Ian is finally HOME!!

Ian sez, "Gahh! Close that pie-hole, Mommy! I thought standing around looking stupid was daddy's job!"	Typical. A Gardner forces her way into what otherwise woulda been a perfect picture of three generations of Counihans.
The Boy keeps his eyes on the prize, asking, "So, Ma...are those things just for show or can I get a meal out of 'em?"	Mommy sez: "I gotcher meal, right here!"
"I'm all strapped in and ready for takeoff...Uh-oh! Houston, we have a problem. My binky has FALLEN OUT OF MY MOUTH!!"	One of the unused stills from the ad campaign for Ian's role in A Hard Day's Night

(This drool conspiracy goes deeper than we thought, people. Be afraid...be very afraid. (And be careful crossing the street; ya never know when a NYC cop might think you're holding a wallet and justifiably shoot you. People, I can't stress this enough: if you have your wallet out in the presence of a NYC cop, be sure it's to give him his graft. Cops eat up graft the way pooberts eat up their Kiddies 'n' Drool! It's Droooool-Lishous!)):

Tom:

Nothing beats a day with a catheter in it (me)! You never know how much pressure goes on in your personal parts until you have one of these things in you and you try to move in any direction! Sensational!! [Left this part in because it was funny, though not particularly drool-relevant—ed.]

On the subject of drool - Dylan was a world-famous major depository of said liquid and was on the map for third world countries and their lawyers - he was the big-threat in many a land-use dispute in the Middle east : "If we can't get the rights to the river at what we consider a fair price, then maybe we ought to see what the rates are from DYLAN PENNELL!" That closed down many a debate. There was just no comeback to a threat like that. Dylan slobbered so much that by the time he could speak, even Rachel complained one day that he slobbered too much when he spoke - "Dada - tell Dilwin to stop drooling when he talks! He makes a mess every time he tawks!"

Dylan's straight-from-Mars answer was "But Dada, I haffa talk!" His logic could not be beaten on that point. I told Rachel that he had us, and that we'd have to live with it. Dylan not only spewed forth when he talked, he drooled when he sat. He drooled when he slept. And when he could read later on, he drooled when he read! You could always count on a huge wet spot on his shirt when he was preoccupied by something. Once he concentrated on anything, it got his total attention and the waters started to flow. There was no end to it. He still drools when he falls asleep in the car. Yummo. [Today, Dylan is 35 years old—ed]

And I paid money to see Ishtar too. I figured how bad could it be? and it was on a double bill with an Ernest movie when I was out in Portland the first time. And believe me, it wasn't even in Ernest's league, and that's a mighty small league.

G.

So you see, this drool thing is a major story, but don't expect to see Dan Rather, Rush Limbaugh, Strom Thurman, Henry Kissinger, Regis Philbin, Matt Hoye, Maury Povich (or his wife Sam Donaldson) or any of the rest of the Liberal Establishment mentioning it. (Or hear them mentioning it, since mentioning is an auditory thing, and you wouldn't see it even if they did mention it—WHICH THEY WON'T!...which is actually my point, here...)

Don't expect to see The Drool Conspirarcy: The Motion Picture (starring Caelin "Hollywood" Hoye) coming anytime soon to a theatre near you. ("Hollywood" Hoye's career is soooo much on the skids now, you'd be lucky to see him in a CNN movie of the week on the life of Bernard Shaw: BS: When Integrity Didn't Matter.)

Why? Well because they get all those drool kickbacks. Won't be seeing an expose on that on 60 Minutes—except maybe from Andy Rooney who produces his own drool at a Dylanesque rate. Which is fine with the Drool Conspirators, because they know nobody listens to Andy Rooney; he's really only there to give you time to use the bathroom before The Simpsons starts, after which there MUST BE TOTAL SILENCE IN THE HOUSE! THIS MEANS YOU, YOU PEOPLE WHO CALL AT 8PM ON SUNDAY!! (You know who you are.) (No, I don't CARE if it's a rerun. That's no excuse.)

Sorry. Some things are even more important than blowing the lid off the drool conspiracy.

We now return control of your cathode ray monitor to you.

But KEEP AN EYE on those drooling kids!
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*I guarantee all my sources's anonymity. Though you might somehow dope out that the particular correspondent above is named "Greg", I have carefully strained out all clues that might lead you to correctly guess his last name, or the fact that he lives in Haddonfield, or the fact that he's into catheters (or vice versa). You will only hear me refer to him by his code name, "Pussy Galore" (Blast Woodyard and Burnsides for taking all the really good porno names, like "deep throat" a name that really would have suited Greg, but not for the reasons you think), or maybe "OctoPussy". Or how 'bout just "Dick Nixon"?

"I said NO CAMERAS!! HIIII-YAH!!" (The photographer sustained minor kick injuries.)	"Hey, Pal, not so chummy! I said lean on me when, and only when, you're not strong. And you, sir—I can smell you from across the room. You are very Strong! (Can we get a change of diapers here?)"
Ian looks slightly intimidated by the one and a half month old to his left. This Gigantor baby ate the entire city of Detroit—no, not just downtown, the whole city! (Prior to that, he ravaged Tokyo, crossed the Pacific, and unleashed his wrath on Mo-town.) Ian sez, "I can barely choke down a suburb before I start spitting up! Truly, I have met my match!"

Back to the Top

Aunt Barb, who did not win this trophy for taking these pictures, took these pictures	Whenever you try to change Ian's diaper, he moves so fast he actually gets blurry, as depicted above. That's what makes it such a challenge.
Aunt Cathy rams the whole bottle down the Boy's throat. (Just kidding! He loves his aunt Cathy)	The Boy's Zen-like demeanor rubs off on aunt Liz, who immediately assumes the Lotus position and gets all Feng Shui.

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Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics, and Vanity Page Postings (The Next Generation of Fibs)

Well, during this past week, Ian finally got to meet his Best Bud, Caelin Hoye. It was a summit worthy of comparison to that which happened at Yalta more than 50 years ago when Winston Churchill first met Hugh Downs and they went into business together as Churchill-Downs Adhesives (later renamed "Elmer's Glue"). Sioux-zee, Matty and Caelin came up here to Fleming's-own-town to stay with us for 4 days—as a vacation of sorts, since all of us were too poor this year to do what we had originally planned: get a house down the beach for a week in a third world country (namely, North Carolina, where the dollar is strong against the North Carolinian peso, and most of the natives can speak a passable, if laughable, version of English).

North Carolina is one of those south-of-the-border "Tobacco Republics" you hear tell of—or, as they say it, "Tabaccy Republic"—ruled over by a not-so-benign despot known as Yesse Helms, a courageous man who came to power via the dangerous and admirable route of outliving everyone else in the Republic. Of course. "Republic", here, is to be understood in its usual Third World meaning, as a synonym for Totalitarian State—but they looooove our gringo dollars, so you know you are safe!

In any case, pictures of the historic Gardner-Hoye summit will follow as soon as they are developed, which may take a while, since every time Mommy Gardner takes a picture, she is on the last frame of the film. It is inevitable. Every time Ian does something spontaneously cute—which, lets face it, is all the time—Mommy takes a picture and you hear "clik-zip-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..." as the used film rewinds itself and you are left wondering whether that last picture will actually be there at all. And this happens EVERY time (allowing for a loose, Clintonian definition of "every" here). I don't know where Adrienne gets these one-shot rolls of film, but I don't care HOW cheap they are, I really wish she'd go back to 24- or 36-shot ones. Because, to get the shot, you just end up having to pose the kids so that they seem spontaneously to be doing the cute thing they were doing 5 minutes ago before you reloaded the film. This is no problem where Ian is concerned—after all, he can act. But as we all know, Caelin "Hollywood" Hoye lost his acting chops during the hellish filming of Caelin's Big Carnival Adventure and is now about as convincing an actor as Charlton Heston when he's woefully miscast in those roles where he's trying to stretch by playing a human being. (He's much better in his "Chucky the NRA Gun-Nut" mascot role—so cartoonish! So funny! So devoid of even the semblance of actual human emotion!)

But Sioux-zee and Matty brought lots of Caelin's old clothes up for Ian (Caelin is roughly one year older than Ian), so Ian is set for clothes now till he's out of college, just about.

I know what you're thinking: but what about rapidly-changing sartorial styles? Last year's kiddie clothes? All the other pooberts will laff at your Boy! No problem. All the duds S&M brought were classics: do little leisure suits ever go out of style? I should say not! Are those goldfish in those platform shoes? Clotheshorse Reege would not be caught going out in anything else! When he starts to fit into these things, that Ian'll be one bad mother—Shut your mouth!

During this vacation, Ian took his first trip to the shore (Spring Lake, where nutty Matty actually swam in 50 degree water, just to prove that men from the smallest state, RI, are pretty manly too (no one was convinced)); his first trip to the zoo (where he was so excited, he actually slept through the whole visit!); and watched as Matty and Daddy drank the first batch of Daddy's home-brewed Ian-Brau, the amber ale daddy made using the home-brewing kit Ian got Daddy for his (Daddy's) fortieth birthday! Ian-Brau was worthy of it's name, and packed the wallop of the best Kickapoo Joy Juice, which I hear is what they drink in that Third World Country known as Atlanta, ruled over by benign despot Bo Dereque!

More lies about our vacation—and more pix—as time and one-shot film become available!

Actual Facts about Ian: Length: 28 inches; Weight: 17 lbs 14 oz.; Turn-ons: Pureed bananas, pureed peas, apple sauce (he actually sez "mmmmmm" with each spoonful of these guys); oat cereal, barley cereal, rice cereal; and of course milk. Turn-offs: being left alone in a room even for 2 seconds (never happens, though). Favorite pastime: Blowing raspberries (He assures me there's nothing personal in this—just practice for when he first meets an elected official. He won't do this for the mike, but if I ever catch him on mike, I'll upload his raspberry sound, which is a quite accomplished one, with nice full tones and flying spittle. A much more effective use of excess drool.)

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