Welcome to the machine

Sometime in the mid-'90s I drove up to Toronto with a few friends to see what turned out to be an amazing Pink Floyd concert. The band played spectacularly, we had 10th row tickets, the summer air was warm enough to draw pleasant breezes off of Lake Ontario and through the ampitheater and the thing I remember most vividly about the night is what happened when we got back in the car after the concert's end. Ryan, a little clumsy in the backseat, spilled his Tim Horton's large double-double iced (two creams, two sugars, large iced coffee for those of you who don't speak Canadian barista) all over himself and the laps of the other two people in the back. Then he said the epically funny phrase: "Cool! That doesn't belong there!"

Poor Ryan was always a little klutzy and his non sequitorish attempt at levity probably didn't help the two hour drive home in wet denim all that much, but it was my car, and so I was in the driver's seat (and dry) - I laughed. A lot.

Stacey and I quoted Ryan for years whenever we witnessed a spill. I don't know where Stacey is now and I don't even remember Ryan's last name but whenever I hear Floyd I think, cool! That doesn't belong there!

I heard Shine on you crazy diamond on Thursday and I can't get it out of my head.

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The boy, he turned three weeks old yesterday and he's a ferocious beast. He eats like a child twice his age and growls and snorts like a Wild Thing to make Sendak proud and he has remarkable neck strength. He loves tummy time; he loves holding up his head to see the world.

So yesterday I was laying on my back and G was doing his tummy time on my tummy. He was doing his flamingo head-bob thing: up and down and up and down and up and he was grunting his usual grunts and I was smiling at him and cheering him on because the boy that comes after those two girls, he should find his inner ferociousness early and harness it often.

And because he can do this, he can lift his head way up, arc back, and crash down, {there's a look in your eyes like black holes in the sky} he did so repeatedly. I could tell you he was kissing me but it was more of letting his bocce-ball head fall against me only to pull it back and drop it on me again. He's a one-man wrecking crew intent on demolishing the elasticity I'm trying to regain in my abdominal skin.

I didn't mind, or course. It was adorable. It was accomplished. It was coordinated. It was delightful, until that one arc where he came down upon me with a mouthful of spit-up.

And as he splashed me and sprayed me and bobbed up again, self-satisfied grunt in his throat, I could only think cool! That doesn't belong there!