Haiku of the Day

Animal, Vegetable, Migraine

focusing panic
on something I can control
why not make it food?

I am probably the last person in the world to read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I'm only on page 50 or so, but already it is freaking me out. I think it's freaking me out in a good way, but the verdict is still out on that.

So far it has me convinced that Big Corn is just as evil (if not more evil) than Big Oil. It has me feeling guilty for not having insisted that we start our garden this spring (though, admittedly, with 100-plus-degree days for most of June [ARGH!] the garden would be fried by now). It also has me kicking myself for sleeping late on Saturdays and always missing the farmer's market down the street. Must. Start. Waking. Up. Earlier.

Around this time last year (or was it later? It was later in the summer, I think) a friend of mine and I went in together on a weekly box of locally grown fruits and veggies. We split up the box, oohed and ahhed over the fun and weird stuff and then promptly never ate anything in it. Well, I can't speak for her, but WE didn't eat much of it. Watermelon? Yes. Funky japanese eggplant? Nope. We stopped getting the boxes and splitting them when there was a warning about black widows hitching a ride in them. Spiders + wasting food = back to frozen Amy's mac and cheese.

(On a completely different tangent, the splitting of the local box didn't last, but the friendship did. Back then we were awkward book group buddies and now we are awkward best buddies! There's nothing like uneaten red okra, a fear of deadly spiders, and crazy ass two-year-olds to bond two women instantly. And now she's going to want me to stop blogging like this and getting publicly misty so I will quit it.)

ANYWAY, this book. This book makes me want to split the local box again,  excepting the spiders, of course. It makes me want to join a CSA and learn more about the Ark of Taste (not a religious group desperate to promote decency and ban TV, like it sounds).

It makes me want to buy a garage freezer and half of a locally pastured, grass-fed cow and have a stash of healthy meat for a year.

But then I remember I don't really cook that much or that well. And then I notice that I am eating a bag of cool ranch Doritos (chock full of MSG, by the way. When did they start doing that?!). And then I realize I am accidentally smearing the cool ranch finger funk on the pages of the book as I hungrily read about heirloom vegetables.

And I think, who are you kidding, crazy lady? Do you think Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies are locally harvested? Do you think CSAs deliver complete frozen meals? And what about the wee one? He still mainly subsists on peanut butter and pizza pockets (at least they are organic). Are you willing to starve him to death to stick it to Big Corn?

My answer is, of course, sure!

No, no, I jest. My answer is hell no. I can't starve the wee one. I can't give up brownies. (This is a fucking fuck of a pregnancy, y'all, mama has to hold on to whatever she can). But on the other hand, am I willing to try and make a real dinner with real food a couple of times a week? Maybe. Am I game for trying to assemble a salad made of local, or relatively local ingredients? Sure.

Maybe Big Corn and Big Oil will feel nary a tickle on their ass from my plans here, but that's OK. Can it hurt to try to buy more local produce and meats? Hopefully not. I mean, last year my attempt at eating local produce was a huge flameout, but I ended up with a spectacular friend in the process. So why not let Barbara Kingsolver seep into my psyche a little and give me something to obsess over for a little while? Worst case is that I support some local farmers without actually eating or cooking what I buy. (Well, worst case would be contracting food poisoning and dying, I guess. But local is supposed to help guard against that, right?). Best case is that I learn some new recipes and start eating beets again.

Now maybe I should read more of the book. Who knows what will happen in the next 50 pages. Maybe I will want to move to Appalachia and grow chard. Maybe I will side with Big Corn and start bathing in high fructose corn syrup. My moods are very unpredictible these days.

I will set my alarm for Saturday, though. Who knows what kind of brownies you can rustle up at a farmer's market. I'm certainly game to find out.

A twoooo ves-sel cord...

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip
That started with a lack of pills
And a "don't worry" quip.
 
The results have been a surprise each day,
With previa, clots and more.
And just today we saw ourselves
A two vessel cord, a two vessel cord.
 
The mind, it started acting up,
Worst sce-nar-i-os were tossed,
If not for the courage of the fearless doc
The sanity would be lost, the sanity would be lost.
 
The trip is a never-ending one, exhausting ever more
With Wee-er One
The Wee One too,
The mystery babe and his cord,
The stuuuuuupid dog
The daddy-o and Kari Anne,
Here all crashed on the floooor.

Martha Stewart's black cookbook

too much time to think
can't blame it on alcohol
brain is fritzing out

I was falling asleep last night and I found myself in that hazy limbo of awake dreaming. I wasn't quite asleep because I was consciously thinking about how cool my idea was, and yet I wasn't quite awake because now I can't remember much of what was going on, other than a few ridiculous details.

Basically, in my half comatose state I had some kind of brilliant idea for a blog post. It had something to do with a secret Martha Stewart cookbook called the Black Cookbook. This "Black Cookbook" is something akin to the black Amex, though now I can't remember why I thought it was such a great idea.

Maybe there are only a dozen Martha Stewart black cookbooks around, and these cookbooks have magical recipes in them that will entice super picky children to eat anything. Or maybe it is a cookbook with recipes in it for gold encrusted hamburgers and pearl dust pudding and other outrageously expensive things. Beats me.

I like the idea of a secret cookbook, though. I'll never be able to qualify for a black amex, so why not a super fancy cookbook?

The thing is, though, I don't cook anything. I think I have gone just a little bit crazy. And maybe I should not eat my weight in Skittles before I go to bed.

pause

railroad spikes in ears
carving out my eye with spoon
more fun than Star Trek

I would like to take a moment to pause from my usual whining about feeling sick and panicking about Mystery Baby and general freaking out about how the wee-er one treats me like an abusive boyfriend treats his girlfriend (thanks to Tina Fey for that analogy).

I want to pause so that I can tell you how much, how incredibly, palpably much I HATE STAR TREK ENTERPRISE. The other Star Treks? Eh, I could take 'em or leave 'em. The Next Generation wasn't too bad and I've been known to watch Janeway kick some ass late at night. But holy shit, Enterprise? With Scott Bakula? IT MAKES ME CRAZY. It is SO BAD. I mean, it's so bad you can't even make fun of it. It's so bad it offends me that the Star Trek creators thought they could get away with it. It's so bad that the idea that the Star Trek creators DID get away with it makes me want to hunt them down and strap them to chairs and force them to watch this poopy crap non-stop until they admit they took advantage of hapless Trekkies everywhere.

My husband, of course, loves this show. He watches it all the time. It is all over the TiVo, like a plague of sores that won't heal.

Now, I am not a person to attack TV. I love TV. Even bad TV. Farmer Wants a Wife? Stupid, kind of offensive, great fodder for The Soup, and whatever. Tila Tequila, or whoever she is? Don't care. But this shit? This Enterprise show? It makes me hate people. It makes me (gasp!) hate TV.

Couldn't. Hate. It. More.

And it's on right now. So I am listening to the Dead Milkmen and grimacing and wondering how my husband can stand this show. How can he stand it? HOW? It is a mystery. A mystery wrapped in an enigma, swallowed by a giant space horse and crapped out all over my TV screen.

such an old lady

exciting morning
guys with grillz performed magic
carpet is so clean!

I shouldn't admit to this, but wow! Dudes came today and cleaned the downstairs carpet. All of the mysterious black spots and yogurt stains and spat out cheerios are gone. Gone! The dog pee stains remain (alas) but I can pretend to overlook them while the rest of the carpet looks so shiny and new.

So, Guys With Gold Teeth (who made the wee-er one furrow her brow, point to their mouths and say quizzically "teef? teef?"), thanks for cleaning up my family's filth. You rock.

By the way, GWGT? What does your schedule look like for next week? I'm sure we will have destroyed all your handywork waaaay before then. Maybe I could get you on a retainer.

Guys? Hello? Why are you running away so fast?

9 years!

look where we are now
less freedom but more freedom
just like we like it

Nine years. Two kids. A Wednesday night. No big anniversary plans here - surprise!

I've had fun scanning in some pictures this morning, though. I usually don't post things like this, so forgive me... I just can't get over how fresh-faced and young we were! I feel so... weathered... now.

the news

Good:

I do not have appendicitis

Bad:

I seem to be having a week long panic attack centered in my stomach

Good:

No one has a fever and the wee one is back at school

Bad:

I have lost an entire week of editing

Good:

It is Friday

Bad:

Monday is three days away

Good:

I slept until 8:45 this morning, and so did the wee-er one

Bad:

The wee-er one will not nap

Good:

Someone searched for my blog using the terms "amy winehouse separated at birth camel"

Bad:

I just realized Amy Winehouse does look a little bit like a camel

Good:

The Texas primary might actually be of some importance this year

Bad:

I haven't re-registered to vote since the move

Good:

There is no ice storm

Bad:

It won't stop raining

Good:

I am wearing a soft purple t-shirt

Bad:

It has mac and cheese all over it

Good:

Blogging

Bad:

Unable to figure out how to end this post

This is what happens

escape hoi polloi
stay at home and yet stay smart
failed experiment

In a misguided effort to become more pretentious and possibly better read, I got a subscription to Harper's magazine. I just tried to read some of it, and damn. Translated Nazi discussions from a prison camp, a possibly non-fiction dialogue written in the 1940s about a stillbirth (and other terrible, hush-hush things happening at the hands of questionable nuns), a story about a town with a full sewer system ("full" as in overflowing gunk into people's backyards, requiring everyone to have a septic system even though they live in the town-proper), and on and on.

Do people think writing has to be staggeringly depressing to be edifying? Even the funny David Foster Wallace excerpt was about a creepy baby repeatedly described as "fierce-looking."

Am I smarter now? More pretentious? Does the postman think highly of me as he delivers my Harpers? Will my friends be impressed if they see a copy of the magazine scattered across my floor? "Oh, your baby destroys Harpers... mine just demolishes Real Simple."

I'm going to guess the answer to the above questions is an emphatic No.

I'm also going to guess that I'll be sticking to my Entertainment Weekly from now on.

Hoi Polloi unite!

a vacation away from everything

Need to get away?
I have just the spot for you
bring suntan lotion

I'm going to recruit my friends to chip in, so we can cordon off an entire state-sized area just for ourselves. A private retreat for stressed out mamas. 

We better act fast, though, while land is still cheap.

QVC

This is an open letter to the person (you know who you are) who has gotten me hooked on watching QVC:

I will get you.

It will be when you least expect it.

I will pop your Quacker Factory cherry with a handsome sweater set. Or I will get your kids hooked on pretzel-wrapped hot dogs. Maybe I'll use a multi-faceted nut wrench in some nefarious way. Don't even get me started on the animal print tweezers.

All I'm saying is that you better watch your back. I have nine seasons of the X-Files just looking, looking for a new convert. Especially the episode with Burt Reynolds.

You think Chuck Woolery slinging socks is bad? Just wait until you're knee deep in alien-human hybrid mythology and you call me crying about what's going to happen now that the X-Files have been shut down.

Just wait.

quack, quack,
Kari

dashing through the polar ice melt

jingle bells
lead free bells
jingle all the way

Santa Claus
shuns Aqua Dots
but the elves just want to ra-ave

jingle bells
don't lick those bells
you don't know where they're made

the North Pole is
a snowy fake
'tis a factory in Shenyang

any filmmakers out there?

showing your worst side
it's time for road rage rehab
challenge the devil

OK all you filmmakers out there, I have something for you. All I want in return is a "story by" credit, 5% of all merchandise, and a link to your finished product on youtube.

Here's what you need to do:

Find a bunch of people and line them up, single-file. Maybe they're in line for coffee. Or maybe they're in line for the bathroom. Suddenly, a guy runs up from out of nowhere. He chooses a random place at the front of the line and squeezes himself in. The girl behind him is, understandably, all, "Dude? What the hell?" The guy turns around, his face wild. He flips her off with both hands and screams "FUCK YOU, BITCH!"

The screen goes black. Simple white letters form: "Thank goodness we don't buy coffee like we drive." Alternately, it can be all women in line, or all men in line and the statement can read "Thank goodness we don't pee like we drive."

Use your creativity, filmmakers, to create other, similar scenes. Take people out of their cars, but continue to direct them to do the dumbass things they do when driving. Have a young man run up behind a slow-walking grandma with a cane. Have him get right up on her heels, stepping on her feet, breathing down her neck, dodging his head from one side of her to another. Have him yell, "COME ON, GRANDMA! GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR!"

Maybe if people can see how rude their actions are in a different context they'll try to be nicer when they drive. Or not. At least the rest of us will have something to shake our heads at. A rueful laugh can be fun sometimes.

dinosaurs are cool

big teeth, scales, feathers
not just Halloween costume
or picture of Cher

Hey, so it turns out Newt Gingrich is a big paleontology nerd. I'm really bummed I didn't know about his talk in Austin yesterday. I would have totally tried to sneak in (which would have been incredibly stealthy as I lugged a chattering 15-month-old, her bag of necessary crap, a sippy cup that would have been repeatedly thrown at people, and possibly a smelly stroller into the conference room. No one would have ever guessed I didn't belong).

I never really thought I'd have anything in common with Newt, other than the fact that we both know people in Marietta, Georgia. But we're both geeks for bones, so there you go.

I've always thought that when I retire I will split my time between being a volunteer lactation consultant and a person who takes those extended working vacations as an amateur paleontologist (or archaeologist). I can write books while I'm on airplanes and/or while I'm waiting for babies to learn the proper way to latch. I have it all planned out.

Except for the part where I have something in common with Newt. Whod've thunk it?

Hello, evening

I'm on the sofa, listening to the Foo Fighters (or as we like to call them, The Footers), waiting for the wee-er one to fall asleep. The wee one is in the shower with his daddy, fighting off a 102 degree temp.

It's a quiet moment for me, at the end of a kind of crazy day. The day could have certainly been worse, but it's nice to sit here. Initially, i thought I'd do some writing... finally finish up The Book That Will Never Stop Sucking. But I don't want to have to use my brain. Just some mindless writing sounds like fun, and so, thank you Blog.

Just a little while ago I administered some Tylenol to the wee one, and his hand shook as he took the measuring spoon from me. His pale face, his burning cheek, that shaky hand... it made me teary. He was so full of energy this afternoon and then BAM, he fell asleep at 4, woke up at 5 with a burning temp, and all that energy was just sucked right out of him.

We're so lucky that he isn't a sickly kid. I can count on one hand the number of times he's truly been sick enough to not want to leave the couch or his bed. So the fact that he turned down Jello and curled up on my lap when I sat next to him on the sofa tells me he's feeling pretty darn shitty right now. Poor guy.

Anybody watch Farscape? You know how Zhaan can channel the pain of another living being, to help them survive? I wish I could do the Zhaan thing - put my hand on his fiery forehead and suck that shitty feeling right out of him. Even if I have to be a bald, blue alien to do it.

I guess now we wait. We see how he does tonight and how he feels in the morning. I say a little prayer that the rest of us somehow miraculously avoid falling ill. I have a cookie. I go to bed.

Dare I?

threatened a boycott
come on, who am I kidding
nothing will stop me

Even Ryan Seacrest cannot tear me away from what is sure to be the trainwreck of all trainwrecks - this year's Emmy's. With no acting nominations for Deadwood, the Wire, or Battlestar Galactica, it's kind of pointless to even watch. (At least BSG got a directing and writing nom.)

However.

My Tina Fey girl crush requires me to watch, as does my love of Weeds and my love of the character Joy on My Name is Earl. So I'll watch like I always do, I'll be disappointed as I always am, and then I'll promptly forget everyone who won while I wait for the next awards show.

I have a bad habit of liveblogging these things (and other things, and even more other things), so stay tuned. I make no promises, what with the wee-er one being ornery about sleep and this being a school night and all, but I might just make an attempt. I also might just make that attempt while drinking a margarita.

You have been warned.

I have not forsaken you

lingering sweetness
cinnamon blobs of grit - yum
you make me love you

Normally I only eat chocolate for dessert. And I eat it unmussed. Do not put fruit in my chocolate. Do not put mints in my chocolate. Chocolate chips in my chocolate? OK. Chocolate sauce on my chocolate? OK. Nuts in my chocolate? Are they chocolate-covered nuts? Then OK.

But last night I went out on a limb. Something inside me went a little haywire and instead of Ben & Jerry's Brownie Batter ice cream (or possibly Phish Food) I grabbed a pint of the new Cinnamon Buns flavor. Crazy, right?

Well, let me tell you. I didn't want to brush my teeth last night because I was sad to think the cinnamon-y sweet goodness in my mouth would be erased by evil Sonicare machinations. The lingering grit of the cinnamon-caramel streusel allowed my tongue to search out leftover pockets of crunch for several minutes after I'd finished my ice cream. Mmmm.

Oh lordy, that stuff was divine. Caramel ice cream, cookie dough sized chunks of gritty cinnamon bun dough, a swirl of cinnamon caramel streusel. I get a little shiver just thinking of it.

I have not forsaken chocolate, but I'm taking my first vacation from it. Thank-you Ben & Jerry's for broadening my horizons (and my hips).

Swak.

Let's write a story...

OK. I'm going to start a story, and then you all can keep it going as long as you want. Just make sure that you leave an open ending to your part so that someone else can jump in next...

Ready?

***

Once upon a time there was a boy named Sue. As you can imagine, he wasn't happy to have a girl's name, even though his dad assured him that many famous - and manly - men had girl's names. Like Babe Ruth and Leslie Neilsen. Sue wasn't buying it, though, even with the song that dude who was named after money sang.

One day, Sue was trying to figure out how to change his name by adding another letter to it. Maybe he could be "Sued." That sounded threatening. Or maybe "Suez" - that one was exotic! Sue was busily writing down all of his ideas when he suddenly heard a weird buzzy/flappy noise. He looked to the sky and...

well, now my ass is chapped

it's too bad that boobs
somehow make me invalid
you hillbilly prick

I am not amused. Maybe the dumbass just picked the wrong couple of days to mess with me. Or maybe this is something that would bother me even it wasn't 95 degrees sprinkled with humidity and hormones. Whatever.

So we bought a new house a few months ago, and as it settles and we settle, things get noticed. These are things that fall under our warranty; things we want fixed. For example, the air conditioner dampener was installed backwards so our system keeps seizing up and we have to go without cool air for a day until the dude can come half-ass fix it because he doesn't have what he needs to replace the dampener. This is something I would like fixed. Pronto. And there are other things... a back door that sticks so that the wee one can't open it to get in and thus screams like an axe murderer is after him until someone can open the door.

Etc.

My husband and I sat together the other night and used up valuable, precious alone time to fill out our warranty request. We emailed it off and waited for someone to call to schedule the fixes. Simple enough.

So the guy calls at like 2 in the afternoon and asks to speak to my husband. I reply that my husband isn't at home, he's at work, but I'd be happy to talk about scheduling a time.

"Oh, no, ma'am, I have to talk to your husband to schedule a time."

"Why?"

"I need to find out the best time to come do a walk-through to see if your requests are warrantable."

"Well, I'm the one who's here all day, so you're going to need to schedule that visit with me."

"Well, ma'am I really need to schedule it with your husband."

[this is when I start getting testy. Because, really, WTF?]

"Oh, OK, do you do walk-throughs before 7am or after 7pm? Because that's when he's here typically."

"It's going to have to be sometime Thursday, in the afternoon, before 5."

(again, WTF, asshole? If you ALREADY KNOW what time you have to come, why are you giving me shit?)

"Well, sir. You're going to have to make that appointment with me. I'm the one who's here. I'm the one who can pencil you in between meals and naptimes."

***long pause***

"How does 1:30 on Thursday sound?"

"Terrific."

[end of phone call]

And then, THEN, the guy shows up yesterday, rings the doorbell, shakes my hand and says skeptically, "So you're the one I'll be dealing with today?"

Oh my fucking god. Because I am a woman, a *gasp* mom who stays home, I am incapable of discussing a broken air conditioner and a sticky back door? It took everything in me to stop myself from apologizing for my boobs and lack of external genitalia. I wish I had, though, just to see the mortified expression on the guy's face.

The kicker to this whole story, though? My husband came home for lunch a few minutes after the asshole got here, so he ended up being the point of contact ANYWAY. And now the asshole is calling my husband to schedule maintenance visits and my husband has to call me to verify the times and I have to say, "no, that's a shitty time" and my husband has to call the guy back and on and on and on. Because a vagina makes it impossible for me to talk to this guy on the phone and schedule a visit from the fucking painters.

It's lucky I'm so lazy or else I'd kick this chauvinist dumbass right in his chauvinist scrotum.

Why do simple things have to be so difficult?

$&*!#@

I pine for your suck
where art thou, fancy vacuum?
the stairs, they need you

I was sitting here, trying to think of something witty to blog about, but really I'm just very grouchy. I don't know why, but I suspect it has something to do with not leaving the house all week and yet still having piles of crap everywhere.

There's some kind of snowball effect of not leaving the house, of having no playdates, of too much TV, and not enough groceries. Instead of snapping to it and cleaning the kitchen, washing some laundry, making a few beds, basically prettying up the place a bit, I just stare at it all and try to wish it away.

I sit at the kitchen table and grouse about too salty pumpkin seeds and no brownies. I sit in the living room and grimace at the filthy carpet. I lay on my bed and close my eyes so I don't have to stare a piles of dirty clothes. I go online and buy a vacuum but make no note of when it will be shipped.

Why not get off my ass, then, and take care of some of this? I have no answer. I know I'll feel better if the house looks better. But right now it's oppressive. And the more suffocated I feel by all of the crap, the more I want to just sleep all day and forget about it. It's much like the extreme heat effect you get out here in Texas. When you step outside and it's 95 or 100 degrees, you feel the air being sucked out of your lungs; you feel the heat burn your eyeballs; your body's physical response is to curl up in a ball and lay down and wait for everything to cool off. This is how I feel in my house. Not hot, but suffocated.

I know the wee one isn't very happy with me, either. Because of his weird vomiting spell earlier in the week, I've canceled the playdates we set up. I just want to make sure there's nothing festering before we slobber all over other kids, you know? But this means we've had SO MANY DAYS of not playing with other kids. That leaves me and the wee-er one as play mates for the wee one. Neither one of us appreciate wrestling, and I can only play pirates for so many hours before I want to become one myself and ship off, alone, for uncharted islands.

Next week the wee one has a half-day camp every day. I hope he likes it, but I'm afraid he's going to be so excited to play with other kids his giant head will explode. Fingers crossed that doesn't happen. And fingers crossed that the wee-er one's four lateral incisors FINALLY come all the way in so that she will fucking sleep. Oh my God I am so tired of waking up every hour all night long and then being up for good at 6am.

Man, I have to shake this funk. I guess the best way to do it is to clean house and then get the hell out of it for a while. Can't write a book while I'm grouchy. Well, I could write a grouchy book, but that's not what I have to work on right now.

Hmph.

Oh, here's one good thing - The Loop is returning to Fox on Sunday. Crapsnackers, that's exciting!

I am like sponegbob under a heat lamp

parched, dry hills and plains
landscape is also itchy
tableau of dry skin

I was reading some snarky magazine article the other day and the writer insulted someone by calling her "moisturizer challenged."

Huh.

I can't help but be insulted by this because I am always and constantly and forever and non-stop scritch-scritch-scritching away at my dry skin. I mean, when I walk down the street I don't think I'm some disfigured piece of parchment breaking off clumps of appendages when the wind hits me right, but my skin is dry and I don't do a very good job of keeping up with my Aveeno regime.

But "moisturizer challenged"? What does this bit of snark mean? Aging before your time? An unfortunate bearer of premature old lady hands? I just don't know how someone could look at someone else and judge them by their moisturizer use. And I don't mean that like "I don't HOW they could DO that!" I mean it like, for real, how can you even tell?

It's just one more thing I have to keep up with, isn't it? Height challenged, perky boobies challenged, patience challenged, and now moisturizer challenged?

It's a creative insult, though, and would require a bit of thinking before you can employ it. So just for the, uh, challenge of it, I think I'll add this insult to the repertoire of things i shout at people when I'm driving. Instead of just hollering, "You dumbass nut sucker!" I will glance out the window, assess the rickety-ness of said driver's appearance and then I will let loose. "You moisturizer challenged ass clown, get out of my way!

I dig it.

random thoughts

safety and TV
guns are bad, widescreens are good
incongruent thoughts

Because I need to choose paint colors and ceiling fans and a place for my vegetable garden and a place for my sofa, I have instead spent the day shopping for a new television set. Well, I've been price-comparing online, but that counts as shopping, sort of.

There are many, many things that need to be done in the new house, but instead of worrying about those things, our world fell apart as we discovered the TiVo was broken. I know I've talked about this already, I'm just emphasizing how devastating it truly was.

This weekend, we immediately bought a new TiVo, and now we're thinking of making the formal living/dining area our family room, and turning the family room into my study. The only hitch is that there's no cable connection in the formal living/dining area, so we'll have to get someone to come hack a hole in the wall and put one in. Once the cable actually works. Which it doesn't. Though I'm still, apparently, paying for it. This is just one reason why I don't really want cable.

Obviously, this is a stupid thing to be spending all my time on. Though, I learned an important lesson today, and that is: sometimes you want your cable to work regardless of what room it's in or how much you're paying for it.

My mom called and the conversation began like this:

"What are you doing today? I was at a shooting."

"You were at a shindig?"

"A shooting! A shooting! At CNN headquarters. Turn on CNN."

"WHAT?! I can't turn it on. I'm in the car. Plus, my cable doesn't work. Well, I don't have cable in my car, I mean my cable at home doesn't work. Did you say shooting?"

Holy crap. Here I am, grouchy about driving the wee one half way across the world to school and back, grouchy that I can't seem to find a kick ass 40" LCD flat screen for the amount of money I want to pay (nothing), and come to find out, while I'm wallowing in all sorts of dumb and selfish things (because I'm procrastinating other more important selfish things), my mother is running for her life through downtown Atlanta.

She's fine and her fight-or-flight instinct kicked in after she heard the second gun shot. I told her at least she knows now that her impulse at the onset of mortal danger is to run the hell out the first door. Some people might drop where they are or hide in a corner. She just booked it out of there. So even though the day was scary, at least she knows something new about herself. That's kind of cool, right? Right?

And my dad... he works across the street at the newspaper. So while mom was wandering around CNN, trying to avoid deadly domestic disputes, he was in a meeting that got interrupted when the newsroom heard of the chaos across the street. He checked his cell phone - two breathless messages he couldn't hear over the sirens of police and ambulances. Can you imagine THAT feeling? You're meeting your wife for lunch. You hear there's been a shooting at the place you were meeting her. Your voice mail produces a series of unintelligible messages of heavy breathing and sirens, and you're watching the whole scene unfold before you.

I just got off the phone with them and they're pretty freaked out, understandably. And as I always do, I've turned this around to be about me. Worrying about drive times and TVs is kind of moronic, isn't it, when your family is in peril? In fact, it's moronic to worry about at most any time. That doesn't mean I'll stop worrying about it, but at least I've been reminded to chill the hell out about stupid things. Those kinds of reminders are important. Though it would be nice if they didn't have to come from these kinds of crazy ass dramatic situations. Damn.

Boo!

best thing bout new house
carpet, walls, floors - they're all clean
well, for a minute

We're in the new house! We're almost all unpacked! All of my furniture looks woefully crappy! Yay!

Having both closings on the same day went as smoothly as it could. There was only one small hiccup with a non-faxed HUD settlement statement, but my Realtor kicked some butt and literally took some names and all was sorted out.

Our three days of homelessness were enjoyed playing the wii at my sister-in-law's house. When everything finally arrived at the new place on Wednesday morning, the movers broke a tiny part off of my TV and only bashed in one wall, so I'm calling it a success. With the piles and piles of stuff they were moving and the stoned giggles emanating from their grills, I think the damage report could have been much worse. Those guys were sort of fun in a "holy crap be careful with my stuff" kind of way. It almost made me wish I was a mover. Almost.

Right now our only major crisis (other than me deciding to keep driving the wee one to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays thus necessitating FOUR HOURS in the car for me. Bad idea. I'm totally gonna reneg on my promise, I think) is that the TiVo has decided to crap out. (Disaster!) So now our most important decision of the day is, do we get a new TiVo or go with the Time Warner DVR? I'm wont to go with TiVo because TiVo is incredibly cool, and there are all kinds of extras that the regular DVR doesn't have (Season Passes, Amazon UnBox, and lots of other stuff). However, the DVR is only $6 a month or something.

I still have boxes to unpack, a school to call, floors to vacuum (I already miss my fake wood floors. I'm going to have to have a bake sale or something so I can put in some floors), a baby to feed, a book to finish, a never-ending list of to dos, but right now my only concern is the TiVo. Ha.

As a fun side note, during the move the wee-er one learned to clap. Every time someone would walk in the room or make a loud noise or rip open a box she would look startled for a second and then clap as if we were the London Philharmonic finishing up a spectacular concert. It was hilarious and wonderful.

The wee one taught himself how to land on his feet after jumping to the ground from six stairs up. Not quite so cute and heart-warming, but a talent we all need, I guess.

I am SO GLAD this move is over. I will end this post with unsolicited advice:

Putting your house on the market, cleaning it, staging it, selling it to people who will surprise you by going psycho five days before closing and back out on their leaseback agreement forcing you to move out and live with your relatives for three days, finding a new place, moving out, and moving into the new place ALL IN FOUR WEEKS is way too stressful. If you don't have to do it that quickly, don't. I have a new gray streak in my hair from all of this. At least it looks cool. (Well, I'm pretending that it does.)

I have to go call the TiVo people now, well, after I reassemble the wee one from yet another brusing jump off the stairs. Sigh. Have a good Friday

A funny thing happened on the way to the grocery store

sentimental-ness
not just a packrat of stuff
but memories, too

Well, this was bound to happen. I'm starting to get a little mushy about this moving thing. It's amazing how keeping your house uncluttered and spotless makes you actually enjoy living in it. And though my house is tiny and I don't fit in very well in my conservative-nascar neighborhood, I really do love my abode. I love how we've painted the walls. I love the funky light fixtures it took us so long to find and buy. I love the ginormous backyard that gives full sun to my sort-of-successful vegetable garden. I love that my back porch has a ceiling fan, so I can sit out there and stare at the trees and almost avoid completely melting in the summer. I love that we live on a cul-de-sac and that the wee one has friends he can play with. I love that we have a new HEB Plus where I can buy hippie food without having to drive 40 minutes into town.

However.

I also love that we are moving. I love that the new house is so close to downtown that my husband's commute will be cut by a HUGE amount. I love that I'll be able to buy hippie food at any fancy grocery store I want, because they'll all be so close to us. I love that we'll be able to eat out at non-chain restaurants. I love that we'll be able to go to museums and the Capitol and UT without having to pack the car as if we were driving on a cross country adventure. I love that we'll be closer to friends and family and that we'll be less isolated.

I look around this morning and I can feel how the burbs are just jumping with growth. The house that we're in right now is very close to a new toll road that just opened. There are plans for a huge water park and skate park and commuter train - all to be built within just a few miles of this place. Movie theaters, Targets, more new homes, a hospital - so many things are under construction out here. I almost feel like a fool to be moving away from all of it.

You know what, though? I'll be more than happy to drive to the water park or skate park or whatever, more so than I would be to have to drive that same distance to get to a decent breakfast taco or visit a university library.

So I'm sentimental, but happy. I'm doubting, and yet as sure as I'm going to be. And even with all of the conflicting feelings I have, I can say with 100% confidence that I love the city of Austin. I love the people, I love the culture, I love the size, I love how the city looks, I love the weather, I love the vibe of this town. I feel so fortunate to live here and to be able to raise my kids here. Sure it's not perfect, but that's another reason why I love it so. I feel affectionate towards the imperfections of my town; those moles and warts make it great.

Watch out, mole-y, wart-y, beautiful, funky, taco-y, vibrant, lovely, traffic-y, suburban-lite south Austin. Here I come (as long as all the contracts go through).

I was just thinking

procrastination
there'd be no blogs without it
unless blog was job

Worst. Haiku. Ever.

So I'm sitting here and there are at least 40,000 things I should be doing, but instead I'm thinking about a question the wee one asked me.

"What are you scared of?"

Here's a list of things I'm scared of, in no particular order:

1) people flying while standing up straight, like in the Buffy episode "Hush"
2) the idea that a statue might come to life while I'm looking at it
3) pictures of the ginormous part of an iceberg that's underwater
4) snakes
5) dead birds and most alive ones, too

I want to blog but I only have boring things to talk about

I am a writer
stringing nouns, verbs, adjectives
that's my compulsion

Well, I have nothing new or interesting to say today but because I can't stand not writing, I'm just going to bore you with my repetitive blah blah blah-ing.

The house is not de-cluttered yet. This should come as no surprise. However, it seems to be gradually getting cleaner, so even though I'm afraid of jinxing everything I'll say: We're Making Progress. Huzzah!

On the Not Making Progress front, the wee-er one still isn't sleeping. So I'm taking her to the doctor today. It will cost me $30 and we'll all probably catch the flu, but I need some kind of professional healer to tell me that it isn't normal for a seven-month-old to nearly completely stop sleeping. I need this same professional to offer me solutions. I'm pretty sure the doctor is going to say that she's (the wee-er one, not the doctor) teething and going through a developmental burst and that's that. But because I'm desperate and tired, maybe hearing this from a doctor will make me feel better and thus I'll be able to make the wee-er one feel better. Or something. She's just so happy and cheerful in the day time (for the most part.) I don't know what gives. She's a superhero, I guess. Super Baby SleepSucks. That works on so many levels.

On the Also Not Making Progress front: my new book. A book I've been writing for over a year now... I CANNOT FINISH IT. I know how I want to end it. I know what should happen. I know the characters, I have the voices and tone down. I love how everything sounds so far, and I think that what I have can easily be edited and whittled down and second and third-drafted into an awesome book. I just have to actually finish it. Having some time and some sleep would help, but even when I do have time and sleep I'm pretty much stuck.  I'm very irritated by this, because when I write, I'm happy. When I write, all is well with the world. When I write, I feel great. And when I don't write I feel tired and dumpy and boring.

Speaking of booooooooring, I'm going to stop writing this now, lest you fall asleep at your computer, spill your coffee on the keyboard, and electrocute yourself. That would be bad and I would want to deny responsibility even though it would be all my fault.

Live-blogging the Golden Globes

I totally don't have time to do this, but what the hell. We'll see how far I can get before bath times and bed times and a husband anxious to watch 24 interfere with my sad attempts to be funny.

7:10: I'm late starting this, but one note on the previous ten minutes... Justin Timberlake is funny! Who knew?

7:12: Jeremy Irons looks like hell. Maybe it's because he's been stabbed a billion times - that's what his vest looks like anyway.

7:15: Edie Falco is so bronzed and skinny she has scared me into forgetting about my girl crush on Tina Fey (ignoring Tina Fey's triangular dress and extra-cleavage, which are both freaking me out). Perhaps Jeremy Irons and Edie Falco were shooting some heroin before the show? Damn.

7:20: I'm pretty sure Kyra Sedgewick ran all the way from her house to the ceremony, or else she and The Bacon were getting it on under the table, cause she is sweat-TAY and way more out of breath than one needs to be when accepting an award. Oh, who am I to talk, though? My armpits are like little faucets when I get nervous. Or hot. Or when I win awards from the Leander Foreign Press.

7:26: You know how it's fashionable to wear those little shrug sweaters right now? The Hollywood Foreign Press dude is wearing on of those on his head.

7:30: "Thank you so much, I'm going to get off" says Emily Blunt, but I'm pretty sure that was Kyra Sedgewick's line.

7:33: The background behind Hugh Laurie looks like the readout from a crazy military heat signature device.

7:39: BREAKING NEWS, no school in Austin tomorrow. Or Eanes. Or other places I didn't hear. This means no pre-school either. Hooray! And by "hooray!" I mean "Oh crap!"

7:46: Of course Meryl Streep wins! She is the epitome of everything that is awesome or funny or cool or talented. Also, I wish I could wear glasses like that.

7:56: How did I not know that Sascha Baron Cohen is hott?

7:59: Annette Bening is totally one of those people who's all, "Oh stop it, you, I'm not as beautiful/talented/skinny as you say!*giggle*" And then when you stop saying it, she gives you devil eyes until you start complimenting her again.

8:01: The wee one just told me that frogs have suction cups on their hands. Indeed. Also, Eddie murphy won for Dreamgirls. Why didn't he give his speech as Donkey? Sure that wouldn't really make sense, but it would be funny.

8:04: See? Prince is totally there. He's just so tiny no one could see him coming to the stage to get his award. That's OK, though, because it gave J. Tim a chance to show me that he's funny. And that the sexy he brought back must not include his hair.

8:10: Speaking of girl crushes... Agent Scully is still so cute, even though she isn't Agent Scully anymore and she's a Real Actress now. And this is neither here nor there, but don't you think Gillian Anderson has the tiniest little teeth you've ever seen? I bet she uses kid-sized toothbrushes and saves lots of money on toothpaste.

8:17: You know how 7-year-old girls like to try to do their own make-up for dance recitals? Well, someone let one of those girls loose on Cameron Diaz's face.

8:21: Please have Alec Baldwin win!

8:22: YES. He makes me chortle every week. Here's to chortling and to funny Alec. I lift my Ozarka to you.

8:26: Donald Trump is such a skeez.

8:30: When is the second season of Weeds going to be downloadable or Netflixable? I LOVED the first season. "Little boxes on the hillside..."

8:33: I really enjoy Ugly Betty, so yay for them! And I love that that dude just said he loves his mama.

8:36: Do you think filmmakers from other countries get pissed when American films are nominated for Best Foreign Language film? I mean, bully for Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg and everyone for making a movie about Iwo Jima, but it seems like there's a director in another country feeling gypped.

8:41: just so you know, I'm going to stop live blogging at 9, in order to watch 24 and preserve my marriage. But I'll tivo the rest of the awards and blog about them later tonight.

8:45: Those weird set pieces look like giant lobster claws.

8:49: Yay America Ferrerra! I'm sorry I just spelled your name wrong. Aw, she's weepeing before even getting to the stage. Her dress is a lovely shade of blue, by the way. Annette Bening just looked at her like, "Bitch, why haven't you told me how talented and beautiful I am? Why didn't I win this award?" Then someone whispers to her she wasn't nominated in the category.

SO MANY COMMERCIALS

8:59: I don't want to think of Warren Beatty's balls, Tom Hanks. No. No. No. No. No.

9:05: Well, during the Warren Beatty tribute I have grown a beard and aged 30 years and not thought about what balls he has. 

And now I must take a break to watch Keifer kick some ass. But I'll be back later with some "live" blogging of the rest of the festivities. Unless the ice storm kills my internet connection. Then I will be sad. And also probably cold.

10:45AM, Tuesday: I just TiVo'd my way through the last of the awards while the wee-er one hollered and the wee one kept saying over and over again, "why was it Chewie's tummy that got everyone caught in the net? Why? Why was it Chewie's tummy that got everyone caught in the net?" So forgive me for being brief. I just want to say that I haven't seen Borat yet, and I've already commented on how surprising hot Sascha Baron Cohen is, but seriously? He's smokin' and I'm a little afriad to see the movie now that he's so explicitly described the face-in-taint scene, but I think I'll see it anyway.

Also, I was hoping Heroes would sneak in and swipe the GG away from Grey's. Not because I don't like Grey's, because I do, but because Heroes is so fun and new and quasi-geeky.  Alas. I'm happy for Shonda Rhimes, though. She's fabulous.

There's more to talk about, but of course the wee one is now chasing the dog and trying to beat on him with Matchbox tracks so I have to go save a life and threaten another. I'm like Jack Bauer, only with cramps and a teething baby!

There's a chance of maybe possibly ice or possibly sleet or maybe just rain or hell no one really knows

Here's my prediction of what the news is going to be like for the next three days as the possibility of an ice storm looms:

"It's The Possible Ice Storm of 2007" [ominous music plays] We're bringing you live coverage from across the city, with four reporters on location all across town. Let's go to Bill for more..."

"Bill here and WOW is it raining."

"We've heard there's ice and snow and road closures, Bill. Is this true?"

"Well, no, not really. Mostly it's raining. And really wet. And there is this low water crossing that closed earlier. It's reopened now, though. *cough* Back to you in the studio."

"Thanks Bill. Now let's talk to Melissa."

"Hi. This is Melisa McFancyPants and I'm standing here staring at a creek. It's got a lot of water in it. Also, it's raining."

"Thanks Melissa. Can you tell me if the reports of tornadoes and thunder snow and downed power lines are true?"

"I haven't heard anything about any of that, but I can tell it's raining, because my hair is wet. It's raining kind of hard, too. Plus, the creek is really wet and stuff is floating in it."

"As you can see folks, the threat of dangerous inclement weather is increasing exponentially as the afternoon approaches. Let's talk to Sally downtown."

"Hi there. It's really raining out here. People are wet and cold. Brrr."

"What about the reports of looting and traffic signals flashing red?"

"I haven't seen any of that. But I'll keep you posted on any cold or rain-related rioting that might occur."

"Let's take a quick look at the radar here... HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! The rain! The cold! The slight possibility of ice! This is a very serious situation, folks. Very serious. Let's check in with Donald who has heard a rumor of some sleet occurring in Dallas, which is a mere 250 miles away!"

Aaaaand scene.

Ah, I love the weather hysteria we get around here. It's so fun to watch. The meteorologists have busted into Saturday morning cartoons about 14 times this morning. Right now they're at a fairly controlled level of near panic over the rain and cold. I'm getting some popcorn ready for when it really starts to get icy. It's gonna be fun times watching the TV news media dissolve into screaming hysterics as the temperatures drop. Heh. Ice is fun in Texas.

Is life better with a boat?

time for the boat show
should be "friend with a boat" show
cause who needs a boat?

There's a commercial running right now that ends with the tag line, "Because life in Austin is better with a boat." Here's what I think it should really say:

"Because life in Austin is better when you have a friend with a boat."

"Or wait, life in Austin is better when you have a friend with a boat and a bowl of guacamole and some beers and a way to get you a day off."

"Hang on, life in Austin is better when you have a boat that will take your kids out on the lake and use its artificially intelligent brain to feed them, entertain them, and change some diapers while you sleep in the sun."

"No really, life in Austin is better with a boat - a boat that can do your taxes."

"On second thought, life in Austin is better with a boat-load of money so you can buy one of those cute little houses downtown that make it look like you don't really have a lot of money and are a "salt of the earth" type person."

"I know! Life in Austin is better when you have a boat that can figure out how to get you to the breakfast taco place without having to sit in traffic."

"Life in Austin is better with a boat, especially if that boat can breastfeed your baby at 3 am and then clean your kitchen."

Where's my damn rocket pack?

soundproof children's tank
and more computers than books
a new library

The tinys and I took a trip to our brand spankin' new community library yesterday and y'all... it is swank. There are only about four books in the whole thing, but it's swank anyway. Of course, I could do with a little less fancy and a lot more books, but it was still fun to walk around.

You have to understand, though, that when I'm talking about fancy I mean it's upgraded from the 20x15 trailer that used to be the library. So, pretty much, having four walls that can withstand a stiff breeze is high falutin'. That and we have four books now instead of two.

Anyway, the kids' area is completely surrounded in glass and has its own family bathroom. It also has a glass room inside the glass room for story time. This is a library all about silence, I think. Or else they're planning for some kind of Bruce Willis movie to be filmed there where multiple people get thrown through multiple plate glass windows. Hollywood movie scouts, take note!

Also fancy? The self-checkout. Yes, yes, I realize I haven't been a proponent of self-checkouts in the past, and I still don't much like them, but this one? Almost idiot-proof. Really! You scan your card, then you eye the weird pad on the checkout counter. You put your books on the pad. Then the computer somehow magically and creepily knows which books you have even if they are stacked on top of each other. You punch in your pin #, the computer spits out a receipt with all of your books listed and the dates they're due and voila. I still don't know if I like it or not (sue me for being old-school. I like to banter with the librarians about the books I'm checking out and the weather and how big the kids are getting) but it's efficient. Or it was yesterday when we were the only people there.

In conclusion, new pre-destroyed-by-Bruce-Willis library? Cool. Self-checkout? Cool (but not wholly approved of).

We truly live in the age of the Jetsons, don't we?

I've got yer shat-tastic right here

many adjectives
most do not contain word "shat"
does that make them lame?

I would like to preface this post by saying I have not seen William Shatner's new show on the TV. But I've seen the promos and they claim it's "shat-tastic!"

You wanna know what's really shat-tastic? Having your kiddo shout "I just had water poop!" from the bathroom.

Sigh. You can't spell awesome without "me."

Finally, a place to stick it

so much construction
my house vibrates constantly
not in a good way

The thing about living in an up and coming suburb is that the construction never ceases. The weird thing is that only three things are being built: houses, storage unit facilities, and banks. Me, I'd like a nice local restaurant I can get breakfast at on a Sunday. But unless Wells Fargo starts serving up grits and breakfast tacos I'm out of luck.

What is the deal with all of the banks and storage units? Suburbia is now home to hoarders? The houses being built are definitely big enough to hold reasonable amounts of furniture and crap. So what gives? Everyone needs an empty house for performing back-flips and somersaults? Couches have to be put in storage to make room for the ginormous television sets (that are bought with loans from the myriad banks)?

It's strange.

Perhaps everyone who lives in the burbs is in on the crystal meth bandwagon that seems to be all the rage in rural areas. As our cities encroach on the countryside, we not only displace deer and other wildlife, we - like the blob - gobble up everything else, too. This invites the once rural crystal meth kitchens into our now thriving communties of people who need to be bonkers just to make it through the day. I mean, I kind of get that. The commute into town is a friggin bitchapalooza of idiot drivers and roads that are too small for the exponential growth of the community. Why not rent out a storage facility to hide your drug making gear (and protect your leather set from The Roomstore), empty out your house of anything flammable, cook up some drugs, sell them, put your cash in several banks all within walking distance (so the giant cash deposits don't raise any suspicions), and live large in your new non-commuting, work-from-home, illegal, but satisfying life?

Seriously - that's the only reason I can think of for so many storage facilities and banks (and lunatic neighbors who use buzz saws at midnight). All of my neighbors are cooking up crystal meth and buying TVs that are bigger than mine, and doing back-flips to celebrate.

Suburbia rocks.

time to find the swiffer

haze of black and white
it's a very bad sign when
dog makes himself sneeze

There is so much dog hair on my floor right now, it looks like the floor is growing moustaches. Gross.

Vote now! Stick it to the mud!

the mean and nasties
not TV I want to watch
god bless the tivo

I've had an idea. I bet way more people would vote early if, when you vote early, you get a special code along with your "I voted" sticker. When you get home, you take your special code, punch it into your TV remote and voila! You no longer have to watch any of the political commercials. Once your code is entered, the commercials magically turn into pictures of wildflowers. Or porn. You could choose whichever you prefer.

Voter turnout would go through the roof!

I have nothing funny to say today

Except that I just remembered the first time I heard someone say they were going on a "toot" when they meant going out to get drunk. I still think that's hilarious.

I feel like I'm on a toot right now. It's a lack of sleep toot for me, though. I'm on an exhaustion toot. And also a water toot. And a corn dog toot. Can't get enough of them.

oh, baby... spinach

my lunch, it is back
smothered in dressing, croutons
leaving green in teeth

My rad husband picked up a couple bags of locally grown baby spinach today, thus ending The Time With No Spinach.

It was a dark time; a time of too many chips and salsa lunches; a time of "eh, I guess this Little Debbie roll of chocolate covered chemicals is OK for lunch." So I rejoice. Well, I'm still eating the little Debbie Preservative Rolls, but at least I can balance them out with , like, 8,000% of my daily vitamin K.

I'm so happy to have my spinach back. And I'm happy it was only 65 degrees today. And I'm happy the Longhorns managed to beat Nebraska. And I'm happy I had for-real fatback to cook in my 15 bean soup. (Again, fatback/spinach gives my diet a little balance. I think.)

Yay for fresh food. Yay for cool weather. Yay for football.

 

Happy Sunday, all.

hollaback

it is driving me
b-a-n-a-n-a-s
this song in my head

Gwen Stefani gets myriad props for trying to be the new Madonna, not freaking out when her husband found out he had a kid, looking non-shlubby while being very publicly pregnant, and for Spiderwebs, a song that the wee one adored when he was like 8 months old (and tring to dance even before he walked).

But, dammit, Gwen, I can't take hollaback girl anymore. I know it's not a new song, but it's new to me. Except that it's not. Because it's been in my head for 'round about 48 hours now. It's driving me b-a-n-a-n-a-s, Gwen.

Please.

Make it stop.

a little retail therapy

way too much money
and yet spending it feels good
when it's spent on me

In celebration of the rest of the week being canceled, I went out with a friend last night and spent a kajillion dollars on books.

A quick rundown:

Spook, by Mary Roach
The Sea of Monsters, by Rick Riordan
Peter and the Starcatchers, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
The 9/11 Report, A Graphic Adaptation, by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon
Here Be Monsters, by Alan Snow
Pride of Baghdad, by Brian K. Vaughn, art by Nico Henrichon

It felt a little wrong to only buy things for myself, considering I've been mostly a bystander/nurse/911 caller/drama queen for the week, but maybe the wee one will get a trip to Sea World soon.

I briefly debated buying a tank of gas, a ticket to the TX-OU game and a breast pump, but I decided books would be better than running away. Hopefully.

the Roomba discussion

you too can be them
it is era of Jetson's
robots for housework!

There is discussion around the haiku of the day household about maybe buying ourselves a robot to do the damned vacuuming. No one else will do it because our current vacuum a) doesn't work and b) is very, very smelly.

So the plan is that the robot will force us to clean up the mess on the living room floor in the evenings. And when I say "force" I don't mean by threatening us with angry robot epithets, I mean we'll have to keep the place tidy or risk breaking our $200 robot vacuum cleaner when it attempts to suck up a lego or a sock.

The other part of the plan (once we humans have rid the floors of the larger debris) is to have the robot vacuum cleaner scoot around the house while we are all sleeping. Thus, we wake up to a dog hair-free living room, a crumb-free kitchen, and a cranky-free mama. Huzzah!

But can this fantasy come true? Will the robot vacuum live up to the hype? Is it worth $200? The wee one is already very disappointed that the robot vacuum is really just a small, circular device, and not - as he says - a real live robot, that will chase him and play hide and seek. Will I be equally crushed when it doesn't remove the hair and nastyass dog ear-droppings from the floor? Or will it be like the TiVo - a miraculous device that I would kiss over and over if it weren't for the fears of electrical shock?

Ah, Roomba. Is it meant to be? Or are you just a naughty temptress, beckoning me with your rumored sucking prowess?

Once you go robot do you ever go back?

We shall see....

She's eeeeevil

morons on parade
I would laugh at them if it
didn't make me sad

I saw a pick-up truck today with a bumper sticker that said, "I'll forgive Jane Fonda when the Jews forgive Hitler."

Right.

I totally forgot that Jane Fonda was guilty of performing medical experiments on live human subjects all while she systematically exterminated 6 million people. Man. What a bitch.

Hooray for bad language!

mcsweeney's: so cool
they let me say bad, bad words
so that you might laugh

My "essay" is up over at McSweeney's! It has terrible, terrible language, so beware. :)

A Overheard Conversation at the Neighborhood Pool, if the Neighborhood Pool were in Deadwood

Hee hee, I feel so naughty.

what's freaking him out?

medium of choice
we do so love our TV
even when it scares

I was reading on Surcie about the TV shows/commercials that scared her as a child, so I've been ruminating on what freaked my youngster shit.

Any Elvira-condoned movie with gigantic insects scared the crap out of me - giant spiders, giant ants, that kind of thing. And I did have many a Scooby-Do inspired nightmare. The thing that I remember most, though... the show that really stuck with me... was the 1982 movie The Electric Grandmother.

Anyone remember it? Maureen Stapleton was the grandmother and she arrived (and I believe was taken away) in a Egyptian-looking sarcophagus? She was bought to replace a dead mother (scary!) and she had to be plugged in at night in the basement (scary!) and I think one night the little girl went down to the basement and unplugged her (electric grandmothericide, scary!).

It was a fascinating movie with a frightening premise. I'd love to see it again, but it's not out. I guess I could buy a bootleg on Ebay...

Anyway, there are two reasons for this post:
1) I wonder what's traumatizing the wee one on TV unbeknownst to me (for a while there was a hot pink seal on Sesame Street that was causing some trouble)

and

2) Anyone else remember The Electric Grandmother? I know I didn't make it up, IMDB has my back.

It's a beautiful day for kicking some ass

too young for football?
indoctrination begins
burnt orange onesie

We're taking the kids down to the UT campus today. I know, we're crazy. But this mama has football fever something fierce right now, and the Texas vs. Ohio State game is the biggest game ever to be played in DKR Texas Memorial Stadium. How can I not go down to the Co-op bookstore today and buy the wee-er one her very first Longhorn paraphernalia?

I have such fond memories of going to Georgia Bulldawg games when I was a kiddo - and in fact I was at the 1980 game when Herschel Walker stomped all over Florida in Jacksonville. I was 4 and remember it vividly. My sister was 3 weeks old - and STILL not the younges