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

I am really getting sick of the political wrangling and fighting amongst the presidential candidates, aren't you? Everyone starts out fine, but then the gloves inevitably come off.

What I am wondering is, if the best you can do is resort to name calling and dredging up the sordid past, how can you be a skilled enough diplomat to negotiate with people who don't share so many similarities with you?

Wake me when it's November, 2009. I want to opt out of all the lead-in.

My dear friend Tea is not only a great blogger, but she's a stellar PR person and an aspiring novelist. I have been lucky enough to read early edits of her story, "Chancy." I haven't got to read the whole story yet, but I can assure that it is one of those where I spend time between reading sections of it wondering what will happen to the characters. I don't have to tell you that you don't find that kind of readability just anywhere.

So where can you find it?

I'm glad you asked. She's decided to publish it online! You can tune in for a section each day! Check it out at Chancy, TX.

Thanks for sharing it with us, Tea!

If I hire a horticulturalist to create a design for my backyard, does that make me a johniculturalist? And if she's a contractor, does she work for a pimpiculturalist?

Guess what I did over the weekend? ;-)

It has been almost three years since we moved in here and because it was a new house, we just slapped in a sprinkler system and threw some sod on top. We've planted a couple of trees and I have made some very lame attempts at making the area around the vegetable garden beds look nice. It didn't really turn out.

So we're taking some of our tax return and hiring a professional to do a design for us. We'll be able to refer to a scale plan and plant list, and do our own labor. I'm really excited about it--she's going to focus on creating a really kid-friendly space with places to hide (like under weeping trees) and incorporate some edible landscape ideas, including grape vines and thornless raspberry canes. We're also hoping to grow a little bamboo room where Freya can have a playhouse, and then we'll be able to share the bamboo with the Boise Zoo, which will use it to feed the red pandas.

This is going to be so cool...

Matt got home from a 5-day work trip yesterday, and I had a large glass of wine with dinner. I don't have anything at all to drink whenever he is gone, as I just know that Freya will need to be driven to the hospital for some reason, and it would just be my luck that I'd have had a glass of wine before whatever accident befell her, and there would be all kinds of unpleasant questions.

(Tea, go ahead and make your "over-thinking it" remarks any time you'd like.)

So anyway, after dinner I decided that it was a good time for me to finally do our taxes. See how alcohol impairs your judgment, kids? I've been using the same online tax preparation program for years, and fortunately it updates most of our information automatically. You just input your current year's W2 (well, for the current year you're filing for), answer a questionnaire, and it leads you through all the steps.

But the alcohol factor makes me a little nervous that now we're going to get audited. I know that's stupid. But...it all went by so fast! And we're getting our usual-sized return. Dear Auditor: I'm sure you understand what it's like to be liquored up while working on important Federal documents...

I spent a few minutes today checking out recent posts from Mel and Dooce about some puppy angst. Not so much on Mel's side, but as soon as she said, "Damned dog" in her post, I got to thinking about the connections between these two puppies and how nice it is to have Grover finally settled down.

For those not immediately in the know, Grover is our English springer spaniel. He's...five years old (I had to think about it) and is one of Freya's all-time BFFs. He was an extremely wild puppy, as springers often are, but he's settled down quite a bit. Of course, all bets are off when Matt gets home from his day at work. Despite the fact that he knows he is in enormous trouble if he knocks Freya down, Grover cannot find the physical grace or self-control to sedately walk over to the front door to greet Matt. Nope, he has to levitate 2 feet off the air, stick his feet out toward the compass points, spin his flappy ears in circles (all of this in the span of a second) and trample over everything between he and Daddy, including a two-year old, once his feet get back down on the ground again.

That said, Matt has been out of town these last couple of days, and so Grover is in guard dog mode. It's nice to know he's on the job. He stares intently at closed doors. He'll look like he's asleep, but then he'll spontaneously let out his INTRUDER ALERT! bark as I am taking a bite of dinner. He'll see a shoe laying in the middle of the floor and his hackles will go up, and he growls like it is a werewolf stalking the baby.

And in light of the nearby earthquake this morning, I'm taking to heart the fact that animals often give warnings of impending seismic events. At dinner tonight, he ran around woofing and huffing, and I turned a wary eye toward the light fixture hanging above the table, expecting to see it start swaying back and forth.

Okay, this? Is awesome! Use a Mason Jar Instead of Your Blender Jar

This would be super handy if your blender carafe was broken and all you had was the base. Or if you want to just do a small quantity of something and then flip the jar over and slap a lid on it. Of if you had canned some food (like tomatoes) and popped the can open, blended it right up, and dumped it into a recipe. I'm thinking for tomato sauce or something. Isn't that neato?

And then because I cannot help but engage in useless debate with other posters in the comments section of certain articles in my local newspaper, I thought this pretty much fit me to a T.

Anyone have anything random they want to share today?

I know I have been a little quiet lately. I had the best of intentions last night, but my evening got a little off-course.

Freya hid her comb from us a couple of weeks ago, and combing baby-fine hair with a hair pick just wasn't working out very well. So finally, finally, I remembered that we needed to swing over to Walgreens to get a comb for her.

She had eaten a great dinner. She ate about a half of a carrot, a half of a chicken thigh, and some yogurt and milk, and also had some grape juice in a baby bottle. For a kid who never wanted a bottle as a baby, we figured it was just a cute distraction, so we hooked her up. On the way to Walgreen's, she BELCHED. As I told Matt, "I'm not sure I'll be this proud of her when she's Homecoming Queen." Seriously, it sounded like an old tractor starting up. But then I added, "It's funny. I really haven't heard a belch like that without it being followed by some partially-digested food."

Drumroll, please.

So there we were in Walgreen's, I was standing in line up front with Freya on my hip, and I had a comb and some contact solution in my other hand. My precious little darling burped at me again, but before I could beam at her in maternal approval, she ralphed up chicken and carrot bits. I didn't know what to do. Then she barfed up a little more. I sprang into action: I turned in a circle about three different times, threw the comb and contact stuff on a shelf, and raced out the door. And there we were, my little girl who was coated in vomit and crying because it's just plain scary to throw up, and me partially-coated and trying to swab her off with some baby wipes.

About this time, Matt came out the door (he'd been back at the pharmacy checkout getting some sinus medicine) and found us like that. It meant that we skipped our milkshake run to Sonic, and that Freya's bath time and subsequent bed time were moved ahead about an hour earlier than usual. It took a long time to get her to sleep, so I never made it up to blog anything.

Thank goodness she's okay. I bet Matt two dollars that she'd throw up again before morning, and I'm happy to say I lost that bet. I think she just had enough air in her belly from the bottle that she didn't have room for either it or her dinner anymore. She sure seemed fine as soon as it was all over.

Just kidding about the moose. Them 'r elk. I don't know who the photographer is: the picture just came via many, many forwarded addresses to my husband's e-mail account. I thought you all might appreciate it.

We've had a lot of snow in the Boise area this winter, and it has pushed the deer and elk down into the valley in numbers unprecedented in recent years. Unfortunately, they are also gathering along the I-84 interstate corridor, which has meant that Matt has had to go scrape dead elk off the interstate several times in the last few weeks. Amazingly, there haven't been any people fatalities...yet...knock wood.

So. How was your Valentine's Day? I'm guessing if you are like most people, it wasn't that great. If you are one of the small group of people who had a wonderful, romantic day that made you feel no pressure whatsoever, then CONGRATULATIONS. You're very lucky. (Or delusional.)

Erica and I (and others) had an e-mail discussion earlier today about the drama and frustration that swirls (no pun intended) around VD. She gave me some good advice and coaching, and then mentioned that she suggested to her girlfriend that they might skip the day all together this year. Her girlfriend said she'd probably go ahead and get her a card or something anyway. So I'm trying to goad Erica and anyone else who will participate to boycott Valentine's Day with me next year.

I seriously think that we've allowed ourselves to get utterly carried away by a holiday that really promotes nothing but giving money to Hallmark and Hershey, and many of us end up feeling less than wonderful about the day. In fact, a coworker told me today that he wished his son a happy Valentine's Day, and his son rather bitterly replied, "You mean Singles Awareness Day?" I remember when I was single and didn't have a Valentine (and that really was pretty much every year)...I felt awful about it. I had plenty of other friends who felt awful too, and so we'd go drown our sorrows and talk about what a crap day it was.

So what do you say, Internet People? What do you say we take February 14 back next year, and we refuse to feel disappointed or that our relationship is inadequate if it doesn't measure up to the gifts and strained extravagance our friends and associates may be feeling? How about we save the money and the frustration, make it clear to our partners (if any) that we will not be participating and do not want to be made to feel obligated to participate, and that we all just say, "My relationship or lack thereof doesn't deserve to be judged based on the outcome of one day out of the year"?

Are you with me? Or am I out of my mind in thinking that most of us would rather just abstain from the rituals?

I am just not in a nice mood today. I don't know whether it is because I had a lot of stressful crap going on today or if it is because I'm in the middle of some hormonal something, but I feel like kicking something. I did actually kick someone today. Not very hard, though. And not where I really felt like kicking him. So that wasn't too satisfying.

Part of the crap mood is because I was in meetings that seemed to be utterly bogged down with minutiae, part of it was because one of the people in one of the meetings was utterly poisonous and unhelpful.

Bottom line, though? Probably the hormones.

I just finished reading the book World Without Us by Alan Weisman. I picked it up because one of my favorite genres of all time is post-Apocalyptic fiction, where a small handful of humans survive a plague or a war or whatever and go on to start a new kind of civilization.

The premise of World Without Us, a non-fiction book, is essentially, "What would happen if all of humanity suddenly went extinct?" And I was expecting a sort of happy return to the wilderness kind of a thing. Not to spoil the book for you (or human extinction, for that matter), but my take on it was that the planet doesn't stand a very great chance if we suddenly went. Obviously it would recover in time, but we have done some serious, serious shit to screw it up in the meantime. The scariest part for me was about nuclear reactors and how quickly all 144 of them would melt down and turn into individual versions of the Chernobyl disaster. And then there are the refineries, like around Houston, Texas. Seriously, if someone doesn't flip a bunch of switches before breathing their last gasp, the resulting explosions and fires will likely cloud the atmosphere thoroughly enough to keep sunlight from the surface of the planet for God only knows how long.

Anyway, now that I have your attention, the author's proposed resolution (if any) to the issues our planet faces because of us would be to have each woman only reproduce one time. (It doesn't actually say each person would reproduce only once, but I do think that's what he means.) At that rate, the population of the earth would drop to 1.6 billion people, a pretty globally sustainable number, by the end of the century. But if left at today's rates, we'll be at 9 billion people by the end of this century. Interesting, eh?

So that got me to thinking, and here is the question I will pose to you: how would society and the role of women change if each female was only allowed to have one child? No do-overs, no excuses if your child were to die--you get one shot and that is it. How would things change?

Mine are in the extended entry. Please post your thoughts to the comments.

Continue reading "It's Brain Time!"

I've started a new post category: Freya-isms. As she's growing more verbal, I can definitely see she's going to have some comments worth noting.

She and I woke up a little later than Matt did this morning, and we were having a nice Sunday morning cuddle/wrestle on the bed when Matt came in to see what was up. Freya's pajama top had ridden up over her stomach, and Matt said, "You have a bare belly!"

Freya replied gravely, "No, I has a lion belly."

My baby girl, you turn two on Thursday! Not like you don't know; you've been talking about it for at least a month. A conversation about your birthday goes something like this:

F: Freya's birthday soon!
Me: Yep, your birthday is February 7.
F: Daddy get Freya an ice cream cake.
Me: Yes, it will be tasty.
F: Have presents.
Me: Yep, that's how it will work.

The past week has been just loaded with birthday references, especially since your grandparents from Wisconsin have come out to spend the week with us. We'll be having your Idaho grandpa and his fiancee over for a homemade pizza dinner with the rest of us, and then we'll have a Maggie Moo's ice cream cake and unwrap presents. Since you're not quite advanced enough to be reading this (though I would guess that you'd be able to read a post by this time next year--you genius), your presents include a Lincoln Logs set, a 3D puzzle, a bunch of books and a new pair of Crocs.

You spoke a 10-word sentence last night. You said, "Daddy, would you share a chocolate chip cookie with me?" We were amazed. And on the way to your school and my work this morning, you looked out the window at the fog, the darkened sky and the airport lights reflecting off the cloud cover and said, "Mommy, the sky is purple!" I hadn't realized it until you pointed it out. I've given up trying to count how many words you know, but I know it is a huge amount. I would guess it is well over 500. (Seriously, internet. I am not making this up.) You know all your colors, you can identify all the letters, and you and Daddy counted as far as 25 the other day. You are a maniac for going to the zoo, so we take you a couple of times a month. The gemsbok and the zebra are your special favorites, especially after you got to see the zebra urinating on one of our last trips. Now you love to talk about the zebra peeing on the ground.

You love to sing songs, and "Bill Grogan's Goat," "We are the Dinosaurs," "Where is Thumbkin," and "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" are just a few of your favorites. You just got your first two-year molar last week, and we're hoping the other three aren't far behind so that we can be done with teething for a few years.

You're still very small. In fact, your height and weight aren't even on the growth charts for kids your age. The pediatrician doesn't seem worried, and so I try not to be. I don't think there is anything wrong with you at all--you're well-fleshed and certainly developmentally
ahead. But I do remember having terrible growing pains when I was little and hitting a growth spurt, and I hope that your growth all doesn't come in a few very painful bursts.

But you're growing in a million ways and there is no stopping you. And there's no stopping my love for you or my faith in you. You're the most beautiful thing I can imagine.

Love you,
Mommy

P.S. Sorry there's no picture with this post--Daddy has put the USB cord into a new place and it is such a good place that we can't find it.

We were in the grocery store with Freya the other day and I was perusing the options in the feminine hygiene aisle. Freya walked up and pulled a package of maxi pads off the shelf, turned to me and said, "These are for Mommy's hoo-ha."

Yes, we have now entered the She Is Able to Say Embarrassing Things phase.

I have been unusually engaged in watching the Super Bowl today. Considering I make lots and lots of noises of disgust when Matt is watching the Packers, my interest in the game today is cause for much speculation and on Matt's part, consternation.

But I think it is because of a couple of factors. One, my in-laws got in to town today and the game has been a bit of a convenient distraction for each of us. And two, (and probably most importantly) it isn't the Packers. See, Matt is the penultimate Packer-Backer and has his own #4 jersey and used to have a foam cheese wedge that could be strapped to the dog's head. I've been gagging on football every Sunday during the season until the Pack gets eliminated. And I am secretly praying for that every time playoffs come around.

I bought Matt a pair of tickets to see the Packers play the Bills at Lambeau once when we went back there for Christmas. I begged and begged for him to please take one of his brothers. But nooo, he thought I needed to be there. That something about Lambeau Field would be so magical for me that I'd automatically become a devotee. It didn't work. I sat there in my Carhartts freezing my ass off and counting the seconds until it was over and I could sit in the warm car in the parking lot for 45 minutes waiting our turn to get out onto a main road.

So I think the fact that the game doesn't have any green and gold on the field makes a big difference. I've been rooting for the Giants because Eli Manning is such a goofy-looking SOB that I think he deserves a break. Isn't that big of me?

I just wanted to take a moment and throw in a plug for my blog advertising service (wherein I rent advertising space that is really quite unobtrusive) Text Link Ads.

Why am I doing this?

Because I got $55 in PayPal deposited into my account today...for January's ad sales alone. That's free money, folks. There are a lot of blog advertising schemes I don't care for, Google's for example, because they are so darned conspicuous. But TLA has been great, and the results are nothing to sneeze at. I bought a pair of new Keen shoes on E-bay today with my proceeds and I still have money left over. NEW SHOES, PEOPLE! Essentially free to me! And I do like the advertisers too--they've been family friendly, like the folks at Attached to Baby who are sell baby slings and carriers, and lord knows I have told you all about how wearing Freya in a sling when she was little probably saved my life. So the advertising fits in to what I write about.

Anyway, I hope this hasn't irritated anyone. I thought I'd share it because it is working out great for me and I think it is a good service. Look into it if you get a chance! There, that's the end of my plug.