November 20, 2009

What is it with cross over artists? Like, why do they exist? I will admit, there do seem to be a few people in the world who can sing, and dance, AND act. And they're all musical theater geeks. So why, in the name of all that is holy, do dance stars decide they have to record albums? Why do recording artists decide they have to act? And why do actors invariably have a grunge rock band they still tour with? WHY!!!???!!!

I'm a Dancing With the Stars fan. Since I have a Tivo I get to fast forward through all the dancers I don't like, and all the commentary by the hosts, and get right to the decent dancing. Some seasons that means I watch most performances - this season I pretty much only watch Mya and Donnie Osmond, but that's one of the hazards of an unscreened talent base on a show like this. Anyway, one of the female professionals on the show - Julianne Hough - took some time off to record a country album. It's okay. I mean, it's not horrible, and it's not amazing, but she was popular enough on the show to pull of decent sales and there is one at least moderately interesting tune on the album. I still wish she had stuck to dancing, but, there it is.

Last night I was subjected to one of the most horrid travesties in all of DWTS history (and remember, this is the show that gave us SEAN HANNITY limping his way across the floor). Derek and Mark, two of the male professionals, have apparently decided to form a FREAKING BOY BAND. And it's AWFUL. They are amazing, amazing dancers. Really. If I could dance like that I wouldn't WANT to do anything else.

WHY ARE THEY TRYING TO SING!??!

I mean, let's face it, artistic disciplines can take a lifetime to perfect, why focus on two instead of one? You DON"T HAVE TWO LIFETIMES, and, let's face it, NOT EVERYONE IS FREAKING LEONARDO DAVINCI! It's okay to just be amazing at ONE thing. Why embarrass yourself by being great at one thing and sucking at another?

And while we're at it, Christian Slater, give up the band. Just give it up man.


grrrrrrrrrrrrrrooooooOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNnnnnnnnnnnnnn...

I wrote that bit above a while ago. Then I didn't write anything for a while because we're sick. I'm not using the royal we, I mean, everyone in my tiny little family is sick. I'm sick, Waxor's sick, Elliot's sick, hell, I bet even the fetus is sick. This weekend Kay came riding to the rescue, which was awesome, but she had to go back to work, so now Elliot and I are at home, together, trying to muddle through this very long day. At the moment it's 10:35 am, which means three hours down, nine more to go.

I'm not sure I'm gonna make it.

Don't get me wrong, Elliot has been about as cheerful and sweet through this whole thing as anyone could expect him to be. It's just - he's not as sick as Waxor and I, and he still has tons of energy. And he doesn't understand why I don't want to play chase with him in the yard.

Pardon me, I need to go remove my face or something...


Well again! Well, kind of. I have a wicked cough (courtesy of the cold, which I am now over but you know how coughs linger). I'm only hoping it's completely gone before we fly to Nicaragua this year. If it isn't I'm going to go to my Doctor's office and ask them to give me a letter that says I do NOT have swine flu. I don't want to deal with customs hassles all the way through the airport. I definitely don't want them to make me wear a mask. Sigh.

I got an email today from a friend of mine requesting that I pass on a prayer for the troops in the military. It also had, at the header, a bit of a rant about how there's a bill going through congress, powered by the ACLU, to get all headstones with crosses on them removed from military graveyards, and how prayer is no longer being allowed in the military, and that military chaplains aren't allowed to say "Jesus" anymore.

Well, that seemed a little far fetched to me, so I went a-googling. Turns out that the ACLU is trying to get one, very specific, cross monument removed. There's apparently a cross shaped memorial to the Veterans of WWI in the Mojave National Preserve, and someone got mad about it. The ACLU took up the cause, their point being that there are a bunch of non-Christians who fight and die for the country, and a memorial should be a memorial for all of them, not just the Christian ones. Whatever you think about this specific case (I myself am inclined to agree with the ACLU, but also am inclined to think it isn't really worth anyone getting their knickers in a bunch over a small memorial in the middle of nowhere) the ACLU has come out specifically to say that they are NOT interested in removing all crosses from graveyards and memorials everywhere.

As for the issue of prayer in the military, and whether or not Chaplains are allowed to say "Jesus" - that is taken from a controversy back in 2006 (incidentally, the email claimed that our "current administration" was behind these nefarious schemes to remove god from the military. I'm sure we all remember that 2006 was a very different administration then the current one, and not at all an administration likely to try to remove god from anything, at least on the face of it.) What happened in 2006 is that a military chaplain wore his uniform to a press conference outside the white house and prayed "in the name of Jesus." This got people's backs up because it looked like a government representative was not adhering to the mandated separation of church and state. Now, in this case I understand why people got irritated, but come on, people, he's a preacher. The real question is not, what did this chaplain say, but rather, do we also have military Rabbis, Mullahs, etc? If we do, and if we also have secular councilors for the atheists and agnostic members of the military, then it seems like we're covered. And if a preacher wants to pray in the name of Jesus then so be it.

But, and here's the significant part (all that was just my take on the controversy) no one is trying to keep chaplains from saying whatever and praying however they want when in their official capacity as a religious authority figure. So, again, WHY THE BUNCHY KNICKERS, PEOPLE!?

I don't mind getting emails that ask me to pray for the troops. I think anyone in a hostile situation can use all the prayer, good wishes, and crossed fingers they can get, so it's fine with me if someone asks me to pray for them. But why are these two other issues getting tacked onto this email and blown totally out of proportion? Anyone? Bueller?

On to other topics.

Today it is raining in spurts. Meaning that one minute you're like "oh, the sun is coming out" and the next minute you're like "gee, the sky has opened up and is raining whole oceans on top of my head." Elliot and I headed for the library in one of the clear patches, but, tragically before we got there the torrential downpour started back up again. So we park, and I look back at Elliot:

"Ready to run for it little man?"

"Wrun! Wrun!"

"Okay then"

I flip up my hood, pop out the door, snatch the baby out of that car seat and the bag of books from the floor board, and head for the library door by the straightest path possible. Elliot (just to give you an idea of how hard it is raining) tucks his head into my shoulder and tries to cover his neck with his hands. This is adorable, but I do not have time to appreciate it. I am sprinting like an Olympic athlete for the library door.

Now, thanks to my lovely in-laws I have WONDERFUL winter shoes. There were bought for me back when I was pregnant with Elliot. They're comfortable, they slip on, they're water proof, and they fit when I'm pregnant (with thin socks) and when I'm not (with thick socks). They're the epitome of winter time shoe greatness. It is thanks to these shoes that I am heading straight for the library door, because, even though the parking lot has some mondo puddles in it, I fear them not, for my shoes are water proof.

Of course, no matter how water proof your shoes are, if you kick up a giant wave of water in just the right direction you'll still get a foot soaking as the water pours in over the top of your shoe.

Sigh.

On the plus side, it wasn't cold today.

Let's say, hypothetically, that you had a clogged bathtub drain. Let's say that this clog was an overnight occurrence, and let's say that your significant other was convinced that a small baby wash cloth had been sucked down the drain, causing the clog.

What would you do about it? I mean, other then call a plumber? Is there some way of fishing the theoretical wash cloth out?


Feel free to discuss.

Alrighty folks, that's it for this go round. Until next time.

Hasta la pasta!




--
If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

But unless life gives you sugar and water, your lemonade is gonna suck.

October 30th

Ever have one of those days where you're ugly, you're tired, and it seems like no one loves you?

I feel like I've been having one of those days for weeks now.

I don't know if that's because I've actually been feeling that way for weeks, or if it's because once you feel that way time passes so slowly... it feels like weeks when it's really only been a day.

WHINE! WHINE WHINE WHINE!!!

Okay, enough of that.

As many of you know by now (since word has spread and I was indiscreet on facebook) I am pregnant again. :) This is a happy thing, although apparently not for everyone, as at least one of my correspondents has remarked that this means I can write mind numbingly long emails about TWO offspring now. Cheers to that. :)

The baby is due in June, so all of you that have yet to meet the FIRST offspring should absolutely plan to visit sometime after June so you can meet both. Of course, you could come visit before AND after, but I would not want you to strain yourselves, or anything.

My friend Gina is pregnant, and she's taken some totally amazing photos of herself and her pregnant belly (a few have her husband in them, but really, that's irrelevant, isn't it?) I don't have any amazing photos of Elliot in my belly, so I'm thinking I need to make sure that I don't miss the opportunity this time around. Anyone with a nice camera want to give pregnant portraiture a shot? Jami was going to take some of me last time around, but, of course, I moved before the belly was worth photographing.

Next topic:

Turns out, if you have a male baby he will eventually turn into a little boy. Go figure. I don't know when it happened, but sometime this fall Elliot went from still being a baby to being a little boy who still doesn't speak very well. It's an astonishing transformation. Once he was a blob with really only one way of communicating... now he tells me whole stories. Soon he'll have friends, and that's pretty much the beginning of the end, cause once they have friends they really do have a whole life independent of you. I'm not saying I want to be his whole world forever, just... oh who am I kidding. OF COURSE I want to be his whole world forever. I just realize it for the ridiculous and unhealthy idea that it is. So instead I look at it like this: one day he will not need me anymore. And on that day I will sigh a little sigh, and then I will tell Waxor it's time he took me to Paris.

I know it's shocking, but I think I'm going to wrap this email up now. I could babble for a while about random crap, and likely I will in the next email, but I realized today that some of you had not been told (at least by me) that a new baby is on the way, and I thought I ought to rectify that - but we're having our housewarming party tomorrow, and I have a bunch to do between now and then, so I can't sit here and pontificate any longer.

Those of you anywhere near Massachusetts, are you coming tomorrow? Those of you not anywhere near - you can come to. :) Party starts at 6, wear a costume.

TTFN,

August 12 and September 9, 2009

These are both really old, I forgot to post them:

#1

So, I should probably start with:

Waxor and I are buying a house.

No, wait, I should start with THIS, actually:

The reason I haven't sent one of these out in ages is because we've been freaking BUSY this summer. We're very rarely home for four days consecutively. We've been to Northampton, Maine, Nicaragua, Maine again, and we're headed back to Northampton in a few weeks. Then, when we HAVE been home, we've had lots of company. It's been awesome and totally social, but, y' know, busy.

And, on top of all that (segueing back to that first item) we're buying a house.

Exciting, yes?

Waxor and I are buying 709 River St, Haverhill, MA 01830 (now you all have our address). It's an old cottage that got expanded into a three bedroom home, it's got a giant wood stove and a huge yard, and I'm pretty happy with the whole idea of living there.

At least, when I'm not terrified by the idea of buying a house.

It needs a little bit of work done, but all in all I've very satisfied with what will be our new home. Anyone who wants can feel free to come by and check it out once we're all moved in.

Bravo has decided to chicken out for the summer - instead of running an actual season of Top Chef they are, instead, running a season of "Top Chef Masters" in which they get a bunch of well known chefs to come in to compete for charity. But, because they're well known chefs, it lacks the cut throat quality of the original, not to mention the spectacular disasters. Anyway, the most recent challenge was to make a five course lunch for Zoey Deschanel (actress and singer, for those of you that don't know). The catch was that she's vegan, gluten intolerant, and doesn't eat soy. This captured my fancy, and before I watched the episode I came up with my own, five course menu for ZD. Next time I have vegans over for dinner I am totally trying it out. Anyway, the only REALLY interesting one was that I thought, for dessert, I'd make mexican hot chocolate fondue with fresh fruit and homemade cake donuts made with corn flour for dipping.

Yeah, I'd eat that.


Waxor and I have been watching Boston Legal on DVD. I got hooked on the show by my family, who told me for years how brilliant it was, and then last Christmas they tied me down to a chair and taped my eyeballs open, forcing me to watch episode after episode until I could no more NOT watch Boston Legal then I could stop breathing. Okay, so that's not really true, but seriously, it is all their fault that I watch this totally brilliant show.

Thanks, by the way. :)

Anyway, we borrowed season one from them, and already had season two at our house, and we've been making our way through them. Early in season two Alan Shore and Denny Crane are having a conversation about the aquatic lice that are migrating from farm salmon to wild salmon and killing them. Alan says "they call the lice Klingons" and Denny, aka William Shatner, aka JAMES T FREAKING KIRK, says "did you say, Klingons?"

It was a moment of television brilliance.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Callie has started to develop some maternal instincts, I think. Elliot tends to complain when he rolls over in his sleep, and when we hear his little squeak over the monitor Callie gets up and runs to his room. It's like she feels the urge to check on him. It's cute, but it would be cuter if "running to his room" didn't involve barreling over, around, under, or through any person that gets in her way. I swear, sometimes I don't know if she's trying to save the baby or kill me.

Chimbasa is getting fed up with all the hoopla around the house. He likes Elliot and Callie, but he doesn't care for their rambunctious puppy behavior. He has his dignance, and he wants to sit in the sun and exude said dignance, not be molested by puppies that have the clear misfortune of being bigger then him. It's almost ridiculous watching Callie try to give him her belly, since he's barely taller then her even when she's lying flat on the ground. Elliot thinks it's hilarious when Chimbasa growls at him over pulled tails, and Chimbasa, being, really, a gentle little guy, has yet to actually snap at him. So instead of saving the baby from the dog I mostly end up saving the dog from the baby.

Waxor loves his job, loves our new house, loves the dogs, loves our baby, and I'm pretty sure loves me. In fact, he seems pretty content with life in general at the moment. If any of you want greater detail then that I would suggest you badger him to tell you personally. I know I would find it no end of hilarious if you would. :)

Elliot is growing by leaps and bounds. He's taller, for one thing, I think he's grown almost an inch since his last doctor's appt. I can tell he's growing because at night he has growing pains. A few nights ago I had to stay awake and massage his legs so he could go back to sleep. He's also developing cognitively. More and more he is understanding the details of what I say, instead of just the general gist. I would be really impressed, except that I have always known he is the cleverest baby ever, so it's more like my expectations are being realized. :) With his growing sense of things, however, he has also developed a growing sense of wanting things his way or no way. It used to be that he would hardly ever have a meltdown. Now he hardly ever has a day without one. Some days I handle it better then others. Some days I'm not even sure what handling it well means. But I try my best to be calm. Sometimes I find myself taking a step back, repeating to myself "YOU are the adult. You have to act like it," and then reentering the fray. It's hard not to react angrily when someone is mean to you, even if that someone is tiny and doesn't know any better. It's even harder when they DO know better, but just haven't learned to control themselves yet. I think I'm getting better, though. And Elliot and I are still best buddies, despite his periodic attempts to (as far as I can judge) completely murder me. Maybe it's better for him that I do have such a temper. I know what it's like to be totally angry and utterly miserable all at the same time, and I know what it's like to need the person you're screaming at to just let it go and tell you they love you, anyway. So I do my best. When all else fails - when I'm holding a child that's trying to hit, bite, and head butt me all at the same time - I put him on the bed and walk away, and then listen to him wail. And when his wail turns from "I'm so angry, I'm gonna kill you" into "Mommy, why did you leave me in here?" I walk back in and hold out my arms, and he runs over and throws his arms around me and sobs penitently. And I give him a big hug and tell him I love him.

I wish you could be progress reports on parenting, instead of having to wait for finals to see how you're doing.

I wish I could give you all an update on me, but I'm not sure that I can. I'm feeling... dunno. Terrified of buying a house, excited to own our own home, proud of my son for his achievements, exasperated with my son for turning into a typical toddler, tired of all the work I have to do to get us moved, glad to be doing something that isn't childcare, happy and content with Waxor, worried that my hormones seem to make that a variable state, raring to go, overcome with inertia, and withdrawn. I've been reading a lot, I call it stress reading. I know some people stress eat, that isn't my problem. I mean, I eat all the time, stress or no stress. But reading - I've been reading a lot, and I think I'm hiding in my books. It's the only way to get my mind to stop obsessing over things I have no control over - like when we're finally going to be able to close on the house, and if I'll be able to get everything done that needs to get done before we move in, and what if I (heaven forfend) forget something important. I lie awake at night and think about things. I've made tons of lists. And, at the moment, I can't DO anything about it. So I read. I read a lot. I've been glued to a book ever since our offer on the house got approved by the bank. It's making poor Waxor a little crazy, but I actually think Elliot has been enjoying it. We go for long walks and stuff, and I keep on eye on him and one eye on my page, and he's been delighted to explore at his own pace.

So, now I'm off to NOT read, I've got some cleaning up to do and then I'm going to see if there's anything else I can pack (I've been packing everything non-essential. Packing also helps me calm down, because I feel like I'm doing something productive.) Oh, by the by, if anyone out there is getting rid of any old quilts (I know, it's a long shot, but I figured I'd check) I would be happy to pay for shipping if you'd send them to me instead tossing them or giving them to the salvation army.


#2

At Been's suggestion I've been reading Carpe Demon by Julie Kenner. I highly recommend it to anyone who liked Buffy and is a mom. Even if you AREN'T a suburban mom, you will still enjoy it. Something about the passage where she describes the last minute cocktail party she's throwing at her husband's request, and how she's got only 20 minutes to clean up the house, but "that's okay, because [the two year old] was helping. In case anyone doesn't know, that was SARCASM." just won me over completely.

I want to learn to shoot a gun. I know, this may shock some of you who spent years hearing me claim I was a pacifist, but I've realized I was lying all along. I am not a pacifist, I don't know if I ever was or if I just liked the idea that I could be. It's not that I've changed my base belief that, for the most part, violence is not a good idea. However, I also think that, human nature being what it is, sometimes it's really the only way to keep from getting deaded. (Deaded means being killed, but is way more fun to say. Thought I'd update non-MMO players) And a real pacifist would say it's preferable to get deaded than to hurt or kill someone else. So, see, I'm really not a pacifist. So, anyway, I keep reading these disaster novels in which the end of society arrives in a sometimes fiery, sometimes not so fiery cataclysm. Technology falls apart, government goes into hiding, and most of the people in the world are suddenly without the basic societal cushioning to which we are all accustomed. These novels have driven home to me a couple things; (A) there are a lot of different ways that society could break down. Stephen King is scared of disease, and in Dies the fire S.M. Stirling explores a fascinating technology failure caused by... who knows. God? Aliens? Then there's nuclear holocaust, a very popular worry, failure of energy technologies, and global ice age issues. So, yeah, lots of ways we could suddenly be screwed. (B) I really need to learn the basics of farming. This one is also driven home by the TV show Lost, Robinson Crusoe, and the Swiss Family Robinson. If the structure of our lives ends OR I end up stranded on a deserted island I better know how to grow/harvest my own food. And, of course, (C), I really need to learn to shoot a gun. Not to own one. I don't want one in my house. But if the world ends or the revolution comes (or, come to think of it, if I'm stranded on a deserted island and happen to be lucky enough to have a gun) I better know how to shoot one. Plus, I will admit, I've always thought it might be kinda fun. I like blowing things up, too, and lighting stuff on fire.

We will now take time out of our regularly scheduled babble to bring you a public service announcement:

As all of you know (some with more familiarity than others) my family runs an NGO in Nicaragua. If you're one of the less familiar and would like some of the specifics of what they work on I suggest you skip over to http://www.jhc-cdca.org. That's their website and it's full of interesting information.

I'm not going to talk about what they do. I'm going to talk about who they are, and what they need. As people they're a lot like the rest of us. I think a lot of people assume it takes some kind of saint to do the kind of work they do. It doesn't. Instead, it takes someone with more tenacity than common sense; someone with a greater sense of responsibility to humanity than a sense of self preservation; someone who needs to stand up for what is right more than they need money, security, vacations, or even a solid night's sleep.

I'm not one of those people. Most of you aren't either. What I want to say here is that it's okay; that we all have to be the kind of people we are, but honestly I'm not sure it IS okay, it's certainly a guilt I've carried around for a long time. I try to make up for it somewhat by supporting them as I can, which can be a greatly varying job. Unfortunately, at the moment, the thing they need the most is something that I can't give them.

They've been working like this for literally my entire life, coming up on 31 years now. Some of their projects have been greater successes than others, and that's to be expected in a 30 year career. For the past 10 years now one of their largest projects has been the attempt to get a working model of a worker owned fair trade co-op off the ground, first with a sewing co-op and now, hopefully, with a spinning co-op. This model is important, not just to them, but to the world at large. Fair trade improves lives and economies, thus growing the global economy and making us all more stable. Worker owned co-ops are a beautiful blend of the capitalist system with communist ideals of solidarity and working for the betterment of all. And there's even still a place in them for the large money contributor as an investor. It's a really, really good idea, and it's not a very controversial one. It's been a struggle to set up for the basic reason that the only people willing to give it a try are the incredibly poor, and for the most part they have absolutely, 100% NO business training, and, as you might guess, that's a bit of a damper when trying to work out a new business model.

But everyone is learning, the sewing co-op is still going, the spinning co-op looks to be an even better group and positive things are happening. It's hoped that before long these co-ops will become part of a whole chain that is certified fair trade for a whole garment - and it will be the only chain like that in the WORLD! I know that exclamation points are cheesy, but seriously, think about it. The only one in the world.

I promise I'm getting to the point.

The spinning plant is at a critical juncture. They need to finish their building and they need to buy their spinning equipment. They've even found a great deal on the things they need. The problem is that the economic downturn took their backers out one by one, and if they can't get the money they can't finish. As simple as that.

And my family needs them to finish.

There's a lot of ways that the JHC/CDCA is trying to get the money together for the co-op. The one that scares me the most is the one where they've scraped together every cent of their personal savings to guarantee a loan at a huge interest rate.

The one that you can help with is called the Stone Soup Fund.

The Stone Soup Fund asks that you give $10, and get ten of your friends to do the same. That's all. Ten dollars is nothing to a US Citizen. You spend more on a movie ticket, or on buying pizza. Eat soup one night, or rent from Redbox instead of going to the theater, and you'll have broken even.

The thing is, my family is above using guilt. I'm not. This is such a little thing, and we can all afford it. Every single one of us. So don't think "oh, I ought to do that" and then make a mental note and forget. Go do it now. I'm not kidding. They take online donations through Network for Good. Here's the link: https://www.networkforgood.org/donation/ExpressDonation.aspx?ORGID2=56-1252307&vlrStratCode=tOAzU7N1cy4QiQN6Jz7wHYc9oiMIeZiL4bXZQCVJ9frCHt%2feWfmUGjKR6t9fr5Hn

Click it. If it doesn't work go to http://www.jhc-cdca.org and follow their donation links. Make the donation. You can use a credit card, or even paypal. Then get ten of your friends to do the same thing. I hate to sound like Sally Struthers, but this is so little, it is NOTHING to you. Give it to a good cause. I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I just made a $30 donation, $10 for every person in my household.

Now you.

Back to our regularly scheduled nonsense:

I seem to have cause some sort of damage to my knee. I'm not sure what kind of damage exactly, only that it hurts. This happened a while back, and the doctor sent me to an orthopedic guy and the ortho guy said "nope, nothing wrong with you" and now it hurts again. I mean, it hurts a LOT. I have a hard time going down stairs, and I can't lift anything heavy cause I can't lift with my legs. I guess this means I'll be headed back to the doctor after we get back from Fuzzy and Dante's wedding.

Fuzzy and Dante are getting married this weekend! I'm making the wedding cake, and I m very excited about that. I hope it turns out well. At the moment I have a whole extra refridgerator in the basement full of cake and buttercream. I've got one more batch of caramel buttercream to make, and then I have to start assembly.

High ho, High ho, it's icing we will go

Okay, I'm done for the day. I gotta go feed the baby again and then get my kitchen stuff cranking.

TTFN!

June 26, 2009

Imagine with me, if you will, that you are on a cross country adventure. You have been assigned night time driving duties, so as you navigate your Winnebago across the flat plains of the midwest you suck down a Big Gulp of Coca Cola, purchased at your most recent stop at the Seven Eleven. As you sing quietly along to the single radio station you can find - a curious blend of Patsy Cline, Vanilla Ice, and Billy Ray Cyrus - your travel companions fall asleep one by one. Half an hour from the neon lights of the Seven Eleven you pass a sign "You are now entering no man's land."

And then it hits you.

The urge.

That's right. Your Coca Cola has made it's way through your body with blinding speed, and now, here you are, entering no man's land, and you need to pee.

At first you decide to ignore it. After all, you've gone DAYS without peeing before. At least, that's what you tell yourself. Surely you can make it to the next rest area. It can't be more then...

FOUR HUNDRED MILES!!!!??!!!

The "next rest area" sign passes in a flash of blue, and suddenly you realize that this is not going to be an urge you can ignore.

Still, you do your best. You think of other things for the duration of "Crazy," "Hey, Romeo," and "Achy Breaky Heart." You manage (despite driving a stick shift) to actually cross your legs suring the midnight airing of "Alice's restaraunt." The station manager has just come on to do a special acapella rendition of "Stand By Your Man" when you can't take it any more, and you start looking for a place to stop. Miles pass, and you see no where. There are no shoulders, no convenient exits, no place where you could leave the giant Winnebago for the two minutes it would take to empty your increasingly painful bladder. As you begin to cross a bridge over what is surely the largest river in the world you start to cry a bit - this must be what hell is like.

And then you see it - a small patch of grass just on the other side of the bridge. You screech to a halt, waking all your companions, but you don't hear their bitter complaints as you bolt out the driver's door and head for the ditch. You don't even have it in you to care that everyone is staring as you finally, blissfully, relieve yourself.

Now. That sensation. That one right there. The one you are remembering, the one you get when you finally get to go to the bathroom after holding it for what seems like years.

That sensation is the closest I can come to how it feels to nurse a baby when you are really, really full of milk.

Bet you didn't think that what where I was headed, did you?

Now, before I tell you this next story I need to share with you a piece of trivia about Elliot. In defiance of all odds and all known rules of baby-dom, Elliot hates to be messy. He hates to be wet, to be dirty, to be sticky, or to be any combination of the three. If you let him play in a bucket of water he will do so happily until he splashes water on himself, and then he will fuss until you take the wet clothes off him, and then he will happily play naked in the water. So, with that bit of back information...

This morning Elliot was feeding himself oatmeal. A bite of oatmeal would go like this. Grasp the Spoon. Scoop up as much oatmeal as humanly possibly in the teeny tiny spoon. Aim for mouth. Bite perhaps 1/3 of the mound of oatmeal off the top of the spoon. Smear some down the cheek. Put the spoon (still full of oatmeal) down on the table so that both hands are free to push the oatmeal from the cheek into the mouth. Notice that there is now oatmeal on the hands. Fuss about that. While fussing, notice that their is oatmeal (from the spoon) on the table. Express your displeasure with your messy hands by slamming them down into the pile of spoon-held oatmeal on the table. REALLY fuss. Wait for Mommy to clean up hands and table. Grasp the spoon. Shake any remaining oatmeal left in the spoon out on the floor. Repeat.

It was so funny, and so exasperating at the same time. The silliest part was when he would push the glob of oatmeal on his face into his mouth, and then stare at his hand and look at me as if to say "How did this oatmeal get on my hand? Did YOU put this here?" I finally just gave him a big towel, and showed him how to wipe his hands when they got dirty.

I know that his dislike of being dirty will make potty training easier, and I'm grateful, but in the meantime it makes things complicated. Yesterday he was having an ice cream cone outside, and that was going really well, until a little bit fell on the picnic table, and he just HAD to investigate its finger paint potential, and then OH THE MISERY!

Today is clean the house day. It's finally stopped raining (for a little while, we're supposed to get thunderstorms later, I think) and I'm going to open up all the windows and try to air some of the mugginess out. Fuzzy and Dante and Waxor and I now have offers in on two houses, but since they're both short sales, and we have no idea if the bank will approve them, I plan on continuing on here as though we aren't going to be moving. Which means the great furniture rearranging/getting useless crap out of our house extravaganzza continues. Cross your fingers for me. Sigh.

Alright, I'm going to go do something productive now. Everyone have a lovely day. :)

June 17, 2009

Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt makes me cry. I really don't know why. I mean, his story isn't especially moving to me. Young boy makes good, finds the love of his life, has a long and relatively happy life with her. But here's the thing, the end of that story is "outlives her by four months, just enough time to record a cover of the song "Hurt" and then die." And something about that just makes me cry. Like something in him loved her too much to live after she was gone, but there was this one thing he had left to do. I don't know.

Of course, I don't actually believe that you can love someone so much that you can't live without them. If ever anyone loved someone that much my Grandfather loved my Grandmother that much, and he lived almost ten years after she died. So I don't think that you can love someone so much that you die because they're gone.

But still... Cash's cover of Hurt... makes me cry.

Every time.

You'd think I'd get over it.

I'm in a melancholy mood this evening. Dunno why... there's nothing wrong, life is just fine and dandy, but I'm feeling slightly blue anyway. Not a deep violet or anything, just a slight periwinkle, if you will.

As I was putting Elliot to sleep tonight I was talking to him, and I told him:

"I love you, Nugget. I love you more then anything, and I always, always will. Someday, not terribly far from now, you may not love me as much as you do right this minute, that's okay, though. Even then, I will love you more than anything."

I think that's what has put me in this mood. I guess I started thinking about the passage of time. You know, it's funny, I can imagine Elliot at 4, 6, even 8, but after that it gets blurry. I can't imagine him as a teenager, or, god forbid, an adult. But, looking back, everything that happened in my life before about age 10 is blurry. I mean, I remember certain key moments, but the truth is that I couldn't tell you much about my day to day life until around the time Coury was born. Then things get sharper and clearer over the course of several years, until I can remember most of the past twelve or fifteen years as well as I can remember yesterday.

I wonder, sometimes, about turning points in my life. I wonder about those alternate dimension Jessicas, whose life paths went a different way. There's the one that got into NCSA, and probably became bulimic. There's the one that died in a car crash out in Tanglewood. There's the one that went to Duke, instead of Ithaca. There's probably a few that married some guy that came before or after Waxor.

Wow, I started this email a long time ago. I probably ought to just send what's above and start a whole new email, but I'm not gonna, so, THBPT!

Yesterday Fuzzy said something to me that I think may have been the cleverest thing any non-mother has ever said to any mother in the history of the world. Seriously. Ready? We were talking about what day it was, and I go "Yeah, I forgot it was Tuesday" and he goes;
"Yeah, it must be hard keeping the days of the week straight when you work seven days a week."

Brilliant, wasn't it? I mean, he could have said "when you're at home all week" but he had WAY more brains than that.

Take note, folks.

I was online looking up the history of the "ideal female form" the other day, and I found a website with a bunch of pictures and dates, giving a rough idea of what people thought was a beautiful woman at what time period. Now, this was done by an amateur, and she more had a point to make then a desire to give lots of information, but it was still useful. It was on a site that allows commentary, and one of the commentators had said:

"you have no proof on whether the Rubens and Renoir represent “ideal” female form of the time, or if they were merely the only women they were able to get to pose nude."

And oh my GOD did that piss me off. I mean, the guy was right, the site designer didn't offer much in the way of proof of anything, she just presented images and dates and let you draw your own conclusions, but the guy isn't objecting to her lack of supporting evidence, he's objecting to the idea that these heavier women might actually have been the standard of beauty at the time. I mean sure, Rubens was a FRICKEN KNIGHT, who ran in aristocratic circles and was basically a rock star of his day, and Renoir had his work requested for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, but I'm sure the women they painted were "the only ones they could get to sit." After all, artists have always had a hard time getting beautiful women to sit for them... oh, wait,

NO THEY HAVEN'T!

What an ass.

Onward...

I love the word "defenestrate". First of all, I love that there is a word for the act of throwing someone out the window. Like, it happens so frequently there needs to be a word for it. Just like Jaywalking. :) I also love the idea that if you get really irritated with someone, or want to start the 30 years war, you can just pitch someone out the window.

I really love the idea of throwing someone out the window.

But, honestly, I would have a hard time killing someone, so for me it would have to be a ground floor window.

Anyway, back to defenestration... I just love the word. It doesn't come up often in conversation, but when it does, hooooooo-boy, you can be sure I whip that puppy out.

Today I will be buying Elliot suspenders. He is too tall to wear 12 month pants, but he is too skinny to keep 18 month pants on his butt, so... suspenders. Isn't that ridiculous? Fortunately during the summer he can wear things that are really short, so I'm just putting him in his 12 month summer clothes and calling it good. If I try to dress him in 18 month clothes he just swims in them. It's amazing, because he's 60% in height, so you'd think... but no. Because he's 2% in weight.

TWO PERCENT!

Alright, I think I'm done here, and I can tell my coffee is starting to kick in, which means I should probably get up and get something done before the surge of energy wears off.

April 30, 2009

So, I've been watching old episodes of the West Wing on Bravo. Sometimes Elliot and I spend the majority of his nap time together on the couch, and West Wing is a great way to pass the time. At first I was constantly like "Oh, I LOVE this episode, how come they keep playing all the best episodes?" But then I realized, hah, silly me, it's just that all the episodes were great. Seriously. That was a good show.

Anyway, on one of today's episodes (the one where Will Bailey gets a dead guy elected in Orange County and Sam agrees to run as his candidate) Sam is going on and on about how an Impossible Probability is preferable to an Improbable Possibility. So, for example, while it may be impossible for homo sapiens to mutate into something that, say, can morph itself into SOLID METAL (did anyone else ever find Colossus a bit of a stretch on the "mutant" theory?) (for those of you who don't know what I am talking about, you are either vastly cooler or WAY dorkier than I am) it is highly probable that, given a circumstance in which homo superior DID evolve, some of the mutants would want to live apart, some would want to live incognito, some would want to protect humanity, and some would want to eat them with chocolate sauce. Thus, X-men, aside from having the coolest man ever named for a musk producing animal, is clearly an Impossible Probability. Friends, on the other hand, is an Improbable Possibility. Sure, six people COULD all live in a variety of combinations of room-mate-hood for ten years and then all get married to each other all of a sudden and move away and live happily ever after. But it ain't real likely, is it?

So, anyway, now that we're clear on all that... Tonight while I was putting Elliot to bed I started thinking about the practical differences between possible and probable. Now, the dictionary defines possible as: that may or can be, exist, happen, be done, be used, etc. and probable as : likely to occur or prove true. But here's what I came up with: in an infinite universe, the only thing that matters is "Is a thing possible" because if it IS possible, then it is happening, will happen, or already has happened.

I'm just saying.

I took Elliot to the Boys and Girls Club of Woburn this Wednesday morning. They have a playgroup that is only $2 (yes, TWO DOLLARS) to get into, and after you pay less than the price of a cup of coffee they send you back to the gym, where walkers and play houses and a tiny trampoline and a slide and enough plastic balls to turn one end of the gym into a ball pit have been strewn everywhere, and dozens of small people are dashing around, having fun. Elliot, predictably, LOVED IT. He's still a little young to play with other kids, but he did wander around and interact with them briefly. And the joys of not only filling a bucket with balls by yourself, but having assistance, and then getting to watch as multiple buckets are simultaneously spilled all over the floor again and again were staggering. The only complaint I have is that, while parents are required to be there, some of them are not as vigilant with their children as I could wish them to be. One little boy Elliot's age took a tumble and started wailing, and I had to spend several minutes trying to find his mother, who was off chatting in the corner with another mom. I'm all for Independence but I think you should at least, y'know, keep half an eye on them.

So... Elliot, Elliot, Elliot... Elliot is adopting a much more regular sleep schedule. For about the past week he has taken a nap at 9:30. Almost 45 minutes on the nose after he falls asleep I will hear a little whine from the monitor, that's not him waking up, it's him rolling over. Roughly 45 minutes after that he wakes up and sits up, but he's not really awake yet, and will spend the next 30 minutes drowsing on my lap while he nurses. Then he's awake for the rest of the day, and no matter how high or low key it is he will not go to sleep until 8 pm. He's been waking up two or three times a night, at least one of those being while I'm still awake, so for those of you who are counting I am, for the most part, only getting woken up once or twice a night, which is really nice. Between 6:30 and 7 in the morning he wakes up, and that's the whole shebang. On the one hand it's really nice being able to predict how long he'll be sleeping - it takes away all the anxiety I used to feel about never really knowing if I had 2 minutes or 2 hours to do something - but on the other hand it also means he's way less flexible than he used to be. If he doesn't go down for his nap on time he's really cranky the rest of the day.

The other day we were at another baby's birthday party, and some friends mentioned that, the day before when it had been particularly warm, they had taken their son outside and filled the lid of a packing trunk (still on the trunk) with water and let him play with it to his hearts content. Ah, think I, this is a GREAT idea, I will do the same. So, the next really warm day comes and I take a trunk, Elliot, and a thing of water outside and set him up. Of course, Elliot didn't really want to play in the puddle of water. Instead he wanted to grab dirt off the ground and mix it in the water in the trunk and make giant mud pies.

My boy, the mud pie artist.

On the one hand, it was very messy. But on the other hand, I was sort of proud of him. I mean, some babies are given a toy and shown how to play with it and that's just what they do. Some babies improvise.

My baby is like MacGyver.

He's also a choco-holic. Someone (to be fair, that someone was probably me) gave him a tiny piece of chocolate one day, and now he's after it like crack. If he sees chocolate he wants it. He also recognizes the tin that sits in our living room that has chocolate in it, so if he sees THAT he starts trying to grab it and get chocolate out. Amanda visited us the other day and brought some starbucks truffles with her. We weren't paying attention for a minute and the next thing we knew, there was Elliot, surrounded by gold wrapping paper, half a truffle clenched in his little fist, cheeks suspiciously full. Oh well, at least it has anti-oxidants in it. The funny thing is, it's not just the really sweet stuff he likes. You can give that child the darkest of dark chocolates, 82% coco and he'll be happy as a clam.

He also desperately wants to drink wine, when Waxor and I have some, so we've started giving him his own "wine". Convenient how so many juices look just like wine, isn't it? As long as it's in a wine glass he doesn't seem to care, although it does have to bare a passing resemblance to what we've got - you can't try to give him milk in stem ware, he isn't that gullible.

What else? His communication skills are much better. He uses the sign for "more" to mean both more and "I want" which is really handy. He also is talking a lot more, both nonsense and almost sense. He clearly distinguishes between Dada and Dante, although to tell the truth they still sound like almost exactly the same word to me, but if you pay close attention you can tell a difference, and he gets irritated if he says Dante and I think he means Dada. He says "Harf" and "Raowowowow" when we're talking about dogs and "maaaaaarow" when we're talking about cats, and he understands a lot of what I say. I can ask him if he wants to go outside and he goes to the front door, or I can tell him to come here, I need to put his shoes on and he comes over and sits in my lap. He's starting to identify his nose, ear, hair, and belly, and yesterday I said "Hi Elliot" and he said "Ey-yot" and I said "Did you just say Elliot?" and he said "Ay Ey-yot" while tapping himself on the chest, so I picked him up and told him yes, he was Elliot, and also that he was the most clever baby ever in the history of the world.

Last but not least he has become a consummate lover of books (I am, of course, filled with glee). He loves to read books. Hi favorite at the moment is "Goodnight Gorilla" which has few words, but very expressive pictures, and is the story of a zookeeper who goes around saying goodnight to all the animals, and the gorilla who steals his keys and follows him around, letting all the animals out of their cages. The animals all then follow him to his house and curl up in his bed room to go to sleep, and his wife sleepily turns the light out and says "goodnight dear." The next page is a black page with a bunch of word bubbles on it with all the animals saying goodnight, and the page after that is a black page with nothing but the wife's big, round, surprised eyes staring out. Whenever I get to that page I gasp (as, I am sure, we all would upon discovering a zoo's worth of animals in our bedroom) and Elliot has started copying me. He will get the book, and very seriously turn the pages til he gets to that page, and then he gasps and looks at me and starts giggling.

What a clever boy.

Waxor is going to start fencing again. There's open fencing at a place in Sommerville and he's going to the first time tomorrow night. We'll see how it goes, but he's very excited. Other than that his job is still to his liking. One of the guys in charge of pushing out corrections apparently sends mass emailings to everyone of what he's going to be pushing that day, and before the list he will write a paragraph about some completely unrelated hilarity. So now I have two people from Waxor's office I want to invite for dinner - one who writes funny things, and, of course, his manager, Tom Riddle. Yeah, I can't resist having Lord Voldemort over to eat.

Speaking of eating, for some reason I've gotten obsessed with planning menus recently. Not just any menus, but menus built around a theme or ingredient. So like, I was watching Iron Chef the other day, and the secret ingredient was butter. BUTTER! But of course, I started thinking of what I would serve if I had to build a five course dinner around butter. I decided I would do a "Meals of the Day" set of courses, breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, dessert. To start we'd have Croissant with Honey Butter and Fresh Fruit, then Butter Poached Lobster with Lemon and Asparagus, then Kettle Corn and Hot Buttered Rum, then Butternut Squash Gnocchi With Sage Butter Sauce and Grilled Salmon, then Peach Cobbler with Brown Butter Ice Cream.

I know, it's a weird thing for me to be doing, but I can't help it. I've got a "Like Water for Chocolate" Themed Menu, and a "Fried Green Tomatoes and the Whistle Stop Cafe" Themed Menu. I've got Olive, Avacado, and Garlic Themed Menus, as well as Menus for Chicken, Squash, and Strawberries.

And, you know what's tragic? I am so excited about these menus, and I don't know if I'll ever make any of them because, let's face it, outside of a competition is anyone ever going to eat five courses of Beets (yeah, got one for that, too)? Probably not.

Alright, so I spent some time this week and wrote one the things I was thinking about. I am not going to comment on it at all here, I'm just going to copy it in at the bottom, and let anyone who wants to comment do so (please, feel free to critique it thoroughly), and then I'll comment next time.



All the Time in the World

breathe

The beeping of the machines keeps time in this room. Sunlight pours in the unshuttered window, spilling across the the floor in an afternoon sprawl, crawling its way up the table on the opposite wall. The table is laden with flowers in bloom, cut down and arranged in vases just as they reached their prime. Odd and disturbing, this sunny floral bower, pulsing in time to the beeps.
My hand lifts slowly. Bad enough that it has to battle its way past oxygen and argon, nitrogen and carbon dioxide, now it also has to push past giant molecules of bee attractors. Air is so heavy, something I never knew until this moment. It's like trying to reach through a vat of molasses. My loved ones, speaking in hushed voices at my bedside, don't seem to notice, but they move with glacial slowness.

breathe

They call it the stages of grief, as though your emotions were on a macabre journey that will, eventually, get you somewhere. As though they are set points that you can leave behind as you move forward. But I feel them all, all the time. I feel shocked and angry and accepting, all at once. Despair and rage and peace each battle their own side in my heart, all winning and all losing at the same time. Yes, I am furious. How dare my body turn on me? How dare it allow this insidious, creeping, fungal rot to invade me, pillar and post? How dare the world? How dare God? How dare... But there is no one to blame. The anger, like all the stages, takes me no where, for there is no where to go. I am already there. I have bargained and promised and bartered, and railed and cried and screamed, and still I am there. I have breathed deep and let go and found my center. Still I am there. My center is there. Here. Here, in this moment.

breathe

My hand settles on its destination, the head of my small son. He has fallen asleep, and I hope he will stay that way until the inevitable occurs. There are things that no child should have to sit and wait for. My husband put his small sleeping body next to mine in the bed. Together we take up no space at all; his tiny, perfect form fitting so naturally against my side. Sorrow surges to the top of my emotional pile up. Tomorrow he will wake up beside someone else, or, worse, alone. If he opens his eyes and says “Mama” it will not be in joy at finding me there, but rather plaintively, wondering where I have gone. And he will not understand, all through that long day, and the next, and the next, and an infinity of nexts, why his Mama does not answer him. Someday he will understand. Someday his father will give him the letter that I wrote weeks ago and tucked among my important papers; the letter that begins “My beloved son,” and goes on to describe, however inadequately, how much I love him, how much I will miss him, how much I wish I could watch him grow, and change. How I hope that he will remember me, but that I don't expect it. He is, after all, so small. And how I hope he will not miss me too much, because, more than anything, what I want the most is for him to be happy.

breathe

I wonder if I will find the time to tell my loved ones everything I want to tell them. Everything they need to hear. How much time do you need to say every last word you have in your heart? More than a moment. More than a million moments, I think.

Perhaps you need all the time in the world.

breathe.

April 25, 2009

Letter to the Editor of My Life


Dear Sir or Madam,

First of all, let me say that I appreciate the job you do, and this letter in no way is intended to negate that appreciation. However, I must express my disapproval of the way you represent the past. We both know, even if others don't, that the way the past is presented by my memory biased media is, shall we say, a bit too rosey? I do not in the least mind the positive outlook on my past that this gives me, but the present suffers by comparison, and it is difficult to remember, in the face of such blatant editing, that those times were difficult, too.

So, as I am your only customer, I humbly request that you let a little more realism seep into your portrayal of my life.

Or you're fired.

Hey everybody. I have a whole hand written list of stuff I've jotted down to talk about in this one. I find that if I wait til Elliot is asleep and the house is quiet I have a much better chance of actually completing a thought (which is good). On the other hand, that means that a lot of the time I've totally forgotten what I was going to say - thus the writing down a thought when I have it. However, before I start on ANY of that...

Whoopeee!! It's warm. It's supposed to get to 79 today, which means taking the baby outside and letting him run his tiny little legs off.

Back to the list...

We had visitors the other day! That's right, the Jehovah's Witnesses came a'callin'. I was curled up on the couch, surrounded by an ever growing pile of tissues, and suddenly there were people walking in the front door of our building. So I pulled myself up and went to open the door, and there they were, a lovely grandparently looking couple wearing adorable little black suits, wanting to know if I would be interested in having a bible study led in my home. I was not, but I put this to them gently, and I told them I would be happy to read their issue of watchtower if they wanted to leave one for me. They invited me to a "talk" being held a the local temple, and I asked them if it was a lecture or a discussion (apparently a lecture, with a question and answer period after) and told them I would consider it. I introduced myself and Elliot, and told them I would shake their hands but I had a horrible cold, and didn't want to pass it on, and they told me to get better soon and went on their way. Really they were very pleasant people. I cannot, however, help feeling a tiny bit of glee that this entire converstation took place while I was standing there in a tank top, tiny hotpants, and my bedroom slippers. They must have thought I was walking around in my underwear.

I try to be really polite to religious prosletizers who come to my door. After all, even if I disagree with them, they really do think they're helping me, and it seems wrong to be rude to them. Also, I have to admit, I find them fascinating. I would have gone to their talk if it was a discussion instead of lecture. I like to ask them questions about their point of view. Like, in their Watchtower, they had an article where they semantically broke down something Jesus is reported as saying in order to support their theory of rebirth. I want to know - given that the original language was Hebrew, and that when it was finally written down (a long time later) it was written in Greek, then translated to Latin, then to English, how can they attempt to take anything specific from the way the sentences are constructed? I mean, taking the broad meaning, sure, that should (hopefully) have survived time and translation and bias (although, not necessarily), but to take one tiny little word AND the gramatical context and try to build a whole pilosophy about it? Anyway, I find all of that fascinating.

The other day I really felt like a bad mother. Waxor had been sick, Elliot had been sick, then _I_ got sick and it was just miserable. So when I went in to change Elliot's diaper and found it to be BEYOND messy I did not have the most positive attitude about it, but I just sighed and started on wiping him up. Elliot, however, had other ideas - he's started getting very tempermental about the whole diaper changing thing. So he started wiggling, and instead of just telling him no and calmly going on about my business I snapped at him, which of course only meant he struggled harder. He screamed and kicked and got his feet loose and grabbed his butt with his hands and then it was all over - there was poop everywhere. I snarled my face up and said "NO!" really sharply, then I yanked him up, yanked all his clothes off, held him at arms length all the way to the bathroom, stuck him in the shower and turned the water on. He started crying, because the shower scares him, and I just kept washing him. I sort of got my temper under control as he got cleaner, so that by the time he was clean enough to pick up I picked him up and held him and told him it was okay, but, of course, once my temper was under control, I felt really bad. Oddly enough I wasn't upset with myself over anything I actually DID - he did have to go in the shower, that was the only way to get him clean - but with how I didn't care that it was scaring him just because I was angry. I felt really awful - I have a horrible temper and I felt like I had totally taken it out on my baby.

The next night, though, I felt like I sort of redeemed myself. We had gone to Todd's house for dinner, and Elliot fell asleep there, and when we left around 9 we totally screwed the pooch on the whole "getting the baby in the car seat without waking him up" maneuver. So he was strapped in the car seat and really just wailling, completely miserable because he's not asleep and doesn't know why. I sat with him in the back sang Barney's I Love You song, but he only calmed down for a few verses, so we switched to Little Bunny Foo Foo, and that only worked for a few verses, so we switched to Winnie the Pooh, and that was the magic song. So I sang Winnie the Pooh for about 15 minutes and stroked his hair, and eventually his eyes glazed over and he fell asleep. Then I felt like perhaps I was not such a bad mother, after all.

Oh, so I've finally set this up as a blog. The web address is here:

http://jessica-lifeintheslowlane.blogspot.com/

And you can follow it, if you want, and not get these emails. Also, if there's someone who still hasn't made my mailing list and wants to read these then you can just give them the address, instead of needing to forward stuff on. The back archive is up there, too, not that any of you want to REread what I've said, but it seems convenient... Anyway, if you want to stop getting these and just follow the blog let me know.

I just finished reading a book called The Writing Class by Jincy Willet, and no, I'm not about to write about the actual story, although that was good. It's a mystery that takes place in a writing class, and it has a lot of stuff in it like writing exercises and comments about what makes a story good or trite - and it's interesting. Someone in it says that scarey is really hard to write, the only thing harder is funny. So, of course, I want to try writing something scarey, and something else funny. I have no idea what I can write that's funny, but I know just what I'm going to write about that's scarey. I freaked myself out with it when we first moved in here, so maybe if I write it down it won't scare me any more.

I also got inspired by a phrase at the end of the book "All the Time in the World". I have two different story ideas for that, so I think I'll just write them both and see which one I like better.

Last but not least, at the begining of the book the students get a choice of three assignments (1) come up with 10 names (first and last) and a short character description (2) write something from the point of view of the opposite sex (3) write the opening paragraph to a short story or novel. I found all of these interesting (although, honestly, the third one is the least interesting) and I think I'll probably do them all.

Chances are excellent that I'll be sending all of you some of the stuff that I end up writing, but I promise to warn you first so you can avoid it, if you like. :)

Alright, I have to go take Elliot out into this glorious day now. Everyone go out and do something impetuous, why don't you. It's good for the soul.

April 11, 2009

SO, as many of you probably know, I gave up on the news a long time ago. I mean, I KNOW things are messed up, I KNOW people are getting killed, I KNOW the government isn't doing much about anything significant, and I KNOW that the American media isn't actually all that reliable.

BUT. But, but, but...

With the election of Obama my hopes for the government actually accomplishing something worthwhile are, shall we say, minutely better. And it has also occurred to me that there are other media outlets that, while not as convenient as the six o'clock news, would likely provide me with more realistic and balanced information. But you want to know the real reason I'm seriously contemplating actually keeping informed again?

It's this article, by Fareed Zakaria.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/192479

It's not about leadership, or the status of the world, or poverty levels, or anything like that. It's a relatively short article about achieving energy independence through smart planning, as opposed to new development.

And, oddly, after reading it I felt more hopeful than I have in a long time.


On the other hand, I was watching Sesame Street with Elliot and they had a segment in which kids did the Veggie Dance. I'm sorry, I just don't approve. It made me sad. It's fine to dance for veggies, but it felt so... contrived. When you see Cookie Monster going nuts over cookies you are DOWN with that. You say "yeah, cookies are GREAT" and you don't have any problems with the verisimilitude of his desires. The veggie dance, though... I mean, I like vegetables, I'm actually somewhat of a vegetable fan, but it's not like they make me get up and DANCE. So, in a surprising twist of fate, Newsweek improved my outlook and Sesame Street dampened it.

Grrrrrrrrrr... so I'm on a diet. Now, you know me, you know that my self restraint is not, well, shall we say, EPIC, but I am just soooo tired of feeling like I just gave birth, instead of that I have a one year old. So I'm on a diet. It's not a very restrictive diet, mostly it's a "Yknow, Eating Cheesecake For Breakfast Will Not Actually Help You Face Your Day Any Better" diet. So far this diet has mostly made me lose only a tiny bit of weight and gain a whole bunch of crazy. I never realized before how much I actually counted on the cookies to help me get through the days when Elliot hadn't slept the night before and now wanted to run marathons. Those shots of sugar really DID help, even if it was only psychosomatic. Of course, they also helped me hold on to almost all the weight I gained during pregnancy, so I guess I have to decide which I want more.

Grumblegrumblegrumble...

Waxor and I are in Maine for the weekend, and today we left Elliot home with his Yaya and we went out to lunch and to wander around Portland. It was great. Then we came home and packed up the baby and were going to go to the pet store and let him stare at the dogs (operation "Get Baby Out Of the House") but we got derailed by both Home Depot and the grocery store. While those errands were happening I went first into Marshall's and then in TJ Maxx, and was rewarded with a new swimsuit. The best I can say is swimsuit shopping was not as hideous as I thought it was going to be. The end.


But my new suit is purple.

Go ahead, be jealous.

All of Larry and Kay's neighbors have been bringing toys over for Elliot to play with. So far the clear winners are (a) a little box with circular holes that you put little balls on and then hit the balls with a hammer to make them fall into the box and out the little ramp, and (b) a dump truck that sings a little dump truck song, which Elliot loves and is making the rest of us crazy.

"I'm a little dump truck hear me roar, just dump... me over and watch me pour."

So I read the last book in the Twilight Saga. For those of you who care, spoilers are to follow. Of course, reading a Stephanie Meyer book and not seeing how the plot is going to go is a bit like driving down a long, straight, desolate highway and NOT SEEING the giant pink elephant parade just a mile further down, but I like to be courteous.

I'd have to say that my predominate thought concerning this final book in the Twilight Saga is "OMFG! You have GOT to be KIDDING ME!"

We open with Bella, our blushing mortal heroine, preparing for her wedding to Edward, the cold blooded superhuman stud of her dreams. The plan for them is simple, they're going to get married, go away on a honeymoon, and then Bella is going to be turned. That's the order of events because Bella fears she won't enjoy ordinary mortal desires anymore once she's all fang-ey. So, wedding, check. Honeymoon, check. Stupid scene in which Edward acts like an ass because Bella is suffering from some post coital bruising, check. Then we get several pages of honeymoon activities going on, in which it's constantly emphasized (a) how tired Bella is (b) how hungry she is and (c) how weird she is acting.

I imagine the only person who is surprised when it's discovered that Bella is pregnant is Bella herself.

So, Bella. Pregnant. Yeah. No shock, as often happens in the case of paranormal pregnancy, the baby grows at an abnormally rapid rate. Bella is determined to bear the child, with the full knowledge that this is likely to bring her close to death, but assuming that Edward will be able to turn her at the last minute and then she and her newborn can be newborns together! Yay, happy family bonding time. Assuming she doesn't eat the sprout in the throes of her first bloodlust.

Sigh.

Of course everything goes according to plan. And Bella gets turned and it turns out she's just the MOST AMAZING VAMPIRE EVER! Big shock. But the evil head honchos of the vampire world are coming to kill her and her baby. Of course. Because she's only been dreaming about it since the VERY BEGINNING OF THE BOOK. Someone needs to explain to Meyer that there's foreshadowing and then there's telling everyone EXACTLY what's going to happen REPETITIVELY.

But because she's just this amazing vampire she's saves everyone's ass, and they're all gonna live happily ever after.

I gotta say, the quality of this book, compared to the first one, is not great. And I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with how Meyer winds everything up, it seems like a hokey Disney-fied ending.

Still and all - it's a fascinating read. I found it hard to put down, just like the others. As a series I guess I rate it like I rate the Die Hard movies. Not really quality, but damn, you wouldn't want to miss them.

Alrighty folken, time for me to go to bed, I think. Goodnight, and, Goodluck.

April 5, 2009

Hola, mis amigos!

Okay, so, everyone who wanted a CD, I've burned them, but I'm also
writing notes to go along with them, and those are taking a bit, so,
no, I haven't forgotten, but yes, it might be a little while longer.

Tonight I went back and re-read my LITSL emails. I was re-reading
them because... well, it's a long story, involving a novel I've always
loved and a highly improbable situation, suffice it to say that I
wanted to make sure that if Elliot was ever relying on words I'd
written to find out how I felt about him that there was plenty talking
about how much I love him. Turns out I have been talking about that,
but I also spend 4 times as much time talking about how tired I am.
Is that bad, do you think?


Fast forward like, a month. Waxor has been sick, and still isn't
really well, Elliot has been teething, growing, SOMETHING to keep him
from sleeping, and now HE'S getting sick. I am exhausted and really
emotional. Yes, I know, all of you know me. When am I NOT emotional?
But this has been a bit much even for me. I started sobbing during
March of the Penguins last night. Yeah. That's what I'm saying.

On the brighter side, my baby says Mama now. And really, it's the
best thing ever. Seriously. There is literally nothing better in the
world than his happy little face saying Mama. And he knows it makes
me happy. He will toddle up to me, and get this impish look on his
face and go "Ma-ma" and then smile really big and wait for me to sweep
him up and say some ridiculous thing about how much I adore him. It's
great.

Okay, on to the major topic of the day:

I finally broke down and put a library hold on the following books:
Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. Yup. Had to do it.
Had to know what the hype was about. HAD TO. One, two, and four came
in the other day, so I went and picked them up and spent the next two
days reading books one and two. Now I was forewarned, Kate doesn't
care much for this series, and she's told me a little bit about why,
so I wasn't hoping for great literature. I figured that, as long as I
was indulging myself by reading these books I could do my best to
figure out what it was about them that made them such a phenomenon.

I think I've figured it out.

Ready?

It's an impressive cocktail of crack for the mind. Take three parts
excellent character study, two parts wish fulfillment, one part Han
Solo Effect, four parts repressed sexual tension, and one part undead.
Mix it all together and voila!

First, three parts excellent character study: It's rare to find a
novelist who doesn't mind spending pages on nothing but character
development. There's always action going on, especially in novels for
young people. Stephanie Meyer doesn't seem to care about that - whole
chapters would pass with nothing more than the main character
THINKING. It was fairly impressive. Even more impressive was that it
didn't lose your attention, and I think that's due to the fact that
she does a good job painting the characters for you. With the
exception of the whole, y'know, VAMPIRE THING, her characters are
actually very realistic. At least, I think so. The main character
seems very much like a teenage girl.

Two parts wish fulfillment: Who DOESN'T want to meet their soul mate,
and discover that this person is a fabulously wealthy, incredibly
gorgeous, marvelously talented individual who adores you beyond reason
and can live with you forever? Anyone? Anyone? I didn't think so.

One part Han Solo Effect: Even before Leia finds out that Luke is her
brother she is ALREADY in love with Han. And you know why? Because
he's HAN FREAKING SOLO. He is the most awesome dude in the galactic
empire - the space rebel without a cause, if you will. WE LOVE BAD
BOYS! Let's face it, we do. We want them to have hearts of gold, but
given the choice between the puppy and the wolf..? Please. Be
realistic. And who is badder than a vampire? No one. They are
creatures of the night, forever struggling against their own baser
instincts. And they have perfect hair. Very James Dean.

Four whole parts of repressed sexual tension: Teenage girls are soooo
caught up in the whole "my hormones are raging but I wanna be a good
girl" thing, and they often manifest this in weird ways - like
developing erotic fixations with the forbidden. So you take the girl
and this vampire, and yeah, they totally have the hots for each other,
so there's that desire (that they aren't gonna experience, cause it's
a teen novel). Then you add on the fact that he really really REALLY
wants to drink her blood, and what you have done is just add a sexual
metaphor on top of an actual sexual situation, BOTH OF WHICH are being
repressed. It's the forbidden times TWO.

One part undead: I don't have to explain this? Do I?

So, I see how the books have done well. I really do. I also see how
they've got serious issues. I mean, first of all, I know girls mature
faster than boys and everything, but really, what is WITH all these
writers thinking that someone several HUNDRED years old would be
interested in a seventeen year old? Really? Seriously? I'm only 30
and I think most seventeen year olds are next door to infants.

And think of who YOU were dating when you were 17. Would you want to
be eternally bound together in undead matrimonial bliss? I didn't
think so. (No offense intended there, Aaron, but you wouldn't want to
be eternally bound to an undead me, either, would you? So we're all
good.)

The fact that he's always telling her what to do bothers me less. I
mean, if you are going to be so stupid as to date someone old enough
to be your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great...
great, great, great grandfather you should expect that they will think
they know better than you. But I cannot deny that you sometimes want
to shake the main character and yell "grow a backbone you NINNY!"

So - so far, I have to say - I highly recommend the Twilight series to
anyone interested in a light read. It's at least as much fun to read
as Janet Evanovich's novels.

Well, Baby's out of bath time and I've got to go put him to sleep.

March 4, 2009

Hah! You have not seen the last of ME, Mr Bond!

Hi everyone. :)

So, first, a request - if any of you are tired of getting this please,
let me know and I'll take you off the mailing list. I know that it's
hard to keep up with email, so, if you like reading my nonsense and
just can't really reply, do not worry and I'll keep sending it out.
However, should you be one of those people (no judgement here, I know
you exist) who really wish I could stop talking about the freaking
baby and get on with life, lemme know and I will take you off the list
until such time as I start talking more about other things and less
about babies.

That may be another 17 years, but I'm sure it will happen some day.

Of course, to be honest, there are a few of you who will keep getting
this even if they'd rather not hear so much about babies.

*cough*Tiff*cough*

So first - non-baby news! Fuzzy and Dante, our upstairs neighbors, are
getting married this fall in Maine. Aside from this being exciting
news in it's own right, it means that they really want to move into a
house this summer, because they figure there's no sense in getting
wedding gifts and then having to move them all. I quite agree with
them. Anyway, it means the house hunt is on in earnest now. We're on
the "loan pre-approval" step, and are looking forward eagerly to the
"actually looking at houses" step. I have a strong suspicion that in
order to get a house that meets our needs and our price we're going to
have to look at bank foreclosures, which likely means doing some
repairs, however, since Dante and I are both competent carpenters I
hope we could keep the costs down on these by only having to hire
people for the important functional stuff, and doing the cosmetic
stuff ourselves. We shall see.

I ended my last email with the news that Waxor had lost his job - good
news, he has a new one! Actually, considering the job market and such
it was remarkably fast. He's been hired by RIM (that's Research In
Motion) otherwise known as the Giant Ass Company That Does Blackberry
Phones. So, that's awesome, because they're a stable company, and
they seem to have good employee practices, and such. Of course, it
also means that they're less likely to be cool with the wife coming
and bringing the baby to hang out at the office, but we all have to
make little sacrifices. He starts on March 23rd, so in the meantime
we're enjoying having him around the house. By "we" I mean Elliot and
I, of course. I think he likes it, too. It's also given us a lot of
freedom to hang out with people, we've had Amanda over for lunch
twice, we went to Maine for a long weekend, we went to Northampton for
a long weekend, and this weekend we'll be hanging out with Kate and
Mark. Also he'll still be home while Coury and Momma are here
(they're coming separately, but will overlap for two days) which is
really nice. Normally he's got to work when my family is here for
visits.

Speaking of Momma, her birthday is this Friday. I was thinking about
this and I realized that this year my mother will be 58, which is
amazing, cause she doesn't SEEM 58. I think she successfully achieved
about 42 and then just stopped aging. My grandmother was the same
way. I can only assume that there is some black magic secret that the
women on my mother's side have passed down generation after generation
that my mother, for reasons unknown to me, has chosen not to share.

_I_ am aging just fine, thank you very much. I'm only 30 and I've
managed to achieve middle-aged spread. All right, so maybe that has
something to do with the baby, but it really isn't fair. At any rate,
I'm retaliating. I refuse to stop eating (do you have any idea how
HUNGRY breast feeding makes you?) but I figure I CAN exercise, and
that's just what I'm doing. Thus far I loathe it. But I feel an odd
sense of pride. Maybe at some point the pride will overcome the
loathing, but I doubt it. On the other hand, maybe I will be able to
wear a bathing suit at Montelimar this year without cringing, so there
is a payoff. :)

This Monday I'm headed off to auditions for Urinetown. I'm sort of
robust at the moment, but I would dearly love to play Little Sally.
We'll see how they go. Waxor has agreed that if they offer me a part
I'm interested in then I can take it assuming they agree to my
rehearsal restrictions (which, actually, aren't that strict, just it's
what Waxor and I have agreed on) and I have agreed that if they offer
me a part I'm NOT really interested in I won't take it. I figure it's
a fair deal. I'd like to start being in shows again, but it's a bit
of a burden to put on Waxor if I'm only sort of interested in the role
I've got.

I'm thinking of doing Moments in the Woods from Into the Woods as an
audition piece, anyone got any comments? Red Riding Hood's Song might
be more appropriate to the role I want, but I seriously loathe that
song. And I love the baker's wife, and I figure the other role I
might be able to get would be Penelope what's her butt.

Speaking of music, those of you who share my love of mix tapes will be
joyous, and those of you who don't' will cringe - I've been working on
another one. I think we'll call it "Jessica's Descent Into
Narcissism" since it reflects my varying moods of late. I've finally
finished it and am ready to burn it to disc. If anyone would like a
copy I'll send you one, just make sure I have your current address.
(Believe it or not, all you cringers, there are actually some people
getting this email that are likely to take me up on this offer.) If
anyone OVERSEAS wants it can you kindly advise me on the best way to
post it to you?

Elliot has developed a decided taste in music, to the point where if
we're listening to something he doesn't approve of while in the car he
is very cranky. Sigh. I thought we could wait til the teen years for
that to be a problem. He's also developed a decided mind of his own.
He wants what he wants, and he doesn't want anyone else to tell him
no. Most particularly the thing he wants more than anything is to
BEEEEEEEEEEE with me always. We're working on getting him out of that
habit without actually BREAKING him of it (isn't that an awful verb?
To break, meaning to destroy or damage, why do we talk about doing
that to our children?). So he goes to see Waxor and when he cries we
cheerfully tell him I love him but I get to have minutes to myself,
too. So far he is taking it... hmmm... not well, because he still is
very angry, but not poorly, because he calms down fairly quickly and
plays with his daddy. So... tolerably. He's taking it tolerably.

He's walking all the time now. He still prefers to hold an adult's
hands, but he can and will walk on his own. He LOVES other children,
and if he sees another kid in a store he'll let go of my hand in a
flash and be off down another aisle. Little girls in pink coats are
his favorite. :)

He's really grown an amazing amount. He was doing really well with
his eating, and then I think another bout of teething pain has hit
him, because for the last few days or so he's rejected most food, even
things like ice cream. He's also taller, all his 12 month clothes are
getting pretty small on him. His cognitive abilities are better, too.
He's got some really almost words (Dante, and cat, and dog, and dada,
and just this morning he looked at me and said "mama") and he
understands a lot more (like when I ask him if he wants to go outside,
or to see the cats, or for me to pick him up, or if he wants some
boob.) I think he's starting to realize that turning the pages in the
books and the sounds I'm making have some correlation, and he's
started figuring out more complicated mechanical things. He loves
putting things in and taking them out, or opening and shutting things,
and, while pulling all the books off the shelf has always been fun,
he's just now started helping me to put them back.

And he dances. If you put on music he really likes he'll grin like a
madman and start bopping his little head, or swaying side to side. It
may be the cutest thing in the entire world.

Alright, I've got dishes to do and dinner to make, and I think Dante
is waiting on me to come up and have tea, so I'm gonna go, and since
it's been so long since the last time I sent one of these I don't
think I'll postpone it in order to add more on.

Fe 2, 2009

So...

I think an essential component of the switch from Matriarchy to
Patriarchy had to have been the loss of the barter system. Confused?
Allow me to explain my reasoning.

Let us go with the traditional mammalian model: female makes babies,
male provides for female and young. In a matriarchal society this
would be viewed as the female performing the central task, and the
male bringing her goodies in essence to bribe his way into her
acceptance of him as a part of the family unit. He's paying her to
LET him belong.

In the patriarchal view, the male is performing the central task, and
the female is raising his young and making his home all nice in the
hopes that he will continue to provide for her and the offspring. She
is bribing him, in this instance, to give her support.

(Now, the truth is that probably any society would be better off if
everyone accepted that it's important to raise the young AND it's
important to eat on a regular basis, but let's just assume that, for
whatever reason, that's not an option.)

So, let's say we're merrily rolling along through history with a
matriarchal society. Women have babies and homes, and men who provide
for them are allowed to live in these homes and bask in the glory of
familial love. Then, one day, some bright enterprising chap comes up
with the idea of money, which makes all the trading going on (my bow
for your knife, my corn for your milk) MUCH easier. Except that, over
time, instead of the value of something residing intrinsically with
that thing (a cow is a cow is a cow) it begins to reside in the coin
that gets PAID for that thing. So, the men, who labor at tasks that
make things that get sold, accumulate the only thing of value, and the
women, who perpetuate the species but don't get handed any shiny metal
bits for it, end up as second class citizens.

And of course, it's still that way. A woman who chooses to work at
home raising her family almost has to apologize for not going out and
making any money.

However, I have decided that, at least in my little corner of the
world, I am going to revert to a matriarchal society. If I choose to
make money, fine and good, but the work that I am doing has intrinsic
value all on it's own, and as far as I am concerned, Waxor is bribing
me to LET him be a part of it.

THBPT!

Elliot has developed a mighty appetite this past week - it's gone
along with him biting everything he can clamp his little teeth on. My
fingers have not appreciated it, but I'm glad he's eating more and
better foods. Today I went to Joann Fabrics to get some curtain
material for his room. I've got double curtain rods and am planning
on hanging a heavy fluffy fabric on the window side curtain, to help
insulate his room. It's just so much colder than the rest of the
house. Between that and a suggestion from Kay (double PJing him) I'm
hoping that once his teething pain goes away he'll sleep a little
better. He was sleeping great the whole time in Nicaragua, waking up
only once or twice a night (and only one of those was while I was
asleep, so I, too, was sleeping well) but then we got back here to his
cold little room and BOOM, waking up 3, 4, sometimes 5 times a night.
Sigh. I'm actually convinced that about half of his nightly wake ups
happen when he rolls over and some part of his body comes into contact
with his wall, which is FREEZING.


Y'know, art projects aren't nearly as fun when you have to keep tiny
baby fingers out of everything. Imagine tiny fingers covered in
paint... or tiny mouths full of clay, or tiny knees crawling on
straight pins...

sigh.

But they are pretty cute tiny knees...

I often take days to write these emails. A lot of what I write to all
of you is the stuff that I think about while I'm lying in the dark
with Elliot. I take the most entertaining thoughts in my head and
expound on them here, in an attempt to entertain all of you. My last
deep thought session, however, was on a topic not generally suited for
public consumption and yet... I am tempted to expound anyway. But I'm
not gonna.

Two days from now will see the inauguration of President Obama. It'll
be a historic event, not only will we be swearing in a black man for
the first time EVER but we will also be saying goodbye to the greatest
douchebag ever to reside in the White House. In honor of this
occasion I am borrowing a little tune from the Wizard of Oz, and
composing a ditty. Ready? Here goes:

Ding, dong, the ding-dong's gone
He stayed too long, but now he's gone
Ding, dong, the frat boy prez is gone!
He's gone back to play cowboy

(at this point Elliot woke up, and I never wrote down the end of the
song, and now I can't remember what it was going to be... sigh...)

eleven days later...

Elliot has been sick. I mean, really sick. Sick like runny nose and
coughing and can't sleep cause he can't breathe sick. I've almost
gotten used to sleeping the night in two shifts, which we will call
the "pre-bath" shift and the "post-bath" shift, because most nights I
have to get up in the middle of the night and run a hot bath and put
menthol on Elliot's chest and then wait for him to hack up whatever is
in his chest while I squeegy out his nose (which he hates). He's
finally on the mend... last night we had no bath at all, so that's
been good. However, clearly he was the plague carrier, because first
Dante got sick, and now I think I might be getting sick. Thankfully
both Waxor and Fuzzy seem safe so far, we'll see how that goes.

He got sick right after his most recent Pediatrician's visit. His
current height is in the 60%, his head size is in the 40% (which is up
a lot), and his weight is in the 2%. Sigh. He's really skinny. The
pediatrician was worried enough that she had him do a blood draw so
that she could check and make sure he wasn't gaining weight for a
medical reason. Aside from that she basically said "make sure
everything he eats is high fat" and I have to take him back for a
weight check in 4-6 weeks.

Today is Waxor's brithday, he's 29. I made him 200 mini-cupcakes
which I iced in three different colors and then laid out to look like
8-bit Link (from Zelda). If this sentence made no sense to you then
don't worry about it. If it DID make sense to you then you aren't
allowed to call me a dork, because you must be just as big a dork.
Waxor loved it. Tonight we're doing presents and dinner at home, and
then this weekend Kay is coming to visit and she's going to babysit
Elliot while we go out and do something. We were going to go play
laser tag, but given how people are feeling I'm not sure that's going
to happen. Anyway, it is a surprise, Waxor doesn't know she's coming,
i don't think, and since I probably won't actually send this today
(and if I did he likely wouldn't read it til this weekend sometime) I
figure I'm safe sharing this information. :)

I feel down in the parking lot at work today - I feel like I've
bruised half my body. But I did not let the baby get hurt, which I am
pretty proud of since it was not an easy to trick to keep him safe
while I hit the ground.



Monday:

I have a lot more stuff to talk about, but I have two important pieces
of news and then I'm sending this, everything else can wait until the
next email.

1) Elliot is walking. Sunday night Kay and Larry took us to dinner,
and there was another baby there. Elliot wanted to walk with the baby
soooooo badly that he did, and ever since it's sort of been getting
easier and easier. He'll now just turn around and walk to me if I set
him down a few steps away from me, and last night he took the cheerios
box, stuck it over his head, and then paraded around the coffee table.

2) Waxor is out of a job, Skyward is closing their doors on Friday.

Sigh.

Jan 14, 2009

Thank you to everyone who has written me. A pox upon those of you who
haven't.

No, I'm kidding.

No seriously. A POX.

I will (ihopeihopeihopeihope) get around to writing you all back
individually, but for the moment I'll just say I really appreciate all
the love and support and advice. Don't worry about me too much,
though, apparently I managed to impart a bit more dire feeling in my
email than I had intended. I was mostly just feeling pensive, not like
my world was at an end. I mean, SOMETIMES I feel like my world is at
an end, just not, y'know, right at that particular moment. :)

It has been pointed out to me that I have been, perhaps, a bit remiss
in the sharing of newsage recently, and I wish to rectify that before
enough time goes by that I completely forget what is going on, so...

Elliot is ONE! For this he had THREE birthday parties. There was the
party in Nicaragua, where he got kissed by pretty girls and got to run
around naked and sit in his birthday cake. There was the party in
Maine, where was reunited with his one true love, the Bito, and
presented with a CareBear cake, and then got to go to bed early. And
there was the party here at our house, when nothing much happened but
it was his ACTUAL birthday and he got two sweet new toys, one of which
makes noise and one of which has ten separate, lose-able pieces. Oh
joy.

Waxor still has a job. This is excellent news. The company is looking
around at possible iPhone applications they could market, and that is
actually something that I can think about and contribute to, so that's
nice. Of course, so far my only meaningful contribution may have been
"So, if iFart is the number one selling app, clearly we all just need
to be targeting the juvenile humor audience." Yeah, you read that
right. iFart. Number one iPhone application. i freaking FART.

Waxor will be 29 this month (on the 29th, in fact.) He will begin his
last year of not-real-adulthood. I wonder if he's worried about it.

Fuzzy and Dante and Waxor and I have pretty much come to a firm
agreement that we're going to start looking for a Duplex to buy in the
spring. Look for updates on that front starting in March or so.

Chimabasa, thank goodness, seems to be adjusting to being the only
dog. I suspect it's because he gets all the tuna juice now, and it's
just taken him this long to realize that fact.

I have to take a break to make dinner, but if my email barfs again and
sends this out you'll know it isn't finished yet. :)

This year is an exciting one for my family. The JHC is 30 years old
and the CDCA is 15 years old. There's a special delegation going to
Nicaragua, and I am going to be there, along with the boy and the
baby. We're hoping Tiff will be there as well (hint hint) but he's
gotta check his vacation days.

Over vacation I read 11 books. That was pretty great.

Whoops, gotta go, so I'm sending this now. Look for your personal
responses at some later time.