The clock came with generic batteries.  They were a brand called “National Hi-Top.”  I can’t say I’d ever heard of them — before or since — however, I used them anyway. This clock became my “main” clock right away.  I used it beginning at age 13 for school.  Its distinctive alarm chime – “Beep beep beep beep! Beep beep beep beep! Beep beep beep beep! New York: six forty-eight, AM!” would repeat ad nauseum until I dragged myself out of bed to turn it off.

Nonetheless, the World Clock worked for me through the remainder of junior high, all of high school, and all of college without flinching.  Sometime around the end of college I started to realize that the batteries in the clock had lasted a pretty long time.  In fact, the were about to mark a decade of action despite being in use 24 hours a day for 10 straight years and housing an alarm deployed over 200 days a year.

December 4, 1998, I called my parents to let them know that the National Hi-Tops were still kicking.

I noted sometime in December of 2003 that the clock was still plugging away, marking 15 years of action.  Pretty impressive for a clock, but much more impressive for generic batteries.  If you go to your local CVS, Walgreens, or where ever you buy your batteries, you’ll note that batteries generally have an “expiration date” about 10 years hence.  This is because, in time, the liquid inside a battery can dry.  The lifespan of a shelved battery is about a decade.

So imagine my surprise come December 2008, when my little clock celebrated its twentieth year of service.  I’m not entirely sure that this is common today in either batteries or electronics, to have a solid build like this.  My clock has journeyed from the confines of Simsbury, CT, to Harrisonburg, VA and back many times.  It moved with me through Virginia from Vienna to Fairfax to Arlington to Fairlington, then to Florida from to Orlando, Deltona, and Altamonte… twice.  This clock has actually been with me, on the same batteries, for more of my life than it hasn’t.  Pretty crazy.

Sometime in the last year or two, I moved on to a different clock for day to day use largely because there is no snooze button on the world clock.  However, it still sits here in our house running.  When I played with it last week, upon tapping the time zone keys, I noticed the electric, but very British lady’s voice began to warble a little.  The ol’ girl has since gotten back on track, but it was the first sign she has ever shown of aging.

I love my world clock, but mostly I love that she just keeps hanging in there. It’s gone from a hope that the clock survives to a simple interest in seeing how long the batteries will live. It’s impossible to predict how long AA batteries should last, as that fact is governed entirely by the device they are powering and much much power it draws.  However, I think it’s safe to conclude that these are fairly extraordinary.

• If your candidate wins, you are alloted 60 days or until the next major holiday to leave a bumper sticker on your car. You are allowed 5 days for lawn signs.
• If you candidate loses, you are permitted a mere 48 hours to get the signs out of the ground, and just a scad longer at 72 hours to get the bumper stickers off, unless it’s a weekend sooner, in which case, by Saturday.

I think you look like an idiot with campaign stickers on your car any more than 3 months after an election. I still see people with “W 04″ stickers on their car. Aside from the fact that I can’t believe there are actually people who think that this country is better off than in 2004, I think it looks so tacky to leave them on your auto. I saw a car the other day that had a “Clinton/Gore ‘96″ sticker on it – I swear. I couldn’t believe it.

So, please, do us all a favor: if you’ve got lawn signs in the ground, go ahead and remove them this weekend. If you were a McCain/Palin supporter, please remove your bumper stickers tomorrow, the 8th. If you were an Obama/Biden backer who adorned your car, congratulations, go ahead and celebrate until, say, Thanksgiving. But please, don’t let us catch you with those stickers after New Years, okay?

My Friend Laura

Seriously, what the hell is going on here?  Old car.  Outdated siding.  Blue Poncho. Cat’s ass. Eating something crunchy enough to require the first bite to be via molars.   And someone thinking “this would make a good picture.”  

I LOVE it.

In the meantime, today is my baby girl’s first birthday.  It’s odd thinking she’s been around for a full year now.  It really seems like just recently she was born, and yet, at the same time, I can’t really remember life without her, so it feels like she’s been around for much longer than just the last year.   

It is truly amazing, the experience of parenthood.  You never think it will be, but it constantly is.

Tightness of the TP holder
Does the toilet tissue roll easily or is it tight? When you pull it, does it break before it rolls?

Are There Seat Covers?
These days, it’s commonplace to have toilet seat shaped tissue that cover the potentially offending public lid. I think most appreciate that as an option.

Is the Floor Dry?
Is the floor wet and nasty? Or is it dry and shiny? A wet floor – not wet from mopping, which is also bad, but wet from… uh… general use – is disgusting. Dry floor is always best.

Noise Level/Fan Presence
All bathrooms should have ambient noise. A small fan provides a level of discretion for any given stallman seeking to expel a standard dose of flatulence. Silence in a toilet is horrible for a stall-goer with company by the urinal. I can only imagine this is ten times worse in the ladies’ room.

Paper or Dryer?
Are there paper towels or an air dryer? Ideally, there should be both. Some prefer one or the other. Although air is cleaner (or so “they” say), I prefer a paper towel, which is faster and more effective at actually drying. I do not like ritzy cloth towels.

Paper Ply
Simply: one ply or two. I can live with 1 ply, but 2 is always superior for a proper and effective cleansing.

Number of Stalls
A single stall is a cardinal sin. Should one visitor have a bout with his bowels that requires an extended stay of several minutes – or, God help him, hours – the next guy is screwed and had better be well practiced in “holding it.” No eatery should ever be permitted to host only a single stall.

Space in Stall
If my knees hit the door whilst seated, or if when closing the door, I have to inhale and press myself against the other wall, or if the fronts of my shoes prtrude past the virtual extension of the door to the floor, the stall is just plain too small. A decent stall has enough room to comfortably close and open the door and doesn’t force the user to contort himself to fit.

Number of Sinks
A sink in the stall is always a bonus, but any restroom that isn’t a single unit should have at least 2 sinks. No one wants to wait for the big dude in front of him to finish, but more importantly, no one wants to use a nasty sink that has been filled with wet paper towels or other backwash. In the event of an “out of order,” a backup should be present.

Does the Autoflush Spray Ass or Seat?
If you have an autoflush mechanism, particularly an overeager one that likes to flush should one lean forward in the slightest manner, does it spray either ass or seat? A wet ass is an absolute no-no, and a flusher that douses the seat is equally annoying.

Ease of Access
A bathroom placed by a very public area where other visitors can measure your visit in time and number is an immediate negative point.

Can it Handle a Crowd?
If there are several people in the restroom, how does it fare? Space outside the stall is good too.

Space Between the Door and the Hinge
If the gap between the door and the hinge is too great, passers-by can have a gander and check out your sitting session. It seems a lot of public restrooms have this problem, where you feel the need to patrol the line of light that permits strangers to view your most intimate of activities. All stall makers should go to great lengths to assure that the door affords no more than 1/8th of an inch of view-space. If that’s not possible, get as close as you can.

Amount of TP
There should always be a backup roll, no question. If it’s not a commercial stall with a multi-roll holder that either has two side by side or one above the other, there ought be a small stash nestled behind the bowl or beneath the tank.

Does the Door Lock Easily/Properly?
If I have to apply some sort of special force, such as lifting the door with my foot or pushing down in order to lock a door, the bathroom is a fail. A stall – in my mind – is unusable without a proper lock.

Flush Power
One flush ought to clear the bowl, even for a most powerful excretion. Nobody – and I say nobody pretty firmly – wants to be greeted by a stranger’s turd crumbs, plain and simple. If you employ a standard gravity swirl flush rather than a commercial-like pressure assist, you should be wary. The standard “flush, whirpool, siphon” toilet, based largely on gravitational force, is demonstrably not as effective as removing offensive fecal bits that give public restrooms a bad image as the more powerful alternative. A single pressure assist jet will usually clean up a bowl, but a residential WC may require a bit more work. Sad for the small Mom-and-Pop restaurant, to be sure.

Well, that about does it. Those are the criteria by which I’d judge any public restroom.

I’ve tried meditation. I’ve tried deep relaxation. But honestly, right now, nothing I know of can beat the natural, organic peace of 7AM in Florida in the Summer.

Shake a tub of berries so it’s a fresh “layout” and have a friend peruse it. Then, you each reveal the “best” berry – the one you’d go for if you were choosing. The first FIVE throws we matched 100%. The next few took us up to two or three picks to match. But the fact remains, we agreed that as we ate, we’d do a quick scan – all in an instant, of course, the deliberation is almost entirely subconscious – and choose the best remaining berry/berries. And furthermore, in the first five throws, we were able to agree with no debate as to which was the best remaining berry, without defining what qualities should be prized in an assessment of “best.” I think many people do this, and not just with fruit, but with all sorts of things. Is it just human nature?

There you go: math in real life.

While I don’t recognize the verses of “The Keeper,” I certainly recognize the chorus, which goes:

Jackie boy! (Master!) Sing ye well! (Very well!)
Hey down (Ho down) Derry derry down
Among the leaves so green, O
To my hey down down (To my ho down down )
Hey down (Ho down) Derry derry down
Among the leaves so green, O

Another ditty was a popular Austrailian song:

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
Merry, merry king of the bush is he,
Laugh, Kookaburra, Laugh, Kookaburra,
Gay your life must be.

I have fond memories of a stick-exchange game that went with “Tongo.” I’m not sure the origin, but it was especially catchy.

Tongo (Tongo)
Jim-nee bye bye oh!
Tongo (Tongo)
Oom-bah, de kim bye oh
Ooh a lay
Mah le ka, a lo way

There was a fantastic song about FDR and the New Deal, but unfortunately, I was unable to find any reference to such a song. The below is the best I could remember the chorus

We’re getting a New Deal! A New Deal!
Everyone is ___ about the new deal!
Hitch your wagon to a star, ’cause FDR
is giving us all a brand new deal!

The two-part “Old Woman” was a song we sang when we were very young. Here are a few lines:

Old woman, old woman, Will you let me court you?
Speak a little louder, sir, I just begin to hear you.

Old woman, old woman, Don’t you want to marry me?
Lord have mercy on my soul, I think that now I hear you.

For whatever reason, in the pre-ultra-nationalism era, before we were so xenophobic, we sang “Rule Britannia” (but I recall it as “Hail Britannia!”)

Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves:
Britons never will be slaves

Lastly, I can’t leave out one of my favorites as a kid. Having just googled it, I can report for the first time in my life that it’s called “Violins Sing With a Joyful Ring” It was a multi-part harmony whose verses contain this bit:

The vi-o-lin singing with lovely ringing, the violin singing with lovely song.

The clarinet, the clarinet, goes doodle, doodle, doodle, doodle-det;
the clarinet, the clarinet, goes doodle-doodle-doodle-det.

I’m sure there are dozens of songs I’m forgetting, and eventually, I may post another installment of “Songs from the Mrs. Rollins Catalog”, but in the meantime, especially if you found this via Google, do any of these ring a bell? I’d realy like to know more about the FDR/New Deal song.

Either way, somehow, he laid down and she reached over, so he put his front leg across her legs. She was sitting on her butt playing with his leg – drumming on it, petting it, etc, and he actually closed his eyes and let her just tap away. It was pretty amazing, given that he’s rarely that relaxed around Jenn and me and she’s so innocently rough with him.

Every time the dog pisses me off – which is often, since the big galoot is usually following us around and thus generally “in the way” – I remember how incredible he is with baby and how great it will be when she’s old enough to consider him a friend. I can sense he’s going to be fiercely loyal to her and she’s going to be really affectionate with him. The seed is already planted.

The entire scene just made me really long to spend some quality time at home with them, maybe let Jenn sleep late and pack up the baby and the dog for a good walk or something.

I didn’t take to fatherhood at first. I guess that’s unfair, I took to it just fine, but the minute Jillian was born, I was much more concerned about my wife who had just had a C-section than I was about the little baby. After all, if something happened to the baby, I’d still have Jenn and life would go on, albeit tragically. But if something happened to Jenn, I’d be crushed; devastated without direction.

I guess I could say I loved Jillian on day 1, but the truth is it took a few days to warm up to her. Babies really aren’t much – they don’t really tell you this – but they don’t do anything. They just lay around, sleep, cry, crap, and occasionally feed. They don’t smile, focus, laugh, or express any emotion. They mainly sleep and cry.

As time went on, each day, I’d find myself a little more enamored with baby. Each day, really around 2 months, she started becoming more and more a real person. She started smiling. She stopped crying all the time. She started expressing preference for one person over another. And I realized that I had a nice emotional bond with her.

Around 3 months, she started to actually develop some muscle and was able to hold her own weight on her knees if you balanced her. She chortled her first laughs and started being more comfortable in her own skin. She began to understand diaper changing and bottle preperation.

She just turned 6 months, now entering her 7th, and I just realized – I am paralyzed by how much I love my daughter. Now she sits up and rolls over. She communicates with us in so many ways and understands her surroundings like I never anticpated. She likes playing with the dog. She focuses on the TV and even prefers certain shows. She’s a full fledged person – she’s graduated from baby to infant.

As a new parent, you’re pre-conditioned to think you will love your child in a magical way. But I’m not sure people are capable of turning love on and off like that. Maybe mothers, who have a different kind of bond with an in utero child, but certain fathers are challenged to go from 0-60 on day 1. But the truth is, it doesn’t take long before you are won over by the absolute magic that is parenthood.

I can’t imagine life without my baby girl, and, as a parent, I worry about things that never would have crossed my mind. I spend time daydreaming during the day about hanging out with my kid and think about how much fun we’ll have when she’s just a little older. The other day I literally broke down in unexpected tears listening to the Beatles’ Golden Slumbers thinking about her, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I cried.

Being a parent subjects you to strong emotion and deep love in a manner I’m not certain one can truly understand until they experience it themselves. The idea that a piece of you is alive in this person, this person you have to strain to see as anything but perfect, it’s overwhelming. And it’s absolutely, positively wonderful.

If I have a cookie and I want “another,” you would likely extrapolate that I would like a second cookie of the same type. Whereas if I wanted “an other,” you might believe I wanted a different cookie, perhaps even in place of this one.

Lately, I heard a phrase – not a new phrase, but certainly it’s gaining in popularity – “a whole nother.” “Nother” is not a word, so the phrase makes no sense in a literal translation. But how it’s used is interesting, because it actually has no true translation to an existing phrase that is quite as concise.

If I have a cookie and I want “another,” as we discussed, I might want a second. If I want “an other,” I might want a second, or possibly a different type. But if I tell you I want “a whole nother” cookie, you might believe I want an entirely different type of cookie – not merely another variation.

If we’re discussing movies, and I bring up something iconic like Star Wars, that might be “a whole nother” conversation. If we’re talking about the quality of computers and I discuss OS X vs Vista, that might be “a whole another” debate.

Urban Dictionary refers to this grammar destruction as “in-fix” (much like a prefix or a suffix). One thing is certain though – there is no phrase I know that comfortably fits into the common and casual vernacular that serves the same pupose as “a whole nother,” so I’m going to continue to use it until another phrase can replace it.

Notice anything funny? Only three of the songs in the list are from the last decade. Needless to say, I’m feeling a little old today.