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I had a busy weekend. I spent some time with both the youngest and oldest of the Wootton brood. I added a new toy to my chest and I had one of those days where everything does not work out quite the way you planned it.

On Friday, the wife ran off with a friend to play the slots. That left me alone with my son, something that, surprisingly, doesn’t happen very often. We had the whole night to ourselves. It barely counts that he hit the sack right after eating dinner and taking a bath. I let him play in his bath a bit. His splashing knocked every toy out of the tub. The effort later knocked him out cold.

Speaking of Friday, earlier in the day I added a brand new toy to my entertainment center. I purchased a TIVO. I’m still a little lukewarm about the service contract you have to purchase. Still, every TIVO owner I’ve spoken with swear its worth it. I’ll see. My initial impressions are very, very good. I’m going to wait a week and let it sink in. Expect a full report on it very soon.

On Saturday, the plans that the wife and I set up went astray. We expected to go to the movies. We expected to finally see Finding Nemo, a movie I’ve been desperate to see for months. We had the babysitter. We had the will. The world just didn’t cooperate.

The first bad sign was the weather. It was rainy. The clouds were grey overhead. The mall was packed; the parking lot full. The bright signs that announce the movie listings at the theater were on the fritz, forcing us to wait in line for 15 minutes to find out the movie was sold out. Sold out? The movie was released months ago. How can it be sold out? I suppose it might have something to do with the fact that it was the only movie shown between the hours 4 and 6:30 pm, a fact that left us with few choices. We couldn’t ask our sitter to stay that long and my Baltimore Ravens were playing at 8. We left the theater looking for alternative activities.

Our first choice was a nice, sit-down dinner. You know, the kind without a little baby to worry about. Some crabs would taste nice. So would a beer. The first restaurant we hit had an hour wait. There were some very sweaty looking customers waiting outside for their name to be called. The second restaurant we approached were out of crabs. I’m sorry but you should be forced to remove the seafood moniker from the sign outside when you run out of crabs in Maryland. At the very least, you should be forced to qualify it a bit. “Seafood, but…” would be a good start.

At this point, my morale had begun to fade. We hit up our favorite crab place in town, Always Best, and headed home. We’d get our crab dinner. I’d get my beer. We’d just let our gracious babysitter keep the little tike occupied for a while. We washed the whole thing down with some preseason football. It wasn’t a bad day at all.

On Sunday, it was off to Westminster to celebrate my Grandmother’s birthday. She’s now had 95 birthdays in a row. She can walk, she can talk, and she can hear. She can still drive my dad up a wall. Her eyesight isn’t what it used to be but, at 95, can you really complain? When queried about her chances for 100, she seemed nonplused. “It isn’t worth it,” she replied. I love the old lady. If God wants her around in another five years, I’m sure she’ll fight the good fight. If not, I bet she goes with just a hint of a smile on her face.

So that was my weekend. I better get used to it. The wife has a whole bunch of them scheduled for the fall.

I don’t normally stick needles in my face. Neither do I shock it with electricity with any kind of frequency. Somehow, however, I was able to fit both into my schedule this week.

On Wednesday, I took an early morning trip to Mercy Hospital for a little more physical therapy. The session went pretty much like I expected. I performed my assigned exercises for the therapist and was critiqued on my progress. The good news: I’ve improved. I may not be able to smile but at least I can raise the corner of my mouth a small amount. The bad news: I ended up with more homework. I have a whole new set of exercises to keep me occupied in front of the mirror.

And what exciting exercises they are. In addition to some practice with puckering and smiling, my old exercises consisted of tasks like filling my cheeks with air and saying words that begin with the letter b, like bow. My new activities are even more comical. One new speech exercise has me pin my tongue to the left side of my mouth and recite words such as grandmother. Another makes me raise my upper lip and say words such as friendly or far. Glancing at the list of terms, I quipped that I was glad that the word frankfurter was skipped. That little “problem” was quickly rectified.

After physical therapy, I moved up my appointment with the neurologist. I was in the building. I might as well kill two birds with one stone. It was in the examining room of the neurologist where words like “grounding” made their first appearance. “I’m going to have to give him a needle”, the doctor told my wife. I had no clue whatsoever that it would be in my face.

To be truthful, it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. The needles themselves were much like acupuncture (which, technically, I’ve only seen on TV) in that they literally rested in my face for a short time. An attached wire made it look as if the doctor were testing a human-sized (and Ken-shaped) battery. The part of my tests where I was shocked by policeman-like electrical do-hickey (I believe that is the technical term) was closer to that tingling feeling you get from laying your tongue on a 9-volt battery than sticking you finger into an electrical outlet (again, something I’ve only seen on TV). Any fear or loathing I had about the session is quite related to having someone jam needles into my face and that’s something I never want to get entirely comfortable with.

The real good news of the week was my prognosis. The doctor said that by Labor Day no one should really notice my facial paralysis. By October 1st, I should be all better. Both dates are now marked in bold on my calendar.

In the last couple of weeks, two of my biggest gaming addictions, Battlefield 1942 and Nascar Racing 2003, have been put aside for calmer, but not necessarily greener, pastures. This shift in my attention was forced on me but the overall effect has been refreshing. I’ve been spending a lot more time ridding the world of evil than making bombing runs or turning that 50th lap, an activity which is much friendlier to my partially blinking eye.

Role playing games have been stealing a lot of my time. Two of them came off the shelf after a long, dusty stay. A third is brand new and has sunk its claws deep into me.

An earlier post mentioned the travels of the wife and I through the land of Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance. This action RPG was a lot of fun. The statistics are dumbed down to the point where all you really need to do is run around and smack stuff – or, in my case, hide in the back and chuck spells at things – and that’s a good thing. It’s easy to pick up and and easy to play. My only disappointment revolved around the story. It seemed more like two stories than one and the two didn’t seem to have much to do with each other. Our disjointed style of play, which was stretched over several months, surely didn’t help the matter.

Neverwinter Nights, which is now more than a year old, came off the shelf because of an opportunity to play it with a friend. That friend had purchased the newest expansion pack, Shadows of Undrentide, and was interested in tackling one of many user made modules for the game. The result is that I’m not actually playing the game, per se. I’m playing a game someone made using the tools the developer so kindly provided.

Birthright of the North, chosen from a list of hundreds because of its high rating in the Neverwinter Vault, is impressive, especially when you consider it was constructed by a single person. I’m always stunned at the amount of work individuals put into game modifications. This one boasts 40 hours of play time, a ton of things to do, and a very open ended style of play. We’ve probably got thirty hours left. I’m looking forward to them.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the new kid on the block, does a lot to appease my disappointment with Star Wars: Galaxies. It’s the first role playing game I’ve ever played in the Chewbacca’s universe and – oh my – it’s a good one. The first thing you notice is how much story and dialog there is. All the dialog is spoken, regardless of the language. Want to hear some Wookie spout off about his grooming? This game has it.

The other thing that becomes immediately obvious is the number of choices you can make. Every situation has choices that decide whether you will follow the light or dark side of the force and, because of this, you get a good sense of freedom. I might be a good boy now but a second play through might be necessary to see how much of a bastard I can really be.

That’s what I’m playing now. As soon as I get better, I’ll return to a more balanced meal on the action front. My poor eye better start blinking soon, though. Madden 2003 comes out in a week. I want to be ready.

I’m doing ok. I’m doing alright. I’m glad to hear that your friend recovered nicely. No, I’m not better yet. I still can’t raise an eyebrow. I still can’t smile.

Many well wishes have come my way in the last two weeks as both friends and family hear about the Bell’s Palsy which afflicts me. I appreciate them. I really do. It’s nice to be loved. It’s nice to see that people care. I truly don’t deserve the kind words I’ve received.

That said, it certainly seems like I’m stuck in a rut. I spend a lot of time discussing both my mug and the mugs of others. I understand the curiousity. It’s hard to describe. It’s hard to explain. Just what does a person look like who can’t control one side of their face? You can tell when people really look at you.

It may or may not help that my contact with the outside world in the last two weeks has been limited. I haven’t been spending time crossing things off my schedule but I haven’t been making plans either. Church softball, my normal Sunday excursion, is a no, no. My partially blinking eye makes it difficult and I’d rather not risk any injury (look there’s a fly ball). Other events, particularly ones that involve eating, are not things I’m anxious to set up.

I’ll make two exceptions to that this weekend, one on both sides of the fence. I’ve decided to skip the annual work picnic. I’d like to go. I’d love to show off my quickly growing boy. I’m not, however, incredibly comfortable with socializing or community eating right now. Doing the two in concert would be torture to both sides of my face. You could call it avoidance. You can worry about symptoms of depression if you really want. I’m taking a different view. It just doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun to me. Besides, it looks like it will rain. I won’t miss it next year.

On the other hand, the wife and I are heading out to dinner and movie so I’m not sworn off the entire world quite yet. We are going to make another run at seeing Finding Nemo, although American Wedding has a good opportunity to snag our discretionary dollars as well. Hopefully we’ll eat some place that serves soft foods.

For those who don’t know, I started physical therapy this week. The therapy itself consists of both facial and oral exercises. I make wierd faces at the mirror and contort my face while repeating certain words. The faces are all the more strange when you take into account that only only my right side has any interest in participating. They do seem to help. The left side can feel odd, wormy, or tight in the hours afterwards. Any feeling over there is a good thing.

The whole idea of physical therapy is to accelerate the recovery process. Bell’s Palsy supposedly just comes back on its own. It comes back slowly, though. I’m hoping those frustrating hours in front of the mirror pay off. If nothing else, I’m learning to control the right side a lot better. Someday, I’ll be able to fake it on both sides.

For all those who have called, emailed, sent me cards, visited, or left an encouraging comment, thanks. I’m making it through this. Sometimes it is hard to forget, though. My Bell’s Palsy is something I cannot escape. You could say that it’s written all over my face.

Although the Senate has already pulled the plug, I couldn’t help but raise an interested eyebrow at DARPA’s latest proposal. For a second there, it looked like everyone would be able to bet on the likelihood of events in the Middle East. The best part was that bookie would be the US government.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency recently proposed a project that would have set up a futures, or idea, market on future events. It’s like any other market, stock or otherwise, except that, in this case, the stocks aren’t anything tangible and we get to talk about Saddam’s head.

Is this funny idea totally out of the question?

Sure, morally this is problematic. It’s like an advanced version of a celebrity death pool. The democrats were quick to point this out. “The idea of a federal betting parlor on atrocities and terrorism is ridiculous and it’s grotesque,” cried Senator Ron Wyden. I can’t disagree.

Politically, it could be a nightmare. I’m sure it would make those late night telephone conversations with the president interesting. Wouldn’t the king of Jordan just love to know the current odds on his assassination? No, no sir. That doesn’t really mean we think you’re screwed. Really.

But what was lost in the very quick and public effort to brush this under the rug was a real analysis of its virtues. After all, a futures market is hardly a new idea. This Wired articles points out a few of them out. The Iowa Electronic Market is used to predict election results. The Hollywood Stock Exchange gives us a peek into the Oscars. These exchanges can produce interesting, if not useful, results.

Discounting the simple dabblers into the dark arts of political betting, serious investors would put their confidence and sources into such a market. It could tell us what people are thinking. More importantly, it could tell us what the money of people is thinking, something with far more weight.

For all my enthusiasm, I’m not convinced it could ever yield any substantial results. It’s much more likely to be a political tool – a running poll, if you will – than an instrument of divination. The potential for misuse is just too great. There’s more than enough red tape floating about the hallowed halls of Washington DC. We need not add the flash of Las Vegas to the parade of government abuse.

It would, however, fascinate the darker fantasies of the public. Hey mom, I’ve got $40 on an unconditional surrender by France.

Update: Here’s a good article on the Slate that takes more of an analytical view, rather than an emotional one. It makes a couple of good points, including one described quite well in the quote below:

The wife and I completed Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, a cooperative role playing game, the other night. I had to jostle her awake to finish off the end boss but that didn’t help the powers of evil. My mage made a final bow during the final battle and her dwarf dealt the killing blow. It was a lot of fun.

The sad thing is that we started our 16 hour adventure many months ago, months before the birth of our son. In the rush to prepare for, and then have, our little baby boy, we’ve left little time for dawdling and little time for gaming. Finding one of us on the couch with copious amounts of free time is a rare sight. Happening upon two concious parents with time to play is an aberration, an aberration that often leads to other things (like cleaning).

Frankly, I’m surprised she not only puts up with my gaming habit but joins in. Most normal men wouldn’t look kindly towards a wife who swings an giant axe and quaffs health potions like there is no tomorrow. I’m no normal man.
Combining one my loves, gaming, with the love of my life is a personal joy. Next up: Grim Fandango. Manny’s going to help us celebrate the Day of the Dead.

I’m feeling a little bit better now. No, I still can’t control the left side of my face. This reality is still very much in my thoughts. I’m just tired of bitching. I’m not done with bitching, mind you. I’m just tired of doing so — for now.

Part of the reason has to do with acceptance. After a while, everyone, including me, stops listening. Part of it has to do with life. I’ve heard it goes on.

It’s certainly going on for my young son. I’ve mentioned his spurts of rapid growth before. The last couple of weeks qualify as a growth spurt and a half.

He sitting up now, although not entirely by himself. He teeters and totters. Anxious parents await the inevitable topple. A shoulder hold is an opportunity to stand on my lap. He rolls both back and forth, combining the two as a new mode of transportation, which the wife has aptly named log rolling. He’s mobile, although still quite slow.

His surroundings are suddenly filled with objects of fascination. Nearby objects are no longer decoration. They are food. The various trinkets that border his crib are given the investigative treatment. Silverware must be pushed to the center of the dinner table. Baby proofing is no longer a future concern. It is a present one.

The transformation from tiny baby to mobile infant is both mesmerizing and startling in its sheer speed — discovery at a wicked pace. Today, he sprinkles my wife’s ears with “mommamamamom”. Tomorrow, I’ll be attending his college graduation.

While I may miss the days when feeding was as simple as a well placed bottle, I’m thrilled to watch him sieze the nipple and discern its use for himself. It’s a good reminder that I’m not totally in control. It’s also a good reminder that these days there’s little time to stop and smell the roses — no matter how good, or bad, their scent. There’s just so much else to do.

I’ve been pretty down this week. Actually, I’ve been a lot down. The Bell’s Palsy that’s affecting the left side of my face is bothering me, both physically and emotionally.

Physically, everything seems harder. Everything is a relative term, of course. Walking certainly isn’t more difficult. Neither is manipulating a fork and a knife. The easy things you take for granted. You don’t miss them unless they are broken. A lot seems broken right about now.

Unmoving lips result in slurred speech. I’ve found myself actually holding my mouth with my hand to help correct this. Eating is a challenge. My lips just won’t get the hell out the way of my teeth, much less serve as a good gatekeeper. Once it’s in, you want it to stay in, a problem that rears its head when drinking too fast.

An partially blinking eye means those long nights in front of the computer screen may become more a thing of the past. Eye drops are an hourly reminder of my problem. The last thing I need is something else to go wrong.

Emotionally, it’s a burden. There are lots of unknowns. How long will this last? Will I ever recover? Questions roam around in my brain like flies in a jar, never escaping, sometimes pausing from the exhaustion of a battered skull.

I’ve become concerned about my appearance but not in the way you expect. I don’t know if I’ve ever really cared how people see me. I’ve always been personally confident. I generally care little about you think. That said, an unresponsive face has made that confidence tumble. I think less of myself. That bothers me much more than any glare from another could.

Embarrassment has become an unwelcome neighbor, frustration a looming giant. It’s all the little things that bug me. Addition in small increments is still addition after all.

My treatment has been laced with sorrow. My prognosis is hope. Still what I really want to do is frown for a while — and do it with gusto.

My poor body is falling apart at the seams. One sickness takes hold ands opens the gate for others. I’ve been to the doctor’s office three times in the past seven days and that doesn’t count the two after hour phone calls I’ve had to make. I’ll get to make it four of nine when I return to see the doctor on Thursday. I’m officially sick of being sick.

It all started last Tuesday when I felt a pain in my left ear. My symptoms persisted into Wednesday. The doctor suggested that I come in for a quick check up and make sure everything is allright. You don’t want to mess with a possible ear infection.

So I did. Apparently there was nothing interesting in there. I was sent home with no medication, except for instructions to apply Selson Blue to an odd loss of pigment to my right thumb and forefinger – a totally unrelated problem.

On Saturday I awoke with a pretty red balloon on the side of my head. My left ear no longer matched my right one in terms of girth. The left side of my face had swelled up. Something was wrong. I got on the phone. Antibiotics were on the menu. Ibuprofen would help with the swelling.

Monday would find me in the doctor’s office again. I had not seen marked improvement and someone in a white coat needed to look at the little megaphone on the side of my head. Sure enough, I had an ear infection. It looks like this one started on the outside and worked its way in. The doctor prescribed ear drops and a liquid to fight a weird, taste bud altering feeling I had in my tongue.

Monday evening gave me something more frightening to worry about. I was losing some control of the left side of my face. The effect was much like an overdose of novocaine. The right side smiles and the left side gives it only a half-hearted try. A grimace makes me look much more like Two-Face than I’d like to admit. I jumped back on the phone.

My third visit to the doctor’s office both confirmed my fears and brought some relief. I have a form of Bell’s palsy, a problem with the 7th cranial nerve in the face. The good news is that it is very likely related to my infected ear, meaning that when my ear is healed it will likely go away.

The idea of having a palsy, or paralysis, is rather frightening. It’s such a strange sensation. You feel like your driving a car that drifts to the right. There is a disconnect between where you hold the wheel and where the car actually goes. I’ll be happy when I can correct the steering.

This bombardment of sickness has me down a bit. It has caught a normally healthy guy off balance. Most of my bottles have 10 days written on them. I can’t wait until I can finish off the drug cocktail the doctors have prepared for me. In the meantime, I’ll think happy thoughts like balloons and clowns. You know, the ones with a full smile.

A reunion of sorts was scheduled for Sunday. For one day, the busy schedules and distances that separate the Wootton men were put aside. We were men. We were alone. No women were allowed.

That’s right. Our women let us out without supervision. We were free for an independent day of manly bonding. The question of what exactly we would do with our time was still very much up in the air when my father’s three boys pulled up at his house.

Many years ago the old ping pong table in the basement was an object of fascination for me. My brothers were the masters, holding tournaments of will and precision. I was the enthusiastic little kid, just aching for someone to chase my mistakes into the dark corners of our basement.

It seems that times have changed a bit. The table was new, despite the fact that some miscellaneous objects it supported attested to its lack of use. I’ve been practicing a bit; I spent about a year of lunches knocking around a little orange ball. Their skills, however, have been left unused since college. I think I gave them enough of a challenge to work the rust off.

The great thing about the table tennis we played is that it gave us a chance to catch up while doing something that felt so natural. We could have been back at the old house chewing the fat for all I knew or cared. It also gave the sun time to warm up for our eventual destination: Gettysburg.

Gettysburg is a place where I spent many a day during my youth. We used to camp nearby. We lived a mere 15 minutes away. The fact that my father was once a tour bus driver in Gettysburg meant we always had a built in guide. I remember the fudge at the corner shop. I remember my father helping me up the walk-up towers as my fear of heights got hold of me. I remember the following the tape tour around the battlefield.

Not much has changed. The fudge is still wonderfully good. My knees still buckle when I get four stories above the earth. The tape is now a CD but sounds much like before.

We turned the two hour tour into a four hour tour. The battlefield was our playground for a bit. We climbed towers, hiked Big Round Top, and listened in on the guides meant for the official tour buses. It was great fun.

We then settled down for dinner in the cozy basement tavern of the Dobbin House. A storm rolled by and we barely noticed. The candlelight of the basement meant a temporary loss of power only added to the ambiance. I couldn’t help but get a bit reflective.

The four gentlemen sitting at the dinner table are now family men. The kids now have kids. Even the baby of the family – me – has a baby of his own at home.

It’s all a little surreal. It’s as if time rushed forward to this point. One day we were tackling each other in the backyard. The next day we were paying taxes and mowing our own lawns.

The trip home proved adventurous. The passing storm had been severe. Debris littered the roadway and we passed one tree blocking half of the roadway before coming to rest by a downed tree and a police car. I started to put the truck in reverse but changed my mind. Surely, there is something we could do about this. The four of hopped out of the car and made our way through the rain to the downed tree. Heave ho, guys. The tree didn’t stop us but the police officer did. Help in the form of a chainsaw was on the way. We were only interfering. We turned the truck around and found another way to my father’s house.

I have to say I won’t forget the day for a while (which is a good thing considering how long I took to write about it). I was unaware how easy it was to revisit my childhood. Sometimes the memories lie just a table tennis game away. The end of our day, which found four men working together to clear a path home, seemed just right. In a way, that’s exactly what we did.