This is an introduction that isn't really an introduction, just a collection of observations.
Adult life is weird. It's equal parts nostalgia, juggling mangoes, toys that sing (that part multiplies exponentially after you reproduce), coffee, ten-cent armchairs, turkey hats, Velveeta cheese, overlong car trips, dark alleys, sunrises, and Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff for the thousandth time. I write poems but I don't know that that means anything. I'm a smart-ass, which may be more important.
I have one surprise daughter, which means I fall into the Toys That Sing Exponent. This is really the best thing ever, though I didn't know it at the time (meaning the "surprise" time, and not necessarily referring to the singing toys, because they're ever-present and sometimes turn themselves on at night, shouting out happy things in the deep dead of 2 a.m. purely to scare the bejesus out of me). Somehow, one wound up in my car trunk, so that when I turn a corner too sharply, it bellows out, "LET'S GET OUR TELESCOPE!!!! EL TELESCOPIO!!!!!" in a shrill voice. The trunk toy happens to be Backpack, from Dora. Backpack reminds me of this little guy I used to work with in my restaurant years, Manny the Dishwasher. He talked like that too, accent and everything, and he always shouted random things in Spanish at odd moments. I'd walk through the kitchen carrying a tray full of ketchup bottles to refill, and he'd scream from the dishwashing station, "UN SACAPUNTAS!!!!" (which, I think, means "pencil sharpener"). That, or he'd sing, which is another reason Backpack reminds me of Manny. The main difference between the two on that score is that Backpack has no off button or volume control (the person who designed this toy was obviously not a parent). Manny, at least, would pipe down if you promised to buy him a beer after work.
But I was talking about being a parent, right? Before I got off on the "Manny" tangent? I should also state that I only had Backpack in my trunk for a short car trip to the grocery store, and then out he came. (It's that lying-to-the-tell-the-truth-poet-thing, sorry. Get used to it. If the cat needs to have two heads for the blog to make better sense, the cat will probably wind up with two heads.) I have two cats, the Larger One Who Rules the Universe, and the Smaller One Who Needs a Crash Helmet. The Smaller One needs a crash helmet because he has a sunny personality and is not bright enough (yet) to run from my daughter, who has succeeded in putting him in a drawer at least two times. Pets in drawers...one more thing they don't warn you about parenthood.
So far, we've covered singing toys, mildly disturbing former co-workers, why I exaggerate and tweak the details sometimes but won't actually lie to you in a global sense, the joys of parenting, and kitties in peril. That may be enough for my first post. We'll see how this goes.
