Houdini deserves her own show!

Bailey, my precocious mut, seriously deserves her own tv show as an escape artist. She escapes, yes, but that's only half the story. She is a true magician. Science cannot explain how she does it. I'm thinking she is tapped into the dark arts. Here's my evidence so far:

STATE'S EXHIBIT #1


As you can see by this picture, the distance between the metal bars in the gate is exactly 4 inches. (Notice the chicken wire. Houdini's first escape attempt involved just the simple gate. For her encore, she stepped up the magic--the chicken wire was once tied to the side and bottom of the gate by stiff metal wire and was inexplicably peeled back from the corner.)

STATE'S EXHIBIT #2


This picture, which fairly and accurately represents Houdini's head, shows that her head is at least 5 inches wide. Though not pictured, the bulk of that width is a hard skull that is neither flexible nor collapsable. When one subtracts the space between the metal bars from the width of the magician's head, there is at least 1 inch of overlap remaining, or 20% of Houdini's head. Somehow 100% of her head is passing through an area only big enough for 80% of her head.

STATE'S EXHIBIT #3


The final picture taken as part of my investigation shows the girth of the illusionist's chest. As you can clearly see, her chest is just over 8 inches. If my calculations are correct, her chest is twice as wide as the gap between the metal bars in the gate. It is impossible to determine, without the aid of x-rays (or possibly an autopsy), exactly how far the rigid skeletal structure stretches across the 8 inches and how much the pliable muscle, fat, and skin extends past the bones. Based on a generous estimate that the skeletal structure extends across 90% of the width and the remaining 10% is the bendable sinew, then 7.2 inches of the breadth is not flexible or collapsible. If my calculations are correct, 56.6% of her ribs and shoulders should be able to squeeze through the 4 inch gap, while 44.4%, a length of 3.2 inches, overlaps the space available for free movement.


In candor, I must divulge that I am merely an English major and have superficial training in the science of biology and physics. But the numbers don't lie. There is no reasonable, scientific explanation for Houdini's ability to escape. My conclusion: she has sold her soul to the devil, who in turn gave her mystical powers, in exchange for the ability to explore the wide world beyond her backyard. Unfortunately for her, the devil didn't keep his promise that she could run free; for she now spends her days locked in the garage from which there has can be no escape. Or perhaps she is merely developing her next great illusion.

He looked upon his creation, and saw that it was good.

The grass is in and doing well, though the sprinklers are still giving me a headache. It is nice too look at, though I think the dogs appreciate it more than I do. I would have loved to fill the backyard with grass, but one can't be too gung-ho about grass when living in the desert. One of these days I'm going to hike out into the desert, dig up a cactus or two, and plant them in the corners. I'm sure Cambrea will plant a few flowers, or tomatoes, when my back is turned.

The sprinkler conundrum

URRGGGH! The wind never stops blowing in Kingman, and it's causing all sorts of problems for my lawn. One kind of sprinkler sprays the water the correct distance, but the wind pushes it around unevenly. The other kind of sprinkler is impervious to the wind, but it sprays to far and unevenly. As a result, some of the lawn is a beautiful green, and some is starting to dry out. Any suggestions?

A Beautiful Hike

My biggest, and really my only, complaint about Kingman is that we are surrounded by nothing but brown dirt, brown plants, and brown mountains. I came to Kingman because of the job, not the location. I new friend of mine, Shem (pictured below), is a resident at the hospital in town and chose to come to Kingman because of the location, not the job. He has opened my eyes to the perks of living in northwest Arizona. Enjoy some of the pictures I took on a hike last weekend near Hoover Dam.

Future Dwight

Further evidence as to why if you are not already watching "The Office" you should start immediately. Post haste. Right now.

My baby is not Skeletor!

So maybe you noticed that Corbett dropped the ball on the whole blog thing. I was telling him I was going to take it over and I think he got scared that I would girl it up too much, so he hurried and posted our baby news before I could get to it. Being a typical boy, he didn't think anyone would want to see naked baby, but the people have spoken! So here's our boy!
We saw a much better view of this, but the tech didn't take a picture at the exact moment. You can see the baby's foot/toes on the left, and the whiter circle on the left is his "turtle", as Dave has begun to say. I'm almost 21 weeks right now, and the baby is due August 8. He was not expected, but he's very welcome! We had given up our seat on "the emotional roller coaster" (as Dave calls it), and it's kind of funny that with all the drama we had last year that this pregnancy would happen so easily. But needless to say, we are EXCITED! I had morning sickness pretty much all day for the first few months, but more than that, I was SO tired. I would literally get home from school at 4:30 and be in bed by 5:00. I started to come back to life a couple of weeks ago, and was surprised to find out that it was already March. I was also surprised to find that my clothes didn't fit anymore! My belly is HUGE, people! At least people at work are figuring out now that it's because I'm pregnant and not because I ate too much ice cream.

But we have no idea what to name this baby! In fact, we are taking suggestions. So send us your best! Don't worry, Lemonjello is already at the top of the list (that's Le-MON-j'lo for those of you that don't know). Dave's vote is for Skeletor (yes, that is a picture of my baby's skull), but I'll only go for that as a middle name.

I'm not going to teach next year, but I am seriously considering starting a preschool. I think it would be very satisfying, so I hope it works out. I am going to miss teaching, but I am very excited to be a stay-at-home mommy and go to the bathroom when I need to instead of having to wait until recess.

Here's the baby's face and hand:

Baby Corbett likes to cross his ankles! How cute!
You can see his profile and chest here. You can even make out his little ears! I'm pretty sure I have the cutest baby EVER!

Lots of hard work

My dad flew down from Colorado during spring break to help me landscape the backyard. I took a whole week off of work, and we got busy. As you can see here, there is a whole lot of brown dirt, and nothing else. On Monday and Tuesday, we took a few trips down to a rock quarry and loaded up 5,000 pounds of boulders to create a rockwall along the back.

Little by little, the rocks turned into, as my dad calls them, "rockeries." We took a lot of breaks, shown above, because those boulders are frickin' heavy, and we are out of shape. We built some planters in the corners and made the rockwall along the back to add some color and texture.

Bailey supervised our work very closely. After 9-11, one cannot be too safe. So she and Little Man were careful to sniff every boulder for bombs. They often made the boulders their own, if you catch my drift.

For the next step on Wednesday, we dug out lines for a sprinkler system, pretended like we new what we were doing when putting the valves in, did a whole lot of measuring, and finally buried the lines where they should be. Believe it or not, the system actually works.

The first dump truck arrived on Thursday. It left 5 cubic yards of topsoil--really just AZ dirt mixed with steer manure. Several hours later, 5 inches of topsoil covered 500 sq. ft. of a lawn bed.

The second dump truck came on Friday. It dumped 5 tons of decorative rock by the side of our house. Friday was spent with shovels and wheelbarrows. The dogs added their own topdressing.

Saturday we rested. In one week's time we dug holes and ditches, placed 15,000 pounds worth of rock, spread a huge mound of topsoil, installed an irrigation system, and even squeezed in a little home teaching. The curbing people come today to make the division between rock and grass. All that's left is to lay the sod, but that isn't coming for another 10 days. I can't wait until it's all done.