Home sick from school today (she caught it from her dad, alas), Katie is watching "Phil of the Future" (which I think should be "Phuture", but that's me), on which I heard the following from a young girl character (I think it was "Pim"):

Working for The Man! I'm sick of working for The Man! I want to BE The Man!
Only with a "Wo-" in front of it.

...are damn cute.






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Owen turned 4 yesterday. 4!

Damn, time is relentless.

My daughter Katie drew her first political cartoon.



No prompting from Dad, either. She surprised me with it. I think it's pretty funny. And insightful: people fighting a war for a President no one elected, while he flies cluelessly above it all. She's already better than most of the hacks in your local paper.

It's been 25 years since I last saw "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" or thought about it. Or cared about it. So now my daughter is watching it, completely riveted, while I sit there completely confused. I remember following along with the movie's emotional logic when I saw it as a 12-year-old, but that was before I had a grasp of character, plot, story structure, internal consistency and, well, reality.

I can recall movie reviews comparing "E.T." to "Bambi" and thus Spielberg to Disney. But "Bambi" actually made sense. It more or less followed the cycles of life and the seasons, presenting animal life within a natural world full of elegant pleasures (ice skating on a pond, birth, mating) and real terrors (hunters, forest fires, rivals interfering with the mating.) "E.T." has, let's see, vaguely scary government agents, scientists paving the road to hell with good intentions, and renegade kids on bicycles who defy authority with pluck and determination. Fair enough. We can work with that.

But where does E.T. get his magical alien powers from? Why are they so arbitrary (heal a wound, make bikes fly)? And how does his magic square with his technological skills as demonstrated through his rigging a Speak-N-Spell with the telephone to contact a ship light years out into space? When he drinks, why does Eliot get drunk? Why do they take him trick-or-treating? What evolutionary processes formed E.T.'s bizarre physiogonomy? What were the aliens doing in our neck of the universe anyway?

There is suspension of disbelief and then there is completely shutting down all brain functions. Yet I say all this as an adult. The movie made complete sense to Katie. "I wish it could happen in real life," she said. "Except for the end when he leaves. That's sad."

I wish I had pictures. Distracted by conversation, food and booze, Jenn and I left the children to their own devices at yesterday's 1/4th of Jooliee party. Katie immediately seized upon the Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero. Owen and 3-year-old comrade Sydney dispensed with superfluous clothing, stalking about in their pull-ups and climbing everything in sight. After a couple hours, Owen was covered in dirt, chocolate smears and random bruises as he roamed the party with a giant stick, a Lost Boy seeking the Lord of the Flies.

When darkness came, the explosions began. Katie jumped into the middle of the fray and launched firecrackers with the zeal of an insurgent. Owen's reaction was more curious to observe. At first he stood fascinated by the loud, bright popping, whirling and shrieking coming from the street. Then he ran about excitedly, shouting "Fire!" Finally, he grabbed a plastic orange play hoe from Sydney's collection and brandished it toward the fireworks as if he were a wizard fending off evil forces from the deep. "Cha! Hrauwg! Graah!" he'd roar.

When the fireworks supplies ran out and the festivities ended, he smiled with delight. "I did it!"

Sheldon gets in deep trouble. Note Sheldon's facial expressions. Jenn saw them and laughed, "He looks just like Katie." Sans snout, of course.

I thought I would post this on Thursday, but I have been working extra hours with the web developer while submitting job applications and catching up on reading for school.

Not that the reading is a chore. Just finished Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, a book about a young man from Harlem serving in Vietnam that serves as an excellent introduction to the war (and resonates now all too much); and started Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff, which I am already starting to like.

Best news of the day: my daughter Katie's team won their invitational. Katie played well in the catcher position, got to base twice and home once. Girl has a helluvan arm. The aim, well, not so much. But we're working on that. When it's not raining.