Forbidden Planet

For those who don't know, Montreal is the largest city in the province of Quebec (located in that northern country known as Canada). Quebec is a French province and Montreal is mostly French as well. On Sunday, as the kids and I were walking downtown, we passed a man begging with a sign. As we passed, Tania asked me, "Why does he say he's ugly?" I asked what she meant and she said, "His sign says, 'Je suis laid'" . She further explained that laid means ugly. I had seen the sign but did not understand the first part since I didn't know what laid meant and I assumed (incorrectly) the kids didn't either. The rest of the sign (which I did understand) said ... help me out and I can get a facial. (ok, it said it in French not English). The word came up again last night as Jason was reading to me Les Trois Boucs : "... un ogre tres laid et très méchant ..." ("... a very ugly and very mean ogre ...") . It is pronounced the s...

Comment Jason made to me as I put him to bed about a week and a half ago. I asked him if he wanted to have my mother 's ashes in his room that night.

A week or two ago Jason asked, "What is 10 minus 100?" "Minus 90," I said. "No, it's zero," he said. "If you have 10 and you take away 100, then you take away all 10 and you have zero. Ha Ha! I'm cool, you're not!" He is always asking about numbers and seems to be pretty good at math. A few weeks ago he surprised me by asking for my dad's age and then my age and almost immediately working out the difference (68 - 41 = 27). I was pretty impressed because that is pretty good for a 6 year old.

JJ has eczema and while doctors (here and in Peru) insist it has nothing to do with his diet, we know otherwise (it is one of my peeves of people in sciences, they wear extreme blinders, if it is not published in a peer reviewed journal, it isn't real. They are well disciplined reject anything that is not accepted dogma). Dairy, nuts (of any sort), soy, spinach and MSG definitely aggravate his condition. Fortunately, he seems to tolerate goat's milk fine. For frozen desserts, he was always limited to gelato or sorbet, recently I have been making him ice cream from goat's milk and it is surprisingly easy to do. 1 litre (4 cups) milk 100g (4oz, about 2/3 cup) icing sugar 1 341ml frozen drink concentrate Combine the ingredients, mix until blended and put in the freezer. Periodically mix, scraping down the frozen stuff on the side. I mix it about once every 45 minutes or so. After 4-6 hours it will get fairly stiff and you can stop mixing it and let it freeze on its own. The or...

Jason turns 6 today, making him about 50% older than in the photograph. And no, we do not get snow this early in October (the photo is from mid-December-2005). Photo credits: Richard of Forbidden Planet

"No." "Oh, man. I'll have a beard!", Jason said stroking his imaginary beard. You might think this exchange occurred during a long drive. It didn't. We had entered the mall to get JJ a haircut and this exchange occurred as we were walking toward the hair salon. Jason is 5 years old.