Operation Perky Bunny

I'm proud to report that this morning at 9:41 a.m. Operation Perky Bunny was officially launched, proving once and for all that there are no limits to how far one will go to distract oneself from the enormous vacuum of time that exists between the present and the future. Following is the five paragraph order.

Situation: Ethan's atresia surgery and Katie Couric's birthday fall on the same day, 1/7.

Mission:
A) Commander's Intent
1) To entice Katie Couric to come to Charlottesville, VA, on her birthday/Ethan's atresia surgery day
2) To raise awareness of atresia-microtia using the Katie Couric machine
3) To get Ethan on TV

Execution:
A) Badger, bother, bewilder
1) extend invitation. repeatedly
2) encourage others to do same
B) Bitch, bake, bribe
1) complain that ear/birthday cake will have been baked for naught
2) play "break our child's heart" card
3) play upon Stephanopoulos connection, peer pressure

Administration/Logistics: Cake procurement, excessive invitation issuance, Catholic guilt

Command and Control:
A) Autograph signing
B) Cocktail enjoyment/reminiscences
C) Copy of video for scrapbook

OK, E-Force. You have your orders. Now go get that Couric!

"I beg. I call. I badger. I cajole. Part of the secret is everyone has fun and that's really motivating." -- Katie Couric

2010: The Ear We Make Contact

70 Days Out.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a date for atresia repair surgery: Thursday, January 7, 2010.
Ronnie Bean (whom I love in a wholesome, non-oogy kinda way and whom I regret we will probably not get a chance to meet since Ronnie apparently works in a building far from gen pop. Which is sad for us. Not so much for Ronnie because we all know that people suck and who the hell wants to have to deal with them?) contacted me yesterday afternoon to ask if that date worked for us. We checked our calendars and nada, so we confirmed. Actually, the timing is great since the company Sandi and I work for just started offering an EPO Plus plan that takes effect January 1, 2010. The plan essentially pays for everything (remember that post about it costing us $1,000? Just forget that one) so I opted in because, well DUH! So in essence I'm giving our insurance company the day off from January 1 - 6. My little gift to them. I know, I'm a softy. After that though? Well, I'm thinking that unless the healthcare industry is indeed single-payer by then, with the atresia repair and the Medpor reconstruction and all I will probably be declared an enemy of the corporate state, extraordinarily rendered to some shithole Middle Eastern country and water-boarded until they run out of water. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Anyhoo, the way this trip should shake out is that we'll leave for Virginia Tuesday night, show up for a surgical consultation, maybe a hearing test on Wednesday, then Ethan is admitted on Thursday. The surgery should take 4 - 6 hours and Ethan will have to stay over night, but barring any complications, we can take him HOME FRIDAY! There will be a follow-up visit in either a week or a month (I can't remember which. I suck.), and then we're free to schedule the Medpor surgery with Dr. Lewin in California. We hope to get that procedure done around Spring break, or at least before summer begins. Seriously, I know it would be long-term gain, short-term loss, but the thought of having to keep Eth inside to heal while his friends are rampaging through the neighborhood during the summer isn't my ideal. Probably not his, either. Whatever. I'm probably being really naive about the time frame, but at least the first chord has been plunked on the great Zen banjo in the sky. This performance will be played in the key of January 7, thankyouverymuch.
But what's been most important/adorable has been Ethan's response. He's known that this was coming and he's been excited about it, but until now he hasn't had a firm date. Yesterday when I picked the boys up from school Ethan told me that one of his friends is going to DisneyWorld for Christmas this year and wouldn't it be great if we could go, wink wink. To which I replied, "well, sure, I guess that would be great. But I was thinking maybe we could do something a little different this year. Like get you a new ear."
Silence from the backseat. "Mommy and I heard from Dr. Brad and got a date for your surgery. We're going to spend the Christmas break hanging out together, then drive down to Virginia to meet Dr. Brad the following week and he can make it so you'll be able to hear with your little ear. What do you think?"
I looked in my rearview mirror to see Ethan grinning wildly -- and I mean WILDLY. That's an image I hope my mind never loses. Finally he said, "I think that's a good idea."
Through a slightly smaller grin he asked me if it will hurt. I told him he'll be asleep and that at worst it may be a little sore afterward, but that it's nothing a tough little monkey like him can't deal with. I hope like fuck I wasn't lying to him because the kid's got a memory like an elephant when it comes to stuff like this and I'm already destined to be the subject of many a therapy session. I also hope that his fascination with his new hearing will take his mind off the fact that daddy is a big, fat, lying jackass. Anyway I successfully changed the subject by reminding him that his friend will only get to take photos and t-shirts home from his Disney trip, while we'll get a new ear out of ours. And ears last longer than any t-shirt ever could. Believe me, I'm a guy and I went to a state college, which is to say that I may unknowingly hold the world's record for refusal to call time of death on a garment. To whit, most of the t-shirts in my drawers pre-date my kids -- some by 15 years. Seriously. But I still have the ears that used to pass through those ratty, frayed neckholes at least 3 times a week. So suck it, Disney boy!
Anyway, tangential thinker that I am, I wondered what other great moments occurred on January 7. A quick search on teh internets let me know that it also happens to be Katie Couric's birthday. Now, I'm not sure, but I think I have at least the germ of a life-altering idea. The details are a little fuzzy, but include Katie Couric coming to Virginia on operation day to meet Ethan and plaster his face all over the news, and maybe we have a surprise birthday cake shaped like an ear for her. The plan may or may not involve a piece of Ethan's ear sailing across Colorado in a home-made hot air balloon. Like I said, I'm still working out the details. Meanwhile, I'm going to go see if she's on Twitter so I can start feeling her out for 1/7. Keep your fingers crossed.
And wherever you happen to be on January 7, please do two things: 1) Try to send out as much good energy as you can for a very special little boy and 2) At some point in the day, imagine what it would be like for your child to hear for the very first time and smile with us.

"He was always sort of a scrappy little kid, wasn't he? A bit of a fighter?" -- Katie Couric

Love in the Time of Hollera

At one point during the past week I was absolutely certain that the CIA was somehow behind the H1N1 Virus. I was also pretty sure we owned several tiny purple horses that only revealed themselves in certain light and loved to have their bellies scratched.
I don't believe that what I've been trying to shake is Swine Flu, but I'm keeping my over-stuffed head down and trying not to cough on people -- people I like -- just in case. Whatever this is, it's vicious. I had a flu shot a few weeks ago, and the mental images of this new bug bending that virus over and making it its bitch are among the more pleasant things that have passed through my head of late. Seriously, it's like the scenes from "Lockdown" that they couldn't show on TV being played out in my bloodstream. And amid all the bacteriological anal rape, reality seems to have returned to the uncollapsed wave function and I am no longer able to reliably discern the real from the imagined. So I figure I'll just throw some stuff out there and let you decide whether it really happened or not.

- I think I had a telephone interview for a job I really wanted during which I told the woman interviewing me that I wanted to wear pajamas to work every day. "You know how they say to dress for the job you want? Well, I want to work from home. Or be Hugh Hefner. And frankly, pajamas are a huge concession considering I sleep in the nude and would have to buy new office jammies." I think I also used profanity, said that Human Resources departments should be renamed "don't sue us" departments and suggested that my management style was very relaxed and non-negotiable. "Yeah, as long as you get your stuff done, I don't give a shit if you come in 2 days a year wearing a tiara. What am I, your fuckin' babysitter?" So far I haven't received a call-back so I can't be sure if this really happened.
- I think Sandi and I had a date. I believe we went to dinner at a really nice restaurant, then went to see Lewis Black. I think I dropped Sandi off at the front door, then parked 3 blocks away from the theater and walked in the pouring rain. The next morning my clothes were still wet, so this probably happened. Which is great, because both dinner and the show were freakin' awesome.
- I think I solved for Pi.
- I think George Harrison sat by my bedside laughing and calling me "Eddie in the Sky With Diamonds."
- I think the fungus growing on the north side of our house tearfully begged me not to powerwash it away.
- I think Ethan stayed home from school one day because he wasn't feeling well and the school would no doubt shoot that look of disapproval they always shoot us when we do something wrong.
- I think on the day he stayed home he had his first real diarrhea episode. I vaguely remember running to the bathroom because he was in such a panic only to find that he'd locked the door. I think I begged with him to tell me what the problem was, and I think his response was a quiet, quivery "Water is coming out of my butt." I believe I got him to open the door and assured him that there was nothing wrong with him -- that it happens to EVERYbody some time.
- I think he then pulled out several flip charts and a PowerPoint presentation to illustrate how rare this actually is among 5-year-olds.
- I think I'm perhaps at my most delusional when I believe myself to be a good dad.
- I think I testified before Congress in favor of a single payer system.
- I think I actually believed that Ted Danson sent me an e-mail asking me personally for help raising money for the Clinton Foundation. And I replied all like, "George Clinton? I LOVE P-Funk! Do you think they'd come to my house and jam? I know all the words to 'Do Fries Go With That Shake?'"
- I think we had a Halloween party at our house for a few dozen of Thomas' and Ethan's school friends. I'm pretty sure this actually happened because the house was still totally destroyed as of this morning. However, there are several details of the party that seem just too surreal to all be true:

• parents of 5- and 6-year-olds who have never met you before will just drop their kids off at your house and leave to "run errands" for 4 hours;
• Sandi can not be that freakin' bad at math that she would ever imagine the appropriate amount of food to feed 25 kids and a handful of parents is 5 party-size pizzas, roughly 6 feet worth of assorted subs, 6-gallons of punch, 15 dozen cookies, 10 pounds of assorted candy, 4 trays of hot hors d'oeuvres, a case of beer, 3 cases of soda, 2 large bags of chips with dip, a 3-gallon drum of cheesy poofs, 2 large bags of pretzels, 2 cases of chocolate milk, 3 large blocks of assorted cheeses, 1 vegetable tray, 1 fruit tray, 8 cases of flavored water and whatever one could find in our pantry;
• some little girl grabbed one of the boys' Nerf swords and smacked me in the legs for at least 2 hours straight;
• the little kid who kissed Ethan in school is much worse than I ever imagined;
• kids only seem to want the toys at the bottom of the storage bins;
• buying a drum set for Christmas last year was a really bad idea;
• parents who drop their kids off at your party then return to pick them up 4 hours later will actually think it's OK to say to you, "Man, you're pretty brave" or something equally asinine;
• Some of those same parents will not understand why you're telling the little bitch with the Nerf sword to smack them until they bleed;
  
• nobody will eat cookies shaped like fingers with almond sliver/fingernails held in place with red gel;
• kids don't flush.

"Picture yourself on a bed with a fever, and George Harrison is mocking your high. Suddenly small purple ponies with chalkboards are helping you solve for pi." -- George Harrison's Ghost