Important calls

My wife doesn't have Internet access at work, so from time to time, she'll call asking me to look something up for her. I just got off the phone with her as she was desperate to find out what time it is in Guam.

(It's 8:06 tomorrow morning there, by the way.)

Where you'll find me

A couple hours from now I'll be sitting on a blogging discussion panel at the meeting of the Internet Professionals Society of Alabama. If you're interested in attending, I'm told that meetings are free and open to anyone (Internet professional or otherwise).

Other Birmingham bloggers on the panel include:
Jeremy Flint (moderator) of Red Hot & Daily
Anne Glamore (not her real name) of Tales from My Tiny Kingdom
Dmitri Glazkov of his eponymous blog
Terry Oglesby of Possumblog

The meeting will be held in St. Vincents' Bruno Conference Center beginning at 11:30, and panel discussion will run from noon to 1 p.m.

It smells like home

My wife is weird about her pillow. She gets frantic whenever I wash the sheets, asking "You didn't wash my pillowcase, did you?" And when I break the news that, yes, I did indeed wash your pillowcase, I have to reassure her that it will come out of the dryer just the same as it went in — only cleaner.

So when I saw the article about pillow fungus in the LifeStyle section of today's Birmingham News, I called her at work to tell her about it.

"Your pillow is 'a cesspool of mold, mildew, fungus, dust mites and mite feces' according to bedding expert Dan Schecter," I told her.

"I know. That's why it's so soft," she said.

The pink belt

Emily is not a calm child. It started with the colic, I suppose. These days her rambunctious behavior continues with a fervor difficult to match for two tired parents. For Misty's mom, though, it's even harder to keep up with her.

"You know, Emily is not going to be the sort of girl who takes well to ballet classes," Misty's mom said last night after spending the day with her grandaughter.

"That's fine," Misty said. "She can take karate if she wants to... so long as they'll let me dress her in pink."

Just say no

Usually the first thing anyone asks when inquiring about my daughter is: "How old is she now?" It's the same whether I'm talking to a close friend or the check out girl at Wal-Mart.

I suppose it's understandable that only my immediate family keeps count of the number of months Emily has accumulated in her lifespan. And I know from experience that it can be hard to guess kids' ages. It's not a stupid question, and it never gets tiring talking about my daughter — even if it is only to mention her age.

What I find interesting is that you can tell which people don't have children of their own because they don't know where to go from there.

When I answer that Emily is 19 months old, someone without kids will ask: "Is she saying any words yet?"

Saying words? Ppffff! She's more than a year and a half old —' she's been saying words for about eight months! She knows more than 30 words!

Emily's favorite word lately is "no." It doesn't matter what you ask her, the answer will be "no."

"Emily, are you hungry?"

"No."

"Do you want to play at the park?"

"No."

"Do you love Daddy?"

"No."

She doesn't mean no, of course; she just knows that it's the answer to a question. So since we know how she's going to answer, we've had to get creative with the way we ask questions.

"Emily, do you want to stay in that wet diaper?"

"No."

"Are you planning on throwing your peas on the floor?"

"No."

"Is there anyone you love more than Daddy?"

"No."

I feel so clever to have outsmarted my 19-month-old kid.

No match for el chupacabra

I've mentioned before that Misty's mom has a tendency to look on the dark side of things and assume the worst. This morning before Orkin arrived she was in top form as she warned me that a relative of hers was once bitten on the nose by a rat while sleeping. She went on to tell me that some rats have even been known to eat babies in their cribs.