Gila Monster glamour shots

Every night when we go to bed, we watch TV for a while, usually the previous night's DVR'd Jon Stewart. Then we turn out the lights and I badger Jay to tell me a story. Sometimes, if I'm having a hard time falling asleep, he'll tell me about some really boring (like there's any other kind) computer programming feature. The old stand-by is polymorphism. Jay has described polymorphism to me at least a hundred times, and I still don't know what it is. Insomniacs, take note: this is a sure-fire way to fall instantly to sleep. Of course, this only works if you are married to a computer nerd. Yay, me!

When I'm not desperate enough to hear about polymorphism, another frequent bed-time story topic is Gila monsters (pronounced HEE-la). This subject first came up when Jay was describing to me all the dangerous creatures who live in the Arizona desert. He told me all about scorpions, black widows, diamondback rattlesnakes, rabid groundhogs and foxes, killer bees, and then of course the noble and very fearsome Gila monster. I was not familiar with the Gila monster, and was eager to hear all about this delightfully-named creature.

Jay said that it's a giant, venomous lizard that is rarely seen. But when it is seen, it is often too late, because at that point it's clamped on to some poor, unsuspecting hiker's leg and refusing to let go. Like, ever.

Ever?

EVER.

The thing is, Jay continued, to get the Gila's vice-like jaws off of your leg, you have to go to the hospital WITH THE GILA MONSTER STILL ATTACHED (are you hearing this, people?! listen up!), and then the doctors will use brute force to pry the lizard off of you. This should not be tried without medical assistance due to the dangerous venom, and the fact that you might rip the Gila off with the jaws and teeth still embedded in your leg. Um, ouch.

Now he really had my attention. You have to go to the hospital with the damn thing attached?

Yes. And apparently everybody in Arizona knows this, and there are Gila removal kits designed just for this purpose.

I pressed him for every last tidbit of Gila information he had, and then I fell asleep thinking of this remarkable creature, and how badly I wanted never to encounter one. In the following weeks, I made Jay re-tell the story of the Gila monster again and again.

At some point I exhausted Jay's knowledge of the Gila, and decided to do some more research on my own. It turns out Jay was sort of, but not entirely, right about all of this. For instance, I never did come across any mention of the Gila removal kits. But the rest of what he said was pretty much right, enough so to make the Gila my new favorite scary animal.

A few scintillating facts about the Gila Monster:

• The Gila Monster is the only venomous lizard native to the United States, and is also the largest lizard in the United States.
• It has earned a fearsome reputation, and is often killed by hikers and homeowners, despite the fact that it is protected by state law in Arizona and Nevada; it is illegal to "harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect the Gila monster."
• There has never been a human death by Gila monster, but it will bite to the bone if harassed. (Eek!)
• The Gila monster eats infrequently, but when it does feed, it may eat up to one-third of its body mass. (Sounds a bit like me at Cantina La Casita.)
• Prey may be crushed to death if large or eaten alive if small.
• When the Gila bites, it bites hard and hangs on with bulldog tenacity.
• If you are bitten by a Gila monster the most important thing is to remove the lizard as quickly as possible, which is not necessarily an easy thing. If you have water available a good tactic is to submerge the animal so that it will release its grip in order to breathe. Other remedies include wrapping a towel or shirt around the animal's head to frighten it into releasing the bite. If all else fails, use a stick to pry the jaws open. (!!!)

In summary, this is an animal not to be trifled with. Beware the Gila monster.

Oh, and last but not least, it's worth mentioning that various sources refer to the Gila Monster, gila monster, or Gila monster; there seems to be no consistent standard of capitalization. So I'm taking the footloose-and-fancy-free approach, and capitalizing or not as the mood strikes. Roll with it.
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That's what this sign SHOULD say, but I didn't come up with the idea. Someone else did. Which is rather unfortunate. Right at this moment, I should be plastering Sammy posters all over town.

Thanks to Shannon for passing this along.
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I keep coming across interesting articles and intending to blog about them. Now there's a big stack of newspapers on my desk, and the news stories are getting more stale by the day, yet I never get around to writing the posts. In an attempt to start in on the backlog...

Here's one. It's the story of a 25 year old guy in Georgia who failed to properly register as a sex offender for the second time. His punishment? Life in prison. Gotta love mandatory sentencing laws.

Especially interesting is the list of crimes in Georgia that require a life sentence:

• Feticide
• Hijacking motor vehicle (second offense) or aircraft
• Kidnapping with bodily injury or for ransom
• Murder
• Failure to register as a sex offender (second offense)

You know on Sesame Street how Big Bird does that thing called "which of these things is not like the others?" That's what that list reminds me of.

Anyway, the article brings to mind a number of (largely rhetorical) questions:

1) Mainly: how can legislators be so cruel as to pass a law like this? And how can they sleep at night when they hear a story like this one?

2) How can the prosecutor and judge be so cruel as to carry out the sentence? They say there are no exceptions in the law, but a quick look at the case makes it pretty clear this isn't what the law had in mind. There are always exceptions to the law.

3) Life is full of nuanced situations and gray areas, so when are we going to stop casting such a wide net in our efforts to punish people? All "sex offenders" are not alike. Some are horny young men with bad judgment -- in some cases, teens having consensual sex with other teens that are a few years younger (fortunately some states are passing Romeo-Juliet laws to deal with these situations). Others are sick deviants who are a real danger to society. We should have laws that deal with both types of people, but one punishment can't possibly be appropriate for every case.

4) Last but not least, I can't help but wonder: why do all of these insane cases (this case, the Genarlow Wilson case, etc.) seem to happen in Georgia? It's bad enough that our governor is famous for praying for rain on the Capitol steps. And that the Cobb County (Atlanta suburb) school board put stickers in textbooks reminding students that evolution is "just a theory." But Georgia really seems to go the extra mile when it comes to reminding the country how backwards our state is, as evidenced by consistently making headlines with these embarrassing miscarriage-of-justice stories.

Hopefully the Georgia Supreme Court will right this wrong, but in the meantime, this son-of-a-bitch is sitting in prison for life. It's not right.
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This morning we were watching Beverly Hills Cop on Bravo, and we had a moment of divine inspiration.

We'll name our new baby boy Axel, as in Axel Foley.

It's short and simple yet off-the-beaten-path, and most importantly it is an anagram of Alex.

Then we'll have another child, a girl, and we'll name her Xela (pronounced Shay-lah), yet another anagram. And also a town in Guatemala that Jay has great affection for.

Alex, Axel and Xela Sandhaus. Problem solved.

And there's still room for expansion. If we decide to have a fourth child, assuming it's a girl, we can name her Lexa. If it's a boy, he'll unfortunately be stuck with Leax. Admittedly not such a good name, but what do you expect by the time you get to your fourth kid. Any way you look at it, you're scrounging around for name leftovers at that point.

I initially wanted to bestow palindromic names on all of our children -- Otto, Anna, Bob, Hannah, Ava, Eve -- but Jay voted Otto down, and neither of us were ga-ga over Bob. So that plan fell apart. My father is the master of palindromes, and would have been so proud. Sorry to disappoint, Pops.

Oh, and finally an update on the babycenter.com what-food-does-your-baby-resemble front. Last night's 39 week email said of our baby, "it's likely he already measures about 20 inches and weighs a bit over 7 pounds, a mini watermelon." A leek sounds a lot easier to deliver than a mini-watermelon, but I do enjoy watermelon, particularly in the height of summer. And I'm relieved to hear it's a mini-watermelon.
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You know who I like? Brian Williams. Have you seen him on talk shows and SNL and stuff? He's really smart, but also down-to-earth and funny. I like him about a thousand times more than Tom Brokaw and Ted Koppel, both of whom are totally dullsville. Greatest Generation blah blah blah, that guy is so boring. And Ted Koppel was on Jon Stewart the other night, and bleah, also quite yawn-worthy.

And I gather that Brian Williams is taking Russert's spot on Meet the Press, yes? Or is that temporary? I did a very quick search but can't tell for sure. Anyway, I think he would make a good choice, but maybe he's too busy with being head guy on the NBC Nightly News.

Ooh, the wikipedia entry has an interesting tidbit about Brian Williams. Did you know he doesn't have a college degree?

After high school, he attended Brookdale Community College, before transferring to George Washington University, and then to the Catholic University of America.[6] He did not graduate, instead taking an internship with the administration of President Jimmy Carter. He now calls leaving college one of his "great regrets." In 2004, he returned to Catholic University and gave the commencement address, and in 2008 he received an honorary Doctor of Journalism degree from Ohio State University.

Who woulda thunk it.
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When I read The New Yorker, I always play a little game. As I'm reading the first Talk of the Town essay, which is a column called "Comment" covering politics and society, I try to guess if it was written by Hendrik Hertzberg. For those of you who aren't familiar with old Hendrik, he is the super-smart political commentator who writes many, but not all, of the Talk of the Town Comment essays. I can almost always guess when it's a Hendrik column because he has this very specific writing style; it's crisp and concise, and he manages to say an enormous amount in an amazingly small number of words.

He also is just smarter than the other contributors. I almost always read a sentence in the first paragraph or two (and sometimes it's literally the first sentence of the essay) that makes me think, "Yep, it's a Hendrik column," and then I flip to the next page to see if I'm right, and I am about 98% of the time. Then sometimes I read the first paragraph or two, and a sentence strikes me as ever-so-slightly sloppy -- well, that may be a bit harsh since the New Yorker writing is almost always good -- but the writing is just not quite Hendrik-esque -- not tight enough or not especially insightful, and then I say to myself "No way this is Hendrik" and I check the byline on the next page, and am usually tickled with myself for being right.

This week's June 30 New Yorker has the most glaringly non-Hendriky Talk of the Town I've ever seen. The first few paragraphs were okay, not stellar, but I wasn't placing my Hendrik-or-not-Hendrik wager until I got to this part, which sort of shocked me:

Still, sixteen months after announcing his candidacy, and after twenty-six Presidential debates and thousands of public-speaking engagements, Obama remains a puzzle to many voters. Almost as dedicated a policy wonk as Hillary Clinton and arguably more centrist in his economic beliefs, he offers plenty of specifics about what needs to be done.

Um, what??? Did I read that correctly? Obama is "almost as dedicated a policy wonk as Hillary"? And he "offers plenty of specifics"? Obama is many things -- inspirational, engaging, fresh, exciting, attractive to lots of people, particularly young voters -- but he is not a policy wonk, nor is he offering lots of specific solutions.

Don't get me wrong, I like the guy and would be happy to have him as our president, but these characterizations of him are just, well, wrong. I read that sentence and thought to myself, "This is the single most un-Hendrik-like sentence I have ever encountered." And sure enough, I flipped to the next page and it was written by Dorothy Wickenden. I don't know who she is, but she's not important enough to have her own Wikipedia page, so she can't be all that.

Anyway, for you New Yorker subscribers, I highly recommend the Hendrik Hertzberg game. For non-subscribers, you should subscribe asap. My dad got me a subscription back in college, and has renewed it again and again, so I think I'm signed up until, like, 2015 or something. Poor Hendrik will probably be long gone by the time my subscription runs out.

Oh, and last but not least, there are zero updates on the uterine front. That baby is still hanging out in there, doing crossword puzzles and stuff, but no signs of any excitement since a couple of days ago. Sigh. On the bright side, tomorrow I'll be 39 weeks pregnant, and I'll get the babycenter.com email update that tells me what kind of vegetable the baby resembles now. So that's something to look forward to.
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Left work early today due to mysterious activity in the abdominal and lower back region. Strange pain and discomfort of a crampy nature, although who knows what that means. After obsessive amounts of googling, I have concluded that this could be anything or nothing, most likely the latter. Well, not completely nothing, but just "pre-labor" activities that get the body ready for the real thing. And that could come in days or weeks. There just ain't no way of knowing. Hello, I am a watched pot, and I ain't boiling. Although maybe I'm starting to simmer...

When I was pregnant with Alex, I never went into labor so I have no idea at all what it's like. I went into the hospital at 41 weeks to be induced, ended up with an emergency c-section, and was holding our baby half an hour later. This time around I'm hoping to actually go into labor like a normal person. Although, we don't get to choose how this stuff happens, so I'm trying to ratchet down expectations and take it as it comes.

Luckily Sammy is serving as an attentive home midwife, er midhusband?, curling up in whatever room I'm in, usually in an organic fruit box on my desk, and being generally magnificent.
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Proud owner of his very own workstation

One nice thing about this time around is that there hasn't been a whole lot to do to get ready for the new baby. Bring down the bins of baby clothes from the upstairs storage closet, install the infant cat seat, and that's about it. That's an upside to a second baby; it's a lot more low-key and easy than the first baby experience, which involves mind-boggling numbers of checklists and shopping lists and so forth.

So I've pretty much been sitting around on my fat duff watching tv -- mainly gymnastics Olympic trials, Jon & Kate Plus 8, and Living Lohan (yes, I'm ashamed) -- and eating chicken philly sandwiches with more mayonnaise than you can shake a stick at. But it occurred to me today that I should catch up on some computer housekeeping: uploading the latest batch of pics, which covers the last four months (notice the timespans keep getting longer and longer), upload the pics to ofoto.com so I can order prints (I know, so quaint, right?), update the Alex graphic on the gallery index page with a newer photo, and so on.

And miracle of miracles, I'm actually accomplishing some of this stuff. Here's the latest gallery of Alex pics covering 17-21 months. Plus some random other stuff thrown in, of course.

Yesterday I hit the 38 week point in my pregnancy. Babycenter.com tells me that my baby is now the length of a leek. A leek! And if this kid is shaped anything like a leek, labor is going to be a breeze.

Speaking of labor, we're hoping to do things the, um, old-fashioned way this time around, rather than having a repeat c-section. We'll see what happens, though, since who knows how it'll all play out. As of last week, the baby was breech but the doc manually flipped him into a head-down position by doing an "external version." When I recover from the pain and psychological trauma of that procedure, I'll post something about it. Until then, I'll just say OUCH.

Tomorrow we find out if the leek stayed put. I'm hopeful since the kicks seem to be going in the right direction at this point, but all we can do now is wait.
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Yeah, I know, it took me 8 1/2 months to get around to posting a preggers pic. But we hadn't taken any until today. You know how it goes: the first kid gets a preggers pic every few weeks, the cute baby book, and baby photos every six minutes or so. The second kid gets, well, one preggers pic a week or two before he pops out, a yearly photo after that, and hand-me-downs out the yin yang. Oh, and no bedroom to call his own, just a crib stuck in a cobwebby corner of the hallway. Goes with the territory of being a second, right? It'll build character, I say.

Anyway, for those of you who don't live in Atlanta, here's photographic proof that this pregnancy isn't fictional.


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We still do not have a name for our soon-to-be born son, and it's getting down to the wire.

The other day Jay and I were eating hummus and carrots. The brand name of the hummus was Sabra, and I pointed out that it was a pretty good name for something. Say, a person or cat or goldfish. Since then it's come up a couple of times, so Jay sent me the wikipedia link which describes it as follows:

Sabra (Hebrew: ????) is a term used to describe a native-born Israeli Jew.[1] The word is derived from the Hebrew name for the prickly pear cactus, i.e. "tzabar". The allusion is to a tenacious, thorny desert plant with a thick hide that conceals a sweet, softer interior, i.e., rough and masculine on the outside, but delicate and sensitive on the inside.

I'm very much enjoying the part about "tough on the outside but sweet on the inside." Dontcha know a lot of people and animals like that? A certain Sammy Sandhaus comes to mind...oh, that is one remarkable cat!

And I think the meaning could apply nicely to the right kind of person, too. However, the second meaning -- a native-born Israeli Jew -- won't really apply to our son.

Besides, as Jay points out, Sabra Sandhaus is sort of a tough name.

Back to the drawing board.
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