That’s all I hear today.

Squeak.
Stomp.

My right shoe is squeaking every time I take a step.

Squeak.
Stomp.

Started first thing this morning, soon as I stepped off the train.

Squeak.
Stomp.
Squeak.
Stomp.

Get up to walk to the bathroom?

Squeak.
Stomp.
Squeak.
Stomp.

Need a book from the shelf on the other side of my office?

Squeak.
Stomp.
Squeak.
Stomp.

According to my little pedometer, I’ve taken 4417 steps today.

Squeak.
Stomp.

Figure at least 4000 of those came after I started my walk from the Yellow Line around 7:30am.

Squeak.
Stomp.

That means I’ve heard about 2000 Squeaks already.

Squeak.
Stomp.

And even if I’m lazy tonight, I’ll hear at least another 1000 before I can get home and change my shoes.

Squeak.
Stomp.
Squeak.
Stomp.
Squeak.
Stomp.
Squeak.
Stomp.
Squeak.
Stomp.
Squeak.
Stomp.

Hence the title.

Squeak.
Stomp.
Squeak.
Stomp.
Squeak.
Stomp.

Pretty sure I’ll be gnawing off my foot at the ankle before 5 just to make the squeaking stop.

Squeak.
Stomp.

Then, of course, I’ll need a prosthetic.

Squeak.
Stomp.
Squeak.
Stomp.

And if I’m going to have a prosthetic I’m getting a fucking pegleg.

Squeak.
Stomp.
Squeak.
Stomp.
Squeak.
Stomp.

Unless bionic legs have come down in price.

Squeak.
Stomp.
Squeak.
Stomp.

But six million dollars is slightly out of the budget right now.

Squeak.
Stomp.
Squeak.
Stomp.

So pegleg it is.

Click.
Stomp.
Click.
Stomp.

See, this here post?  The one you’re reading right now?  It’s my 100th post.

Seems like an important milestone, in theory.  Big, round number.  First one with three digits.  Binary for 4.  Should be some hoopla around it, shouldn’t there?  Like a contest, or some in depth retrospective about how great I am to have kept things runnin’ for this long.

Thing is, though, that I just realized it a few minutes ago.  Didn’t give me much time to prepare.

Not that it would have helped.  I mean, nothing in this blog has ever been prepared (should be pretty clear by the layout and the content), so why should this one be any different?

So, folks, let’s just celebrate post numero ciento with this, one of my all time favorite Anikka pictures:

Couldn’t possibly write anything that would top that, anyway.

Not just for the obvious reasons, either.  I mean, who doesn’t want to quit his job and move in next to the Depps, or have enough money to have people whacked?  Those things are a given.

I want to be rich so I can spoil the Princess properly.  And while we give it our best now (see Exhibit A: The Stuffed Princess Bedroom and Exhibit B: The Incredible Shrinking Bank Balance), there are a few things we can’t provide.

Like spare refrigerators.

Every night, Her Highness requires us to place a glass of ice water and a small bowl of something snacky next to her bed.  Might be some Triscuits or some dry breakfast cereal, something like that.  She usually doesn’t eat much of it, just a bite or two, but something about it comforts her so we’re happy to oblige.

Plus, she’s a skinny little grazer who only eats a few bites at random times throughout the day, so we don’t worry about her snacking too much and turning into another fat American like her Pa.  If anything, she might need to eat a little more (she’s a size 4 length with a 3T waist).

Anyway.  So the ice water…

Has to have ice.  Just part of the deal.

And here’s how it went down last night:

FADE IN

INT.  KITCHEN – EARLY EVENING

OUR HERO grabs the ice cube tray from the freezer then walks to sink on opposite end of the kitchen to fill PRINCESS’s cup.

OUR HERO
Bunny, can you close the freezer door for daddy?

PRINCESS
Sure!

OUR HERO turns his back to PRINCESS, popping heart-shaped ice cubes out of tray straight into Dora the Explorer cup.  He’s clearly done this a million times, with ice flying out of the tray and landing in the cup from half a foot away, COCKTAILesque.

PRINCESS (from behind OUR HERO, smiling like The Joker)
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

OUR HERO turns around, sees PRINCESS hanging from the freezer door, swinging like a little monkey as it closes.

OUR HERO
Oh, bunny, please don’t do that!

PRINCESS (smile fading)
Why?

OUR HERO
Because the freezer door might break.

PRINCESS
Why?

OUR HERO
Because it’s not a swing.  It wasn’t designed to swing on it.

PRINCESS (Confused)
Why?

OUR HERO (Running out of answers)
Bunny, if you break it, we’ll have to buy a new one, then we won’t have money for dollies.

PRINCESS
But George did it on his freezer and it was fun and it broke and Tophamhat* bought a new one and it was all better!

OUR HERO (Beaten)
…

FADE OUT

And so I need to win the lottery so I’ll have enough money to replace however many freezers Her Whyness might break while swinging from their doors, because it totally looked like fun and, if I thought there was a snowball’s chance in Hell that they could support my weight without falling on top of me and turning me into a finalist for the next Darwin Award, I’d join her.

And so I can have whoever wrote that episode of Curious George whacked.

*Ani uses the same name for Sir Topham Hatt and The Man With the Yellow Hat.

Wasn’t going to start out that way. I planned on writing another “Things That Make Me Want to Puke on Kittens” post. In fact, today’s was going to be the first in a series of them filling out the rest of the week. Been in a foul mood since the belated birthday dinner with extended family Saturday night, compounded by the long day-trip to Seattle for Ani’s post-op follow-up on Monday*. By the time I got to the office this morning, I was ready to spread the hate.

Problem was that, while I had the meaty parts all planned out, I just couldn’t figure out how to start. I tried like 15 different intros, the last of which went something like this:

All work and no play makes Justin a dull boy
All work and no play makes Justin a dull boy
All work and no play makes Justin a dull boy
All work and no play makes Justin a dull boy
Blablablal;kahasfdjhsadfkjsadfasdyuasfdiediediedie…

So I sat here, cranky, and getting more irritable with every passing second of blockage.

Then that last line of gibberish in my unsuccessful intro reminded me of the line of gibberish in this post’s title, the one that’s straight outta the absofuckinglutely fantastic Mo Willems book, Knuffle Bunny.

Remember when I mentioned Dan Zanes a while back and told you all that you’re horrible people if you don’t buy his CDs for every parent you know?** That he makes music that could easily sell to adults, but that just happens to appeal to kids, too? Well, Mo Willems is That Guy for books.

Like most great things, Knuffle Bunny is surprisingly straightforward: a toddler girl loses her favorite bunny and her daddy helps her find it. It’s simple, sure, but also elegant and heartwarming. And the art, the writing… it’s all wonderful. And it’s a Caldecott Honor Book.

And Willems isn’t just a one-hit-wonder, either. No, sir. The sequel, Knuffle Bunny, Too, is on the NY Times best seller list for the 30th consecutive week and is also a Caldecott Honor Book.

And his Pigeon books. And the Elephant and Piggie books. And Leonardo, the Terrible Monster. All great.

And did I mention that one of the Pigeon books (Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!) was also a Caldecott Honor Book? That makes three Caldecott Honor Books, for those of you playing along at home.

Oh, and if that’s not enough to convince you, how about his mad street cred? Mad Sesame Street cred, that is. As in, Mo-Willems-won-six-Emmys-as-a-writer-and-animator-on-Sesame-Street.

Mo Willems is the current generation’s Dr. Seuss. In twenty years, young adults are going to remember growing up with their parents reading his books to them and they’ll be better people for it. Go forth and buy lots and lots of his books. Make the world a better place.

*Not that the trip itself was all that horrible. Was just a long day. We didn’t get home until 10:30ish, and I had to work the next morning.

Appointment was fine. Doctors said her cheek’s healing nicely, that the slight pulling of her facial features will continue to lessen as the skin stretches (it’s hardly noticeable as it is), and, most importantly, the pathology report showed no signs of cancer in the tissue they removed.

Oh, and I have the sweetest daughter ever. Even though she was still up three hours after her normal bedtime after a long day of driving, she was sugary-sweet on the way home. She spent most of the three hour return trip making up songs in the backseat and serenading us. Cute as hell.

**See here:
http://www.neverbeencool.com/2008/04/18/dr-strangecrap-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-fact-that-im-an-exhausted-hack-who-cant-put-two-words-together/

and here:

http://www.neverbeencool.com/2008/04/26/holy-shit-a-g-rated-post/

and here:

http://www.neverbeencool.com/2008/05/02/flibbertigibbet/

and here:

http://www.neverbeencool.com/2008/05/14/never-been-cool-but/

She’s doing well. She’s much much tougher than I’ve ever been.

The surgery and recovery were longer than we expected, and they were a lot more aggressive during this first shot than we thought they’d be. We assumed they would try to remove about 25-30% of the nevus, but they ended up taking out about 70%.

(Warning: picture that includes the wound after the jump)

That’s great for the removal, but it meant a much longer wound than we thought. We were under the impression that they’d be working with a small area confined to the center of the birthmark, but she has stitches covering a crescent shaped wound starting near her eye, down to the corner of her mouth, then curving to the back of her jaw line. It’s a bit swollen around her eye and mouth, and all the skin is pulled pretty tight around that whole side of her face.

She’s in good spirits, though. Here she is just after waking up the morning after surgery (and with no pain killers in her system):

The only time she’s cried so far was when she saw the wound in the mirror, poor girl.

Otherwise, she’s pretty good. She’s drained and vomitted a bit in the car when we left the hospital, but she got her appetite back during the drive home and hasn’t thrown up again. She also has an incredibly high pain tolerance, so she’s only needed a couple doses of the pain meds.

Other than the wound, you’d hardly know that anything happened. She’s perky. And bossy. And wants to go out and ride the new Barbie bike we may have bought her the day before the operation… She has a hard time not touching the wound, so we have to reapply the antibiotic ointment pretty often.

We have to go up for a followup visit June 9, then schedule the next surgery for about 6 months down the road. The stitches are the dissolvable variety, so no need to go back in to have those removed. Otherwise, they just said she can decide when she feels well enough to go back to preschool, etc., and she can start bathing again any time.

Can’t stress enough how amazing Anikka is. She was nervous while we were at the hospital, waiting for her turn in the OR, but she handled it better than kids 2-3 times her age. You could hear others screaming and crying, while Ani stoically and patiently waited. Hell, we saw teenagers in tears that went through less than our Princess.

And the worst part about the whole thing to her? The stupid hospital socks.

‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is for pussies,’ I’d think to myself. “Real men get shell shock.’

Or ‘Developmentally disabled, my ass. Dubya will always be a retard to me!’

Now, though, I’ve changed my mind.

See, if I still thought all euphemisms were tools of the Devil, I wouldn’t be able to talk about my daughter’s surgery tomorrow as ’serial excision’ Instead, I’d have to say something like ‘tomorrow, we get to wake our four-year-old daughter up before dawn and drive three hours to the hospital in Seattle. Once there, we’ll pay masked strangers to inject her full of drugs until she loses consciousness, then wait for them to cut out pieces of her face and, eventually, sew her cheek back together. She’ll then get to repeat the process 2-5 more times over the next couple of years.’

I like ’serial excision’ better.

As for Ani, well, she’s excited about the whole thing. She wants to go up there tomorrow, wants to see the doctors, wants to have the nevus removed. Of course, I don’t think she really understands exactly what’s going to happen, or that she’ll have to go through this experience several times before she’s in the clear. How do you explain ’serial excision’ to a four-year-old if she’s never gone through it before?

And we’re pretty sure she wants it removed for her, not for us. For the first few years of her life, we went the try-not-to-make-a-big-deal-about-the-nevus-around-the-girl route, acknowledging that it’s there but not going crazy over it. Frankly, with or without the bloody thing, she’s still the most beautiful little girl in the world.

But she’s not stupid. She hears the comments from other kids and their ass-hat parents, and she can see for herself that her cheek doesn’t look the same as others.

The first time we mentioned the idea of having a doctor remove it, she was excited. And she broke our hearts. Conversation went something like this:

Us: Bunny, pretty soon, we’re going to go see a doctor and he’s going to take that part off your cheek, ok?
Ani (smiling): Hurray! Then I won’t be sad any more!

Fucking Christ on a stick, how fucking ignorant were we? There we were, thinking Ani didn’t even really pay attention to the birthmark and suddenly she tells that not only does she know about it but that it makes her sad? My Princess was sad and I didn’t know it?! I’m a fucking idiot (no euphemism needed here).

One thing about the little Princess, though: girl’s tough as tails. When she has to get shots, she doesn’t even flinch. Just gives the doctor/nurse the Evil Eye afterward. Pretty sure they lose body parts as a result. She’s 1/32 gypsy, you know. Point is that if anybody can handle this mess and come out swinging, it’s Anikka.

We, however, will be a mess.

The surgery itself should be relatively quick, thankfully. We should only be in Seattle for a couple hours total, with Ani starting the recovery from her own bed. Still, though, it’s going to be a very long day.

So there won’t be a post tomorrow, at least not a new one. Will sort of have other things on my mind. I’ll probably recycle something from my old blog and schedule it to automagically arrive in the morning.

While we’re driving to Seattle.

For the operation.

In fact, the closest I’ve been to Cool was this time about ten years ago when we ended up at the same party. I said “Hey!”, and Cool, being cool and all, just said “’sup..” and walked off.

My stepson has no misconceptions about my social status. In spite of my mad freestyle rapping skillz and my vast Trivial Pursuit collection, he sees me as the anti-cool poster child I am.

And who can blame him? For his whole life, he’s known me as the guy who works the 9-5 job and who checks on the homework and who makes him scoop the litter boxes and who preaches incessantly about the merits of James Tiberius. Hardly the kind of person a 13-year-old boy dreams of being when he grows up.

To him, I’m the Man. The Establishment. I have no cool cachet whatsoever.

And I’m totally fine with that. I don’t think parents should be cool. I’m supposed to be a role model, not a buddy. That’s not to say we can’t have fun together, of course, but it does mean that I need to always present myself in a certain way, that he doesn’t need to necessarily know that his straight-laced step-poppa used to be a homeless* pot-head on the lam.

If that means he sees me as a big dork, fine. Just as long as he gets a good, well-rounded education, becomes a good person, and does something that makes him happy.

And puts us in a good home later.

But you, my friends, you get to know a little secret. Ready?

There was a time, a long time ago**, when, while never cool myself, I did associate with coolness for a little while. ‘Tis true (even though nobody cool ever said “’tis” in his life).

I even have a little proof: concert ticket stubs. Let this be a testament to the fact that, in his youth, Renny’s stepdad did, on occasion, flirt with cool. Here, for your viewing pleasure, are all the shows I have proof of attending*** (in no particular order):

• Fishbone – Visage, Orlando – 1994
• Midnight Oil (with Ziggy Marley and Hothouse Flowers) – The Edge, Orlando – 1993
• Filter (with Everclear) – Rose Quarter Outdoor Commons, Portland – Date Unknown
• The Who (with Billy Idol) – Rose Garden, Portland – 1996
• The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – La Luna, Portland – 1996
• Sex Pistols – Civic Auditorium, Portland – 1996
• Super Diamond – Crystal Ballroom, Portland – 1998
• Weezer – La Luna, Portland – 1996
• The DJ Spooky Experience – Crystal Ballroom, Portland – 1998
• Tori Amos – Paramount Theater, Seattle – 1996
• Lollapalooza 1995 (Hole, Beck, Sonic Youth, Cypress Hill, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, etc) – George, WA – 1995
• Tenacious D**** – Roseland Theater, Portland – 2000
• The Dead Milkmen – The Station, Orlando – 1994
• Violent Femmes – La Luna, Portland – 1998
• Beastie Boys – Rose Garden, Portland – 1998
• Porno for Pyros – La Luna, Portland – 1996
• Belly (with Radiohead) – Visage, Orlando – 1993
• Nirvana (with The Breeders) – Lakeland Civic Arena, Tampa – 1993
• Lenny Kravitz (with Blind Melon) – The Edge, Orlando – 1993
• Stone Temple Pilots***** – Lakewood Amphitheater, Atlanta – 1994
• The Kids in the Hall****** – Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver BC – 2000

So there, kids. In case you ever find this site, there’s some proof that your old man used to be kinda sorta close to being cool. Ish. Back before music started to suck. And when we used to use cassette tapes and CDs. Now get off my lawn and turn on Matlock.

*Not the living in the streets kind of homeless, more the dirty hippie kind… the ones that have no job or no permanent residence and bounce from couch to couch feeding off the kindness of friends and strangers.

Except I showered.

And I hate Phish.

And the Dead.

**Let’s be clear on this one. This isn’t an early indicator of a pending midlife crisis or some desperate yearning for the “glory days.” I’m very happy with the family side of things and love the idea of getting my Ward Cleaver on. I think a lot of us Gen Xers are thrilled to be able to be the parents we often didn’t have.

***Also remember seeing, in no particular order (and with no supporting evidence):

• The Ramones (with Frank Black) – The Edge, Orlando – Date Unknown
• Beck (with Sonic Youth) – Champoeg State Park, Salem – Date Unknown
• George Clinton and P-Funk All Stars – La Luna, Portland – Date Unknown
• Soul Coughing – Washington Park Rose Garden, Portland – Date Unknown
• Dan Zanes (2) – Aladdin Theater, Portland – 2007, 2008

I’m sure I’m missing a few here, too… Probably more than a few that I’d be ashamed to admit, even if I still had the stubs…

****Saw The D another time at Berbati’s Pan in Portland a few years earlier. Got to meet Jack Black and Kyle Gass before the show, and would have had the chance to go to the after-party with them if my roommate/designated driver hadn’t been so drunk that he fell and broke his wrist… Selfish prick.

*****Tried to go to their show in Orlando a few months previous, but ended up getting kicked out after I got in a fight with someone. Details for another day, but rest assured that I’m totally not That Guy. Freak circumstance.

******Ok, not a concert. But fuck it, it was fun.

See, last night, the Boy and I caught the 8pm Iron Man at the local cinamegaplex and here I am, twelve hours later, still geeking the fuck out.

Oh, quick sidebar? Odds are, this here post’ll probably* be full of spoilers from the movie. At the very least, I’ll have to bring up the short sequence that rolls after the credits.

Ok, so first thought? Robert Downey, Jr. IS Tony Stark. I don’t mean “is” as in “plays the part of,” either. I mean is is.

He’s brilliant in the role. You know how they always talk about how difficult it is to act in a CGI-heavy movie, that even “good” actors (talking to you, Portman and Christensen) have a hard time working in front of a green screen and/or exchanging witty banter with something that won’t be added until post-production? RDJr has debunked that theory for good.

Half of the man’s scenes involve working with inanimate objects, with shit ILM will add later, and/or at an extreme closeup with the suit’s heads-up display projected onto his grill. And he pulls it all off smashingly.

(Which is all the better for me, because I rarely get to use the word “smashingly.”)

Sure, there are a couple little plot holes (um, the Afghan guerrillas watching him day and night in his make-shift cave lab don’t know something’s amiss when his “missile” includes a faceplate?), but who cares? Everything else about the flick is so good that you can easily overlook those little problems.

My only real problem with that movie doesn’t really have anything to do with the money itself…

After the credits roll, there’s a brief (like one minuteish) sequence in which Tony, having just announced to the world that he IS Iron Man, returns to his fancy pants Malibu home to find a stranger waiting. Of course, we recognize the voice right away (even if there’s no mention of muthafuckin’ snakes on muthafuckin’ planes) and, sure enough, see Samuel L. Jackson step out of the shadows and introduces himself as…

Oh, fuck, I can hardly say it…

Samuel L. Jackson is Nick Fury?!? WTF??

Mace Windu aside, I dig Jackson. I like the man and I generally like his movies. But what jackass decided that this guy:

Should play this guy:

Yes, I know that the Marvel people already bastardized the man in their Ultimate Universe, but something tells me that they did it specifically so SLJ could be cast in the role down the line. It’s a travesty, much worse that Starbuck getting the estrogen treatment.

Seriously. Hasselhoff made a more believable Nick Fury than Jackson will. Then again, doesn’t Hasselhoff make just about anything better?

One last, quasi-related side note…

The Boy’s education continued this weekend with a double-feature. Silja made him watch Billy Elliott in the morning, and I forced him to sit through Die Hard Sunday night. Have to admit that the latter doesn’t hold up as well as I’d hoped. Still essential viewing (if for no other reason than to make sure I don’t have to explain why I want this sweatshirt), though.

By the way, I should clarify my “education” of the Boy… Aaron mentioned in the comments of another post something about me making the Boy ‘watch man movies,’ which made me realize that I might not have been very clear about my intent.

Yes, some of the movies that I’ve thrown at him have included more than their fare share of testosterone, but that’s not really what I’m going for here. Not trying to “toughen him up” or anything like that. It’s just that, at his age, the action-oriented flicks will be more interesting for him. In a year or two, we’ll move to the Casablancas, Godfathers, and Annie Halls of the world.

Up next? One word: KHhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!

*As with all the crap I throw at you folks, this is pretty much unedited stream-of-consciousness. I don’t know where we’re going until we get there, either.

Lot of synchronicity surrounding me and that word, too. First time I learned it, I was in my high school library, looking up naughty words in the dictionary. Somewhere between ‘fag’ and ‘fuck,’ Webster used ‘flibbertigibbet’ as a guide word.

The next period, I headed over to my Shakespeare class. I sat down, pulled out my copy of King Lear, flipped to Act III, Scene IV and saw this:

Edgar

This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins
at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives
the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the
hare-lip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the
poor creature of earth.

Fucking synchronicity, my friends.

Now fast forward to the post I wrote the other day called “Flibbertigibbet.” When I typed that, I was only thinking about the fact that my writing was all over the place, that I sounded like a “flighty, light-headed person.”

Coincidentally, that post ended with a reference to my stepson’s part in his school’s production of The Sounds of Music. It wasn’t until after I hit the Publish button that I realized that Hammerstein’s nuns sing it when describing that wacky chick, Maria (even though my wife’s pointed it out to me about 8 millions times in the past):

How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Maria?
A flibbertigibbet! A will-o’-the wisp! A clown!

Again, fucking synchronicity.

By the way, I saw the VSAA production this weekend and was definitely impressed. Yes, it’s a high/middle school production, but it’s an ARTS high/middle school for Christ’s sake. Some of these kids have some talent.

Sure, the acting was a little wooden at times* (again, teenagers), but the singing? Fucking angelic. Just about everyone in the cast had an amazing voice.

And special props to the young woman who played Maria. And the Mother Abbess. And Liesl. And the entire choir of several dozen Nuns (especially the ones who sang the aforementioned “Maria”).

I was especially jealous of the tech work. When we did Hamlet in high school, we had a 3/4 round stage setup in the school cafeteria with nothing but a single curtain** for a backdrop and two thrones for a set. That’s it.

At VSAA, they have a very nice theater with an impressive sound system. Plus, their stage included a large, rotating section with a staircase on one side for the interior scenes and a stone wall on the other for those in the exterior/abbey.

Oh, and we can’t forget the band, hidden just off stage right. They were fantastic, too.

Seriously, including the cast, band, choir, and tech people? They easily had a hundred students involved in the production, possibly more.

I defy you to go see their version and not find yourself singing the songs for the rest of the night. Seriously. Buy your tickets now. Support my boy’s school. Don’t make me have to choke a bitch.

*Couple of big exceptions to that wooden rule: the young man who played Max Detweiler and the young woman who played Elsa Schraeder. Both were great.

**Fuck that curtain. During one performance, I accidentally pulled the whole thing down when Hamlet stabbed me. Thankfully, the people in attendance thought it was part of the act. And, being dead and all, I didn’t have to show my face again until the curtain call.

So after Ani went to bed last night, we tackled our woes the American way: with booze. Oh, alcohol! Is there any problem you can’t solve? After a wee dram of Scotch, things started looking up in the world.

(And Chris, to answer your question from last week? No, I hadn’t tried The Macallan. Not until last night, anyway. Very nice.)

I finally had a chance to sit the Boy down and force him to watch one of the best scifi movies ever, and, as I’d hoped, he seemed to give it the props it deserves. Always love it when 20+ year old movies manager to live up to expectations. Sure, the hair, music, and some of the effects look a little dated, but you seriously can’t go wrong with lines like this:

REESE
Listen. And understand. That terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

Ok, so that’s a great example of “lines that suck on the page but that kick hard fucking ass when delivered.” Whatever. Point is, Ren seemed to enjoy it for the most part, which means that I shouldn’t have any problems getting him primed for T2 (which I’ve totally been jonesing for ever since I mentioned it the other day).

Quick sidebar… How is it that the biggest action heroes of the 80s had the pussiest names ever? Would you really be afraid if someone in high school told you that “Arnold” was looking for you, or that “Sylvester” was totally going to kick your ass later?

And “Bruce?” Big fat ‘mo name.

But even The Macallan and The Terminator can’t compete with the call we got this morning.

Quick background for those of you out of the loop…

Anikka, our four-year-old daughter and the sweetest thing EVER, was born with a fairly large congenital nevus on her left cheek. Basically, the thing is like a birthmarky-mole hybrid that, in addition to the looks/comments, comes with a slightly increased risk for melanoma.*

For the last several years, we’ve debated what to do about it. We considered “nothing,” but the cancer risk coupled with the reactions from other kids (and ass-hat adults)* convinced us that wasn’t the best route.

So we tried various laser therapies with a great doctor in Sacramento, but, after about a half dozen or so procedures, we gave up. The costs were adding up pretty quickly (airfare for 3 to Sacramento + rental car + missed day of work every month + $500 per procedure for each zappin’), and the whole process was just plain exhausting. Imagine walking everyone up at 4am, flying to California, driving directly to the doctor, drugging your toddler, restraining her as strangers come at her face with lasers, driving back to the airport, and flying home with a little girl who’s had a really rough day and missed her nap… Now imagine doing that every month. See? Pooped.

Plus, the results just weren’t all that encouraging.

Now we’re at the final option: surgery. Or, rather, surgeries. Probably 3-6 out-patient procedures up in Seattle, during which they’ll knock our princess out, cut out small sections of the nevus, sew her back together, and wait six months for things to heal before repeating the process. That starts May 20.

Let’s just pretend that we’re not completely freaked the fuck out about the whole surgery idea, we still had to worry about the monetary angle. See, the insurance companies’ default positions on this is that “Until it turns into cancer, it’s considered ‘cosmetic.’ And we don’t cover cosmetic procedures. Come back to us when she’s dying.”

Fuckwads.

But… here’s where we finally get back to that call I mentioned:

We found out this morning that our insurance company WILL actually cover it. Furthermore, the hospital in Seattle and the doctor we met are considered part of the insurance company’s network.

You can’t see me right now, but I smile just thinking about that.

We’ve been sweating that for a few years now, having read all sorts of horror stories from others who’ve gone through this and having received less-than-optimistic answers from a couple of doctors we stalked. To officially hear that they’re coming through? Fucking rocks.

That pretty much means that the insurance company will pay for 90% of the costs, outside of our $500 deductible and $1000 annual max. Now compare that to the $20-30k we were expecting to have to cover out of our own pockets. Hot fucking damn.

Of course, it’s not all sunshines and rainbows. We still have to actually drive our daughter up to Seattle and hand her over to strangers in masks who plan to knock her unconscious and cut out pieces of her face…

And that idea makes me piddle.

*Some kids are rotten, but the adults are the worst. One actually came up to her in a Safeway once, got up in her face, and screamed “What’s wrong with your face!?!” Fucking douche bags.