Monday, June 16, 2008

Girls, Grow Giant Psycho Desert Ants In Your Basement!

I am easily besotted by fatherhood, as the 2 or 3 regular readers of this blog likely already know. We've had a couple deeply memorable Father's Days over the last few years - Sands Dunes, AAA baseball games - but this year was low key and merely fun. Which is fine with me. Greeted with presents in the morning - homemade cards and pictures, silk shirts, a camping hammock (dibs!) and a grill brush so large and sturdy it could be used as a weapon. And probably will be used as a weapon by one of my daughters before the summer is over: the kitten-inspired ceasefire is long over. They are once again fighting like cats and dogs. Sunnis and Shiites. Mets and Yankees. Matter and antimatter.

Presents were followed by swimming at the State Park (and a waterslide charging an unconscionable $1.75 per slide). Swimming was followed by eating tasty NY strip steaks with my own Dad as we watched Pedro pitch his best game of the year (6IP, 1ER, 1BB, 4K), making the hapless Rangers look like helpless little kittens at the plate.

Nice day.

Thanks Dad. For making me a better Dad, teaching by example. Among many other things.



The girl's new kittens got out of their room while we were gone. They had all day to explore the house, get lost, rip furniture to shreds, terrorize our other old and boring cat. And yet when we got home they were both within six feet of the bedroom door.

I thought cats were supposed to be more curious than that.



More pet news: we got a fancypants antfarm on Christmas (filled with weird transparent gel instead of sand). We sent out for mail-order ants, and when they came half were dead. The survivors built maybe 4 inches of ant tunnels before they died as well. Wimpy. S and I went out this weekend and got eight - just eight - of our homegrown giant psycho desert ants. They've already dug to the bottom of the antfarm several times, and are now digging across the bottom, with tunnels heading back up interspersed every few inches. They've disposed of the corpses of their wimpy precursors. I'm not sure how. I'm not sure I want to know.

I fear what will happen when they run out of gel...



p.s. - Extra credit for spotting the Bradbury reference.

9 comments:

Jo said...

Oh it sounds like you had a great weekend, good for you, proud papa.

I don't know why the thought of little girls & little kitties running around you cracks me up so much.

My dad could never catch a nap in his hammock...it was always full of little girls :P

Anonymous said...

Happy Father's Day, CC! I genuinely love those Giant Bug movies. I was hoping it was going to be "The Deadly Mantis" but "Them" runs an awful close second!

As for the Bradbury reference--I'm certain Nancy is going to beat me bloody with my hardbound copy of "The Martian Chronicles" for not knowing it, but I have to plead...er... powerful radiation?

Anonymous said...

Oh--and thanks for bringing back memories of my Dad making us an ant farm out of an old glass coffee jar and a shovel-full of black ant nest. *G*

Unknown said...

*clearing throat* "Boys! Grow Giant Mushrooms in Your Basement!"

Nah, Ir, I'll let you go for knowing who Uncle Einar is.

Happy Father's Day, Mr. Clowncar! You are truly one of the best out there. And so is your dad.

Mona Buonanotte said...

The movie clip brought back such memories! Movies with radiation ROCK!

Sounds like you had a wonderful Father's Day! The ant farm thing...hmmm...I was all for getting us a new pet of hissing cockroaches, when our Boychild reminded me that they do HISS, and would be too loud, so we are thinking about an ant farm. But yours came dead, so...maybe we'll get a scorpion instead.

Wanderlust Scarlett said...

So... I gotta ask, are you a Rockies fan by chance?

And, if you haven't taken the girls to the Butterfly Pavillion, you need to. The butterflies are wonderful, but they have a whole room full of bugs and spiders... you'd be in creepy crawly heaven.

Ew...
;o)

Scarlett & Viaggiatore

Anonymous said...

CC, I tip my hat to the Bradbury-lore-filled Pants. *g* Still, more radioactive giant bugs please!

Clowncar said...

Jo, all these little girls and little kitties running around cracks me up too. That our back bedroom now smells like a urinal in some Brooklyn dive bar - no so much.

Ahhhh, Irr, The Deadly Mantis. I remember picking that up at a mom and pop video store like a decade ago. Back when there were mom and pop video stores. Ever seen The Black Scorpion? A Mexican/US production with the same premise. Except with scorpions, of course.

Tell me more about your Dad making ant farms with coffee jars! That sounds worthy of a post all its own.

Tell her what she's won, Johnny! I knew you'd get that one, Dancy-Pants. And thanks for the kind words. My Dad is indeed one of the best out there - I'm just trying to keep up.

Better living through irradiation, Mona! I'm surprised no one has ever made a giant radioactive bug movie with hissing cockroaches. Maybe because they're already gigantic. And, like, hiss.

Scarlett, I like the Rockies, and have been to bunch of games (including a playoff game in that unlikely World Series run last year), but my heart belongs to the Mets.

We've never been to the butterfly pavilion, but it sounds fun. Our 6 year old is getting a butterfly tent next week for her birthday. I just hope they don't all wilt and die in this oppressive desert heat.

Irr, that danged Nancy is always wrecking the curve, isn't she?

Anonymous said...

Amen, CC. I'll set up the homemade ant farm post for later, I've got to work on Poetry Friday, and damn you man for beating me to the joke in the comments! *lol* Well played!