~b

in disease outbreak news, something unforeseen has cropped up in a washington-state hospital. according to the AP wire last friday, a woman who was admitted to harborview hospital with symptoms of dementia this summer, has died. now, according the seattle times, researchers from the national prion disease pathology surveillance center have determined that it was probably a prion disease that killed her.

Preliminary tests on the Harborview patient show that the disease most closely resembles an extremely rare prion disease called GSS (Gerstmann-StraJussler-Scheinker), named after the three German scientists who discovered it.

GSS can be triggered by a dozen different genetic mutations, Gambetti said, and only one of those forms has been shown to be transmissible in laboratory animals.

(for the record, this is not a chicken-little post. prion diseases are extremely rare, and researchers aren't even all that sure how they transmit - the link between mad cow and creutzfeld-jakob disease, for example, is in dispute.)

in sports news, backup vikings QB gus frerotte connected with number four receiver kelly campbell for an 83-yard touchdown pass on friday night, daddy yelled so loudly, it seems, that lil mister isaiah cried for 5 minutes straight.

i did my best to soothe him, but mamasan eventually had to take over. "you're going to have to get used to this, iko," she said. "there's a lot of yelling and cheering in this house, come football season."

ten minutes later, isaiah was looking at me or at the football game and clapping.

next, we'll have to teach him to cry out in shame and anguish, the long-standing minnesota viking emotions. my dad, from the iron range, had a traditional poetic cheer, forged in the elder days. for the true force of emotion, you have to get the "O" just right, like an umlaut, bent up hard with a little beer and fury. it went something like this:

"jesus fucking christ, no! oh, god, no, tarkenton, no!"

ahh, good times.

the first fall apples just arrived from hoch orchards in lacrescent, mn, which is both exhilarating and depressing as hell. i bit into a beacon this morning and it had the tart snap and ice-hard crunch of a freshly-picked apple that tells a minnesotan: fun's over, sven. mittens and snow-shovels are right around the corner.

but let's not, as they say, go there. what we have now is this apple, this tart skin and sweet flesh, and hey, the sunburn i received at pastureland dairy on wednesday's farm tour is still sizzling my nose and scalp. besides, there's plenty to look forward to. the mighty zestar apple, which has been skulking in the farmers' markets and roadside stands for years, is about to make its retail debut at my store (and i swear to you, the zestar is the granny smith of the new millennia). what's more, the honeycrisps and late-crop raspberries are still fattening on the branch. and yes, the mn state fair in all its deep-fried glory starts next week. while i've never been a big fan, knowing that isaiah will lose his mind at the sight of so many horses, bunnies, and piglets – well, i'm really, very eager for it this year.

have i mentioned the musk melons from rushford, mn, and how they're perfuming our kitchen, giving it all up like the little fruit-sluts they are? no? i'm remiss. what's wrong with me lately…..

isaiah said "mom" last week and he's been working on "daddy" ever since, god bless his little heart (and my incessant coaching). for a while i was "zha zha," which was fabulous, but then in the last week, i seemed to become "na na na." i'd ask him "are you saying 'daddy'?" and he'd laugh and attack me. lisa says he starts in with the "na na na" about an hour before i get home, and for books, selects stories about dads (so much and messy baby in particular). anyway, last night, nanana officially became dadada, and then da-da, accompanied with hugs and wrestling when we asked "who's da-da? where's dada?" there are absolutely no words for how happy this makes me.

in other baby language news, lisa spent a lengthy time on the phone last night and afterwards, apologized to isaiah, saying, "mamasan was on the phone too long, huh? blah blah blah!" and ever since, whenver she and i are talking and not entertaining him, iko i goes "ba ba ba ba ba!" it's hilarious. he totally knows he's being funny, because he starts smiling and can't say the "b" sound anymore. then when we say "blah blah blah" back at him, he cackles like a fiend.

he's also workshopping the words "boutros" (my cat), "dog," and "home."

bon voyage and safe travels to chris barzak, who is heading off to japan tomorrow. chris, when you arrive in your new digs, i hope you read this from a warm cozy spot with speedy internet access so you can tell us all about your adventures.

my talk and store-tour with the south american delegation of organic certifiers went great yesterday. their english was pretty good, the potato farmer's spanish was excellent, and all of them asked intelligent questions about retailing organic food - a concept that's pretty alien to, say, argentina, where 95% of organic product is exported. needless to say, the wedge, curently boasting 120 fresh organic fruits and veggies, blew their brains wide open. i was stoked to give a tour to such an appreciative group.

the only hitch came when we were eating outside the co-op, a woman struck up a conversation with guillermo, a handsome org farm inspector from costa rica. the rest of the south americans (and me) started giving him crap behind his back for womanizing. their little conversation, however, somehow evolved into the woman standing at the center of the group, monologuing about her last trip to belize. dolphins. ruins. restaurants. i was all, "oh great, a flaky minneapolis housewife finds an audience." but then the "watchtower" pamphlets came out and before she could say a word, i checked my imaginary watch and shouted, "ok, let's keep this moving, everyone," and hustled the group inside.

guillermo stood next to me while the gang reassembled in the produce dept and he muttered, "i was thinking to myself, 'why is she being so friendly to me?'" he gave a big head-shake and folded his arms tight. "now i know."

we rinsed that encounter out of our mouths with an effervescent discussion about problems with the organic audit trail in relation to retail bulk food dispensers.

i'm slowly catching up on my new yorker reading and just found their article on the lusty lady strip club in san francisco (in the july 12 & 19 issue - but not available online). a new yorker fact-checker contacted me to vet my claim in this article that the LL is the first worker-owned cooperative strip club in the country.

in light of that, its odd that either writer tad friend or a new yorker editor chose to use the phrase "employee-owned" instead of "worker-owned," when describing the lusty. in my interview with donna delinqua, she only referred to the lusty lady as a worker-owned co-op. when i was given the assignment from the cooperative business journal, the editor called the LL "worker-owned" or "worker-run," and the grant the LL received from the Cooperative Business Association was given due their status as a worker-owned co-op (the CBA's phrase). plus, it seems a pretty important distinction, given the brutally hierarchical climate of the strip-club bidness, which the new yorker article takes pains to describe. these women are unionized and they proudly identify themselves as workers in their co-op's ads and signage. they're very aware and disparaging of the stripper/owner dynamic, and the word "employee" puts them right back in the typical, top-down capitalist world they're trying to depart. it's probably just a semantic difference - i've heard the phrase "employee-owned" before - but it's quite inexact when applied to the lusty lady.

kudos to the new yorker, nonetheless, for printing some of the strippers' chants when they were picketing their club, chants that the CBJ wouldn't let me run. the best: "no contract, no pussy!" and "two, for, six, eight - don't come here to mastrubate!"

in non-stripper news, i finished a first draft of another story this morning. no title yet. it's just "the wine story" and it's pretty much a straight narrative, which i'm lapsing into more and more since isaiah was born, probably because i don't have the leisure of time to let stories ferment and twist in my brain, as i used to do. it's a major change in process actually. the story feels a little thin and unfinished as a result, but really, i think it's a pretty good one.

to make my schedule work with lisa's, i pretty much need to work 7 days a week, albeit, 4 hour shifts here and there. it's not that hard, really, but it means the three of us are rarely home at the same time together. but my 12-hour day touring organic farms on friday bought me a rare day off with wife and boy. a greasy spoon for breakfast, a little yard work,a nd after that, it looks like barbecue and zinfandel weather to me.

aside to my brother mark: oh! hi! who's a kissy-boy, huh? is a kissy-boy here?? hmm? who's a pretty lil kissy-boy???

(i'm sorry the rest of you had to see that. but it had to be done.)

i attended a MN dept of ag organic task force meeting yesterday. it was at an organic farm outside duluth, which was about a 2.5 hour drive from the twin cities. a good sunny day for interstate driving, barelling through prairies and woods.

weirdest thing. the farmer who hosted us was, in fact, bringweather, the main character from this strange horizons story of mine. weird to meet someone in real life from one's own work. he tipped me off to who he was before the tour of his organic farm, when he said, "let me start by saying a few things. first off, life began on this planet 4 billion years ago." not a shred of irony. he was dead serious. "it began with the microbes. they did all the hard work, projecting oxygen into the world as they broke down the simple sugars available to them. more complex life came along, like plants, and through millenia upon millenia of photonysthesis...." he looked up and suddenly realized he was losing most of his dept of ag audience. "well, anyway, it's a long story. but they built the soil. they brought us oxygen. conventional farmers with their high-nitrogen fertilizers, undo 4 billion years worth of that work. organic farmers build on that microbial magic and try to keep building on it because they know it's precious and fragile. [long pause] ok. let's go look at the brocolli."

i've been pretty down the last few weeks so dragging my ass out of bed early enough to write before work has been a challenge. but yesterday and today, i managed to let the sun wake me up and hammered most of a new story into the computer. not sure it will be done by sunday and the end of jenn's dare, but already i feel like having the deadline was very helpful to me.

did i mention that isaiah said his first bona fide word? he was in his car-seat on wednesday and lisa was buckling him; i was watching them in the rearview mirror. isaiah was very carefully pronouncing "om. om. om." and lisa said "are you saying 'mama?'" and iko very succinctly said, "mom." and lisa said, "who's your mom?" and he turned grabbed her shirt with a shit-eating grin.

lisa cries during john kerry ads, but this cry was really earned.

so i'm taking part in jenn resse's mini-dare this week which is a very good thing for me since i operate best with deadlines and the fear of public humiliation.

it's been a challenge, though, because isaiah has had a particularly bad virus this week, joined by scary high temperatures. we actually took him to the ER two nights ago, as his fever was at 103, his lips were blue, and he was shivering (i deduced the obvious, west nile virus, and we were out the door at 3am). so anyway, the boy is fine - apparently little bodies have routine defense mechanisms to high fevers that look far worse than they are - but i wanted him to recuperate yesterday, so i kept him right on my chest, with me stretched back in my office chair, making a bed of myself, and he slept like that for two hours. my right arm was free and i have an L-shaped desk with a lower section to my right, so i wrote long-hand while the kid revamped his immune system.

all of this to say: two hours of writing. ahhhhh....

the rewards for a good long writing stint are rich and immediate. when isaiah woke up, he sat on my lap facing me and we had a little conversation. "where are daddy's eyes?" isaiah craned his neck to look over my glasses so he could see them. "where's daddy's ear?" isaiah grabbed my beard hard, using it to crank my head to the right so he could see it. "where's iko's foot?" he presented his right foot to me for inspection. "where's daddio? where's the daddio?" isaiah grabbed the front of my shirt with one hand, like he was going to rough me up for my milk money, grinning like the menacing goblin he is.

elsewhere, one of my agents is meeting with a Very Cool Editor this week. cross all your fingers for me, k?

have i mentioned that i live next to a guy who works for homeleand security? it's so strange for this neighborhood. we bought this house joking that we were either moving into the cocoon of sesame street, multicultral, hippie liberal-osity or else a blight of urban hoodiness - we'd find out eventually. but then we get a real shot to the head: what? we're neighbors with The Man!?

he works at the airport, and every morning he heads out with his boldly lettered TSA (transportation security admin) windbreaker on and has the general air of a low-level but self-important and ultra-serious homelander. one night this winter, after i bought the new car, i was having trouble getting the key out of the ignition lock, and my neighbor comes out with a flashlight to see what's going on. he was nice, just wanted to see if i needed a hand, but as i am suspicious of him always, it occurred to me that he must have been watching me through the blinds. so seeing him there, with his square-toe black shoes and 1950's haircut, he really gave me the creeps and i fully expected him to rap on the window and scream, "papers! show me your papers!"

anyway, dude's got a kerry for president lawn poster, and i just can't make it fit into my image of him. this either speaks very well of my neighbor or very badly of kerry (maybe both?). anyway, go ahead and make that judgement if you like. i'm still squinting my eyes at the guy and going, "huh?"

from cnn:

Kerry told reporters aboard the campaign train Saturday that Americans should do more to protect themselves against terrorism by setting up neighborhood watch groups.

(i see them through my blinds at night. the terrorists! slinking through the dark streets by the dozens! why, they sneak into our parks at night and...and they...play on our jungle gyms!)

"We need a neighborhood watch kind of system so that we have a way to notify people [and] they know what they're supposed to do," Edwards said, without once cracking a smile.

"do"? do? what ARE we supposed to do? it's too bad edwards didn't keep talking. i think that quote was about to get monty-python hysterical.

it's like they think we're parked in front of the tube with a tv dinner-tray in front of us, a lit sparkler in hand, wearing red-white-and-blue skimmers, and nodding enthusiastically at whatever they say.

our teleplay tonight:

Isaiah's Bedtime Ritual

(The following is overheard on a baby-monitor by Barth, who is blogging)

Isaiah: *shrieking in delight*

Lisa: Come on, Isaiah. It's time to put your head down and sleep. (She reads "Goodnight, Moon" all the way through.)

Isaiah: *giggling and shrieking*

Lisa: Come on, baby. You're sooo tired. Let's rock and go to sleep. (Sings "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot")

Isaiah: "shrieking and giggling*

Lisa: Huh boy...

Isaiah: *loud razzberry*

Lisa: Isaiah, stop.

Isaiah: *even louder razzberry*

Lisa: Stop it, Iko.

Isaiah: *more razzberries*

Lisa: (trying not to laugh) No more farting. Come on, pretty boy, it's time for bed. (Sings "Edelweiss," several verses, many improvised, some repeated. He must be asleep by now.)

Isaiah: *bursting into inexplicable gales of laughter*

Lisa: Oh jesus. (Hums the "Obiwan Theme" with dirge-like mournfulness).

Isaiah: *letting loose his brand-new wolf yelp*

Lisa: (Appearing at Barth's study door) OK, daddio. I'm tapped. You're up.

~end~

fair trade and boycotts are the carrot-and-whip of choice for modern food consumers who care about how farm workers are paid and treated. but until we have a fair trade label for domestically-produced agricultural products, the UFW remains the voice for farm-workers.

so when they start a boycott, i listen. think twice about buying gallo wine, ok?

"Gallo of Sonoma workers have been laboring without a union contract since Nov. 1, 2003. On Dec. 19, a state administrative judge ruled the company violated California law when it illegally tried to decertify, or get rid, of the UFW."

various gallo labels:

Gallo of Sonoma - CA Table
Turning Leaf - CA Table
E&J Gallo Vineyards - CA Table
Carlo Rossi - CA Table
Wild Vines - CA Fruit Flavored
Ecco Domani - Italian Table
Gossamer Bay - CA Table
Andre - CA Sparkling
Peter Vella - CA Table
Gallo Fairbanks - CA Dessert
Copperidge - CA Table
Ballatore Spumante - CA Sparkling
Bella Sera - Italian Table

and sign the petition if you're ready to boycott gallo labels on behalf of these workers.

i'm going to make one argument for john kerry as president, and then i'm going to go back to bashing him for his votes on invading iraq and the patriot act, and for declaring that he supports the bush doctrine of pre-emptive war.

my brother, who is only ten years older than i am, is in the last stages of parkinson's disease. we figured that the one thing he had going for him was his youth (he was one of the youngest people to ever be diagnosed with PD in the state of wisconsin). in the nineties, PD research and development was red-hot and medical advances were in the headlines constantly.

no such luck. my brother is in a nursing home now, surrounded by people much older than he is, and hospice was recently ordered for his 24-hour care. when a doctor orders hospice, he's basically saying, "your disease has advanced beyond our knowledge. good luck, dude." he doesn't have much longer to live, which is a very bitter blessing.

when president bush announced that federal funding would be limited to the existing 74 lines of human stem cells, he put a cap on that red-hot advancement. pro-lifers argue that the money is still flowing to that research, that bush actually pumped up the federal funding o fthe existing lines, but that's cold comfort. when federal dollars start drying up, private donations start drying up too (money tends to follow money), and the effects are being felt in the PD community.

my mother has been attending an annual parkinson's symposium in milwaukee for the last five years, ever since my bro's health started really declining. she said this year was the first that no new technologies had beeen unveiled, no new break-through surgeries, no new medicines. no one said it at the symposium, but the mood was palpable among the presenters: the federal decision to limit funding to existing lines was having a negative effect on advances in treating parkinson's.

this is a double whammy on my family, since my mom, too, was diagnosed with PD last year.

there's no need to send condolences or well-wishes. really. and i'm not saying vote for kerry for the sake of my brother (though he wrote out in his shaky hand-writing this weekend: "anybody but bush!"). frankly i'm not sure i can vote for kerry in good conscience, a man who'd keep a bloody occupation going that has already claimed over 10K civilian lives.

but if you're on the fence and need some political cover, sure, think of my family in november.

here's the kerry position. it's short and to the point. "As president, John Kerry will overturn the ban on federal funding of research on new stem cell lines, and he will allow doctors and scientists to explore their full potential with the appropriate ethical oversight."

a typical criticism of US elections is how expensive they've become. kerry, for example, has been hitting the drumbeat of how much money bush has spent, upwards of $80 million, all on attack ads. kerry himself has raised over $100 million. by the time the votes are counted in november (cue laughtrack), the two parties will have several hundred million, including what perifery groups like moveon.org will also have spent.

but think about it: that's sooo twentieth century - and so dirt cheap! a couple hundred million to gain executive control of the biggest economy and the baddest military on the planet? paramount studios will spend ten times that amount on its blockbuster summer line-up next year. the grocery market in the twin cities is worth several hundred billion dollars and, hell, america just spent a cool $100 billion-with-a-capital-B on taking control of a backwater colony.

watch. we'll see a one-hundred-billion dollar election within the next two decades.

isaiah jack stuart anderson is one year old today! i'm happy to report that he woke in a good mood, running his hand through a beam of light with a blissful smile on his face, trying to catch the floating motes. 76 degrees today with crystal clear sunlight - barometer 29.8 and rising. such a peaceful day, especially when i recall that this is what we were doing a year ago.

to honor the boy, we're going to take some baked treats down to the HCMC midwife unit where iko was born, along with a card and some flowers for their incredible crew - they saved his life in a scary moment, a fact that i didn't really address in the above birth story. so those midwives deserve adulation from us today.

then we'll head to the children's museum with the beloved gramma melanie (lisa's step-mom), come home, drink the big, fat petit syrah from bogle that's been burning a hole in our cupboard, and then get all drunk and weepy as we hunker down over a year's worth of photos.

so that's me today. sorry for the sudden lack of linkage to my message board. i intended to finally get a full-blown comments section up and running, but then life interceded. it continues to intercede (i'll go into it at some point when i can stand to write it all out), so i haven't been all that bloggy lately, but hey. i've missed the living crap out of you, my lil darlings.

in other news, i found out this morning from le bogge du jlundberg that three of my stories ("lark till dawn, princess," "the mystery of our baraboo lands," and "the apocalypse according to olaf") were honorably mentioned in this year's Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. not as good as having a one-year-old, but that's pretty cool. and a loud congrats to the fine writers on jason's abbreviated list - it's quite a stunning crew to be counted in.

and for your linky, foodie pleasure, this is what i spend my monday mornings on, of late.