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Wednesday
4 April 2001

10 44 pm pdt [ boys with toys ]

If there is one thing I can say about the boys in this house, it's that they like their toys. The mantle has become a shrine to all things Formula One, Power Puff Girls, and Pikatchu. Tom would like the sock puppet from the pets.com commercials or a hedgehot puppet. He bought a puppet one day and then returned it the next, upon realizing that it was a porcupine.

The other day I went into the bathroom and noticed a small black rat cowring behind the door. I could tell at once he wasn't real, but I had to give him notice. Several days later, he turned around. I noticed the difference. One cannot help staring at him while one is sitting on the toilet. Mr. Rat is still there, and probably will be until the boys move out. He has become another fixture in the household.

The upstairs bathroom has a how-to-potty book with instructions by Kermitt.

Matthew has his remote control race cars and his toy story figures. he has a talking SouthPark doll that has also made its way onto the mantle with the "yard-o'-beef" sausage (the first one got moldy, so this is actually genearation two) and an ornate saké bottle I stuck up there months ago just to see if anyone would move it.

And so I can't help noticing the toys as I make my way upstairs to enjoy the sunset.

The sun beams its juicy colors at me. I don't stay to watch them fade to black.

Instead I creep back inside to see each wall transformed into a shifting tableau of blazing hues -- ever morphing before my eyes. The interior spaces are transformed and I along with them.