Kudos to Vincent

Listening to Jodi Klein, Vincent’s counselor, Monday reminded me that Vincent has been doing two things – both of which take time and/or energy – two things I’d never thought he’d do: go to counseling every week without complaining and – except for the bad days when he stays overnights at the Davises' – take his medication daily, even though it was making him sleepy.

Almost as if he’d been listening to Ms. Klein and us, Vincent shocked me Tuesday – on a day when we really needed him to stay home with Frisco – he did indeed – without us really requesting it – for the first time in weeks, stayed home and didn’t go over to the Davises' after school. He bought Frisco some birthday treats and apparently worked some on his class.

By Wednesday he was also scheming how to fill in some personal references in the Apex movie theaters job application – thinking of a good idea – Ian, from church – although it turns out Ian is very ill and we hope you’ll join us in praying for healing for him. With Kate taking Ian to the hospital and me here in South Florida, Stephanie may have been stuck leading Children’s Fellowship by herself. Perhaps Vincent wowed us again by going with her. They may have taken Frisco and asked the kids to help celebrate today, his ninth birthday.

Sorry I missed it, Frisco. Remember when I essentially drove back to Sarasota in the middle of the weekend to get you a doggie birthday cake? I helped get Vincent to get your treats, but wasn’t there for the celebration. May we celebrate many more happy, healthy birthdays with you (and may I be there from here on out)! Stephanie will now be getting ready for book club Thursday evening at our house (first time we’ve had guests over – except for Emily as a surprise guest – for ages) and we and Mom are mulling over whether to get the fuel injection and tires fixed.

Eventually, instead of going to Samantha’s, Tuesday Vincent went with Stephanie to an old theater in downtown New Albany (Grand Theater – pictured above) to get her hair cut for wigs for cancer patients (Cuts for a Cure). She just barely had enough – eight inches – Two of her colleagues – one woman and one man – were also there doing it. Mrs. Hooks and students from Fairmont had raised over $700 for cancer research. Vincent mainly talked on the phone with Sam and ate with Stephanie at Taco Bell afterwards. But he was there.

(Stephanie has only got her hair trimmed slightly in the past year, and so she’s been growing it out for more than a year. Stephanie said she doesn’t think her hair has been this long (before Tuesday night) since before she and I met – when she was going out with Joey Puluso and Vincent was a toddler.)

More on Florida and – hopefully – on haircuts, Children’s Fellowship, book club, and doggie birthdays – later.

-- Perry

Catastrophe

I took David’s old box turtle, Greenville, with me up to Minnesota. While I was there, I discovered Twin Cities Reptiles, a great pet store just a mile from where I lived. After Stephanie, Vincent, and Frisco arrived, we bought from Twin Cities a specialty reptile “Critter Cage” – wider and flatter and shorter – and a stand for this and our conventional 30-gallon aquarium terrarium.

Eventually, we got a second (and – for six months – a third – Speedy) turtle, Speckles. For a while, Speckles was in the 30-gallon aquarium terrarium. But Greenville and Speckles seemed to get along (sometimes too well), and gradually they both stayed in the critter cage, on the upper level of the stand. Eventually I broke the old 30-gallon aquarium (which had been home to Sawyer, before he ran away in Tallahassee). Sawyer’s original 10-gallon aquarium has variously played host to our frog , snails, and fish (in Ohio) and here in Kentucky to Speedy and waves of Speckles’ eggs (see “Babies”).

Almost all of the rooms in our current rented house are small, including the family room. Our predecessor here had her TV in a little corner of the living room. But we put a TV on another side of the room and tucked the turtle stand and terrarium in that corner, near the front door and under the window, even though this means they don’t get great natural light and they’re a little bit out of the way.

Sunday night Vincent surprised us by coming home early from his girlfriend’s (last visit in at least a month it turns out) (see “House arrest”) while we were watching a movie. Apparently he swung the front door open really hard, and the door knob cleared the edge of the stand and slammed into the side of the critter cage, breaking and shattering the glass. Vincent apparently cleaned up some of the broken glass. The glass critter cage itself was beyond repair, as the turtles might get out and fall to the ground and the remaining glass shards might cut them.

We were happy that Vincent called us and tried to clean up but unhappy that he was so careless about opening the door. We figured it would cost us $200 plus to replace the critter cage (if we could even find one), on top of the $1,500 we already had to cough up the next day for Vincent’s lawyer. We also recalled ordering the original critter cage from a supplier of Twin Cities reptiles, and we weren’t prepared to drive up to St. Paul.

That night on the Web and after church the next day on the phone and in the car, we found that several local pet stores carry critter cage. We initially could not find one with a short enough top. But over at Pet’s Palace, we found one just like what we had (actually – on order) for $90. The salesperson actually tried to talk us into the more popular one several inches taller, arguing that putting the turtles’ heat lamp/ultraviolet/spectrum lamp so close to them wasn’t good, that the turtles would get too hot. But our turtles just stay under their big piece of tree bark or burrow a lot of the time. They just come out to bask near the lamp, eat, take a bath, or walk around sometimes. They don’t stupidly just sit right under the lamp for hours, frying/baking.

We listened to his arguments, but opted to end up waiting for the shorter cage. We like the shorter cage – the turtles can’t get out even of the shorter cage – because it’s easier to see and handle the turtles with the shorter cage. If we can’t see them and are less likely to pick them up, we’re less likely to stop and say hello and feed them regularly and to take them out for their weekly baths in our bath tub and then their 24 hours walking around the house. We like being able to interact with the turtle, and the shorter cage facilitates that. Stephanie and Vincent will probably go back to Pet’s Palace Thursday when the shorter cage is to arrive to get it. Last night Stephanie and I threw out the old cypress chips and pulled out the tree bark and heat/spectrum light lamp for temporary storage and the water and food receptacles for washing. That’s one good thing about the disaster – We’re de fact cleaning the turtles’ cage, which we haven’t done for a couple of years.

Speckles, the female who’s from further up north (North Carolina near the Virginia line) tries harder to mini-hibernate in the winter. Greenville is more active and eats more in the winter. In the summer, the roles are reversed. Greenville is a more picky eater in general (we think his eyesight is bad), and Speckles eats more and a more varied diet in the summer. In the summer, Speckles is more aggressive with the food, but Greenville, the male, is more aggressive some other ways.

They’ve been in a cardboard box since Tuesday – we hope they’ll adapt to the new habitat OK. At the pet stores we bought some more expensive and for-reptile-companion-animal-designed cypress chips and peet moss for the “bedding” for the habitat.

Happy new home, Greenville and Speckles!

-- Perry

Valentine's Day

Besides exchanging cards ourselves and Stephanie giving me Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals," Stephanie took in the most loot for Valentine's Day. Stephanie's colleagues from the district office gave her flowers and a nice card, ostensibly for rushing effectively through ESL tests for her students, in the week plus they had left after the ice storm. Stephanie also got loads of candy and cards for her students (and some from her colleagues) (see below).

Vincent and Sam spent the majority of Valentine's Day at our house. They went to Odd Lots to buy "Kung Fu Panda" and ordered pizza, and then I took them to a Valentine's day dance at school (Vincent's last weekend as a Brown School student???) and they hung out some on Bardstown Road. Meanwhile, Stephanie and I watched the romantic comedy/dog movie "Marley and Me" (with lots of fun scenes in South Florida, which I visited for my book and will head back to in May for a conference - plus stories about journalists at papers I know - and some scenes of another city I know), then ate Skyline Chili, then went dining room table shopping at th mall. Late I stopped by the annual church Valentine's Day fund-raiser - this time dessert and dancing with the band led by Ryan, Jessi's brother. Turnout was a little low this year. I ate more desserts than I should have and helped clean up. Ian had been taking prom-type pictures all night, even though he was sick, and I helped them pack up.

-- Perry

Take that, Mr Claus!

Earlier in November Frisco (pictured above far right) and I walked part of the scaled back Vogueshopping area version of the St. Matthews Holiday Walk. St. Matthews once had a somewhat regular suburban downtown, with the big Sears shopping center nearby. Now, it has more bars and restaurants (along with some regular staples like a hardware laundromat, shoe repair store, and two liquor stores, a gas station, and a CVS. But the city helped recently restore the area around the old Vogue movie theater, and now there are more upscale stores and restaurants, plus Chenoweth Square shopping center, St. Matthews Station, and a range of businesses- some upscale, some like our podiatrist's office and orthodontist's office - in houses even nearer to where we live. Early in the Christmas season stores stay open late and offer refreshments. (Three years ago, in our first year in St. Matthews, all four of us took it in - back when they had a trolley and it took in the whole "Heart of St. Matthews" shopping area, even the part very near our house.) Towards the end of us circling around we happened upon Santa. I was going to ask Santa to hold Frisco and I was going to take a picture of them. However, Frisco didn't like Santa's beard or something and he tried to bite Santa (pictured looking scared above). And so that was the end of that.

-- Perry

Health scare

Back in November Frisco (pictured above) had stomach problems and we took him to see one of our vets, Dr, Kaur (below right). Everything turned OK and we did get a cute picture of Frisco out of it.

-- Perry

Footprints

Well before Christmas Stephanie bought (and used) some materials to make imprints of your baby's hands or feet or your companion animial's paws or feet (?) and make them into Christmas tree ornaments. She got Frisco to cooperate enough to make one.

She also rolled the dough enough to make ones for the two turtles. Unfortunately, I was down in the basement and she was busy with the turtles and so didn't take any pictures.

But these are the results. I think this is the ornament with Speckles' prints.

And this is the ornament with Greenville's prints. They apparently cooperated enough to get it done.

Now we've got prints from all three of them on ornaments - on the tree (though it's not still up this year.

-- Perry

Dead furnace

Our gas-powered furnace down in the basement has been laboring for several months, and we even called the landlord air-conditioning repair person about it a couple of weeks ago. (He promised to come check it out but did not.) For a week we've been feeling bad about all of the folks who lost electric power (and their heat) - when we did not this time - but we finally lost our heat when the furnace kept straining to go on last night but couldn't - and the temperature started dropping. it was one of the coldest nights of the year last night. Vincent has his own furnace in his room upstairs, and we left the oven on in the kitchen after heating. Stephanie got us one space heater for the Florida room last year, and we moved this in to the living room but the temperature continued to sink (see above). But as we went to bed we put the space heater into our bedroom, which is small enough that our room got hot and Frisco even went in the computer room to sleep. (He abandons us and sleeps there some times - but when it was 59 degrees?!) I had been petrified that I would have to get up chilled and go out and walk the dog in the cold - but as it was I was quite toasty when I left the bedroom (again - it was 59 in the house - though still warmer than the 40 degrees in my colleagues' houses without power for a week. One of my colleagues had been without power for a week until hers came back, and Libby at our dentist's office still did not have her power Tuesday (since late Monday night a week before). Stephanie and Vincent skipped taking showers, but I took one (we moved the space heater to the bathroom). I had called back the repair person Monday night. He called at 8:30 a.m. at work and said the heater was working for him and he was going to set it to keep working so that he could go fix the heaters at some other houses where they were really not working. I argued with him a little - I wasn't completely sure he had really gotten ours working and I'm not sure he was sure it had ever really quit working for us. Apparently me pushing worked, as a couple of hours later colleagues of his called back to say they had started replacing the furnace motor. They were working when I stopped by in late morning to walk the dog and as I left they left too - the furnace apparently fixed. It's not as hot in our bedroom tonight as it was last night, but the house as a whole is much warmer. With the cold air in the morning, I had moved the turtles up to the 2nd floor (where Vincent's heater continued to work) as well as - at the last moment - Frisco's crate - moved from the basement to Vincent's bathroom (where it was at Fisherman's Landing where - however - Vincent didn't use that bathroom), where it was warm and where Frisco gets natural light (but Frisco gets urine on the linoleum). As the temperature sank - before we thought of moving the crate - I had decided to take Frisco to a kennel. When I was getting ready to leave this morning, Frisco actually ran up the stairs to the 2nd floor - had he forgotten the crate - which he usually tried to avoid - was there, or was he more Ok with staying in it in a warm room with natural light (instead of in the basement)? We'll have to consider that (esp. if Vincent takes off eventually). So all of us briefly got a taste of life without heat, something we'd rather not repeat.

-- Perry

Best in show

All three of us having seen the mockumentary "Best in Show" some 10 years ago and now connected with a cute if somewhat mixed-breed and poorly behaved dog, we periodically pay attention to dog shows. We missed one at the fairgrounds here a couple of years ago. Last night Vincent was over at a friend's house Stephanie and I (Frisco paid some attention also) watched parts of the American Kennel Club national championships - taped in December in Long Beach. The malamute above right was one of Stephanie's favorites. The griffon below actually came from Louisville, although Stephanie wasn't a big fan of his. A pointer won.

-- Perry