b.rox

A mysterious fungus sprung up in one of our flowerpots this weekend. It looked creepy and beautiful and smelled terrible. What could it be?

Turns out it’s a Stinkhorn, a Columned Stinkhorn, to be exact: Clathrus columnatus. A tip of the hat to Lisa Mulvey for the quick ID.

I think this is the best photo I’ve taken in a while. Somehow phallic and vaginal at the same time. Best viewed large.

Yesterday seemed to be getting off to a good start. I’d set my sights on completing a project that I’ve been postponing and procrastinating on for over a year and a half. Nineteen months actually. That’s when Xy smashed a window out in our kitchen with her bare hand, in a blind drunken rage.

I’m just [...]

Dear Persephone,
People kept telling me we should “enjoy this time” with you. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this advice.
A couple weeks ago I said to Olivia: “She’s only six weeks old. All she does is sleep and eat and poop. Oh, and occasionally she cries. What moments are we suppose [...]

I don’t know if there’s a name for this style of infant apparel. We call them “ghosties.” Here’s Persephone in her favorite ghostie.

“There’s no reason for anyone to worry.”
So sayeth Section Chief Brett Herr of the Army Corps of Engineers. He’s a talking about a wee small leak that’s been discovered at the 17th Street Canal floodwall.
This is one of the floodwalls that breached and flooded the city back in 2005. These floodwalls were designed and built [...]

It was a beautiful day, so we packed some picnic snacks, loaded up the baby stroller, gathered up some neighbor kids and headed down to the bayou for Super Sunday.

Only Super Sunday wasn’t quite as super as I remembered. Don’t get me wrong, we had a great time. And the Indians we saw were absolutely [...]

When we tally up the list of people who’d helped us out or given us stuff recently, it’s quite impressive. More than sixty. I didn’t know we had so many well-wishers.

We’ve been trying to make sure everybody gets a card to express our gratitude. And slowly, slowly, we’re sending them out. I really hope we [...]

Whenever people see her, they invariable make two remarks:

She looks like me.
She’s cute.

It doesn’t take a logician to leap to the obvious conclusion, namely, that I must be kinda cute myself.

Today her umbilical stump fell off. To celebrate, we made a pilgrimage to Bayou St. John.

She’s definitely growing. Her loose folds of skin are filling in with baby fat. Xy has been breastfeeding, and the results can be seen daily. Funny, by sheer coincidence we watched The Life of Mammals just before the birth. Mammals [...]

Keep N It Real Social & Pleasure Club was in our neighborhood today. It ended just two blocks from our house. Actually we missed the parade, but we caught these fabulous DIVAS (acronym for something but I forget what) just as things were breaking up.

From our friend MF in China comes the following awesome weirdness:

It’s a hand-embroidered bib with a gun that says “poop” on it.
No, I don’t know what it means either, but you’ve got to admit it’s cool.

We took our first stroll around the block yesterday.

Many of the sidewalks are impassable, so we had to push the stroller in the street. On Iberville I saw a renovation underway; they were sanding, with clouds of lead-based paint dust going everywhere. (I’ll be placing a call to the city’s Department of Environmental Health tomorrow [...]

I’m not the kind of guy who carries around pictures of his newborn child.
But I will post ‘em on the net.

I can understand that our geographically dispersed family members would want to see more pictures of our little girl, but I was surprised that friends and co-workers have requested more as well. I mean, generally [...]

Xy’s in the ninth month of her pregnancy now. She’s tired of carrying the extra weight and all the other many attendant discomforts. Pregnancy is quite a physical chore, and it’s all on her, with very little I can do except try to be helpful and supportive. She’s more than ready for it to end.
Yesterday [...]

Today’s the Chinese New Year. I’m a bit disturbed that our child will be born in the Year of the Rat, because I don’t particularly care for rats. But maybe I should learn to respect the rat. Did you know rats share the gift of laughter with us?
I got a card from my friend MF [...]

Two and a half years after I took it, my picture of tiny orange fungi has finally been identified.

It is Dacryopinax spathularia, also known as sweet osmanthus ear in Chinese. It’s a jelly fungus.
This stuff still sprouts up on our deck from time to time. Apparently it’s edible, but I don’t think I’ll be sampling [...]

Sawing into the baby in this king cake made me feel kind of like Solomon Gone Mad.

Since the baby isn’t actually contained in my slice, but has remained embedded in the adjacent cakery, does it even count? Am I nonetheless subject to the obligations of “getting the baby”?
Does my twisted ankle curry no sympathy?

One feature that attracted us to buy our house was the beautiful terra cotta tile on the floor downstairs. People often ask if we installed it ourselves, but the previous owners get the credit for that.
Alas, the old floor ain’t what it used to be.

It sat under brackish water for a couple of weeks back [...]

I’m trying not to get sucked into the drama of the presidential primaries… but it’s hard. Here, then, is a diversionary tale of adversity and triumph to distract myself.
On my way to work one rainy day back in December, I noticed Entergy was tearing up the street near our house. Hmmm, I thought. That looks [...]