Anyway, here’s a photo of my son sitting in the lap of an old man who wears a furry costume and hangs out at the mall.

Awww yeah — two years old and he’s already mastered the White Man’s Overbite. The kid’s a prodigy, I tell ya.

Fortunately, The Squirrelly is still too young to entirely “get” Christmas, so we didn’t have to decide whether to let him believe in The Big Guy yet. Personally, I’m torn. On the one hand, he is the central figure in Christmas, and I guess there’s no harm in letting him think he’s real for a few years. On the other, I just can’t help but imagine how crestfallen he’ll be when he discovers that he’s just a make-believe character. Some kids at school will spill the beans, he’ll come home crying and ask us if it’s true, and we’ll have to say, yes, we’ve been lying to you all these years: there is no Jesus.

For now, all The Squirrelly knows is that December 25 = a whole buncha swag. He made out pretty good this year, too. His Grandma bought him a tricycle. His great-uncle bought him a remote control car. His aunt went berserk and bought him a crapload of stuff, the least of which was a book called Hot Rod Harry which he inexplicably loves. (And what did Papa get? Papa got to read Hot Rod Harry a hundred and thirty times over a two week period. What fun. It’s a helluva lot easier to get through than Moby Dick, though — I’ll give it that much.)

He also got a Memory / matching game, with people’s faces as the pictures. But I didn’t realize that at first. When he ripped off the wrapping paper and exposed the box’s bottom, I thought it was, like, a Whitman’s Sampler for cannibals.

Another thing we had fun doing over the holidays was making up words to those Christmas songs to which we did not know the correct lyrics, i.e., pretty much all of them, insofar as we are Godless Heathens (see above: yukking it up over nonexistence of Savior). But, having never heard these songs before in his two years of life, The Squirrelly accepted whatever we coughed up as the Authoritative Version. Which is why, two weeks after the yuletide, he is still ambling around the house singing this:

(To the tune of O Christmas Tree)

O Octagon, O Octagon,
You have eight sides u-pon you

O Octagon, O Octagon,
You also have eight angles too

One and two
And three and four,
Five, six, seven,
eight -- NO MORE!

O Octagon, O Octagon,
O Octagon, we love you

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: I also bought out good-for-nothing cats a Kitty Castle for Christmas.

I mention this as a warning to others who might consider doing something so stupid. I brought into the house, put it in the corner, and prepared to watch the cats cavort with glee. Instead, Louie sauntered up to it and, as if he had scaled the thing a thousand times, nonchalantly climbed up to the top; moments later Eddie moseyed into the scene and, without so much as a sniff of curiosity, leapt onto the middle platform. Then they both settled down and watched birds out the window for half an hour. Subtext: we are too dumb to ever remember this not being here. YOU EFFING INGRATES I COULDA BOUGHT A WII FOR THAT! If anyone reading this has a kid who might like some pets for Christmas 2007, drop me a line in November and we’ll work something out.

After ponying up, I sought out a cashier. “Excuse me,” I said, “but did you know there’s a cat in your grocery store?”

“Yes,” she sighed. “That’s Toby.”

“Is he lost?” I asked.

“No, his house is nearby,” she explained. “But he sneaks into the store on weekend evenings and just kind of hangs out.”

Awwwww yeah. Cattin’ around on a Saturday night.

Several hours later I was in my gym’s locker room and naked as a jaybird, having just stripped down in preparation for a shower. The Unwritten Rules Of Locker Room Etiquette For Guys dictate that, once you are naked, you have to be All Business: no talking, no eye contact, no calling attention to yourself, etc. So I solemnly shoved my clothes into my locker and pulled the towel out of my bag.

As I did so, though, something flew across the room, ricocheted off the mirror, and skidded to a stop on the tile floor. Everyone looked to see what it was. Not knowing myself what I had just flung from my bag, I trotted over to retrieve it, and was aghast to find this laying before me.

The sky had been growing increasingly dark, and I felt the first few spatters of rain. “Okay, Louie,” I said scooping him up. “It’s time to go in.” I tossed him through the door and went to fetch the chair. As I returned to the house, Louie dashed between my legs and back outside.

“Louis,” I said in my Ominous Voice. “You know better than that.” By way of response, Louie looked away, flicked his tail in the air defiantly, and went a few feet further out onto the patio. Then he glanced over his shoulder to see what I was going to do.

I opened my mouth; Louie braced himself in anticipation of my holler. But before I could make a sound there was an enormous clap of thunder, the likes of which we rarely get in Seattle.

Louie’s eyes trebled in size, his legs turned into Roadrunner-esque circles of blurry motion, and he reentered the house as if he’d been shot from a cannon.

FINALLY I AM GOING TO GET THE RESPECT I DESERVE AROUND HERE!!

The thought of this stuff navigating his digestive tract makes me wonder if we should consult a vet about this. On the other hand, having each of his feces individually wrapped in cellophane makes cleaning the little box quite a bit easier, so I guess I’ll let it slide for now.

Psyche! I’m just joshin’ ya. I got nothing worth saying today.

Here’s a photo of my new cat, Edgar.