Saturday, October 29, 2005

Okay, okay, here I am

So it's been weeks, here I am! And with nothing deep or meaningful to say. Life is mostly back to normal after my trip and miscellaneous personal crap, so now I have the down time to write again. Unfortunately, my down time generally corresponds with me being bored and therefore not having anything especially interesting to say.

I saw something yesterday that I keep replaying in my mind, because it made me happy unexpectedly and in a weird way. So here, I'll share. I was on my way to pick my stepkids up from school. I have to drive through a pretty sketchy neighborhood to get to the freeway. I was kind of cranky in general, mostly just blah, and not paying all that much attention, when traffic stopped for no reason I could see. I peeked around the car in front of me and saw a body darting into traffic. Now, in Baltimore, idiots playing chicken with heavy traffic is hardly note-worthy, but as this person emerged on the other side of the car in front of me, I saw that it was a police officer. He was running hell bent for leather across a major road with a childlike smile of pure joy on his face, like he was really, really enjoying his pursuit. Seemed so out of place, that smile. I looked back over my shoulder, in the direction the officer was heading, and saw two teenagers pummeling each other across the street. Waves of kids flowed across the street after the cop, all with the same look of glee and excitement on their faces. It's nothing unusual to see kids excited by a fight, but the fact that the cop had the same look of invigoration was sort of unexpected and uplifting. Not that that really makes any sense, but it sort of perked me up. I like surprises.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Home Sweet Home

I'm back! I'm sure no one's even checking this blog anymore, it's been so long since I posted, but at least this time I had a good excuse, being in a country with no noticeable infrastructure and all. Not that I'm complaining (about the lack of infrastructure) - a dose of enforced planlessness was very welcome.

Italy is just amazing, and the trip was more wonderful than I could have imagined. We stayed at a villa in Tuscany, near San Gimignano, for a week as part of a destination wedding (the bride was a friend of the friend I was traveling with). Everyone was very nice and interesting and it was a really cool way to be a tourist - with a gorgeous and friendly home base. I saw Siena, San Gimignano, Volterra, and Florence, and each was awe inspiring in its own way. The weather was perfect all week, and I took way too many pictures. After the wedding itself, we went to Venice, with three new friends in tow. Venice is more mind-boggling than the rest put together - it's the fairyland you imagine as a child, brought to vivid (if damp) life. I want to go back immediately.

The boys (and my husband!) did well in my absence - I think I missed them more than they missed me. I can't stop holding them or get used to the big boy's incessant talking. It's good to be home.

I have a million little Italy stories that are probably only funny to me, but they'll have to wait for a bit. Got to squeeze the kids some more.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

It is so. damn. hot.

Yes, yes, I know, it's been ages again. I have attention issues.

My epiphany as I headed to bed last night had to do with the invention of the post-it note. As background (stay with me here), it has been approximately 156 degrees and 125% humidity here the past couple days, courtesy of our friendly 2-states-away-and-still-making-my-hair-frizzy buddy, Hurricane Ophelia. Seriously, worst weather ever, at least in the 8 years I've lived in this swampy pit of a climate. We canceled classes at my sons' preschool today because it was so hot. Anyway, and as usual, I digress. So, it's hot. And, more importantly, it is sticky. As I dressed for bed last night, my arm actually stuck to my side. I had gotten sweaty, then flung myself down in front of the (sad, inadequate, not dehumidifying) air conditioning unit to cool/dry off, then immediately become soaked again from the most minor exertion, cooled off, sweated, cooled off, repeat....all day. So, by bedtime, I had a thin but visible veneer of dried sweat. Attractive, I know. I wore a virtual shield of deodorant yesterday, so you need not imagine unpleasant aromas during this exercise. Good god, could I make this post about nothing any longer? Short story long, when my arm stuck to my side, then peeled off, I was reminded of post-it notes and how cleverly they stick but release. I'm guessing they were invented by another inmate of the mid-Atlantic.

I hear fall is due next week, between 2pm and 4pm on Wednesday - I hope it's not late, or I'll miss it while I'm in Italy. I'll be sure to bitch about the freezing cold when I get back.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Another overdue update

My friend Yvette is nagging me to write more, so here I am writing, despite a distinctive lack of things to say. Blame her if this is more than usually boring.

I'm slowly weaning myself off of 24 hours Katrina news coverage and trying to find more constructive things to do with my life. In the same Katrina vein, though, now that the Red Cross has called for 40,000 volunteers, I really want to go. Anyone out there want to watch my kids for 3 weeks?

My boys both started preschool last week. I'm just starting to realize how liberating this could be. My big boy is in school for 2 hours every afternoon, at the same time as the little guy's nap. Two hours, 5 days a week, all to myself. I already have a mental list of projects to do, but I think we all know napping will trump project on many occasions.

Other upcoming events - my baby's turning 2 on Friday, which seems wrong and impossible. He's becoming such a person, even if he is still mute. He's an excellent mime, so communication is less of a problem than you might imagine. The week after his birthday, I leave for Italy - I'm about equal parts excited and terrified. I know it will be an amazing experience, but it sort of feels like amputation not to see my kids for 11 days. Oh, and that man who lives here, too.

So, Yvette, there's an update. I'll try to think of some entertaining stories and come back soon.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

If we must blame, blame Bush

Like everyone else, I've been glued to the news this week, weeping and feeling helpless at the unthinkable horrors in the post-hurricane South. I haven't said anything about it on the blog because it's so overwhelming, and what could I say that hasn't been said anyway? However, I just saw a poll that indicates that the blame everyone's looking for is shifting away from Bush and toward local government, and that makes me mad. I can write mad a lot more easily than I can write depressed.

I'm not saying this is the appropriate point in this crisis for blame to be laid anywhere, but people are pointing fingers with or without my input, so I may as well add my two cents. In the midst of my despair and rage earlier this week, when it seemed that aid was awfully slow in coming to New Orleans, I did have moments of relief - a feeling almost like camaraderie with my fellow Americans - when I saw and heard people from both parties united in their frustration and anger at the poorly organized response. It almost seemed that the silver lining of this crisis might be that it could unite a sharply divided citizenry and focus everyone's attention on helping each other instead of on ideological differences.

Now that the last evacuee has finally been removed from the squalid conditions at the Superdome and the New Orleans convention center, it seems that people are already returning to their pre-hurricane corners. The poll I just saw indicates that people agree that the federal and local governments were both unprepared for this kind of emergency, but that most people are not blaming Bush. I do understand that there were failures across the board, but with great power comes great responsibility, and Bush has made some really bad, really big decisions that directly contributed to this week's failures.

1) Bush created a Department of Homeland Security to cover emergencies of this scope, whether natural or man-made - he diverted money and resources to the new department, was reelected largely because of the sense of security it gave the public, and encouraged a meek legislature to suspend many of our civil rights to give it teeth - yet when the acid test came last week, the DHS proved to be woefully unprepared. Four years and huge piles of dollars later, we deserve better than this. This article is pretty slanted, though appears to have facts straight, and its last line is one of its best - "Homeland security should begin at home."

2) Bush sent National Guardsmen to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan under false pretenses. Whether or not one supports the war in Iraq (and I agree that we can't just leave now that we've so badly destabilized the region), even the administration now admits that the reasons they gave for pressing this fight were invalid and ultimately proved completely baseless. The National Guard has long been the most truly defensive branch of the armed forces, aiding and protecting citizens in times of natural or man-made disaster. Unfortunately, our military has been stretched so thin with the war in Iraq that much of the National Guard has had to go to Iraq to supplement our strength there. There is no way of knowing how much more effective the rescue process in New Orleans would have been with a stronger National Guard presence, but it's a fair guess that their experience would have come in very handy.

3) Bush chose the war in Iraq and tax cuts over many necessary social and infrastructure programs, one of which was funding for the maintenance of the New Orleans levees that ultimately failed this week. Local governments warned of the possible failure of the levees and asked for sufficient funding for the Army Corps of Engineers to strengthen them, but Bush had other priorities. He owns a big part of the flooding that followed the levee failures.

4) The argument I'm hearing from the White House about why the slow response was not their fault is that the state has to request assistance before the federal government can come in. First of all, I think there's a case to be made that the local governments did request assistance days in advance of it arriving. However, my bigger complaint is that this is a very childish "I'm rubber and you're glue" type of defense. Their argument is, essentially, "but they didn't ASK for help." Okay, George. I guess we're meant to believe that the entire federal government is so incapable of evaluating a crisis and independently determining what needs to be done that it must wait for specific requests before acting. Sadly, I actually don't find that all that hard to believe.

I do understand that coordinating food and transportation for nearly half a million people must be an enormous logistical challenge, and that immediate aid was probably not even physically possible. My concern is not so much with the timing of aid as with the timing of security. You can not convince me that it would have taken four days to establish a meaningful military presence if one of our great cities had been invaded by a foreign enemy instead of by water and homegrown gangs. The atrocities committed by a subset of New Orleans citizens on the unprotected remainder should not have been possible. Stories of violence and lawlessness began coming from New Orleans last Tuesday, the day after the hurricane, but a strong military presence was not in place until Friday afternoon. That is simply unacceptable. The defense I have heard most is that people on the ground fired on the first responders, so the first responders just went away. Now, I'm not at all saying that it was okay for the people on the ground to shoot at anyone, least of all those providing aid - but wouldn't the logical response be to overwhelm those breaking the law, rather than just giving up and leaving the vast, defenseless majority to be preyed upon?

Okay, I think I'm finally winding down - thank you to anyone who stuck it out this far. I do think that helping the victims is the most important thing, but blame does have its place. If we do not learn from our mistakes (or identify people who persist in making them at others' expense), we really will keep repeating them. I hope that there really is a unifying silver lining here, and that the checks and balances built into our government begin applying to the president a little more effectively.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Speaking of drinking...

I just went down to our disgusting, mold-smelling, cat-dwelling pit of a basement to use the sort-of-bathroom down there (because it seems like less effort to go downstairs to use the bathroom even though I KNOW I'm going to have to walk back up the stairs after). That long, overly informative sentence was not even the point of this post. It may be a long haul, brace yourself.

Here, I think, is the point. I had three thoughts following one upon the other that proved to me conclusively that I have had too much to drink in my effort to drown the anger at all the idiots referenced in the post below. Here are the thoughts:

1) I saw a spider (common in our basement, they outnumber us by a margin of something like 1,000,000 to 1), and instead of my usual (over)reaction of revulsion and fleeing, I marveled at the delicacy and near-transparency of its legs. How odd is that?

2) I washed my sheets earlier today (odd enough in itself, as I avoid laundry as much as possible until at least 3/4 of the members of my family are going about in pajamas or less). On my way up from the basement, to avoid further trips down this evening, I decided to bring the now-clean sheets back up. Unfortunately, all of my laundry baskets are currently in use (holding clean but either folded-but-becoming-unfolded or never-made-it-to-the-folded-point clothing), so I dragged the huge, disfigured, drawn on by children box that originally held our artifical Christmas tree over to the dryer and put the clothes in that. Then hauled it up the stairs. Then, upon seeing my husband's incredulous face, realized this was less efficiency and more insanity.

3) I sat down at the computer and saw the google talk window that shows that I, myself, am online and available. How is this necessary information to me, I wondered? Usually I approve of Google, but in this case I think they have overstepped. I know I'm available, don't waste my eye motions on a green dot that only references me.

I'm sure there's more, but I've lost interest. Going to re-watch Closer, as I made my husband turn it on after he struck out on other viewing options (crap movie on Oxygen of all things (is he gay?), WWE, NFL). I may have to go back through this post first, though, and count the hyphens. And parentheses.

I hate people

I used to be a nice person. I was a friendly child, had lots of friends growing up and even through college. Unfortunately, my first job out of college was running an internal IT Help Desk at a company that had absolutely zero standards for intelligence and seemed to actively encourage rudeness among its employees. My tenure on the help desk hardened me to people (and telephones, though my Pavlovian reaction to the ring of a telephone is another topic altogether). Working at that job, I developed a theory about people that is best expressed via the following chart (look! a graphic in my blog!):









This week, I have had to deal with a ridiculous number of people who were both stupid and mean (see category IV above). Not just the regular fast food employees and telemarketers, either - I have had horrific encounters with the following:

  • Doctors (I went to beg for assistance with a heart problem that has been ongoing now for 9 months and was told that it was all psychological, despite the fact that the same doctor later heard the skipping beats and acted surprised that they were really happening)
  • Government employees (in re: the preschool and ridiculous regulations I'm convinced are only in place to discourage people from trying to help children)
  • Insurance companies (took my money as a deposit so I canceled my old policy, then had a call from the new company asked why I opted NOT to do business with them)
  • Heating oil companies (was on hold for 17 minutes to get a representative to say yes, this is the only dept you can reach directly but no, they have no information and can only put you on a wait list to receive a return call within 3-4 days, and this is their SOP not a reaction to recent shortages).
This is why I'm for gun control. Look at the chaos in New Orleans - how much worse is the situation there because lunatics have been pushed to the edge with guns available for looting from the nearby Walmart? I'm being driven to drink by the idiots I've dealt with this week, I can't imagine how the refugees in the South must feel. I know I'm not to be trusted with heavy weaponry, why should I trust my fellow man?

I do feel for all of the people affected by Hurricane Katrina. I hope that this administration is at least as responsive to our citizens as they finally managed to be to the tsunami victims earlier this year.

Monday, August 29, 2005

I'm back!

I've been busy as hell this past week, but I'm back to my life of slovenly leisure now, so look forward to more scintillating posts about nothing! Last week the weather actually did not suck, so I took the opportunity to go (gasp) out w/my kids nearly every day. This week, the weather feels like a hot, wet blanket, and the bugs are so thick in my back yard that my 2yo cried and clung to me when I tried to let him play today, so the living room it is. I clean as fast as I can but realized at one point today that they are just capable of destroying faster than I am capable of cleaning, so I gave it up as a bad job and resigned myself to living like an animal in a cage until the weather turns again.

In other news, I finished three (3!) knitting projects and am on my 4th. Take that, everyone who thinks I don't finish things (oh, wait, that includes me)! AND, I got my passport in the mail. Whoop! Now if I can just get over the fact that there are fatal airplane crashes in the news every. day, I can really get excited about my Italy trip!

My latest in a rapid-fire string of obsessions is couponing and the Grocery Game (as seen recently on the Today show). Last week, I saved 40%, this week my goal is to save at least 60%. Very, very odd to have grocery shopping as a highlight of my week, but that just goes to show you how far a road I've traveled this year. Whether that road leads anywhere remains to be seen.

My heart is driving me crazy again w/palpitations, and since my doctors seem incredibly unconcerned, I have had to resort to self-diagnosis via the Internet. My leading contender at this point is mitral valve prolapse - I like it for several reasons, not least of which is that it requires no treatment and is rarely very dangerous.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Moderation, I know you not

Moderation is not really my thing - I'm very streaky (not in the alarming naked sense of the word, just that I obsess about something intensely for a brief period and then drop it cold). I have closets full of scrapbooking crap from my 6 month foray into scrapbooking 5 years ago. I have half completed craft projects of every description leaking out of closets and attics and wardrobes. I have books and articles scattered throughout the house on topics ranging from politics (given up as too hopeless) to investing (given up as too expensive) to tax code (not yet given up - I have an odd fascination with taxes). Point is, this whole blog-3-times-a-day followed by a week's silence is right up my alley. Especially as I've been busy feeding some other obsessions - knitting and the co-op preschool.

Knitting I know I've already mentioned, but you'll surely (ha! originally spelled that shirley, further proof that my brain is rotting) be impressed to learn that I have completed two entire items - a bag and a hat. I never finish ANYTHING, so this is huge. The preschool has been a major preoccupation this week, as I've had to preside (as I am the president, ha) over orientation meetings nearly every night. I'm not a nervous public speaker, but I am a little sloppy I think, and easily derailed from anything resembling a topic. Must focus at tonight's final meeting, end on a bang, etc.

So, just checking in. Off to print more materials for the preschool. Or work on the scarf I'm knitting. Or, you know, interact with my kids.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Punctuation abuse

I really do try not to be judgmental. I am one of those fortunate (and, evidence suggests, rare) people to whom spelling and punctuation just come naturally. However, sometimes other people's liberties with the written word just drive me completely up the wall. I am the president of my boys' preschool this year, and I have spent much of the past week revising ancient documents in preparation for our orientation. It seems to me that whoever first wrote these documents did not understand the rules for comma usage but knew that commas are necessary and so scattered them throughout the paragraphs wantonly and with utter disregard for rules of grammar or others' sensibilities.

Please, if you do not understand the rules for comma usage, learn them. You may think no one notices, but they do. I assure you.

More info than you wanted about my annual exam

I promise not to get too detailed here, but yesterday was my annual "women's doctor" visit and it was entertaining for a few reasons.

First of all, it was the first such visit I have really wanted to go to, and I owe it all to my children. I don't know if it was a full moon or if the merciful cold front that came through yesterday messed with their little psyches or if they just hate me, but yesterday my two boys were absolutely as bad as it was possible for them to be. My 4 year old literally screamed for 2.5 hours about nothing, and much of that time was during a trip to a public place. Lovely. My 2 year old pinched my neck so hard that it looks like I have a hickey. Now, I'll be the first to admit that my kids have great potential for mischief and mayhem, but the sheer effort they put into yesterday's shenanigans was noteworthy. By the time my doctor appointment rolled around, I was more than ready to ditch the kids with their unsuspecting father and go anywhere at all, as long as it wasn't with them - even the doctor.

Reason 2 - my doctor is a very, very (very) small man. Maybe 4'5, and positively dainty in build. He is dear and funny and completely non-threatening. His only shortcoming is a tendency to ramble on and on with nostalgic stories that would be very interesting in another context, but are distracting in the extreme under exam circumstances. He also lacks the ability to multitask, so I laid captive for 20 minutes, prepared for the exam and wearing a large paper napkin, and listen to his stories about boarding school in India.

Not that I'm especially looking forward to next year, but since I have to do it anyway, I might as well make the best of it!

Time Flies

Wow, it's been ages since I've written. I know you've all been sad. I've been knitting, somewhat obsessively, ever since my knitting stuff arrived on Saturday. My official claim is that we have no money for Christmas gifts (which is true), so I'm saving the family money and showing our affection for friends and family with thoughtful homemade gifts, but I fear the truth is more self-serving and indicative of incipient, if not actual, mental illness. I have a craft sickness - once I start something crafty, it's all I can think about and all I want to do until it's done or until I just burn out (usually the latter). Just writing this makes me itch to do more knitting. The current knitting madness specifically I attribute to the Yarn Harlot, whose blog I love and who inspires me to unhealthy levels of craftiness.

I've also been busy obsessively bargain hunting and coupon clipping, much to my husband's amusement. He can laugh, but I just got a $20 shirt for free and a nice computer desk for $30. So there.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Target - the new Tiffany's

I went to Target this morning for a couple things (and actually only bought about $20 worth of stuff I didn't need - possibly a new record). I've been so happy since I left that it made me think of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's - love that movie. Since I don't live within walking distance of Tiffany's (though I do go there every time I go to New York, and yes it is a powerful mood stabilizer), I have decided that Target is my best local substitute. You just can't be sad at Target, surrounded by colorful, well-organized, reasonably priced things you don't know you need until you see them. I ration my Target trips, since you have to check your willpower at the door, but the deprivation just strengthens my affection.

I know I sound crazy to some of you (read: men), but I bet some of you are nodding in understanding. You are in my head, anyway, and that's all the support I need.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

My new invention

My two year old is showing signs of wanting the freedom of a real bed. He sobs and points at his brothers' bunks when it's time to go to sleep, and crawls right in if we're not fast enough to stop him. I know, I know, this shows that he's blossoming into an independent little person. The problem is that independent little people are a pain in the ass. There's a reason babies are appealing, and the reason is that we can lock them up. Don't call CPS - I don't mean in a closet, or with handcuffs, just a crib with nice, solid bars, no more than 2 3/8 inches apart.

In the near term, my solution is to quash my son's bid for independence by keeping him penned in until he actually dismantles the crib. He's obviously not bright enough for freedom anyway, as he is a skilled climber who is frequently found on top of couches and bunk beds and could therefore easily climb out if he really put his mind to it.

It's the long term that concerns me and is the necessity this mother needs to invent. My idea is this - a convertible crib that becomes not a toddler bed but a larger crib, one that can expand to full length and keep my son cooped up safely until he leaves for college. Since it is inevitable that he will eventually figure out how to escape it, my invention will require a secure lock and alarm system. Actually, as I type this, it occurs to me that my invention already exists, in the form of a jail cell. The genius of my plan is therefore not in the development but in identifying the home market. I wonder who at the local jail I can contact to establish a business partnership?

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Christmas in August

I've been on self-imposed house arrest for most of the past two weeks due to a combination of extreme heat, extreme laziness, and a nasty summer cold that has been running through the family. What did people do at such times before there were laptops with wireless internet access? I can't imagine spending this much time lying on the couch with just television to entertain me. Of course, my eyes might not feel so puffy and sore if I hadn't just spent 48 hours staring at this screen.

Oh good grief, I actually had to look at the title to remember what I was planning on writing about. My brain is mush. So - during all of my online couch time lately, I've been getting tons of ideas for homemade Christmas gifts. We don't have much money right now, but I love Christmas and I'm all excited about getting started with these projects. How excited I'll be to finish them remains to be seen. I ordered a bunch of supplies and can't wait for them to get here. Too bad I'm going to be very busy catching up on housework once they arrive and won't have time to work on presents until the next time I get sick. I think my husband thinks I'm a little crazy to be getting worked up over Christmas when it's over 90 outside.

In other news - how freaking annoying is Ty Pennington? I swear, he could build me a new house and I'd still want to shove something in his mouth just to shut him up.

Saturday, August 06, 2005

Today's I-Can't-Write-Scapegoat - Happiness

I passed by an eviction today - all of someone's worldly belongings thrown into the street. I think my husband did an entry on that phenomenon a while ago, let me see - ah, screw it, I finally found the entry but can't figure out how to link just to that entry, even though I did it before. I think maybe that beer I had for medicinal purposes (did I mention my husband gave me his cold?) wasn't such a hot idea. But we're out of cold medicine.

Okay, the eviction was not the point. The point was - I realized as I drove by this particular eviction that I have never been evicted. Or fired, or really even broken up with. I was watching Kill Reality the other night (really stupid show), and one of the wannabes said that she had never experienced any personal tragedy and was therefore incapable of acting tragic. I think I made fun of her (I don't feel bad about this - I really think it's sort of the point of the show), but now that I think of it, I sort of live a charmed life too. I've been sad, of course, I'm not quite as removed from reality as the dimwit in question - I've lost people I've loved and I have imagination enough to comprehend the tragedies that every mother fears - but I have never gone hungry (or been evicted), I have a husband and children who are healthy and who love me, I had a well-paying if not at all satisfying career and now stay home with my kids by choice and enjoy it. I've never really had to deal with rejection, though the very idea of it can scare me sideways at times. No wonder I can't find anything serious to write about, I'm in the middle of a happy and therefore rather uninteresting life. Not that I'm complaining, if those are the alternatives.

In other news - I'm re-watching The Good Girl. Love Jennifer Aniston.

More politics

Politics is what you all get when I read the news first thing in the morning, before my defenses are up properly. This isn't really so much a political opinion as an overall feeling about the world, country, etc.

I just saw a picture of Bill Clinton and had a feeling of nostalgia - every time I see his face, I remember feeling hopeful, like things were moving in the right direction. It was just after the end of the Cold War, and having grown up with air raid drills in school, the new international cooperation seemed very promising. I graduated from college with no worries about the economy, part of a strong middle class - something that is essential to democracy.

Now I feel like we've squandered all of that - the international goodwill, the strong economy, the protected and productive middle class. It hardly feels like a democracy any more - any time checks and balances trouble this administration, they find a way around them (as in Bolton's appointment). I thank god for term limits and hope the damage isn't irreversible.

I'm really not extremely political, although obviously I slant to the left. I have a lot of friends and family who are conservative, and as I respect them, I respect their opinions. I hold on to the idea that maybe they see something I don't of hope and progress in this current situation that seems so dire to me.

Okay, back to regularly scheduled poop stories and children's antics - sorry for the departure.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Baby Names in the News

So far, I think I've kept my family's names out of this blog, but there's no real point since my husband is always saying them in his, right? So there's no reason for me not to rant about Michelle Branch naming her new daughter Owen. My 2 year old (a BOY) is named Owen, and we thought at the time that his name would be somewhat unique. Since he was born, I've met a ton of little Owens and resigned myself to the rising popularity of the name, but at least they were all boys!

I consider myself a feminist, women should be able to do what they want, blah blah blah, but is nothing sacred??? As a mother of boys, let me tell you - it is a lot harder to name boys than girls. With both of my kids, we came up with tons of girl names that both of us liked (we even have a likely candidate for the as-yet-hypothetical next one, on the wildly improbable chance it's a girl), but we struggled with boy names. There are fewer choices to begin with, and there's a much finer line between too popular and too weird.

I don't begrudge Gwyneth Paltrow her Apple or Julia Roberts her Hazel, or any of the other weird names celebrities give their kids - I get that it must be hard to have a private life in the public eye, and the public would probably complain just as much if they chose ordinary names. But I wish this trend toward hijacking good boy names for girls would stop, especially as I'm sure to need more in the future. My husband needs to buy an x, he seems to have run out of girl sperm.

Stranger Danger (or: children are dumb)

We are watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and just got to the scene where the children get in the car with Truly Scrumptious, whom they do not know. I decided to use the opportunity to quiz my 4 year old on stranger danger, which we HAVE reviewed before.

Me: What do you do if a stranger asks you to get in their car?
Son (emphatically): Get in the car RIGHT AWAY.

Um, no.
Resuming stranger danger boot camp now.

Grocery shopping shouldn't be this fun

I am the grocery shopping master. Our cheeseball local grocery store is having an anniversary sale and so much stuff was on sale for $1 each. I took my 4 year old with me (my husband's home again today so I was able to go without the baby, thank goodness) and I'm glad I did, as I ended up with two full carts and the boy had to push one. Totally tacky reveal of shopping total - $161. So proud of myself. I just about bought out the meat dept - got 4 roasts, 3 huge packs of hamburger, chicken wings, breasts, legs ($.49/lb!), spareribs. I should never have to go to the store again, ever.

I'm sure you all wanted that kind of detail about my groceries. Still high from all the savings, and the fact that I seriously shouldn't have to shop again from ages, as I've basically brought the entire grocery store home.

Not as thrilled about the renewed Al Qaeda threats against London, as I will be there next month en route to Italy. Of course, I don't want anyone else scared or hurt either, my upcoming trip just makes it feel more personal. Why can't we all just get along? :)

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Better self-knowledge through beer, and rambling political commentary

Forgive even-more-than-usual excesses of rambling, as I have had 3 beers and a long hot day and am writing even-more-than-usually for myself. I am in the process of transferring all of my data from one laptop to another (my 2 year old has finally defeated me - he has been gradually pulling keys and peripherals from the old laptop until I have at last been forced to concede that it is useless - but I have such a silly attachment to it!). While I wait for files to copy, I have been writing menus and shopping lists and looking at my budget spreadsheet to try to squeeze a few more drops of blood from that stone. I now have all of that pretty well in order but was still fiddling around with the files (I keep menus and shopping lists in one, budgets in another), and realized that I am using this overdone electronic organization as a writing substitute. I feel like my fingers are itching to write something - it doesn't help that my husband is subjecting me to part two of the Mark Twain documentary. When I am busy with the kids or driving or otherwise engaged, ideas for sentences and pages and paragraph leap fully formed into my head, but when I sit at the keyboard, I seem to have no more imagination than is required for shopping lists.

I do remember one of my more-than-shopping-list thoughts from earlier today. It was the juxtaposition of my rereading of A Handmaid's Tale and recent US political events that I have been trying to ignore. The parallel between enforced illiteracy for women in the novel and the current Republican rejection of teaching evolution in school struck me as ominous and significant. It seems to me that any group that relies on ignorance to win adherents must have arguments so thin that reason could not win adherents legitimately. If there are holes to be poked in anything, surely those arguments can better be made openly, with all evidence displayed.

I warned you all this would be rambling. I guess I'm just experiencing a resurgence of that indignation, that need to shake my fist, that I had after the election last year. At times like this, I feel like all of our political clashes must be rooted merely in misunderstanding, that everyone must feel as I do - I find it so hard to believe in the malice of others. I know it is childish and reveals my inability to put myself in others' shoes, but right this minute after 3 beers and 3 paragraphs, it feels like all that is wanting is the right argument to achieve real unity. I've felt this way on and off since becoming a mother. What I want for my children is this - a future of possibility, of opportunity - not guaranteed happiness but the chance for it, given hard work and good choices. I want this for all children, and I have to believe most parents want it for their children too. If that is the case, how is it this hard to find consensus?

Really, Deb, shut it. I had a whole thing to bitch about regarding the kids' nastiness toward each other, but I got sidetracked. Guess I should head to bed. Or have another drink.

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Post office misery

I went to the post office today to apply for my passport (Italy! yay!), and had to wait roughly 3 eons, 4 hours, and 32 minutes for them to take the worst ever passport photo, in which I had red-eye in just one eye. The air conditioning at the post office was broken and the lunch rush came in while I was in line to have my picture done. During the wait, my children morphed from cooperative, patient, quiet pictures of perfection to screaming, hitting, grabbing (did I mention screaming?) monsters. The people in the main line looked at them more frequently and obviously as the transformation unfolded itself, and the expressions on their faces changed from "aw, aren't they cute" to "damn, glad I'm not her" to "good God, what is WRONG with those boys." By the time I was finally ushered through the imposing and oh-so-official door to the manager's office (which appeared to be a stockroom with a 20 year old polaroid in it), I think the people waiting for their turn to buy stamps were as relieved as I was that we were leaving the main room.

But I'm getting a passport! I'm going to Italy! I can buy stamps online and never enter a post office again!

The ostrich approach to housework

I have rationalized myself into half of the house. I finally (after 10 days of being home) have the kitchen, dining room, and living room livable. The front room looks like a large, eccentric, and disorganized family is moving into it, and it stresses me out to look at it, so my solution is - I don't. I'm living in the back half of the house with the doors closed. More efficient to air condition anyway. I feel much calmer. And lazier. In fact, this approach is proving so successful, I'm going to apply it to other areas of the house, effective immediately. The refrigerator is an obvious candidate, as I know for a fact some of the food in there has started evolving. Also the guest room, where my husband dumps all clean laundry, apparently with the belief that we have elves or fairies or other friendly sprites that will come fold and put away the clothes while we sleep.

Actually, if I just lay in supplies as if for nuclear war or cult membership, I could stop leaving the house and instead ostrich myself regarding the yard as well. Our yard is always a bit of a fright, but around mid-summer it always becomes really out of control. The heat and humidity that wither me within minutes outdoors have a radiation-on-Dr-Banner effect on the weeds. You can measure their daily growth in feet, not inches. If I had any gardening ability at all, such lushness would inspire me to landscaping, but as I don't, my only visions about my yard involve flamethrowers and salting the earth.

Oh, right, brevity. Summary is - my new strategy for housewifery is to ignore my responsibilities. Hmm, I preferred the more flowery explanation.

I'm going to Italy!

I actually knew this already, but now I am for sure, because my husband found my birth certificate! Poor man inhaled so much dust in the attempt that his eyes swelled up, but he found it! Guess I'm no better a house-keeper than I am a record-keeper. But yay, Italy! Of course, he found it literally 5 minutes after I gave up and placed an order online to get a certified copy - fortunately, if you don't fax in the verification, they cancel your order and don't charge you.

I'm Mark Twain-ish! Having adventures! May have something more exciting than poop to write about after September! Oh, that reminds me my friend Megan, who said I could use her in my blog (see her comment on an earlier post if you don't believe me) - yesterday, she wrote to me and said, "I need a blog. For nothing more than to spare you my insanity. And ask rhetorical questions such as, "Why is it that children determine how well they wiped by sticking their finger in their butt?"

For mothers of young children, no matter how we try to diversify, it always comes back to the poop.

Saturday, July 30, 2005

Blog Housecleaning

I'm sure you will all be deeply relieved that I have changed the time zone on my blog to reflect that I am, in fact, back home in Maryland. Or, you know, it could only be a relief to my husband, who is nitpicky rarely but very persistently and who has reminded me roughly 5 times a day all week that my time zone is wrong. There you go, honey.

I just checked and all my old posts were bumped up three hours. It can't take into account the possibility that you might change timezones at some point and maintain the old time stamps? Now I look even crazier, posting about nothing at 2:30am (when really, that post was entered at 11:30pm, a much more normal rambling hour).

One more blog note - I see AdSense has finally forgiven last week's fumbling and my ads are now content driven instead of boringly all about blogging. No wonder Google's doing so well, they make advertising entertaining. The ones I just saw were for sleep aids. Wish they'd picked up during the Home Depot step-in-poo story, but I'm happy they're here nonetheless.

Friday, July 29, 2005

I'm becoming my mother

Actually, that's not true. I was going to say I'm becoming my mother because I keep losing things, but the thing I have currently lost is my birth certificate, and there's no way my mother would EVER lose a birth certificate. She loses things like keys and glasses, often while they are on her person, but she has a filing system so regimented the Dewey Decimal System looks like chaos beside it. She has helped me file in the past, so I have all kinds of neatly labeled folders (one for each individual piece of paper, practically), but of course many of the papers have wandered away in the intervening time, and one of the wanderers is my birth certificate, which I need. I need my birth certificate so I can get a passport so I can go to Italy. I must go to Italy.

I know I saw the stupid thing recently. I have spent the whole day tearing apart the house looking for this one piece of paper, and the kids have kindly contributed by also tearing the house apart in mute (oh how I wish it were really mute) protest of my single-mindedness. The messes at adult height are all of the ransacked-paper-tray variety. The under-four-foot messes resemble the handiwork of insane but resourceful monkeys. I just took a 5 minute break from my obsessive search to clear a path through the dining room and, among other things, had to separate rice from playdoh.

Break over, back to the search.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Late night angry musings of a sleep hoarder

I remember insomnia from years ago - lying in bed growing more and more awake, body growing twitchy with the need to give up, get up, even though I knew it meant a long hard day. I remember late college nights spent frantically typing next-day-due papers, cursing myself for procrastinating again, feeling my words get clumsier as sleep pulled harder and harder at my eyes and brain. I remember, more vaguely, getting up with my first son during his first few weeks, and not minding at all - he seemed such a miracle, I couldn't get enough of him, and my brain was rendered pretty much useless by that point anyway, so sleeplessness didn't make me noticeably more fuzzy. Of course, he started sleeping through the night at two months, just in time for me to go back to work, proving himself to be the miracle I thought he was.

Then there was my second son. The one playing happily next to me right now, at 2:36, while everyone else sleeps. The one who is almost two years old and who is darling and sweet and good except when it comes to sleep. He has never been a reliable sleeper. For his first eight months, he literally never slept in stretches longer than two hours. And neither did I. I know, all mothers have sleepless horror stories, but this nearly killed me outright. I couldn't speak clearly, I certainly shouldn't have been driving (but did anyway, of necessity - questioning in my moments of lucidity how it was even useful to anyone to force new mothers back to work before they have any hope of being productive), I was mean as a snake and hated everyone - the baby only slightly less than myself.

He finally did learn to sleep, and I slowly, grudgingly forgave him for almost destroying my sanity, but ever since those awful long dark nights, I have a new relationship with sleep. I am jealously protective of my rest now in a way I certainly was not in those days of insomnia and overdue term papers and college parties. I bitterly resent any and all interruptions of my sleep, even though I know rationally that the occasional nighttime visit from my children is unavoidable and anyway not going to do me any permanent damage. I feel awful about this, because I'm not nearly nice enough to my poor four year old when he does wake me up - once I'm fully awake, I can think clearly enough to disguise my anger and frustration, but in those first few blurry moments I must seem to him a mommy monster, and that breaks my heart. In my regular life as a mother, I try so hard not to make him feel guilty or bad about himself - he's very sensitive and easily upset - but I undo all my good intentions with a few angry words at 2am.

Worst of all are nights like this one - the four year old couldn't sleep and woke everyone else up (well, everyone except my husband, who for the sake of this blog entry you should just assume is on another planet and therefore unavailable from bedtime until his alarm goes off in the morning). I was unforgivably nasty to the poor little thing and sent him back to bed feeling worse, I'm sure, than he had when he got up. By then, of course, the baby was wide awake - my same sweet baby who didn't need sleep as an infant needs it less as a toddler, and if he's awakened at all he's pretty much done for the night. So here I am, approaching 3am, trying to outlast someone who can sleep whenever he chooses. To be so jealous of a baby.

My idea of a perfect vacation is a dark hotel room with a deep soft bed, and silence. I used to dream of seeing the world, learning new things, now I dream, when I can, of sleep. That's actually true - often when I am asleep, I dream that I am tired and am not allowed rest. A therapist would have a heydey with me.

Sorry for the self-pitying ramble. The baby is cuddling up to me now (thank goodness he's so cute), so I'm going to go try to salvage the last few hours of night.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Burst my bubble, weird child

I'm obsessing over some online review sites. Write 50 reviews and get an iPod shuffle! Or, you know, get a job and work like 3 hours and earn enough to BUY one - why does earning it this way seem so much better? I guess it's like I told my husband - I can ignore my kids for free, whereas I would have to pay a sitter if I were to go out and earn the money.

Oh, but my point. Heaven forbid I have a one-paragraph blog entry. I'm going cross-eyed doing these goofy reviews and took a break to google my blog name. Look who else was clever enough to come up with "look into my head." I feel so bright now.

From the perspective of time...

...my last job still sucked. In fact, the further from it I get, the more bitter I seem to become. I think that while I was embroiled in the poisonous corporate culture and the unmeetable demands and the sexism reflected largely (but certainly not exclusively) in salary parity, I became sort of numb to all of it. I tried to just keep my head down and survive, but I'm beginning to believe now that survival is not all one should expect from a job. I feel a bit like a battered woman who gets so used to being treated badly that she neither expects nor feels that she deserves better.

That may sound extreme, but I'm really not exagerrating. I feel like I've escaped, not just quit. I just read this article and related to it so completely that I only wish I'd read it sooner, before I'd sacrificed my 20s and my children's infancies to that awful place.

I stay home with my boys now. A couple months ago, I had a really rough mom day. My four year old had just developed an intolerance for lactose that was not yet diagnosed, and he missed the toilet in spectacular style. Immediately after I finished that cleanup, I discovered that a roast had leaked blood all over the refrigerator. As I scrubbed on my knees, muttering about potty training and e. coli, a former coworker called. He wanted to tell me about some awful things my old boss was saying about me. I started to get upset (some kind of Pavlovian reflex that still strikes if I think of my former company for too long), but then remembered that it's not my problem any more. I told my friend, "you can tell [boss] that I would literally rather scoop shit off the floor with my bare hands than work for him again." It was cathartic and the literal truth. My worst mom day was happier than my best day there. I love my new life.

With all due respect to our exploring forefathers...

Why in the name of all that's holy would an explorer land HERE, in what is now Maryland, and think "hey, this would be a great place to settle"??? I like the daring and excitement of the explorer legends, but it's hard to understand why anyone would see this as appealing. If I were an explorer, I would set foot on Maryland soil today and take the following inventory:

Mosquitoes? check
Swamps? check
Blistering heat? check
Sweltering humidity? check

If this list did not deter me, I could stick around a few months and add "extreme cold and ice and snow" to my list of features.

Of course, one could argue that the early explorers didn't have quite the basis for comparison that we are blessed with today, and that they had just been on rickety boats with inadequate food and water for ages, so the real question may be why I am still living here myself. I blame my family. In the meantime, I am going to obey the weather service's advice to "stay in an air-conditioned room."

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman started the year I was born, and I remember worshiping Lynda Carter from a very early age. My husband has already exploited pictures of me in Wonder Woman underoos on his own blog, and I recently came across a fan letter I wrote to Lynda Carter when I was five. I taped a quarter to the letter - I guess I thought celebrities were a charity. My mother saved it instead of sending it. I was mad when I found out, but now I'm glad to have concrete evidence of one of my early obsessions.

When the Wonder Woman series was recently released on DVD, my mother sent me the set. My television tastes have matured a little since I was first crazy about the show, so it sat on a shelf for a while. My husband opened it up a month ago when he could not face another minute of watching the Incredible Hulk (also released on DVD, and why do they keep making new kids' shows when my kids at least are completely satisfied with the old ones?). It was an instant hit with the under-10 crowd, so I've been immersed in the show a lot lately.

Although I'm sure Lynda Carter is aging beautifully, I'm afraid the same can not be said for the show. It's terrible for all the obvious reasons, but today I found the acid test for awful dialogue delivery - I accidentally hit the button on the DVD that makes the movie play at 1.5 speed, and neither my son nor I even noticed for over 30 minutes. My son noted that the music was playing fast, so I looked up and could tell that the actors' motions were slightly jerkier and even less natural than usual, but I never would have known from just listening to their voices. No wonder the show was an hour long, each line took 3 minutes to deliver.

I can't wait until the kids move on to their next fixation. What will it be? The A-Team? MacGyver?

Sunday, July 24, 2005

Sarah's disgusting Home Depot story

We had dinner with some good friends, one of whom told a story that immediately made me think "yay! a story I can actually blog about without alienating anyone!" And anyway, as an aside, what kind of friends do I have that I can't tell their funniest stories without risking exile? You know who you are, all of you.

So, my friend Sarah went to Home Depot today. At this point in the story, I was questioning her characterization of the story as "disgusting," because really, what could happen at Home Depot? Overmulching of the guaranteed-for-one-year plants (that I always kill anyway and never get around to returning for the refund)? Shows my lack of imagination, because here's the rest of the story - Sarah and her friend were walking through the store, browsing, and a woman speed walked by them fast enough for them to notice her but not record details about her. Immediately after the woman passed, so to speak, a "septic odor" wafted by, leading Sarah to speculate that they were near the bathroom or fertilizer. She and her friend moved on to another section and shopped for another 10 minutes. When she returned to the scene of the walk-by, Sarah stepped in something squishy. She looked down and realized that she had, as she described it, "stepped in human waste!" Sarah's revulsion really can not be described in words, but only fully appreciated in the context of her body language (shudders) and tone of voice (shrill). Apparently there was an entire trail of human feces through the store, some of it having already been tracked through by shopping carts.

I stand corrected - disgusting things can happen at Home Depot and I will never shop there without watching where I'm walking just a little more carefully.

Truly quick one

Running out to dinner with friends (back home! with friends!) but realized that Mark Twain post was unlucky #13. I'm largely reformed from my triskedecktiphobia, or however that's spelled, but why take chances when we're all about to go out in the car? So here's the countercurse, lucky 14. Snort, countercurse, too much Harry Potter for me.

Mark Twain

I'm finally home, luxuriating in the presence of another parent to herd my rowdy sons, and have many tales of woe from my trip. Before I can post about the horrible man who was mean to me yesterday and who, if there is truly karma, is suffering already from the first of many unfortunate and hopefully painful maladies that he richly deserves for being such a huge asshole, I have to comment more succinctly (yes! succinctly!) on Mark Twain's life.

Left to his own devices, my husband wallows in Ken Burns documentaries. I've tried to encourage him to seek help, but denial is the first phase of everything. Now he's becoming evangelical and not just watching but taping and forcing others (namely, me) to watch these things. I've been home 12 hours and am now sitting imprisoned by jet-lag in front of a Mark Twain documentary. I am discovering that semi-conscious is actually the ideal state of mind in which to watch such a program (which in turn makes me question my husband's usual state of mind). I hate to admit that I'm sort of enjoying it, because he reads this blog, but there it is.

The comment I wanted to make, which was to be short and to the point (when will I ever learn brevity?), was that Mark Twain's life was as exciting as his writing. Understandable now the wide scope of his imagination and the diversity of his characters - and, as I must observe in my chronic self-absorption, the lack of imagination in my own attempts at writing. As soon as I wake up properly (maybe by Thursday), I will research opportunities for living more dangerously, a la steamboat captaining and 5 month ship journeys to Jerusalem. Ha, even as I write that, I have a feeling that waking up properly will return me to my homebody sense, and that I will have to resign myself to writing indefinitely about nothing more stimulating that middle class mothers of small children.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Stereotypical blogger introspection

I'm still new at the blog thing and trying not to beat myself up too much, but I'm surprised by how hard it is to find things to say. Anyone who knows me in real life can tell you that I'm not often at a loss for words - but somehow in this forum, awareness of an audience threatens to silence me. Especially goofy because I started the blog largely so that sense of audience (however imaginary) would motivate me to actually write instead of just thinking about writing as I have forever.

Actually, I discovered today that the forever above isn't accurate. Digging through my mother's hoarded stash of my childhood memories, I discovered journal after journal filled with stories I wrote in grade school, middle school, high school. So I guess I used to write - not especially well, if the sample I read today is any indication, but prolifically to be certain, and unselfconsciously, which is more than I can say for myself now.

I browsed through blogs tonight just to see what's out there and found many entries by people who had started blogging because they felt they had something to share but were then sort of stymied, either by the medium or the realization that maybe they didn't have all that much to begin with. That is probably my fear, that I feel I'm bursting with something to say but can't find it - maybe it's not there at all.

The other surprising thing (to me) about this blogging world is that I'm so unfunny. Many things strike me as funny on a given day (often hysterically, peeing-my-pants funny - today I laughed so loudly at something I don't even remember that I startled my 2 year old and he started crying, poor bug), but I'm coming to realize that I have a terrible memory and a mean sense of humor. As in, I can't actually write down most of the things I find funny in this forum, because I've told too many people I know to come read here, and I don't want anyone to recognize him or herself and be offended. I've actually gotten explicit license from one friend to use her as the butt of jokes on here, if only because I'm currently boring her to death, but since she gave me permission she hasn't done anything hysterical. At least not in my presense. At least not that I remember. That's another problem - my friends do a lot of funny stuff while I'm drinking, which only exacerbates the remembering problem.

Must stop blogging past my bedtime. I'll try to dream up something more interesting and come back tomorrow. Oh! Tomorrow should be entertaining - my mother's two sisters are coming to visit, and she hasn't spoken with one of them in something like 10 years. Our family is kind of like that with the silent treatment. It surprises me (and even more so, my husband), that no one is giving me the cold shoulder yet. My theory is that it's because I'm the only one with kids so far, so I'm temporarily valuable. Once my sister has kids, I'll be expendable and factions can begin forming against me.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Congenital insanity

I've spent most of today going through box after box (after box) of mostly papers and pictures that my mother kept to document my every breath from birth to high school graduation. Thank god I didn't live at home for long after graduation, or we might all have been buried alive under the detritus.

Just as I thought the end was approaching, I opened the last box and found...my great-aunt's old stamp collection. Thousands and thousands (no exagerration) of stamps, mostly stuffed in old prescription boxes with no obvious organizational structure and no indication of value. My first inclination, after hours of sorting through my own historical record, was to toss it all. Curiosity got the better of me and I started picking stamps at random and looking them up on ebay - almost every one I picked was selling for between $2 and $6. So now I feel like I can't just throw them away, because that would be like throwing out cash. Except that I don't know anything about stamps or how to get them appraised or sold or whatever and now I have a stamp headache and am just deeply concerned about the very obvious craziness I've been wading through all day, because it seems likely that it's congenital or at least contagious.

Stop me before I go camping

So, I proved myself wrong about the outdoorsy stuff yesterday. Weather was perfect, children were good, boat ride was wonderful. Sadly, there was no time for fishing (yes!). I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not the outdoors in general that I hate so much but the extreme heat and bug populations endemic to my current home of Baltimore. Odd, though, to find out at this late date that something I've held to be self-evident about myself (that I loathe being outside) may be untrue, at least in some cases. I pushed my limits still further by going outside two days in a row - took the kids to the beach today and, gasp, had fun again. Possible explanations:

1) I really do hate being outside except: when the temperature is between 69 and 73, there are no bugs or clouds, there are no pretty people in skimpy clothing nearby. These past two days have been a fluke in that all of these conditions have been met.
2) I have been on this vacation for so long that I would no longer recognize my normal avenues of recreation if I ran into them on the street and have therefore of necessity started developing alternatives.
3) I have had so much to drink on this vacation that I've not only killed huge numbers of brain cells but have actually altered my fundamental personality (that is going to be hard to explain when I get home).

I do see on weather.com that it is 95 and humid in Baltimore, so I have a feeling I'll be driven back indoors shortly after returning home, which is good, because I'm afraid if I stay here much longer I'll go camping and then hell will freeze over and hurt those poor flying pigs.

Monday, July 18, 2005

Take that, Google!

My ads are now where they belong. Whoop! My husband is such an enabler - he actually likes computer stuff and doesn't just fake it like me, so I've been using him as my computing crutch for years.

In other news, I have to go on a boat today, with two small children. I hear fishing may be involved. For anyone reading this that doesn't already know me, this is really really not my thing. Not sure what, specifically, "my thing" is, but it would have to involve at least 2 of the following elements - an urban area, being indoors, spending money, food (anything BUT fish), pampering, and friends. Well, I guess this actually sort of qualifies, as friends and food will be there, but I think maybe the "being indoors" qualification is an essential one. Really like being indoors as opposed to acting as if we evolved to the point of building elaborate shelters just to flee them for recreation.

My love/hate relationship with AdSense

My step-daughter invented the word "annore" a few months ago and it is permanently a part of my lexicon (correct usage - "Justin is annorin' me!"), to the point that I've actually used it to strangers a few times without thinking and then had to stammer my way through an explanation that probably didn't improve their opinion of my intelligence or eloquence.

One of the things that's annoring me right this minute is Google's AdSense. Until tonight, I've been all for it. I think it's really cool for two reasons - one, you can put it on your website and theoretically make money (though I have a sinking suspicion that my husband is the only one reading this site) and two, depending on your content, you can get some really hilarious ads.

For example - five of my best friends and I have a daily email thread because we live all over creation and never actually see each other. We all have small children, so our emails frequently include graphic descriptions of bodily functions. A couple of us use Google's gmail for mail (love gmail, btw), and we get the most hilarious ad links during some of our discussions courtesy of AdSense.

Anyway, that was then. Now, AdSense is pissing me off. I'm trying to add it to this blog, but the only place I can get it to show up is at the very bottom. Who is likely to read through even one of these crazy long posts, much less the whole blog? Even more annoring is the certain knowledge that the solution to my problem is laid out helpfully and accessibly on the AdSense help site, and that my own stubbornness is all that stands between me and the thrill of writing about farting just to see what comes up for ads. I don't like to ask for help, even when I know I have no idea what I'm doing. When it comes to computers, I am as averse to asking for directions as that overused stereotypical man on a road trip.

Besides, the AdSense site is kind of dense and unfun, and I'm a surface learner. I like to glean just enough about a subject to appear informed. I think this tendency is the result of a combination of congenital laziness and an 8-year career at an institution that systematically destroys any inherent love of learning (along with joy, happiness, and self-esteem) it finds in its employees. Oh, the years of pent-up hostility that are threatening to make this post even longer. I'll try to hold back for now.

I guess I'll dive into the help files tomorrow, as I unforgivably suck at html (after 8 years in IT, many of them spent faking at least peripheral knowledge of web development). In the meantime, scroll down to see if there are any fart-related ads - they're hilarious.

Shriners are wacky

I took the boys to a Shriners circus today with my mom and my friend Tivoli (thank goodness I had reinforcements, even with a 3-2 adult/child ratio, Owen managed to douse several strangers with melted snowcone). I remember loving the circus when i was little, but the last time I went to see Ringling Bros as an adult, it seemed sort of removed, like watching it on TV. Could have been the cheap seats, but it also seemed like sensory overload. I know that's sort of the point, but I have enough trouble focusing on one thing at a time.

So, the Shriners circus. First of all, what is up with the hats? No kidding, they kind of freak me out. I have a friend who is freaked out by carnies, but I think that Shriners are scarier, because they seem more organized. Like the hats might just be the outward manifestation of a much deeper and more ominous underground purpose. Fortunately, the Shriners themselves played a sort of background role today, allowing me to enjoy the circus itself.

Highlights were the elephant ride with my 4-year-old (can NOT believe he actually went through with it), the two muscle-y guys who did some kind of aerial Pilates from thick ribbons hung from a high wire, and the motorcyle CAGE OF DEATH (Tivoli especially liked the cage of death and wants one for her own, though she admits to having no practical use for it). Less impressive were the wheel-o-peacocks (who comes up with these things? 6 peacocks on perches on a mini-Ferris wheel? Seems like an ornithological outrage), the announcer/emcee guy, and the guy who stood on top of what looked like 6" cardboard tubes - anything I think I could do at home doesn't qualify for circus entertainment.

Overall, it was a ton of fun, and the kids had a great time, and we stopped at Dairy Queen on the way back - DQ always puts me in a good mood, but even more so when I've been out of the reach of modern amenities like fast food for several weeks. The drive back was just about as fun as the circus, because Tivoli told Justin a convoluted version of the 3 little pigs in which the pigs are named Clyde, Fred, and George and the wolf is Levi, and because Justin watered a rock in a really artistic fashion when we stopped to let him pee on the side of the road not 10 minutes after he used the bathroom at DQ. Good times.

Friday, July 15, 2005

Games my children teach me

My children teach me so much more than I teach them (of course, this may be due to my vastly superior ability and willingness to pay attention to anything for longer than 2 seconds, and/or the fact that my brain is larger than a walnut). They make up games and songs and stories and I marvel at their creativity. Most of the time.

The current game they are teaching me I'm not so crazy about - I like to call it musical beds. They seem to be engaged in a contest to see how many times they can change beds between sunset and sunrise. This is extra challenging here in the far north, as summer days are long and dark is only about seven hours long. I can say this with authority, having seen nearly every sunrise AND every sunset here during the past two weeks.

Last night, the boys teamed up for their musical beds entry, and as de facto judge I have to admire the effort:

10:30 - Both boys asleep in my bed (regular bed time is 8, preferably in their own beds, but any sleep must be deemed a success)
12:00 - I'm asleep in Justin's bed
2:45 - I wake up to find Justin in bed with me - he's getting stealthier, extra points for climbing over me without waking me up
4:00 - I hear fat feet thumping down the hallway. Owen is on the loose. I catch him halfway to the living room, apparently ready to start his day. Little monkey. I go to bed with him in my room.
5:45 - Justin comes into my room, now all three of us are in bed.

Summary - Owen didn't change beds but did get up, Justin and I both changed beds (Justin did twice). Definitely an A effort all around.

Man, I'm tired.

Giving in to the mommy urge

I'm not doing a very good job of keeping up with this blog - I'm afraid it will go the way of the 4000 journals I've kept since I was little, with five or six clustered entries followed by pages and pages of nothing. Part of the problem this time is that I'm currently on a very slow-paced vacation with two small children, so there's not much to write about other than their little exploits. I sort of wanted to avoid this being another mommy blog - there are so many, and so many I really like, that I don't want to be too redundant.

Of course, all that is just leading up to saying that I'm already going to give in and write about the kids after all. I can't help it, they're pretty much the funniest people alive. And the only ones here for me to write about (except my mother - but she can read and knows about this blog, so she's a dangerous potential subject).

Justin is four and says the funniest things on a regular basis, but my memory is a faulty vessel and I'm afraid I forget most of them before I can even tell anyone. One from this morning - he climbed up on top of the TV cabinet and saw the dust on the TV. His eyes got huge and he shouted to his little brother, "OWEN! Magic dust!" I think he thought Tinkerbell had been here. Oh, and from first thing today - he woke up and said "can I have some cheerios with the sweet sweet taste?" I asked if he wanted to look into commercial work.

Owen is at least as funny but has so far decided not to speak, so his humor is harder to describe. I'm not complaining about the muteness, by the way - Justin talks enough for both of them, and a couple extras. It's amazing, though, how a little monkey child with no speech can have so much personality. Most of it devilish. He understands pretty much everything (as evidenced by his immediate and violent response when Justin taunts him), and reacts with appropriate but hilarious body language and facial reactions.

I would try to concentrate further (much good it would do me) and come up with better and more detailed examples of how cute my kids are, but unfortunately they have transformed into little beasts while I was typing this, so I'm no longer in the right frame of mind. Perhaps a post about their more negative qualities would be easier to write, but I'm afraid it would be too long to read.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Nothing to whine about today

I hardly know what to say if I have nothing to complain about. The children were good (sort of), the weather wasn't ghastly (most of the day), and I seem to be settling into the doing-nothing routine (perhaps a little too comfortably). We went out for lunch and had leftovers for dinner, so I didn't even have to face food preparation, and the baby's aversion to local water seems to be subsiding, so the diapers were in the single digits.

Yep, that's it - guess I should try camping or some other self-inflicted misery so I have more to say.

Monday, July 11, 2005

Drinking is funnier in a small town

I went out (out! for the first time in several days!) with my friend Tivoli on Saturday. We went out where she lives, in Port Angeles, as my hometown has only one bar and we've already used it up. Port Angeles offered novelty and variety, not to mention convenience - Tiv's house is within easy walking distance of at least 2 places that serve beer. Easy walking distance includes a nearly vertical staircase from "downtown" to Tiv's residential neighborhood. The staircase seemed much easier on the way down, but we were sober then. And gravity works better for you on the way down.

Because I miss my husband and because everything is funnier when reflected in his amused reactions, I took notes while at the bars. They are hard to decipher (especially the ones at the end), and they include drawings that are impossible to describe and, due to technology constraints, impossible to scan, but they amuse me, so here they are. Commas also amuse me, as evidenced by that hideous runon sentence. Can you tell I've recovered from Saturday night's drinking and have started again? My liver weeps at this trip.

Please note, these notes are an exact translation of my drunken scrawl from Saturday, so any sense they do not make is the fault of my state of mind then, not now:

1st bar:
[Name] Crazy Fish
Says Aloha out front
stuffed sharks (2!) on ceiling w/tiffany lamp
crack ho used to work there [this note based on insider information from Tiv]
bad boob job in tube top

2nd bar:
man w/spiderman shirt
pole on dance fllor
knocked-in bathroom in middle of bar
eminem wannabe
maternity shirt [this later proved to be an actual pregnant person, complete with beer and cigarettes]
electric slide-like hip hop dance w/old owner (3 people), people hooting
velcro shoes
black light everywhere
stage w/velvet rope
clear heels w/lights
shot from fat girl's boobs (by girl) [this is accompanied by original, if untalented, artist's rendering of said act]
weird guy humping girl lying on floor (same fat girl from above)
then girl humps her face
lots of hoodies

Off the Edge of the Earth

I recently stopped working to spend time with my little boys. Drunk with my newfound freedom from 2-week-a-year-vacation time (and possibly/probably just plain drunk as well), I booked a one-month trip to my home town of Forks, Washington. My husband and stepchildren came for the first week, and we packed in a ton of activities, culminating in the all day unmatched community frenzy that is the Forks Old-Fashioned Fourth of July. Then they left, and now I'm here with two small boys in a teeny logging town that could be the poster child for the middle of nowhere. Did I mention that the town is in a rain forest? Yeah, rains pretty much every day. My children are 4 and almost 2 and require huge amounts of physical activity to remain somewhat civilized. After a week of being housebound without their father or siblings, it's a tossup which of the three of us is going to make it out of this vacation alive. So far, I'd put my money on the baby - he seems to be standing back and letting my older son and me fight it out while he conserves his resources. Also, he's cagey in general - doesn't talk yet but you can actually see him plotting. If you've seen The Incredibles, and you've watched "Jack-Jack Attack" in the bonus materials, you've met my younger son.

This entry was meant to be about Forks, though, not my wretched children (I love them, but they are seriously inhuman this week). My husband grew up in southern Delaware, about 15 minutes from a big resort town. When we met and I told him that I grew up rural, he said he could relate because he was from a small town too. I laughed at him then (and still do at the memory, although right now the laugh has a slightly bitter, manic tinge to it) and said that living 15 minutes from a resort town has nothing on my hometown. I could tell he didn't really understand the difference until the first time he visited my mother with me. We landed in Seattle and rented a car, then started to drive. We drove about 45 minutes and hopped on a ferry - so far, so good. Took the ferry across the sound, another 30 minutes. Left the ferry, drove a few miles, and fell off the map. After Kingston, there's so much nothing it hurts your eyes to look at it. I saw something like fear in my husband's eyes as the miles and hours passed with no discernible landmarks or human habitation. In all, it takes about 4 hours to get from Seattle to Forks, on the most deserted 2 lane highway you can imagine with nothing but forest on both sides most of the way. The nearest town (also the nearest movie theater, orthodontist, fast food, etc) is 60 miles away and even it only has 17,000 residents. By the time we left, I think Keith felt like he'd grown up in a metropolis.

Forks has 2500 residents and one stoplight. I went to high school here and it still shocks my system when I visit, to realize how small town life can be so isolated and feel so crowded at the same time. There's nowhere to go and nothing much to do, especially in bad weather (most of the time, in other words), but I can't walk down the street without running into 5 people I knew in what feels like a past life. Really nice people, I'm not complaining, it's just surreal after living in one city after another for the past 13 years (I moved straight from Forks to Los Angeles, then Seattle, and now live in Baltimore - I think I decided small town life wasn't for me sometime within the first week after moving here in 8th grade).

Living in a small town is a little like being a movie star - you have to assume you will be recognized the minute you leave the house. This results in a couple identifiable types of townspeople. One group, largely made up of girls and women in their teens and 20s, prepare meticulously for every public outing, even if the outing itself is no more exciting than going to the store for milk. These women don't leave the house without full makeup (foundation, lots of mascara, dark lipstick) and hair punished strand by strand into their individual visions of perfection. You have to admire the effort, but it looks tiring to me. Another group, and I'm afraid my family falls more into this category, avoids going out unnecessarily at all to avoid excessive familiarity. The third group either never cared or has since given up their concern and just heads out on the town however they rolled out of bed (or out of work, which is largely outdoors here and fairly messy). This results in an interesting aesthetic at the grocery store, if you're into people-watching.

I don't mean to sound mocking or derisive - well, at least not entirely. There are good things about small towns, and this one in particular. Good things that motivated me to bring my boys here for the summer to see a different, slower, safer way of life. I can let them play in the yard without worrying they'll be taken. I can walk them to town for ice cream and not cringe when someone honks as they drive by. My heart doesn't stop in my chest if a stranger approaches my child on the playground. And the scenery alone is worth seeing if you haven't. Forks is within sight of the Olympic mountains and only 5 miles from some really gorgeous wild beaches that make the warmer eastern beaches seem dull and tame by comparison. The highway that seems to stretch on interminably if you're just trying to get from A to B is lined with trees so high they make you feel small and insignificant, trees that make you think about what the world was like before we started messing with it. Even the logged areas that look like little boys' crewcuts just reveal more of the mystery of the forest beyond. The trees at the edges of clearcuts have jutting-out branches like giants' ladders up the sides, from not having had sun reach that far beneath the canopy for years. Deer and elk and even black bears are common sights. Someone as citified and squeamish as I am can catch fish without having the first idea what they're doing, as I proved yesterday.

Well, this is only my second blog entry and I guess I've proven that whatever else I am, I am not succinct. Nor am I good at the logical windup and ending. I'll head to bed to stop myself writing more now, but I have a feeling I'll have a lot more time for writing during the final 12 days of my trip.

First entry - how intimidating

I feel like such a copycat, starting a blog after my husband's has gotten so good (http://kalioto.blogspot.com), but I've spent a lot of time alone this week and have realized a few things about myself. I've wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember, and have at last count been waiting 29 years, 3 months, and 26 days for some genius plot idea to strike me from the blue. During that time, however, my focus, creativity, and memory (important for actually writing down ideas that occur in inconvenient places) have gone from questionable to often missing altogether. I have ideas, lots of them, but they're ephemeral and disconnected and small - no great American novel ideas, more like one liners that only the other voices in my head get to hear. My husband and I call these "car thoughts" - as in, I have most of my thoughts while driving, which is the only time in an average day that I have time or mental space for thoughts beyond diaper changes and grocery lists. I don't know if anyone really needs/wants to share in this so-far-mental monologue of mine, but the theory here is that if I actually write down some of my one-liner thoughts, I may at some point work up to entire paragraphs, essays, short stories, etc. I can dream, right? In other words, this is about me, not you, whoever you are. Nothing like a selfless blog.

Hmm, for someone who is writing to expand her thoughts, I sure am longwinded. Surely that introduction could have been more succinct. I'll try out this posting thing and come back in a bit for a download (from my swiss cheese brain) of my most recent car thought musings.