishan secretly helps his dad and uncle without anyone's knowledge. Then one day, Amit finds out about Kishan criminal activity, and tells his father about it, but both are unable to prove anything. Then their lives are turned upside down when Amit loses his vision saving Kishan from a time-bomb. Watch what happens when Mangal finds out that Kishan is not his son, and that Amit is.

Or, as Mei Mei put it, even more briefly: "How is he going to get away?" The production is much more Austin Powers meets the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" video than this plot summary can possibly express. For example, the scene on the Supremo's submarine. Mei Mei loved the song & dance numbers. And danced around. (You must understand that when I say she 'watched' the film, this should be taken in much the same sense that you might say 'the kitten did its calculus homework.' It played in the background, and she, occasionally, batted at it. She didn't want me to turn it off.) Then the nurse came and gave her another breathing treatment. Which she hates. Sigh.

Arg.

Everybody's got to send love our way because MeiMei is in the hospital with asthmatic bronchitis. :( Having to hold the little mask on your struggling child's face while she screams "I can't breathe!" and "mommy, I'm really scared"=total suck. She's doing much better now that she's in the hospital, though, and they're giving her meds in a spacer (that is, an inhaler attached to a tube) rather than in the loud, time-consuming, much-hated nebulizer. Also good: we live right next to the KK Women and Children's hospital, so we can walk to and fro when relieving each other. I'll spend the night there with her tonight. When we chose our new place, we actually had a discussion about how the hospital would be so convenient! She only made it to three days of her new term at school before getting sick (we moved her to Zoë's school). I wish my children were healthier sometimes. And me, like if I could be healthier that would also be great. I'd about a million times rather I had an asthma attack than them, though, god DAMN that's hard to watch. On the upside, modern medicine, money to pay for it with, etc. etc.

Surely it's not right that people so cute should be sick. Violet has the smallest uniform size they make...and it's a bit big!

Coat and Hat

Belle took the girls shopping. Zoë is pleased with her new coat and hat.

Mei Mei Pics

Zoë gets all the attention for her mad drawing skills. So her are some cute Mei Mei pics from the last two weeks.

Doe-Me-Doe Day

Zoë is very nervous about watching movies. She scares easily. I haven't been able to get her to watch the 5000 Fingers of Dr. T - which is, like, my second and third reason for even having kids. But she did consent to watch this YouTube clip. Which inspired her to imagine how the ladies might get dressed up on Doe-Me-Doe Day. That's their male assistant in the background with the extremely black hat.

Roman Ladies

I was explaining to Zoë about ancient costumes. The Romans wore togas. That sort of thing. (Actually this was a later stage of a conversation that started: what part of America is Rome in?) She decided to draw a Roman lady and her daughter picking plums. You can see the lady has picked quite a few. Her daughter appears to be wearing spandex jogging shorts.

Skrullapalooza

While Belle and I were working on this, Zoë was getting into the act. Look out, Sue - there's a Skrull!

I love the groovy Mr. Natural 'keep-on-truckin' laid-backness of how Sue's uniform is cut. Or maybe those are PJ's. Plus the hair.

Topological Pre-emptive Punishments

When I first heard about this blogging pedophile in LA who was (understandably) creeping parents out, but who wasn't breaking any law by standing around perving on little kids, I thought, someone's going to pass a stupid law. Yesterday he was served with a restraining order which orders him to stay at least 30 feet away from every person under the age of eighteen in the state of California. That's...undoubtedly physically impossible in many places at most times. He can't teleport into a wall when a family starts walking towards him on the street and breaches the 30 foot barrier, so this just amounts to saying he can't go anywhere, ever, except unpopular national parks. There are plenty of sex offender regulations that I think are counter-productively harsh, such as those which make most of a city off limits to anyone on a sex offender registry by requiring them to live at least x distance from every school, church, day care center, etc. Those at least apply to people who have been convicted of crimes (even if I often think that too many people end up on sex offender registries). This guy hasn't even been charged with a crime, much less convicted of one. He's a repulsive person and unlikely to inspire anyone's sympathy, but it's not against the law to be a repulsive pervert. It's against the law to actually molest children. I sometimes think that public sentiment against child molesters would more profitably be channeled into educating people about the real threats, namely, the child's family and family friends. But then I think that might just engender harmful paranoia. The problem of what to do with proven sexual abusers who are almost certainly going to go on and commit more crimes is a thorny one. Measures that do nothing to lessen the threat to kids from their stepdad or skeezy uncle, and also violate the rights of people who may have committed statutory rape once in the far past but cleaned up their act, seem particularly dumb. But what would I do if I found out this guy was spying on my kids? It's against the law to arrange for people to fall down three flight of stairs, or to threaten to kill them. I guess if I thought I could get the cops to make his life difficult...hmm. But this is why we don't let individual crime victims and their families make laws on the spot, right, or there'd be people strung up from every tree?   

Super-saturated Superart plus Mousies

More All Star Superman-inspired Zoë art. Dr. Quintum and his assistant, Agatha:

The thing that really impressed me is that Zoë drew the following without consulting the comic. She remembered what they looked like from the day before.

The only thing she really got wrong is that Quintum doesn't have a tie. Plus there's no mouse. But there is a mouse in our house. We were trying to see where he got in and then, damn! how did we fail to notice that our kitchen floor was actually built with a little cartoon Jerry the mouse house. So Zoë made a little sign.

All Star Superman Day

Finally, the trade of the Morrison-Quitely All Star Superman vol. 1 is out. But first I'll show you Zoë's b&w version of the cover.

Tell me that isn't the most awesome thing you've ever seen. I like how Superman has sort of a vaguely Toulouse-Latrec dissoluteness. Like he just spent the night on a cloud knocking back black kryptonite-and-absinthe cocktails:

You can see the original under the fold.