I’ve been doing some prep work for these standardized tests that I need to take as part of my grad school stuff -- the Praxis Pre-Professional Skills Tests, which are tests that determine whether or not you are smarter than a 5th grader, basically -- and I have to say that I don’t think there is anybody or anything anywhere in the world that is better at making me feel inadequate than the Educational Testing Service.
(BTW, here is the tl;dr version, if you don’t feel like listening to my first-world, white-girl problems: algebra and geometry give me hives.)
Probably it’s ridiculous, but I worry about standardized tests. I’m not entirely sure why, because I’ve always been a decent test-taker. I remember taking the Iowa Tests back in maybe second or third grade, when I was still in Catholic school, and then something else again in 8th grade, maybe, where a Fairly Big Deal was made out of the fact that I was one of the handful of people in my class who got a perfect score in the math portion, and I ended up getting my whole schedule reconfigured because the school wanted to move me up from the pre-algebra class that I was in at the time into a more advanced math class that some of the gifted kids were in, and basically my life was over at that point because I wasn’t in any classes with The Love Of My Life At The Time any more.
(And people wonder why I grew up to be distrustful of Authority.)
To this day, it bemuses me to no end that I’ve always tested better in math than in verbal. I still don’t know why. I am absolutely terrible at math, or at least I’ve always thought so. I can barely balance a checkbook. The only “F” I ever got in a class in my entire life was during my Freshman year at Syracuse, in Probability and Statistics II, which -- OK, yes, technically I might not have done very well on account of missing more than 50% of the classes, but this was during that one college semester when I had my existential crisis and dated three gay guys in a row and started chain-smoking Camel unfiltereds, and anyway, in my own defense I didn’t start skipping classes until well after I started failing them. (Also, the professor for that class was NINE KINDS OF TERRIBLE, and he wore white polyester leisure suits unbuttoned to the navel ALL THE TIME, I kid you not.)
Although, here is what I believe they call “irony”: I kind of use math all day every day since I have an “accounting-related” function at work, and I'm pretty good at it. But I don’t do much that couldn’t also be done by a potty-trained monkey with a basic understanding of Excel and an adding machine. (And actually, I’m not even entirely sure that the monkey would need to be potty-trained.)
I still have never used anything they attempted to teach me in trigonometry, though.
Anyway, when I took the SAT’s in 11th grade, the last standardized test I had to take -- which, by the way, was MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS AGO, if you are playing the home version of our game -- I did fine. Because my brain remembers bullshit that doesn’t matter like SAT scores, I can still tell you that I scored 1340 on my SAT’s (this was back during the Paleolithic period, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and the SAT only had two sections and no essay and a perfect score was 1600) -- 660 verbal, and 680 math. It took me two tries to get my verbal score that high. Back then, and still now, I look at that score and I think, “Wait, what? WHAT?”
Because I absolutely STINK OUT LOUD at algebra and geometry, which if I recall correctly combined to make up about 148% of the math portion of the SAT’s.
And I was reminded about much I stink out loud at algebra and geometry when I took a practice Praxis test last night, where I was staring at these graphics that showed all these shapes floating in space and rectangles with cutouts in them and hypotenuses of equilateral triangles (which don’t even HAVE hypotenuses, I don’t think) (side note: WTF IS A HYPOTENUSE!?) and equations that involved fractions and variables and orders of operations and sometimes things were capitalized and sometimes they were not and there was a lot of ∑ and √ and πr² and DEAR GOD, ISN’T THERE ANYTHING EASIER THAN THIS I COULD BE DOING RIGHT NOW? Like studying ancient Sanskrit from a Latin translation? Anything?
Plus, when I yelled into the other room for help with something that I thought I actually remembered how to do -- yes, it’s cheating, but I wanted to feel like I was at least somewhere in the same state as the ballpark for a few questions that did not involve calculating a tip or determining the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow -- my husband answered back with this bit about how there is no such thing as cross-multiplication unless you’re an angry mathematician, and then he chuckled to himself for, like, two whole minutes.
ENGINEERS ARE NOT FUNNY, YOU GUYS.
So I know that I need to do a WHOLE LOT of reviewing for the math part of this Praxis exam. I guess this weekend I’ll check around in my parents’ garage and see if I still have any of my old Prob & Stats textbooks lying around, but I’m pretty sure that I sold those sumbitches as soon as I retook the class and finally passed. (A-, FTW!) If G has any old college math books, they’re probably for Calculus or Nuclear Fission or something else that’s above my level. My standard reference book, Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, defines “polynomials” and “quadratic equations” and “cosine,” but it still doesn’t tell me what those words MEAN. I need to go back and re-learn how to solve for x, and try to remember what I know about 3-4-5 right triangles.
They’ll have to hold a gun to my head to get me to care about trigonometry, though.
Showing posts with label ZOMG CRISIS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ZOMG CRISIS. Show all posts
1.05.2012
2.24.2011
Without A Trace
I have done a good deal of searching -- of both the physical and soul varieties -- and I absolutely cannot for the life of me find more than a small handful of my honeymoon pictures.
I am bereft, I tell you. Positively beside myself.
I have approximately eleventy bajillion pictures in this house. Assorted albums, half a hard drive, two giant Longaberger baskets. I found multiple rolls of pictures from vacations, day trips, weddings, funerals even, but I just cannot find pictures of one of the most awesome weeks of my life.
I MEAN, COME ON: I found pictures of no fewer than five ex-boyfriends (no I am not joking), three foreign countries, bridal showers for people have been divorced more than once, birthday parties that I don't remember, birthday parties that I don't WANT to remember, even pictures from when I was in "Li'l Abner" IN THE NINTH GRADE, but the honeymoon pictures I found are not actually identifiable as actual pictures of my honeymoon. I only know that they are because as far as I remember, I've only attempted to take pictures of myself in a hammock that one time.
Where does this stuff go? Have they disappeared to the Land of the Lost with the missing socks that never come back out of the dryer? God, I hope not. I really hope they're not in the basement, because I'll never find them again.
I am an acknowledged, unrepentant pack rat. I still have journals from middle school. I still have receipts from trips that I took a decade ago. I still have a filing cabinet drawer filled with letters and cards and random tchotchkes that people sent me when I was in college. I still have service records and the owner's manual from a car that was totalled in an accident sixteen years ago.
But I can't find the photos of the first trip that we took as husband and wife. Poof. They're gone. Disappeared without a trace.
I am more upset about this than maybe I ought to be, but it's hard to remember without the visuals. It's difficult to make the hard sell for another trip to Disney when I didn't take proper care of the mementos of the last one. I need to find these pictures, so I can convince my husband that it's time we went again.
Saint Anthony, please come around -- something's lost and can't be found.
And bring Saint Jude with you, because this one might be a lost cause.
I am bereft, I tell you. Positively beside myself.
I have approximately eleventy bajillion pictures in this house. Assorted albums, half a hard drive, two giant Longaberger baskets. I found multiple rolls of pictures from vacations, day trips, weddings, funerals even, but I just cannot find pictures of one of the most awesome weeks of my life.
I MEAN, COME ON: I found pictures of no fewer than five ex-boyfriends (no I am not joking), three foreign countries, bridal showers for people have been divorced more than once, birthday parties that I don't remember, birthday parties that I don't WANT to remember, even pictures from when I was in "Li'l Abner" IN THE NINTH GRADE, but the honeymoon pictures I found are not actually identifiable as actual pictures of my honeymoon. I only know that they are because as far as I remember, I've only attempted to take pictures of myself in a hammock that one time.
Where does this stuff go? Have they disappeared to the Land of the Lost with the missing socks that never come back out of the dryer? God, I hope not. I really hope they're not in the basement, because I'll never find them again.
I am an acknowledged, unrepentant pack rat. I still have journals from middle school. I still have receipts from trips that I took a decade ago. I still have a filing cabinet drawer filled with letters and cards and random tchotchkes that people sent me when I was in college. I still have service records and the owner's manual from a car that was totalled in an accident sixteen years ago.
But I can't find the photos of the first trip that we took as husband and wife. Poof. They're gone. Disappeared without a trace.
I am more upset about this than maybe I ought to be, but it's hard to remember without the visuals. It's difficult to make the hard sell for another trip to Disney when I didn't take proper care of the mementos of the last one. I need to find these pictures, so I can convince my husband that it's time we went again.
Saint Anthony, please come around -- something's lost and can't be found.
And bring Saint Jude with you, because this one might be a lost cause.
1.04.2011
Sound of Silence
My husband started his new job last night -- well, his new shift at his new job -- and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to start taking sleeping pills and going to bed at 8:00 now, just so I can deal with the soul-crushing quiet. We have a three-year-old in our house, an HDTV, satellite service, multiple computers. So why did I spend the evening washing dishes and folding laundry just to have something to do?
It's been a long time since my husband worked nights, since before Shae and probably years before that, and I'm not used to it any more. I know how weird and codependent and neurotic it makes me sound to say that I don't really like it -- but I don't really like it.
Don't get me wrong: I'm glad he has a job, bonus that it's one he actually likes, and I know this swing-shift business is only temporary. It's not even as inconvenient as it could be, because he works 3pm-2am, four nights a week, Mondays through Thursdays. He's getting up to take Shae to school in the mornings, and he'll be home at night on the weekends, so we can still do our running amok and our visiting and our catching up with all the shows on our TiVo and sitting in the same room on two different computers playing World of Warcraft.
But my house is creepy at night, especially now that it gets dark so early. It's cold and drafty and last night Shae wasn't feeling well so she basically put herself to bed at 6:00 and left me all alone. The cats kind of hang around, but it's just the girls, and they're not particularly noisy. Bossy, yes, when they have a particularly irritating itch that needs to be scratched, or if they're out of food and water. But mostly last night they just followed me around so they could be where I was and ... I don't know, stare at me, I guess.
It made me miss Owen a whole hell of a lot, that's for damn sure.
I made dinner basically in silence. Shae sprawled out on the couch and watched The Sound of Music and didn't move until it was time to eat. When we sat down to supper she just sat there, pathetically staring at her plate, sometimes poking at the scalloped potatoes, occasionally whimpering. No conversations. No negotiations. No noise. Very awkward and Stepford. I packed up the leftovers and put them in the fridge for his lunch tonight and never once had to tell anybody to get their grubby mitts out of the candy jar.
Not even mine. It's no fun to cheat on your diet if nobody is going to catch you.
Once Shae was tucked in, I kind of wandered around the house, trying to motivate myself to do some of the housework that desperately needs to be done because for yet another year I failed to get maid service for Christmas. I washed and dried and put away two full racks of dishes. I scrubbed out the chili pot and scraped the cookie sheets. I rooted through the cupboard and made a menu plan for dinner for the rest of the week. I gathered up the rest of the clothes Shae got for Christmas, removed all the bags and tags and wrappers, and folded all her laundry. I even laid out the clothes that I wore to work today so I could hit the snooze button this morning.
Well, okay, so he could hit the snooze button this morning. He's closer to the alarm clock anyway; that's his job. I didn't get married so I would have to do that kind of thing by myself.
And then I went to bed. All alone. With nobody heckling my ratty T-shirt or my old-lady slipper-socks. There were no random fits of laughter coming from downstairs, from him talking to his friends over Skype while they play video games together. No lights, no footsteps on the stairs, no bathroom sounds. The toilet didn't even run, not once. It was strange to lay there and have to rely on myself to know when to go to sleep, having to act like an actual adult and not someone who plays one on TV. I'm a bedtime reader, and when I get really into a book, I can go for hours, uninterrupted. But if my husband is lying next to me and I have the light on, he grumbles and groans and grouches and makes me settle down, instead of staying up until half-past midnight reading Catching Fire
again when I should have been asleep hours earlier.
Don't even get me started on how strange it is to try go to sleep in that bed all by myself. Normally it feels like our queen-size bed is so small, when it's him and me and the cats, trying to get comfortable, staking out a section of our own, clenching the covers so someone else doesn't steal them, fighting over which setting on the electric blanket is the correct one, accidentally kicking each other or elbowing each other in the face. There was no breathing, no random bits of hours-old conversations brought back up to be rehashed, no rude involuntary bodily noises startling us awake as we drift off through the myoclonic jerks.
Instead, it was just me and two cats, and I felt like some kind of crazy spinster with her furry four-legged children sprawled across the afghan, sleeping in the middle of this great big giant queen-sized bed, all by myself. I went to sleep with an itchy back because there was no one there to scratch it for me, just in the right spot, right how I like it, aaaaaaah right there between the shoulder blades.
And I especially missed my kiss goodnight.
When he gets home from work he comes to bed and I'm sure he kisses me, but I'm also sure that I'm three-quarters asleep, grumping about having to move now that I've finally gotten comfortable, so I don't appreciate it. Plus I have my night-time bruxism guard in, so I'm doing goofy things with my mouth, and I always have some kind of sinus cold, so I'm pretty sure my breath is not so very pleasant. It's just not the same as kissing him goodnight with minty-fresh teeth just before we settle into a mutually-soothing breathing rhythm.
Today Shae is feeling better and I expect that it's going to be a completely different scene tonight. We'll fight over how many bites of noodles and sausage and vegetables she needs to eat, whether or not she can have a treat, whether I will let her stay up until the end of the rest of The Sound of Music or if I will make her go to bed right before the part at the convent. We'll wrestle over bath and hair combing and going potty and tooth brushing and saying prayers properly and lights being turned on and toys suddenly appearing in her bed. I'll wash some more dishes, fold some more laundry, diddle around in FarmVille and WoW, and probably stay up too late reading again, because now I'm reading Mockingjay
and I can't stop when I get past the good part because the whole book is basically one big good part.
And I still won't get my kiss goodnight. And I don't really like it.
It's been a long time since my husband worked nights, since before Shae and probably years before that, and I'm not used to it any more. I know how weird and codependent and neurotic it makes me sound to say that I don't really like it -- but I don't really like it.
Don't get me wrong: I'm glad he has a job, bonus that it's one he actually likes, and I know this swing-shift business is only temporary. It's not even as inconvenient as it could be, because he works 3pm-2am, four nights a week, Mondays through Thursdays. He's getting up to take Shae to school in the mornings, and he'll be home at night on the weekends, so we can still do our running amok and our visiting and our catching up with all the shows on our TiVo and sitting in the same room on two different computers playing World of Warcraft.
But my house is creepy at night, especially now that it gets dark so early. It's cold and drafty and last night Shae wasn't feeling well so she basically put herself to bed at 6:00 and left me all alone. The cats kind of hang around, but it's just the girls, and they're not particularly noisy. Bossy, yes, when they have a particularly irritating itch that needs to be scratched, or if they're out of food and water. But mostly last night they just followed me around so they could be where I was and ... I don't know, stare at me, I guess.
It made me miss Owen a whole hell of a lot, that's for damn sure.
I made dinner basically in silence. Shae sprawled out on the couch and watched The Sound of Music and didn't move until it was time to eat. When we sat down to supper she just sat there, pathetically staring at her plate, sometimes poking at the scalloped potatoes, occasionally whimpering. No conversations. No negotiations. No noise. Very awkward and Stepford. I packed up the leftovers and put them in the fridge for his lunch tonight and never once had to tell anybody to get their grubby mitts out of the candy jar.
Not even mine. It's no fun to cheat on your diet if nobody is going to catch you.
Once Shae was tucked in, I kind of wandered around the house, trying to motivate myself to do some of the housework that desperately needs to be done because for yet another year I failed to get maid service for Christmas. I washed and dried and put away two full racks of dishes. I scrubbed out the chili pot and scraped the cookie sheets. I rooted through the cupboard and made a menu plan for dinner for the rest of the week. I gathered up the rest of the clothes Shae got for Christmas, removed all the bags and tags and wrappers, and folded all her laundry. I even laid out the clothes that I wore to work today so I could hit the snooze button this morning.
Well, okay, so he could hit the snooze button this morning. He's closer to the alarm clock anyway; that's his job. I didn't get married so I would have to do that kind of thing by myself.
And then I went to bed. All alone. With nobody heckling my ratty T-shirt or my old-lady slipper-socks. There were no random fits of laughter coming from downstairs, from him talking to his friends over Skype while they play video games together. No lights, no footsteps on the stairs, no bathroom sounds. The toilet didn't even run, not once. It was strange to lay there and have to rely on myself to know when to go to sleep, having to act like an actual adult and not someone who plays one on TV. I'm a bedtime reader, and when I get really into a book, I can go for hours, uninterrupted. But if my husband is lying next to me and I have the light on, he grumbles and groans and grouches and makes me settle down, instead of staying up until half-past midnight reading Catching Fire
again when I should have been asleep hours earlier.Don't even get me started on how strange it is to try go to sleep in that bed all by myself. Normally it feels like our queen-size bed is so small, when it's him and me and the cats, trying to get comfortable, staking out a section of our own, clenching the covers so someone else doesn't steal them, fighting over which setting on the electric blanket is the correct one, accidentally kicking each other or elbowing each other in the face. There was no breathing, no random bits of hours-old conversations brought back up to be rehashed, no rude involuntary bodily noises startling us awake as we drift off through the myoclonic jerks.
Instead, it was just me and two cats, and I felt like some kind of crazy spinster with her furry four-legged children sprawled across the afghan, sleeping in the middle of this great big giant queen-sized bed, all by myself. I went to sleep with an itchy back because there was no one there to scratch it for me, just in the right spot, right how I like it, aaaaaaah right there between the shoulder blades.
And I especially missed my kiss goodnight.
When he gets home from work he comes to bed and I'm sure he kisses me, but I'm also sure that I'm three-quarters asleep, grumping about having to move now that I've finally gotten comfortable, so I don't appreciate it. Plus I have my night-time bruxism guard in, so I'm doing goofy things with my mouth, and I always have some kind of sinus cold, so I'm pretty sure my breath is not so very pleasant. It's just not the same as kissing him goodnight with minty-fresh teeth just before we settle into a mutually-soothing breathing rhythm.
Today Shae is feeling better and I expect that it's going to be a completely different scene tonight. We'll fight over how many bites of noodles and sausage and vegetables she needs to eat, whether or not she can have a treat, whether I will let her stay up until the end of the rest of The Sound of Music or if I will make her go to bed right before the part at the convent. We'll wrestle over bath and hair combing and going potty and tooth brushing and saying prayers properly and lights being turned on and toys suddenly appearing in her bed. I'll wash some more dishes, fold some more laundry, diddle around in FarmVille and WoW, and probably stay up too late reading again, because now I'm reading Mockingjay
and I can't stop when I get past the good part because the whole book is basically one big good part.And I still won't get my kiss goodnight. And I don't really like it.
6.29.2010
Hakuna Matata
I worry sometimes -- okay, a lot -- whether I am doing this whole parenting thing correctly. Am I raising my daughter right? Life in the Age of the Internet, I suppose: there are so many places and ways to compare my experiences and my opinions with other people's, and get instant feedback and reasons for self-flagellation.
Really, though, I already know don't need to do so much research and introspection. What does Dr. Spock say? "Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do"? This is not a science project, after all. It's so easy to forget that there is really only one person whose opinion matters in all this: Shae's.
She's the one I need to be asking, "Are you happy?" And I already know what her answer will be, when I ask that question: "Yes, Mommy! I am HAPPY!" And I know this much is true, of course, because there are some things that children take a long time to learn how to lie about. This should be all the validation I need.
There is a reason why "Hakuna Matata" is her favorite song, why she identifies so strongly with Winnie-ther-Pooh. Bother-free is, indeed, the way to be. Life is too short to not enjoy every second. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, and all that. Right?
Until I figure out how to actually have no worries, though, I will just have to look at her smile, know that she means it, and let that be my visual Prozac. (It works better when applied directly to the heart, anyway.)
Really, though, I already know don't need to do so much research and introspection. What does Dr. Spock say? "Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do"? This is not a science project, after all. It's so easy to forget that there is really only one person whose opinion matters in all this: Shae's.
She's the one I need to be asking, "Are you happy?" And I already know what her answer will be, when I ask that question: "Yes, Mommy! I am HAPPY!" And I know this much is true, of course, because there are some things that children take a long time to learn how to lie about. This should be all the validation I need.
There is a reason why "Hakuna Matata" is her favorite song, why she identifies so strongly with Winnie-ther-Pooh. Bother-free is, indeed, the way to be. Life is too short to not enjoy every second. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, and all that. Right?
Until I figure out how to actually have no worries, though, I will just have to look at her smile, know that she means it, and let that be my visual Prozac. (It works better when applied directly to the heart, anyway.)
4.19.2010
(Practically) Death By (Teeny Weeny Little) Splinter
One of the things that you can never be fully prepared for, as a parent, is the sound of your child screaming and shouting incomprehensibly while fully caught in the grip of sheer, abject terror.
And of course it's only made worse when you're the one who's got your kid terrified -- or, more precisely, the tweezers in your hand. Which you are trying to use to remove a splinter that is starting to get scary-looking.
It's quite something to discover that your fearless little rascal, who likes to fling herself down sliding boards face-first and who likes the swings to go practically all the way upside down and who likes to throw herself on the couch so she can see how high she bounces -- it's quite something to discover that this kid is scared to death of being pinched.
And I am not kidding about the "being scared" bit, either: she was screaming hysterically, so loudly, for so long, that I thought for sure that our neighbors were going to call the cops. In an ordinary neighborhood, they might have.
It was like Noriega with the heavy metal music, is what I am saying.
Apparently the splinter came from pulling weeds at my grandmother's over the weekend, and that (plus the killer mystery poison that makes you want to scratch all your skin off) is exactly why I don't do yard work.
But oh my lands -- we bribed her with everything we could think of. Candy. Money. Clothes. Shoes. At one point I might have promised to buy her a bike. Anything, if she would just calm down and be quiet for two seconds so we could pluck that splinter right out. It wasn't very deep, or very big, just on her left hand, right under her pinky finger, but it was red and she was complaining that it was sore, so it needed to come out.
It should have taken ten seconds, max. It ended up being an ordeal that went on for literally more than an hour. She would tense up and make tiny little fists and kick and scream and wail and throw punches and ... well, we ended up not getting the stinking splinter after all.
Until we were in the tub, when it came out on its own, confirmed after another wrestling match to just look at her boo-boo.
Oh and by the way? That kid is strong. Even soaking wet and naked.
She insisted on a unicorn bandaid and some "cream" afterwards, which is really neosporin ointment but she calls it cream because it looks like A&D to her, and then everything was fine.
Except I still have this ringing in my ears, and I think I've run out of nerve pills.
And I don't have the heart to tell my husband that this is nothing compared to what the first break-up is going to be like.
And of course it's only made worse when you're the one who's got your kid terrified -- or, more precisely, the tweezers in your hand. Which you are trying to use to remove a splinter that is starting to get scary-looking.
And I am not kidding about the "being scared" bit, either: she was screaming hysterically, so loudly, for so long, that I thought for sure that our neighbors were going to call the cops. In an ordinary neighborhood, they might have.
It was like Noriega with the heavy metal music, is what I am saying.
Apparently the splinter came from pulling weeds at my grandmother's over the weekend, and that (plus the killer mystery poison that makes you want to scratch all your skin off) is exactly why I don't do yard work.
But oh my lands -- we bribed her with everything we could think of. Candy. Money. Clothes. Shoes. At one point I might have promised to buy her a bike. Anything, if she would just calm down and be quiet for two seconds so we could pluck that splinter right out. It wasn't very deep, or very big, just on her left hand, right under her pinky finger, but it was red and she was complaining that it was sore, so it needed to come out.
It should have taken ten seconds, max. It ended up being an ordeal that went on for literally more than an hour. She would tense up and make tiny little fists and kick and scream and wail and throw punches and ... well, we ended up not getting the stinking splinter after all.
Until we were in the tub, when it came out on its own, confirmed after another wrestling match to just look at her boo-boo.
Oh and by the way? That kid is strong. Even soaking wet and naked.
She insisted on a unicorn bandaid and some "cream" afterwards, which is really neosporin ointment but she calls it cream because it looks like A&D to her, and then everything was fine.Except I still have this ringing in my ears, and I think I've run out of nerve pills.
And I don't have the heart to tell my husband that this is nothing compared to what the first break-up is going to be like.
4.08.2010
Easter 2010: Part Two
Almost as exciting as "Leonard: Part Six" -- and away we go!
Egg hunts look pretty much the same everywhere -- this one, on my Dad's side of the family, is just bigger and louder than most others (because I have relatives numbering in the hundreds at this point). Lots of little kids, lots of middle kids, lots of bigger kids. And, of course, the annual Keg Hunt, which is where the legal-drinking-age grandchildren wander around looking for little bottles with their names on them. It's fun. Usually.
Anyway, what I want to focus on this time is how, as the day goes on, Shae gets closer and closer to the Easter Bunny. Perhaps we are getting over our leporiphagophobia*.
Very close to the Easter Bunny. Not quite touching. Looking away, ready to escape, but still in a reasonable proximity.
Allow the Easter Bunny to touch her OMG OMG ZOMFG! You can tell that she is nervous about this, and I can't rightly say I blame her, because this particular Bunny is just on this side of Donnie-Darko-looking.
Standing right next to him, and -- wait, what is that I see when I zoom in?
HOLDING THE EASTER BUNNY'S HAND. Success! Maybe by Christmas she'll get over her whole Santa-is-creepy thing.
Egg hunts look pretty much the same everywhere -- this one, on my Dad's side of the family, is just bigger and louder than most others (because I have relatives numbering in the hundreds at this point). Lots of little kids, lots of middle kids, lots of bigger kids. And, of course, the annual Keg Hunt, which is where the legal-drinking-age grandchildren wander around looking for little bottles with their names on them. It's fun. Usually.
Anyway, what I want to focus on this time is how, as the day goes on, Shae gets closer and closer to the Easter Bunny. Perhaps we are getting over our leporiphagophobia*.
Very close to the Easter Bunny. Not quite touching. Looking away, ready to escape, but still in a reasonable proximity.
Allow the Easter Bunny to touch her OMG OMG ZOMFG! You can tell that she is nervous about this, and I can't rightly say I blame her, because this particular Bunny is just on this side of Donnie-Darko-looking.
Standing right next to him, and -- wait, what is that I see when I zoom in?
HOLDING THE EASTER BUNNY'S HAND. Success! Maybe by Christmas she'll get over her whole Santa-is-creepy thing.
* = fake made up word that is supposed to mean "fear of getting eaten by rabbits."
4.06.2010
Farewell to an Arm (and a Heart and a Soul)
NOTE: The rest of this is about football, and it contains swear words. Mostly "asshole." You might want to skip this one and come back tomorrow, when I put up Easter pictures. I mean, you can read this if you want, but it's probably going to get me disowned. AGAIN. Why don't you just look at the fancy special effects on this picture and try again later?
Okay, don't say I didn't warn you ... proceed at your own risk. IF YOU DARE.
=====
I am now a fan without a team. This has been a long time coming. And yet, my heart breaks to do it.
On Easter Sunday, the Philadelphia Eagles traded away Donovan McNabb to the Washington Redskins -- a division rival! -- for two draft picks, one in 2010 and another next year. Two "maybes" for a definite.
Assholes.
For most of my life, I have been an Eagles fan. Sure, in high school and college I "experimented" a little, and had a brief fling with the Buffalo Bills, my poor beleaguered Buffalo Bills, who will always hold a special place in my heart. But my first true love has always been the Eagles.
It is true that I have not always loved everything about the team. I think that Ron Jaworski is a grade-A douchenozzle. I never really liked Randall Cunningham or Rodney Peete or Buddy Ryan or Rich Kotite. I want to forget Fred-Ex. I don't even remember Ray Rhodes.
Perhaps I have only blocked out the most unpleasant things, though, because I remember Harold Charmichael, and the "Gang Green" defense, and Dick Vermeil before he became a smarmy Blue Cross pitchman, and Andre Waters, and Reggie White. These names still give me a tingle.
When McNabb got drafted by the Eagles in 1999, I was not one of those people who booed. I am willing to bet that this was in large part because he was an Orangeman, like me. Fellow alums always get the benefit of the doubt, right? But I remember thinking: "This is a ... weird choice. I hope these guys know what they're doing. I want to believe."
I suppose it goes without saying that I was big into "The X-Files" at that point. Stranger things had happened.
And boy, did they ... in 8 of McNabb's 11 seasons in Philadelphia, the Eagles made the post-season. Five times, they played for the NFC Championship. One trip to the Super Bowl. Multiple Pro Bowls. 3rd highest win percentage of active QB's in the NFL, behind only the almighty Tom Brady and the almightier Peyton Manning. 4th-and-26! Fourth and goddamn twenty-six.
McNabb has never been anything other than a class act and a true gentleman while he was in Philadelphia. He married his college sweetheart. They have four kids together. He is not one of those "dudes" who hangs around strip clubs or drives around with guns in his car or gets snagged in the airport with 500 lbs. of cocaine in his suitcase. He appeared in soup commercials with his parents. His parents, y'all. You cannot possibly be more clean-cut than that.
But there are so many Eagles fans who say that, because they never got the Super Bowl ring they feel they "deserved," McNabb was a bum. Worthless. Good for nothing. A loser. A choker. A talentless hack. A fraud. All those other things, measurable and unmeasurable, that made him one of the best players in the NFL -- none of them appear to matter. The fact that he's been beaten and bruised and broken, hammered and heckled and hollered at, kept on coming back for more, and never had a negative word to say about anybody, ever -- those intangibles mean "nothing" because they came without a championship.
Hey, guess what? It took John Elway four tries and FIFTEEN YEARS to win a Super Bowl -- he eventually won two of them. And Dan Marino NEVER won a Super Bowl. Are they a couple of useless bums too?
Well, then, I quit this bitch. I don't want to be associated with people who seriously believe that winning isn't everything, but the ONLY thing. Because they? Are assholes. The lot of them.
Santa-booing, battery-throwing ASSHOLES.
I still love the Eagles, and I'll probably watch them all season from behind splayed fingers, but I will always and forever hate Eagles fans, even as I am one of them. And I hope they get exactly what they "deserve" this year: a Super Bowl. For Donovan. In Washington.
Assholes.
Okay, don't say I didn't warn you ... proceed at your own risk. IF YOU DARE.
=====
I am now a fan without a team. This has been a long time coming. And yet, my heart breaks to do it.
On Easter Sunday, the Philadelphia Eagles traded away Donovan McNabb to the Washington Redskins -- a division rival! -- for two draft picks, one in 2010 and another next year. Two "maybes" for a definite.
Assholes.
For most of my life, I have been an Eagles fan. Sure, in high school and college I "experimented" a little, and had a brief fling with the Buffalo Bills, my poor beleaguered Buffalo Bills, who will always hold a special place in my heart. But my first true love has always been the Eagles.
It is true that I have not always loved everything about the team. I think that Ron Jaworski is a grade-A douchenozzle. I never really liked Randall Cunningham or Rodney Peete or Buddy Ryan or Rich Kotite. I want to forget Fred-Ex. I don't even remember Ray Rhodes.
Perhaps I have only blocked out the most unpleasant things, though, because I remember Harold Charmichael, and the "Gang Green" defense, and Dick Vermeil before he became a smarmy Blue Cross pitchman, and Andre Waters, and Reggie White. These names still give me a tingle.
When McNabb got drafted by the Eagles in 1999, I was not one of those people who booed. I am willing to bet that this was in large part because he was an Orangeman, like me. Fellow alums always get the benefit of the doubt, right? But I remember thinking: "This is a ... weird choice. I hope these guys know what they're doing. I want to believe."
I suppose it goes without saying that I was big into "The X-Files" at that point. Stranger things had happened.
And boy, did they ... in 8 of McNabb's 11 seasons in Philadelphia, the Eagles made the post-season. Five times, they played for the NFC Championship. One trip to the Super Bowl. Multiple Pro Bowls. 3rd highest win percentage of active QB's in the NFL, behind only the almighty Tom Brady and the almightier Peyton Manning. 4th-and-26! Fourth and goddamn twenty-six.
McNabb has never been anything other than a class act and a true gentleman while he was in Philadelphia. He married his college sweetheart. They have four kids together. He is not one of those "dudes" who hangs around strip clubs or drives around with guns in his car or gets snagged in the airport with 500 lbs. of cocaine in his suitcase. He appeared in soup commercials with his parents. His parents, y'all. You cannot possibly be more clean-cut than that.
But there are so many Eagles fans who say that, because they never got the Super Bowl ring they feel they "deserved," McNabb was a bum. Worthless. Good for nothing. A loser. A choker. A talentless hack. A fraud. All those other things, measurable and unmeasurable, that made him one of the best players in the NFL -- none of them appear to matter. The fact that he's been beaten and bruised and broken, hammered and heckled and hollered at, kept on coming back for more, and never had a negative word to say about anybody, ever -- those intangibles mean "nothing" because they came without a championship.
Hey, guess what? It took John Elway four tries and FIFTEEN YEARS to win a Super Bowl -- he eventually won two of them. And Dan Marino NEVER won a Super Bowl. Are they a couple of useless bums too?
Well, then, I quit this bitch. I don't want to be associated with people who seriously believe that winning isn't everything, but the ONLY thing. Because they? Are assholes. The lot of them.
Santa-booing, battery-throwing ASSHOLES.
I still love the Eagles, and I'll probably watch them all season from behind splayed fingers, but I will always and forever hate Eagles fans, even as I am one of them. And I hope they get exactly what they "deserve" this year: a Super Bowl. For Donovan. In Washington.
Assholes.
2.19.2010
WTF?! Friday: Panty Panic
Someday you people are going to go through what I am going through right now: potty training. We've been working on this for a couple of months now -- we started wearing pull-ups full-time sometime over the summer. Her teachers at school have been really great, throwing parties for the kids when they fill up the potty chart, really pushing the positive reinforcement, etc., and of course my mother absolutely relishes the opportunities for bribery when we visit.
We're trying not to "make a huge deal of it" because we're those parents, and we don't want to give her a complex, but she's just about advanced beyond her current curriculum, and in order to move up to the next classroom, she needs to be fully potty trained. So with her birthday approaching -- less than six weeks! -- we decided to take the leap and start sending her to school in underpants ... and it has been far more traumatic for us than I ever expected it to be.
Not because we're not ready for Our Little Girl to grow up, though, but because I don't understand what wackadoodle decided that bikini panties were an appropriate, good idea for TODDLERS. Seriously. Teeny little bikini undies, for teeny little girls. The mind, she boggles.
I mean, COME ON NOW. This is a screen shot of an actual page from an actual major manufacter's website (brand has been redacted because I don't want to get sued). I am not a prude by any stretch of the imagination -- although I will also be the first to admit that being a parent, especially of a little girl, has settled me down somewhat (except for the cussing) -- but I can't be the only person who thinks that low-rise underpants for little girls are just eleventy kinds of wrong, can I? I accidentally bought Shae a pair of low-rise jeans once and I won't let her wear them outside the house unless she's also wearing a bodysuit, because even baby buttcrack is NOT CUTE.
Just thinking about this makes my head explode, seriously. Granted, I am not the most fashion-forward person on earth, but I still don't think it's necessary to PUT LITTLE KIDS IN PANTS WHERE THEIR BUTTS ARE HANGING OUT. That guy on American Idol with that "Pants on the Ground" song -- he has a point, you know. Everybody looks like a fool when their underwear is showing.
And of course sometimes I look at the clothes they sell for children my daughter's age and size (almost 3, 4T-5T or little girls' 4-5) and I think to myself: WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? Who dresses their kids like this? Belly shirts? Hip huggers? See-through, skin-tight little numbers? Microminiskirts? REALLY? Have you people never heard of pedophiles? And are you prepared to put your kids on the Pill the minute they hit puberty? Because there's a reason why teenage pregnancy rates are going up lately, and I am pretty sure that DRESSING OUR BABIES LIKE HOOCHIE MAMAS is one of the contributing factors to this problem. Stuff can be cute without making our daughters look like tiny little whores. It's gross.
Am I nuts? Over-reacting? Is it prototypically radically femi-Nazi-ish of me to start wondering if maybe we actually should send her to a convent? I love raising a mini-me, but the pink and the ruffles and the princess bullshit everywhere are going to be my undoing as it is, and now THIS. God help me. WHY CAN'T MY KID JUST BE A KID?
We're trying not to "make a huge deal of it" because we're those parents, and we don't want to give her a complex, but she's just about advanced beyond her current curriculum, and in order to move up to the next classroom, she needs to be fully potty trained. So with her birthday approaching -- less than six weeks! -- we decided to take the leap and start sending her to school in underpants ... and it has been far more traumatic for us than I ever expected it to be.
Not because we're not ready for Our Little Girl to grow up, though, but because I don't understand what wackadoodle decided that bikini panties were an appropriate, good idea for TODDLERS. Seriously. Teeny little bikini undies, for teeny little girls. The mind, she boggles.
I mean, COME ON NOW. This is a screen shot of an actual page from an actual major manufacter's website (brand has been redacted because I don't want to get sued). I am not a prude by any stretch of the imagination -- although I will also be the first to admit that being a parent, especially of a little girl, has settled me down somewhat (except for the cussing) -- but I can't be the only person who thinks that low-rise underpants for little girls are just eleventy kinds of wrong, can I? I accidentally bought Shae a pair of low-rise jeans once and I won't let her wear them outside the house unless she's also wearing a bodysuit, because even baby buttcrack is NOT CUTE.
Just thinking about this makes my head explode, seriously. Granted, I am not the most fashion-forward person on earth, but I still don't think it's necessary to PUT LITTLE KIDS IN PANTS WHERE THEIR BUTTS ARE HANGING OUT. That guy on American Idol with that "Pants on the Ground" song -- he has a point, you know. Everybody looks like a fool when their underwear is showing.
And of course sometimes I look at the clothes they sell for children my daughter's age and size (almost 3, 4T-5T or little girls' 4-5) and I think to myself: WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? Who dresses their kids like this? Belly shirts? Hip huggers? See-through, skin-tight little numbers? Microminiskirts? REALLY? Have you people never heard of pedophiles? And are you prepared to put your kids on the Pill the minute they hit puberty? Because there's a reason why teenage pregnancy rates are going up lately, and I am pretty sure that DRESSING OUR BABIES LIKE HOOCHIE MAMAS is one of the contributing factors to this problem. Stuff can be cute without making our daughters look like tiny little whores. It's gross.
Am I nuts? Over-reacting? Is it prototypically radically femi-Nazi-ish of me to start wondering if maybe we actually should send her to a convent? I love raising a mini-me, but the pink and the ruffles and the princess bullshit everywhere are going to be my undoing as it is, and now THIS. God help me. WHY CAN'T MY KID JUST BE A KID?
11.12.2009
Send in the Clowns
(NOTE: This is long and overwrought and very emo, and possibly upsetting. This was a big ol' stream of consciousness thing that I wrote. You can skip it if you want -- the pictures aren't that great anyway. I almost didn't publish this, but I decided to anyway, for two reasons: (1) these are real feelings, and (2) I feel better for having gotten it out, which is kind of the reason why I started this blog in the first place. I'm fine. I'll be fine. I have to be, and I want to be. You can worry, but know that I have this stuff on the radar, and I am monitoring myself, and I won't actually GET out of control. I just FEEL out of control, sometimes. YMMV, and QED, and etc.)
=====
This time last year, I was was practically swimming in bliss, what with my team winning the World Series and my guy winning the election and things just generally going much more my way than things are right at this particular moment in time. I'm not exactly talking myself off the ledge, not quite, but ...
... well, let me put it this way: did you ever have one of those days when you have, like, tunnel vision, and all you can see is what's going on right in front of you, and that's probably okay anyway because what's happening off to the side there sounds a little bit terrifying, but anyway you're staring straight ahead trying to concentrate and then all of the sudden you notice that there is a very weighty darkness rapidly closing in around you and you feel this moist hot sulfurous breath on the back of your neck and then you blink and when you open your eyes all you can see is this pinpoint of light on the horizon and suddenly the panting is getting heavier behind you?
No? Just me?
G is still out of work, and right now I am the breadwinner in our family, and let me tell you something about that: my (not-so) inner feminist is at full-on DEFCON-5. It's one thing to be the moneymaker when you want to, when you and he are separate-but-equal-partners, when your marriage is new and you are both young and strong. But when you have to? When there are kids and pets and mortgage payments? When you've been constantly working for 10+ years without breaks except for the obligatory occasional week of vacation and you're old and tired? Whole 'nother ballgame, buster. This is quidditch on the moon.
The fact that there are only 40-something days until Christmas and I have barely started my shopping, barely even started thinking about my shopping, barely even started considering thinking about my shopping, probably gives away how bad things are getting, in my head at least. How can I worry about Christmas presents when I am busy worrying about how we're going to make two car payments and a mortgage payment and a daycare payment with only one job? It's come to this: I am having a hard time justifying spoiling my own child, the child we wanted so long and worked so hard for, because I just can't make the cost-benefit analysis work. Even as I say it myself, it's the saddest and stupidest thing I've ever heard.
And then I think, "If it's this bad for us, how bad must it be for others? The ones with no jobs, no severance, no unemployment, no nothing? How bad must it be for them?" And I can do something for them, I know I can, if I am willing to sacrifice some of the little bit we still have, but ... then again. Then again. They just did a round of layoffs where I work. I know I am lucky to have a job right now. I have survivor's guilt, I guess. I am becoming overwhelmed with all of it. Sometimes I worry myself right into nausea. I need to out my head between my knees. I can't hardly sleep.
I mean, maybe I exaggerate a little bit, but I am starting to hit panic mode right now and I'm not sure how to keep the sky from swirling over me while the earth spins out of control underneath my feet in this maelstrom of my own making. I am starting to crack under the pressure and I wonder sometimes if we're going to make it, G and I, our little family. I feel like I'm going looneypants. Some days I am sad, and some days I am angry, and some days it's a struggle to get out of bed, and some days I am so consumed with so many emotions at once that I force myself to feel absolutely nothing in self-defense. Fuck off, world! Die in a fire.
This is depression, probably a big one, and I know this. I can feel it like a giant octopus or a big hairy spider, twisting its legs around my ribs and squeezing until I can't run and can't move and can't breathe and can't scream. But I can't be bothered with this, I can't, I just can't be depressed right now, not with him depressed and people around me depressed and the whole damn world depressed. I'm the positive one. I'm the cockeyed optimist. I'm Little Miss Sunshine. I'm the Little Engine That Could.
And here I am, standing in the tunnel, and it's getting darker and darker and that panting behind me is getting louder and louder and that tiny point of light is getting farther and farther away and now I'm starting to hear calliope music, which means here come the horrible flesh-eating clowns, and I think it's going to be getting a lot worse before it gets better, and I'm barely hanging on to this high wire here already. Please, send help. And a flashlight.
=====
This time last year, I was was practically swimming in bliss, what with my team winning the World Series and my guy winning the election and things just generally going much more my way than things are right at this particular moment in time. I'm not exactly talking myself off the ledge, not quite, but ...
... well, let me put it this way: did you ever have one of those days when you have, like, tunnel vision, and all you can see is what's going on right in front of you, and that's probably okay anyway because what's happening off to the side there sounds a little bit terrifying, but anyway you're staring straight ahead trying to concentrate and then all of the sudden you notice that there is a very weighty darkness rapidly closing in around you and you feel this moist hot sulfurous breath on the back of your neck and then you blink and when you open your eyes all you can see is this pinpoint of light on the horizon and suddenly the panting is getting heavier behind you?
No? Just me?
G is still out of work, and right now I am the breadwinner in our family, and let me tell you something about that: my (not-so) inner feminist is at full-on DEFCON-5. It's one thing to be the moneymaker when you want to, when you and he are separate-but-equal-partners, when your marriage is new and you are both young and strong. But when you have to? When there are kids and pets and mortgage payments? When you've been constantly working for 10+ years without breaks except for the obligatory occasional week of vacation and you're old and tired? Whole 'nother ballgame, buster. This is quidditch on the moon.
The fact that there are only 40-something days until Christmas and I have barely started my shopping, barely even started thinking about my shopping, barely even started considering thinking about my shopping, probably gives away how bad things are getting, in my head at least. How can I worry about Christmas presents when I am busy worrying about how we're going to make two car payments and a mortgage payment and a daycare payment with only one job? It's come to this: I am having a hard time justifying spoiling my own child, the child we wanted so long and worked so hard for, because I just can't make the cost-benefit analysis work. Even as I say it myself, it's the saddest and stupidest thing I've ever heard.
And then I think, "If it's this bad for us, how bad must it be for others? The ones with no jobs, no severance, no unemployment, no nothing? How bad must it be for them?" And I can do something for them, I know I can, if I am willing to sacrifice some of the little bit we still have, but ... then again. Then again. They just did a round of layoffs where I work. I know I am lucky to have a job right now. I have survivor's guilt, I guess. I am becoming overwhelmed with all of it. Sometimes I worry myself right into nausea. I need to out my head between my knees. I can't hardly sleep.
I mean, maybe I exaggerate a little bit, but I am starting to hit panic mode right now and I'm not sure how to keep the sky from swirling over me while the earth spins out of control underneath my feet in this maelstrom of my own making. I am starting to crack under the pressure and I wonder sometimes if we're going to make it, G and I, our little family. I feel like I'm going looneypants. Some days I am sad, and some days I am angry, and some days it's a struggle to get out of bed, and some days I am so consumed with so many emotions at once that I force myself to feel absolutely nothing in self-defense. Fuck off, world! Die in a fire.
This is depression, probably a big one, and I know this. I can feel it like a giant octopus or a big hairy spider, twisting its legs around my ribs and squeezing until I can't run and can't move and can't breathe and can't scream. But I can't be bothered with this, I can't, I just can't be depressed right now, not with him depressed and people around me depressed and the whole damn world depressed. I'm the positive one. I'm the cockeyed optimist. I'm Little Miss Sunshine. I'm the Little Engine That Could.
And here I am, standing in the tunnel, and it's getting darker and darker and that panting behind me is getting louder and louder and that tiny point of light is getting farther and farther away and now I'm starting to hear calliope music, which means here come the horrible flesh-eating clowns, and I think it's going to be getting a lot worse before it gets better, and I'm barely hanging on to this high wire here already. Please, send help. And a flashlight.
11.08.2009
Back in the Saddle Again
Sorry that blogging has been so light in the last few days: someone -- and I am not saying who because it might be me -- ran over the camera cord with the computer chair, and we just this morning got it fixed. We've also been wallowing in our depression over the end of the world the other day, and we're still kind of down in the dumps about it.
Oh, and there's that whole situation where I've been working on two calendars at the same time for Christmas. Boy howdy, what was I thinking with that? But I promise: we'll be back on track this week. Thanks for your patience.
Oh, and there's that whole situation where I've been working on two calendars at the same time for Christmas. Boy howdy, what was I thinking with that? But I promise: we'll be back on track this week. Thanks for your patience.
7.23.2009
Tell Me Something Good
Okay, look ... I'm having a "spell" right now. There is a lot of crap going on in my life, most of which does not even involve me, but I am such a narcissist* that of course it's all stressing me out. I've been grouchy, cranky, tired, irritable, and miserable. Like PMS on steroids, except it's been going on too long to actually be PMS. Dammit.
Here's how bad it is -- yesterday I started a blog post that contained this little nugget of bullshit**:
Blah-blah-blah. It went on from there. I mean, seriously, could I be a bigger asshole***? You don't read my blog because you want to hear about my stupid little problems that, frankly, could be resolved by drinking a lot of tequila, taking a handful Xanax, and sleeping for a week in a nice padded room.
Of course, cracking jokes about how I am in the middle of a emotional trough doesn't actually make me feel better either. But you know what does? Finding pictures on your camera that were supposed to be "throwaways," that actually turned out to be pretty OK. So OK, in fact, that I haven't even processed these, just uploaded them:
I especially like that last picture, where she is so clearly trying to suppress a giggle, and failing miserably. Obviously we were having more fun playing near the curtains this time then we were that one time, when I couldn't get her to smile.
Parenting is rough, and parenting a two-year-old is complete insanity, and that is part of what I am so stressed out about****, but there are moments when nothing makes me happier than this kid. Nothing. That's a lot of pressure for such a small person, but I think we'll work it out together.
Here's how bad it is -- yesterday I started a blog post that contained this little nugget of bullshit**:
But sometimes, sometimes I am whacked upside the head by the depression, when it comes. Sometimes it is very insistent, no matter what I do to fend it off. Sometimes it consumes me until I find myself paralyzed by white-hot fury and uncontrollable sadness, when everything comes in a swirl of words and colors and shapes and emotions that don't make any sense, when I can't catch my breath or shut off my brain or find my center.
Blah-blah-blah. It went on from there. I mean, seriously, could I be a bigger asshole***? You don't read my blog because you want to hear about my stupid little problems that, frankly, could be resolved by drinking a lot of tequila, taking a handful Xanax, and sleeping for a week in a nice padded room.
Of course, cracking jokes about how I am in the middle of a emotional trough doesn't actually make me feel better either. But you know what does? Finding pictures on your camera that were supposed to be "throwaways," that actually turned out to be pretty OK. So OK, in fact, that I haven't even processed these, just uploaded them:
Parenting is rough, and parenting a two-year-old is complete insanity, and that is part of what I am so stressed out about****, but there are moments when nothing makes me happier than this kid. Nothing. That's a lot of pressure for such a small person, but I think we'll work it out together.
* = Not really. Neurotic and overly involved in other people's business, but not actually a narcissist. I just play one on the Internet.
** = Actually, that is how I feel, but I don't want to cause my dozen of regular readers to jump off a bridge or anything. Post has been deleted.
*** = Yes. Yes, I probably could. Would you like me to try?
**** = That, and THIRTY-SEVEN THOUSAND other things, like my husband's unemployment and my grandparents' health and my sister's wedding and the price of tea in China and what I'm going to have for dinner and whether I want to keep playing WoW or if I should just flush my money down the toilet.
** = Actually, that is how I feel, but I don't want to cause my dozen of regular readers to jump off a bridge or anything. Post has been deleted.
*** = Yes. Yes, I probably could. Would you like me to try?
**** = That, and THIRTY-SEVEN THOUSAND other things, like my husband's unemployment and my grandparents' health and my sister's wedding and the price of tea in China and what I'm going to have for dinner and whether I want to keep playing WoW or if I should just flush my money down the toilet.
7.13.2009
Cry Baby
Further evidence that I am a horrible, horrible parent: over the weekend we made Shae get out of the pool because it was cold and she was turning purple and we didn't want her to get sick, and she pitched another one of her patented right royal fits, which I made G capture on camera for future blackmail purposes and am now posting out there on teh Intarwebz:
I really, really am a horrid, awful person, but as it turns out, I was also correct: she was running a low-grade fever for the rest of the weekend, and now she's going to the doctor's to have a possible ear infection looked at. But better to do it now then drive all the way to Hersheypark on Saturday only to have a repeat of last year's performance.
PS -- Sick toddlers are highly amusing. Not only does Shae's ear hurt, and her mouth, and her tummy, and her head, and her knee, but also her liver, pancreas, and appendix. We know, because we asked her, and she told us. "Shae, does your pancreas hurt?" "Uh-huh!" She's so cute when she tries to play along. God help us all when she discovers sarcasm.
PPS -- Added @ 3:36 PM -- No ear infection, per se, but the doctor did see redness so she prescribed some ear drops as a preventive measure. Also, it turns out that Shae's mouth actually DOES hurt, because she is cutting the last of her 2-year molars. See? I told you I was a terrible, terrible parent.
I really, really am a horrid, awful person, but as it turns out, I was also correct: she was running a low-grade fever for the rest of the weekend, and now she's going to the doctor's to have a possible ear infection looked at. But better to do it now then drive all the way to Hersheypark on Saturday only to have a repeat of last year's performance.
PS -- Sick toddlers are highly amusing. Not only does Shae's ear hurt, and her mouth, and her tummy, and her head, and her knee, but also her liver, pancreas, and appendix. We know, because we asked her, and she told us. "Shae, does your pancreas hurt?" "Uh-huh!" She's so cute when she tries to play along. God help us all when she discovers sarcasm.
PPS -- Added @ 3:36 PM -- No ear infection, per se, but the doctor did see redness so she prescribed some ear drops as a preventive measure. Also, it turns out that Shae's mouth actually DOES hurt, because she is cutting the last of her 2-year molars. See? I told you I was a terrible, terrible parent.
4.07.2009
Free Advice
Let's just say, hypothetically, not that any of this actually happened to anyone we know or anything like that, but let's just suppose it's a rainy Monday, and you are feeling some vague sense of ennui, and maybe perhaps also an inexplicably strong urge to spring clean. Not your house, of course, because nothing short of a nuclear air strike is going to help that disaster area.
But maybe you find yourself thinking: "Hey, I've heard good things about XX blogging platform, so maybe I'll randomly decide at like 2:00 in the afternoon to take three years or so worth of content and just switch over to there," even though there is absolutely nothing wrong with the blog you already have except for maybe you're a little bored with the background color.
I'm going to repeat that, for emphasis: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH WHAT YOU'RE ALREADY DOING. It's fine, just ... meh. And you're insane, have we mentioned that part yet?
You know that old cliché about how if it ain't broke, then don't fix it? Yeah. There's a reason why it's a hackneyed old adage, and that is because it is damned fine advice. If you read my tweets you'll see that I rather quickly came to the conclusion that "blogging like a grown-up" is not fucking worth the hassle. Christ on a whole-grain cracker.
So anyway ... I'm going to be sprucing a few things up around here. As soon as I commit to a new background, I'll change it, and I'm going update the "Cupcake Cam" over there in the sidebar, but despite my intentions to the contrary, I'm not going anywhere. Except crazy, but we already knew that.
PS -- In case you were wondering: I didn't tell anybody I was thinking about this, because I wasn't, not really. It was totally a last-minute game-time decision that seemed like it might have been a good idea in the moment. Which, as it turns out, it was NOT. Epic fail. So anyway, if this brief flirtation with another blog host is news to you, you're not alone. I'm a nutbar. Just ignore me.
PPS -- Added at 8:57 AM -- Apparently I managed to break something in Flickr and some of my pictures are not showing correctly now. Sorry about that. It's a long story that I don't really have time to get into now. And to be honest, I'm not really sure that I could explain it anyway. Hello, me = Luddite, haven't we already had this conversation? If a picture is borked, you can still click on it and see it in my photostream, but to see them in my blog directly, I'm going to have to fix something, and ... I don't know how, exactly, yet. Working on it.
PPPS -- Added at 9:08 AM -- Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick. Every one of the fixes needs to be done manually. FUCKING MANUALLY. !!!!! Next time you even SUSPECT that I might be thinking about touching my blog or my Flickr settings, smack me in the goddamn head.
But maybe you find yourself thinking: "Hey, I've heard good things about XX blogging platform, so maybe I'll randomly decide at like 2:00 in the afternoon to take three years or so worth of content and just switch over to there," even though there is absolutely nothing wrong with the blog you already have except for maybe you're a little bored with the background color.
I'm going to repeat that, for emphasis: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH WHAT YOU'RE ALREADY DOING. It's fine, just ... meh. And you're insane, have we mentioned that part yet?
You know that old cliché about how if it ain't broke, then don't fix it? Yeah. There's a reason why it's a hackneyed old adage, and that is because it is damned fine advice. If you read my tweets you'll see that I rather quickly came to the conclusion that "blogging like a grown-up" is not fucking worth the hassle. Christ on a whole-grain cracker.
So anyway ... I'm going to be sprucing a few things up around here. As soon as I commit to a new background, I'll change it, and I'm going update the "Cupcake Cam" over there in the sidebar, but despite my intentions to the contrary, I'm not going anywhere. Except crazy, but we already knew that.
PS -- In case you were wondering: I didn't tell anybody I was thinking about this, because I wasn't, not really. It was totally a last-minute game-time decision that seemed like it might have been a good idea in the moment. Which, as it turns out, it was NOT. Epic fail. So anyway, if this brief flirtation with another blog host is news to you, you're not alone. I'm a nutbar. Just ignore me.
PPS -- Added at 8:57 AM -- Apparently I managed to break something in Flickr and some of my pictures are not showing correctly now. Sorry about that. It's a long story that I don't really have time to get into now. And to be honest, I'm not really sure that I could explain it anyway. Hello, me = Luddite, haven't we already had this conversation? If a picture is borked, you can still click on it and see it in my photostream, but to see them in my blog directly, I'm going to have to fix something, and ... I don't know how, exactly, yet. Working on it.
PPPS -- Added at 9:08 AM -- Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick. Every one of the fixes needs to be done manually. FUCKING MANUALLY. !!!!! Next time you even SUSPECT that I might be thinking about touching my blog or my Flickr settings, smack me in the goddamn head.
1.28.2009
Snow Day Update (UPDATED!)
There is a mouse in the dining room.
I repeat: there is a MOUSE in the DINING ROOM.
And my cat is trying to make friends with it.
Useless boogerhead.
Eek! FBAEW.
=====
UPDATE: G came home from work on his lunch hour to try to pull another "Mouse Whisperer" routine and capture the critter because I freaked right the fuck out and went a little apoplectic and perhaps became even more useless than usual. Heh. HOWEVER, Mickey appears to have evaded capture for the moment. Probably he's down in the basement with the yicky bugs and the homeless people who keep stealing one sock out of every pair. That's my guess, anyway, because Owen has NO IDEA what to do or where to go now. We'll be getting some traps later today, oh yes we will.
I repeat: there is a MOUSE in the DINING ROOM.
And my cat is trying to make friends with it.
Useless boogerhead.
Eek! FBAEW.
=====
UPDATE: G came home from work on his lunch hour to try to pull another "Mouse Whisperer" routine and capture the critter because I freaked right the fuck out and went a little apoplectic and perhaps became even more useless than usual. Heh. HOWEVER, Mickey appears to have evaded capture for the moment. Probably he's down in the basement with the yicky bugs and the homeless people who keep stealing one sock out of every pair. That's my guess, anyway, because Owen has NO IDEA what to do or where to go now. We'll be getting some traps later today, oh yes we will.
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