This is week 133 of The Life of Riley, a weekly post detailing my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 924): Nothing Is Real

#1GF! gave me a break from baby care after my outburst in the car the day before. It was like having free down time, and I wasted it by inserting inappropriate bleeps into an Ella Fitzgerald Christmas song to make it sound a lot dirtier than it was. Then, I got slightly productive and spent some time writing one of the backlogged Life of Riley posts. When I emerged from the office at noon, the baby was clean and dressed, and I wasn’t.

In the afternoon, I did some photo editing to create the baby’s first Christmas card, and then made a seven picture baby montage as a stocking stuffer for the baby’s grandma. In thirty years, when my daughter looks back on the cute hat she was wearing in her first Christmas photo, she’ll never know that the moment we shared with everyone never really existed because she didn’t actually like wearing that hat. Ah, the modern world. Soon, nothing will be real.

When I returned to the family, I finally set up the high chair, and then ruined a roast by adding enough garlic to put an end to half the cast of Twilight.

After dinner, the baby had the best reaction to me that she’s ever had. I walked into the hall, and the baby squealed, smiled, and hid her face in her mom’s shoulder while she jiggled with excitement. It was one of those cool moments that make you feel like you’re more than a barf cleaning machine.

After the baby went to bed, #1GF! joined Facebook. I gave her a quick tutorial, but she wasn’t sure that she liked it. I knew that she’d be all over it eventually. It just takes a couple of days to get its hooks into you.

Monday (Day 925): We Means You

I went out to get a haircut, but my regular barber wasn’t answering his phone and the local shop was closed. I was back home within ten minutes. It would’ve been five, if I didn’t have the extra weight of my forty pound hairdo.

#1GF! was working from home, and she’s one of those people who works from home without finger quotes around working. She chained herself to her side of the desk, and I spent almost the entire morning trying to get the baby to go to sleep.

Once the baby was down, I stood in the kitchen looking over her eating and sleeping chart to see if she was on schedule. #1GF! walked in to grab some water.

“I think we’re going to make cookies for the neighbors this year,” she said.

I looked up from my chart. “What? Since when do we exchange gifts with the neighbors?”

“Well, I thought it would be nice.”

I went back to my chart. “Good luck with that, I guess.”

“Uh huh. Just have the cookies made some time next week so that I can bring them over, wise guy.”

“Oh, yea. Will do. I’ll get right on that,” I said in a way that implied that I wouldn’t.

I made pesto for dinner and we watched a comedy called YPF, which I had no idea stood for “young people fucking”. It didn’t end up being too bad, and it got a few shock laughs out of me.

Tuesday (Day 926): Barf Ninja Blitzkrieg

The baby didn’t sleep much in the morning, so I walked around the house with her pointing at things and naming them. She applauded the tour by barfing all over herself and me, leading to a couple of costume changes and a bath.

When the baby finally went to sleep, I started working on the story for the beard 2009 shaving pictures that should’ve been posted months ago.

The baby soon woke up, and I fed her, waited an hour, and then gave her a batch of solid food. I made a goddamned mess of her, as usual. I took her out of the chair, and on the last spoonful, I dropped a huge glob of food on her pants. I left the high chair and dishes to be hosed down later. I took her to the bathroom to wipe her down the best that I could, while she laughed and tried to eat the facecloth.

I went in to change the baby’s barf coated pants, and noticed that I had completely soaked her Onsie while washing her face. I scrapped her second outfit of the day. I went to change her diaper along with the clothes, and in the middle of the change, the baby let loose and unexpected flood of pee, sending the changing pad cover chasing her clothes into the laundry.

I had burned through two outfits for the baby, a shirt for me, and a changing pad cover already. I grabbed the gas medicine, hoping to stem the tide of vomit before there was a full load of baby laundry to do. I finished changing the baby into a new outfit, threw a clean burp cloth on my shoulder, and grabbed the gas medicine off of the coffee table in the den.

I sat on the couch, and right before I could give her the medicine, the baby barfed in an arc over the burp cloth, down my arm, off my leg, off my sock and onto the floor. I shook my head and stared at the floor. I was being soundly beaten by the barf ninja.

I took the baby to the bathroom to clean her up for the third time in fifteen minutes, and had to walk on my heel to avoid tracking baby puke all over the place.

Once the baby was cleaned up, I put her on the couch while I wiped the baby puke off the floor. I used water and some paper towels, but found that the floor smelled like sour milk. Yea, I smelled it. I went and got some floor cleaner and a rag. The baby lay there squealing because she had figured out how to take her sock off. I cleaned the floor with a rag and threw it into the bathroom sink, picked up the baby, and resumed burping her.

I grabbed another pair of socks so I wouldn’t track puke everywhere, but gave up on changing my pants or shirt because I knew that barf ninja was a silent and unpredictable foe. I took the baby out of the den and past the bathroom with the rag in the sink that I had already forgotten about, and went into the kitchen, which was splattered with baby food. In fifteen minutes, I had inefficiently messed up three rooms, two outfits, my clothes, my socks, and left a trail of destruction that wound through almost the entire house.

In the afternoon, the baby was a lot better, giving me a chance to clean up before #1GF! came home. I made enchiladas for #1GF! while she watched the baby before her bedtime. It was a dinner that #1GF! wouldn’t get to finish because the baby refused to go to sleep.

After dinner, I sealed a couple of counters because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do it during the day. #1GF! wandered around with the baby because she still wouldn’t go to sleep. At 9:30PM, I polished the dining room table. When you’re polishing a fucking table at 9:30 at night, and no one is coming over the next day, something is wrong.

By the time the baby went to sleep and the day ended, I was tired. When #1GF! informed me that it was Tuesday, and not Monday, as I had thought all day, I also felt like I had been robbed of twenty-four hours.

Wednesday (Day 927): The Bearded Sock Servant

The baby was squealing with happiness for most of the day because she discovered that no matter how many times she took her sock off, the big bearded person would put it back on for her. She slept an hour or two at a time, and I didn’t make too much of a mess while feeding her.

In my off hours, I worked on the getting the story for beard shaving 2009 written, which felt like the massive waste of time that it was.

At 5PM, our old contractor showed up to say hello. It was cool to talk to another adult for a few minutes before he had to get going.

#1GF! came home and took over the baby right in the middle of a diaper change. A mother’s love is stronger than poop, my friends. I shrugged and went out to finish getting dinner ready.

After the baby had gone to bed, I sealed the remaining counters while #1GF! wrote out Christmas cards. She had turned my manipulated Christmas picture of the baby into a Christmas card, and it looked pretty good. We ate dinner at 8:30PM, once the cards were done.

Thursday (Day 928): No Baby Zuul

I probably took care of the baby and worked on putting together my beard pictures from 2009. Then again, my record keeping wasn’t that good, so it’s possible that Venkman, Raymond, and Egon came over because I refused to confirm or deny what the contents of a jar of marshmallow Fluff really was.

Ray Parker Jr. showed up a little while later, and kept humming the Ghostbusters theme song until I asked him whether he was humming “I Want A New Drug” or “Pop Muzik”. I guess he didn’t like that very much because he grabbed a proton pack and yelled “Say hello to my little friend!” just before the guys stuffed him into their station wagon and left. There were no lingering paranormal signatures left behind, and the baby wasn’t claiming to be Zuul, so #1GF! was fine with having them over. Or something like that.

Friday (Day 929): Beard Shaving 2009

After wasting and hour remixing a song that no one would ever hear, I realized that I didn’t have the time for things like that anymore. There was far too much writing or cleaning up to do when the baby was asleep. I turned my attention to something marginally important, and published the 2009 beard shaving pictures. I also added the “handlebar and goatee” and “handlebar and chin puff” to The Quest for Every Beard Type.

#1GF! went out to do the food shopping after work, and had to call me a couple of times to decipher my handwriting. Oddly, she didn’t come home with things that were required to make certain meals because I didn’t put them on the list. I guess that she’s not clairvoyant after all.

I put the groceries away and then baked cookies while #1GF! spent some time with the baby. I tried to make cookies that tasted like a peanut butter cup, but the peanut butter ended up turning an outstanding chocolate cookie bland.

Saturday (Day 930): The Family Circle Feeding

I ran out to get a haircut in the morning and thankfully, the local barber shop was open. I had only been to the shop once, but this barber was a nice, old Italian guy that I had never seen before. I hadn’t had an old Italian guy cut my hair since Gino’s shaky hands started cutting more ear than hair when I was twelve.

Wait, no. That’s not true. The guy that took over for Gino was named Tony, and he was from Italy. And then there were the three Italian guys in Quincy center that I went to for a short time, and that basement barbershop with the Italian guy who couldn’t speak English, so I had to hand signal everything. And my regular barber for the last twenty years is a Sicilan. Okay, maybe if the guy who cut my hair wasn’t Italian, I would’ve been surprised.

I got into the chair and asked for something a little shorter than a regular mens’ cut. For a first cut, he did a nice job. It wasn’t my regular barber’s cut, but it was very normal looking. I gave him a $20, and wished him a merry Christmas on the way out the door. I think he told me that I should get some clothes that fit me to go with my new haircut, but I didn’t think that could be right, so I just smiled and waved like an idiot.

I went home and washed all of the clippings out of my hair and into the tub, but the tub refused to drain. I guess all the hormones prevent a woman’s hair from falling out during pregnancy, giving a pregnant woman a nice, thick head of hair. After the birth, the hair starts falling out in droves as it returns to its normal growing cycle. I grabbed a set of gloves and dislodged a small animal’s worth of hair from the trap.

As I was cleaning, I noticed that the tub was a wreck, so I felt compelled to clean that. And then if the tub was clean, the sink had to be cleaned…and, you get the picture. I cleaned the whole bathroom.

We gave the baby a bath and we went to a family gathering at my aunt’s house. The baby was good, and the family seemed to like her.

While making small talk about my lack of employment, one of my uncles asked about the traffic on the ol’ blog, and I admitted that I was down to about fifty thousand unique visitors a month. He was astounded. I told him that it was once around 150k and once as high as 225k a month. He was floored. I call 50k “down”, but it is a lot of traffic considering it’s just a personal blog.

Naturally, he wanted to know what I write about that would drive that sort of traffic, and I used my standard line that it’s mostly about what I eat for breakfast. Then, I admitted that I couldn’t explain its popularity. My cousin’s boyfriend is a reader, and he tried to step in to explain what the secret ingredient was that kept him reading, but he had no better luck than I did.

As I went on to tell my uncle about my beard pages and about being in a couple of newspapers because of them, I watched the realization spread over his face that the internet is a wasteland and people are insane.

My aunt stepped in and asked about the cookies I brought.

“Jon, you made these?”

“Yep.”

“Are they from scratch?”

[I never expect this question because it's the only way I make cookies] “Yes.”

“With flour and sugar?”, my aunt asked, just to make sure that I wasn’t using a modern interpretation of “from scratch” that included a box or a tube.

“That’s how cookies are made.”

She seemed genuinely impressed. “Wow. You’re just like your father. He always wanted everything made from scratch.”

“I think he just goes for taste. I go from scratch because I don’t want all the chemicals in my cookies.”

We talked about cookies and the conversation turned to biscotti.

“You make biscotti, too?” another relative asked.

They were both eying #1GF!, who smiled. “He does.”

I love when people think biscotti is hard to make. I think it’s a lot easier than anything that requires a rolling pin or a cookie cutter. It just takes a little more time.

I talked about cookies for a little while with my cousin’s boyfriend (a fellow beardo who was also heartily rocking his way through MaBeGromo), and the conversation turned to cars. It had to. Men can’t talk about cookies for too long. I played up the loss of ROCKET CAR! to the family sedan, and got a few laughs from the guys. My uncle fondly remembered trading in his 280Z for a Camry.

We brought bottles, but no nipples, so #1GF! had to feed the baby the old fashioned way. She stood in the middle of the living room and fed the baby so everyone could see how it was done and offer helpful pointers before the group hug. I’m just fucking with you. #1GF! vanished for a period of time, so I had to assume she was off feeding the baby.

We stayed a couple of hours, but I didn’t feel like I had nearly enough time to talk to anyone as long as I wanted to. On the way home we hit a bookstore because I wanted to see if I could pick up a quick Christmas present. I ran in and left #1GF! and the baby in the car.

I had a couple of books to look for, but there was a guy standing a foot in front of a bookcase and blocking all access to it. I could’ve said “excuse me,” but I didn’t want to bother him. I went to look up something else to leave the guy in peace while he made his purchasing decision.

When I got back he was still there. I hovered around him, and he didn’t move. I pulled a book from in front of his knee, and he didn’t move. It wasn’t the book I wanted, so I put it back and left. For some reason, that guy bothered me. I don’t know why. I didn’t even say, “excuse me,” but I felt that I shouldn’t have had to. You know, because I’m the king of the world.

The baby started screaming on the way home. It always seems to happen when we’re in shooting range of the house. It got so bad, that we pulled over and I jumped into the back seat for the rest of the ride. I exhausted every trick I had trying to quiet her down, but nothing worked.

When we got home, #1GF! fed the baby and I made eggs. Then, #1GF! made eggs. The breakfast-style meal didn’t detract from the feeling that it was past midnight, even though it was barely 8:30PM.

What I Learned

• Not even a made up story about Ghostbusters can save a boring week.
• There was once a “Ghostbusters” vs. “I Want a New Drug” vs. “Pop Muzik” controversy? (I guess so).
• Just a few words with another adult can be extremely entertaining when you care for a baby all day.
• I’ve gone to a high percentage of Italian barbers.
• I need some pants that fit?
• My blog does all right for a personal blog.

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