Unprepared Dan battles Diapers, The Donald and the Appliance Warrior

The week began with a question:

“Can you do it? Nazy asked.

“Of course I can!” I lied.

“I’ll be in San Francisco for a week, Dan. You will be in charge of the house in Santa Barbara.”

“I think I can manage it, Nazy.”

“You will be taking care of Monster the cat and Jamsheed, the grand(est)son.”

“I know how to do that!” I replied indignantly. “
All by myself?” I thought, “I’ll die.”

“Don’t die.”

The family Halloween 2015

“I wouldn’t think of it. Why are you going?”

“Shahriar broke his ankle. He’s just getting back to work and I want to help him adjust.”

“Yes, well…”

“He said that he isn’t the right age to break a bone.”

“Is there a right age?” I replied. “I broke my wrist when I was 15 and that wasn’t….”

“Let’s get practical, Dan. Do you know where I keep the diapers?”

“Diapers?” I gasped as I began to internalize the bleak reality of the week to come.

Brandishing a diaper, Nazy continued to instruct: “Do you remember how…”

“ … who can forget?” I interrupted.

Shahriar’s house in San Francisco, like Melika’s in Santa Barbara, is in the midst of renovation. There are other similarities:

“Work at Shahriar’s started as a project to fix a leaky roof,” Nazy explained.

“That is a necessity in San Francisco during an El Nino year,” I replied.

“Then they decided that since they were ;already in there’, they would do a few repairs on the terrace.”

“That makes sense,” I replied. “
Sense?” I thought. “That’s like a dentist performing a root canal deciding that he’ll do a kidney transplant since he’s ‘already’ in there.”

“There has been significant cost overrun,” Nazy hammered on.

“Is Shahriar using Melika’s contractor,” I replied. Slowly and expensively

While Nazy was up north, I was able to continue my studies in Chaos Theory by stopping at Melika’s (under construction) home. For the last several weeks, things have been stalled in the kitchen. When Tom and Mel chose a specular oven/stove for the new kitchen, no one told them that there would be problems installing the hood/vent. By problems, I mean new holes in the roof, kitchen sink relocation, cabinet moves and the like. You can, therefore, imagine my surprise when I stopped by on Tuesday and saw a worker finishing up the vent.

“You did it!” I exclaimed. “That vent has been a major challenge.”

dan and Tiger

“Not any more,” the worker replied. “It’s installed.”

“Wow!” I said (almost) speechless.

“It’s done because: I am the Appliance Warrior.”

“May The Force be with you.” I replied. “
That man — weird, he is.” I thought, consulting my inner Yoda.

I am sure that you’re wondering how well I coped with my challenging solo babysitting assignment. It started on Monday when the baby outsmarted me by refusing to take his afternoon nap.

On Tuesday, I took him to his Music Lesson Costume Party. (We were both cowboys.) He took a good - i.e. a
long nap. We went to the zoo where he marveled at the meerkats, penguins and rabbits and exuded nonchalant boredom in the direction of the elephants.

Wednesday was totally trouble-free when Melika and Yari (the nanny) took full responsibility and 100% of child care time.

Thursday, October 29th was National Cat Day. (I am not making that up.) It was also a day of trail and tribulation. It was, in short, the day that I had full responsibility for the grand(est) son … from 9:00AM until 8:00PM. It was the kind of day that tests the sinews of grand fatherhood, a day filled with Armageddon-esque challenge.

After breakfast with Tiger and Melika, I took the lad to the library Kids Korner. I was reading Tiger a book when nature called him. Astute readers undoubtedly know that a 16 month old baby wearing a diaper has little interest (and less skill) in controlling bodily functions. A prepared caretaker would have had appropriate materials to cope with the smelly mess. I rank low on the prepared caretaker metric.

After his nap, I took him to the old carousel, the duck pond (‘little water&rsquoWinking and the ocean (‘big water&rsquoWinking. Astonishingly, there was another call of nature while we were at the ocean, during low tide, far from the car. Once again, lessons from Boy Scouts (“Be Prepared&rdquoWinking had been not been utilized. I called Nazy (with a crying baby in the backseat) as I rushed home to deal with the, eh, situation.

He is doing this on purpose,” I thought. Testily.
Trump 2

He repeated this less than pleasant) approach when I took him, er, attempted to take him, to lunch the next day. Subsequently, during our walk downtown, he decided that he wouldn’t ride in the stroller, he didn’t want to be carried, he wouldn’t walk holding hands and he didn’t find it necessary to watch where he was going. Unfortunately, in a gesture of touching naiveté’, I had brought stroller - and a large diaper bag. This encumberment made chasing him down tricky.

Mitra came up to Santa Barbara for Halloween. Tom and Melika had a western horse costume that made driving tricky. Nevertheless, they ditched the cowboy costume for the grand(est)son. The backup plan was a Donald Trump outfit. There was just one problem…

“Do you think he’ll be able to act like an infantile moron?” I asked.

“He’ll be great, Dad.” Melika replied. “He’ll be surrounded by
great people with great ideas because he’s a great negotiator. He wants to make America great again.”

“That’s great.”

Balancing the equestrian theme with a feline counter, Mitra was a Tiger and Nazy a cat.

Finally please check out
mitramartin.com and stefanfabry.com. These websites are amazing! Enjoy.

For last week's letter, click here

The Donald, Tom and Melika
Trump and Horse

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