All I'm Saying there's a joke in here somewhere

Thanks for the responses regarding what you think life would be like without air traffic. There were some good points I hadn't really thought of in the limited musing I had. I was surprised, though, to see that no one thought life might be as good as it is now, or even possibly a little better.

Some positives that could happen: gas/oil prices might come down, due to the availability of petroleum products that otherwise would have been used in the industry, whether it was the oil and jet fuel required for the maintenance and operation of the planes, or for the creation of the plastics and other products in the actual building of the plane. The argument can be made that the gas freed up by this would immediately be used by those who needed to continue traveling.

But seriously? Would you still travel as much by car/rail/whatever? Or do you think we'd stay home more? Maybe we'd get to know the areas around us a little better, rather than jetting off to see tourist attractions. Maybe instead of a trip to Disneyland every few years, we'd look out our back doors and see what was close at hand. I think we might come together societally a little more if we didn't have an easy option to shuffle off to Buffalo.

I'm still up in the air, as it were, as to how this would affect us from a military standpoint. As Nat pointed out, it would bring the actual fighting closer in because instead of flying over and dropping bombs, the soldiers would likely be engaged in more hand-to-hand combat. But maybe that would be a better thing, over-all. Not that I want to see soldiers getting killed (honestly, not on any side), but wouldn't there be a chance that fewer "innocents" became casualties. It is easy to devalue human life when you're up in a cockpit and don't see the devastation you could leave behind when dropping a bomb. So not having planes might move combat back to the soldiers, rather than to the populace.

Anyway, I don't think there are any right or wrong answers here. Just an interesting thing to think about. Stay tuned for more "How Would We Live Without It" questions and discussion!

Apropos of nothing, I started wondering today about air traffic. Actually, I suppose it is because my house is right under the take-off flight path for much of Boise's air traffic, and I work very close to the airport.

Anyway, I was wondering: how would life be different if all air traffic were to stop? Globally, I mean. And not in a sudden, post-9/11 way; in a way where we'd have some advance notice--six months or so. Nothing calamitous--just that air traffic wasn't viable in any form anymore.

How do you think life would change? Would it be that drastic? How would it change for you individually, and how about societally? Do you think the world might be a better place for it (think militaristically)?

Just wondering what your thoughts are...

I need to make a whole new posting category for stupid shit I see printed on people's pickups around here.

On my way home tonight, there was a guy coming toward me driving a decent-ish pickup. Nothing too special, but you could tell that rather than buying a top-end rig, he'd bought a junky one and then put lots of money into the rims and lights and racks. But best of all his little fix-up projects was the big sticker across the top of the windshield that said, "My other toy has tits!"

One can only have sympathy for the woman he is referring to. She either left him immediately, or she stayed and has the world's lowest self-esteem. Me? I'd have slapped his face around the other side of his head, and by the time he'd have it straightened out, I'd be long gone with nothing to remember me by besides a smoldering pile of pickup in the driveway.

We survived last week--a major accomplishment!

Freya did reasonably well at Montessori school. She cried the first morning and stuck very close to the teacher until I came to pick her up at noon. The next day she got a little more independent, though she recognized where we were and what the situation was that morning when I dropped her off and she got a little more upset. The third and fourth days, by the teacher's reports, were great. The teacher is amazed at how quickly Freya can do a wooden puzzle. Yep, at 16 months of age, Freya is ripping through your average wooden puzzle. She can even sit down with one that has all the letters of the alphabet and will get them in the right places. It's pretty amazing to watch her. She started interacting pretty well with the kids there, and really got into circle time when they would sing songs. She's got some new dance moves that I definitely didn't teach her. Now her schedule returns to normal and she'll go back to the neighbor across the street through the end of July, and then she starts up "for real" at the Montessori in August.

In other news, my garden is still alive. The lettuce and spinach are just about done, as it is getting too hot for them. Our patty pan squash plant and the watermelon vine are really going gonzo. We've got three baby squash right now (hopefully more on the way), and no watermelons yet, but I have high hopes. The one traumatizing thing is that my tomatoes haven't bloomed at all yet. No blooms equal no fruit. I talked to a gardener today and she said to fertilize them and give them a little more time. I have no idea what could be wrong with them, but the plants just don't seem to be that vigorous--they haven't put on much growth in the last month. I'll take suggestions.

Oh yeah, I was able to meet Daniel (formerly of Lobowalk) and his wife and son when they were passing though Boise last week. Despite our (entirely amicable) political differences, he and I have a fair amount in common, having come from very rural Idaho communities. In fact, our high schools used to compete against one another in sports. Well, they still do--but neither of us have the slightest thing to do with that nowadays. Other than my iVillage girlfriends, I think Daniel is the second blogger I have met, after Jessica and her husband. Fun! So for all of you driving through Boise, I work right off the freeway and can come say hello while you fill up with gas and get a soda. Come see me!

My infrastructure is currently sub-par.

Tess, Freya's caregiver, is on vacation. I have Freya in the new Montessori school/daycare for the mornings this week. The school does not have a morning nap for their toddlers, and Freya is missing a big chunk of sleep there.

She only napped for an hour this afternoon when I was doing the work-at-home thing. She's exhausted, but she's on that energy burn out program little kids have. I may have a rough night ahead.

Matt is at a training session for the next three days. I am without my two primary back-up people! Arrrrgh!

I may pull a Britney and shave my head before the week is out.

Freya sez: Have a Great Father's Day!

So I've posted before that I got a little 5-gallon aquarium for my office, right? Freya loves fish, and Matt and I have talked about getting a 20-gallon tank for her for Christmas. I decided that it might be a good idea to start out small and see if I/we are capable of maintaining a fish
before we really get Freya too into the process. And the first fish, a betta named Abe, starved to death. You remember that trauma.

I got another fish, named him "Deuce" (as in, the second fish I've had so far), and got him a couple of danio fish as little buddies. They've been doing pretty okay, but I decided the tank needed a cleaning today. I know bettas are supposed to like brackish water and all that, but the rock in there was growing fur and I just thought it was time. Usually when I clean the tank, I get nice room-temperature water out of the faucet in our bathroom. Someone was in the can, so I filled Deuce's little holding area with water from the drinking fountain. I put a couple drops of the chlorine remover in there, and dropped him in.

He instantly started doing the St. Vitus dance. I ran around in circles, hollering, "Sonofabitch, goddammit, I've killed another one!" The guys in the office got me settled down, and we all stood in a circle, looking at Deuce's still little body on the bottom of the container. We discussed whether the water might have been too cold, too filtered, too whatever. It
took a few minutes. I decided to give him the "burial at sea" and took the container and him into the bathroom and dumped him into the toilet.

Whereupon the little bastard came back to life.

So there I was: newly-resurrected fish (for which I was happy) swimming around in the toilet (for which I was a little put out). I ran to my boss and said, "I've got bad news about the toilet, sir." We all crammed into the bathroom and stood there watching Deuce spin happy circles around the shitter. At this point, I was laughing so hard I was crying. The guys were falling all over the place, saying things like, "Only you, Case, only you!"

I went and got my net, we put him in a container of lukewarm water, I cleaned the tank, and he and the danios are back in there now just as happy as gophers in dirt. I have renamed Deuce: he shall now be called Lazarus.

My zodiac must be askew in whatever house deals with getting what you thought you were going to get. I hope it comes back around soon.

First, I have been under the mistaken impression for the last decade or so that I was an heiress, at least in a very modest sort of way. When my maternal grandmother died, my father said that he was certain that her estate was put into trust and that her children (my estranged mother and her siblings) drew the interest income. When they all died, the grandchildren would receive the liquidated trust holdings. He thought it was somewhere in the $50k each area. Well, Matt and I are meeting with an attorney to get our wills figured out, and so I started asking questions about the trust. Yeah. Turns out Dad was dead wrong. There's nothing, nada, zippo. And it isn't like I ever had the money in the first place, but it was nice to think that there was a little cushion of cash out there for me some day. Guess I'd better up my retirement contribution another percentage point or so.

Also, I ordered Matt's Father's Day present from REI last week. I checked the UPS package tracker today, and it said the package had been delivered to our porch yesterday. I was pretty sure there wasn't a package, but double checked when I came home from work today. Again, nada, zippo. I asked the neighbors, in case they might have received it by accident. They don't have it. So tomorrow I need to contact UPS, and barring resolution with them, REI and see if the world's greatest return policy applies to stuff that possibly got stolen off my porch.

If someone happens to find whatever it is that I lost that keeps me from losing things, could you please bring it back?

Freya had her first swimming lesson tonight. There is a private home that does group Mommy & Me swim lessons just up the road from our house, and I wanted to get her lessons last summer but she was too little. When the swim lessons sign went up this spring, I was all over it. When I was growing up, we lived 60 miles from the nearest swimming lesson, and my mother drove my little brother and I to the YMCA in Boise every day for two weeks, all so we could get the hang of swimming. Of course, I was probably 8 or so when that happened.

We had Freya in various pools a few times last summer--she was pretty comfortable in her ladybug float toy. This summer, though, she's seemed pretty unsure of the liquid environment. When I met my girlfriend up in my old hometown last month, Freya just sat on my lap in the pool and did not want to get down and wade at all.

Tonight was...well...worse. She and I got in the pool together and Matt sat nearby. As soon as her little bum got in the water, she started howling. She cried, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy," pretty much nonstop for the first 30 minutes of the 45 minute lesson. There were no bubbles blown, no dips underwater, no kicking of the feet for Freya. I tried to point out that the other kids (all at least 6 months older than her) were doing it, but she wasn't interested.

Matt said it was terribly difficult for him to not come to Freya's aid. We both knew she was safe and sound, but I think it would have just tore my guts out had our places been switched and I sat by the edge of the pool while she reached out for me and cried my name.

She settled down a little for the last 10 minutes or so, and then was fine as soon as we were out of the water. I know she'll get used to it. Maybe she'll even be having fun by the end of the 2 weeks. Poor little critter. Of course, we got home and into the bathtub and she had a grand old time splashing around in there...

I have been reading Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. The premise of the book is that kids spend way too much time indoors, and for all that we, as adults, tell them "Go play outside," or "TV is bad for you," we kind of set them up societally to not really develop any kind of connection to nature. It's a really good book, important thinking, and I highly recommend it for parents.

But something that I read in it has been sticking in my mind, more related to how adults spend our time on the internet. The thought was that regardless of how the internet supposedly brings people closer together, people who spend a great deal of time on the internet are actually lonelier than people who don't spend much time at all.

I have a lot of "internet friends," and have met a number of them/you in person. These folks are from all around the country, and from all around the world. Shouldn't that make it a smaller planet? But the more I think about it, the more I realize that while I am acquainted with many, I really know virtually none of you. In most cases, I couldn't say what your favorite song is, the name of the first person you kissed, or even what color your eyes are. Would you know those things about a friend "IRL" (in real life)?

Anyway, I'm interested in your thoughts. For all that I spill my guts on this blog, I hold a great deal about myself, my work, my family and my real thoughts back. What about you? Can you honestly draw any great similarities out of comparing your internet friends with the friends you physically spend time with?

People told us when you were six months old, "Things start getting really fun from here on out!" We were having a lot of fun as it was, but it turned out they were right: you're more fun than the proverbial barrel of monkeys!

A typical day for you consists of you waking up slowly in our bed as I am getting ready for work. Daddy is usually hovering, waiting for you to crack an eyelid so that he can start getting his "Freya Fix" for the day. I come and join the two of you, and we all sort of wallow on the bed. Daddy and I touch your toes and say, "Good morning, toes!" and work our way up to the top of your head, greeting especially cute parts of your body (Good morning, tummy! Good morning nose!) until we reach your hair. You've go some pretty great smiles during that time.

Depending on whether you go across the street to spend the day with your caregiver or not, the rest of the morning is pretty casual. You're in your jammies until after your morning nap, which is usually between 9:30 and 11:00. You join me in the office and read your books, or you play with toys and household objects near the desk. Often, you want to be sitting in my lap, so I am a fairly proficient one-handed typer anymore.

Afternoons mean going to the neighbor's, where you play and play and play. You've started coloring over there, and reports are that you will spend a half hour to forty-five minutes coloring on the same piece of paper, switching colors now and then. We are all amazed at your focus and attention span. That should serve you well when you start Montessori in August!

When I come home in the evening, you nurse, then we get ready for dinner. You like to help me make the salad, so you hand me leaves of lettuce from the strainer (which I keep at Freya-height on a dining room chair) and watch me tear them into pieces and put them in the salad bowl. We eat outside on the patio a lot in the summer, and you sit in your high chair munching grapes or pieces of pasta and you point out birdies to us as they fly past. You are also big on sharing dessert with us, and at bathtime I usually have to wash your face extra-well to get the ice cream drips off of it.

One of your new things lately is to look at me and say, "Bup." You call your diaper a bup, and lately you're saying it (I think) when you pee. You definitely say it when you poop, and we go in your room and change your bup. I am hoping this means you will be easily potty-trained. You're also giving tons of hugs and kisses, which is incredibly joyous for us. A spontaneous hug from you tells Daddy and I that you are happy and that your heart is full of love for us. That's the best feeling--I can't even describe how warm it makes me feel.

You're the greatest, kid.
Love,
Mommy

We finally have a summer vacation plan! After going round and round about where to go for a family trip, we have a destination: Lassen Volcanic National Park.

You may remember that we were there about three years ago as part of our big Oregon/Northern California circuit. It is such a great place--free of most of the tourists and all the nincompoopery of the larger National Parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite. There aren't any crowds, there aren't any goofy "Bear Town" style theme parks on the edges of the federal area...it's just quiet, beautiful and nice.

We rented a cabin at a place called Eagle Lake, which is between the park and the town of Susanville. There are supposed to be some pretty special trout there that are a subspecies named after the lake, and Matt is all a-quiver over the thought of being close to good fishing for an extended period of time.

I'm just grateful that I don't have to try and tent camp with a toddler and that we're going to be able to get out of town later this summer. It's good to have a plan. What about you all? Any vacation plans to share?

I have a toddler screaming for me at the foot of the stairs and a husband who really wants to finish watching "Deadliest Catch," so this is going to be a short one.

1. Boise has had weird weather lately! It was nearly 100 over the weekend--sweltering, for June, and now it has dropped into the low 70s and is windy. That's one of the fastest drops from really hot to unseasonably cool that I can remember for a long time.

2. It rained today! My garden is so happy!

3. There is no number three. I need to go take care of Miss Crankypants.

We were in REI a couple of months ago, and I found a pair of leather Keen sandals on the clearance rack. (This predates my realization of my shopping obsession, but is an awfully good indicator of the condition.) I love my Keens--I have one pair in brown and wanted some in black. And there they were! The only thing was, they were a full size too large. Keen sizes run all over the map, so I figured if they were a tiny bit loose, I could get by. I talked myself into them.

I got them home, wore them for about 20 minutes, and realized that I was a moron for buying them. I stuck them up on a shelf for a while, then tried Craigslisting them. No bites.

A friend and I were in REI the other day and off the cuff I asked one of their reps if there was any chance they'd take them back. I didn't have a receipt, didn't have tags, but I was a member of REI. They said, "Sure!"

Matt and I went there yesterday and I was standing in line at customer service behind a woman who was trying to return a pair of Teva sandals that were so old and shabby that they looked like two dead puppies. She was telling the rep, "I think they're just a couple years old. Can't you find them on my account?" The guy looked and looked. Another rep started helping them out, and finally found the record of their purchase--SEVEN YEARS AGO. This crazy bimbo was trying to return shoes she'd clearly had her stanky feet in for years and years. There was nothing wrong with them besides that--no broken straps or anything. She just wanted store credit.

And do you know what? They gave her full credit--FIFTY NINE DOLLARS--for those horrid things. Can you believe it? If it had been my store, I'd have picked up one of those shoes, pimp-slapped her with it, and told her to get the hell out. Not REI, though. Clearly, they have the world's best (though most naive) return policy.

You may note that I just updated my blogroll. Some folks have quit blogging, others have changed their site names and/or addresses. I've also added some folks. There are others who have quit blogging, but I just can't bear to take them down yet.

Anyway, that's a sign Freya is taking a nice, long nap, isn't it? I'm getting virtual housework done.