Brokenhearted

So, into day four of a non-sleeping cycle with ye childing. Not sure what's precipitating all this, but it is becoming a deadly sort of awfulness.

Ugh. I hope he knows that it hurts me much more than it hurts him. :(

Feast of Saints Peter and Paul

Or, as the lector at my home parish inevitably proclaimed each Sunday morning: "Saint Peters and Pauls!"

A high feast, a grand day. I remember pretty vividly the experience of the parish's 150th Anniversary celebration, complete with professional film crew documenting both the no-holds-barred Mass, as well as the following dinner at the downtown convention center. That was close to ten years ago, which shocks me silly. I'm getting so old!

Today holds no such fanfare for me. I'm off to Mass momentarily, then taking little spawn to the library to cycle through another dozen or so "Juvenile--Easy" books. Hopefully we'll meet Daddy somewhere in there, for lunch or a near approximation of it. I haven't left the house since 0930 on Sunday, and the time has simply come. Get out or else.

With Firm Purpose

So, I start classes a week from Monday, working toward a Master of Arts degree, in Military History.  Laugh if you must, snicker, giggle, guffaw.  Pick your verb.  To be honest, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure when I began the pre-preparation-process why it was I had chosen this particular type of degree, with this particular concentration.  However, a couple trials by fire have confirmed me in my purpose.  I’m going for it, I have good reason, and I wish myself well.

Also, when I finish this post I’m going to look at my options for changing the blog format a little.  I mean, this format is “me”, if you will, but perhaps it could be a little more, well, girly, and yet still be me.  Perhaps not.  We shall see.

More Webcam Fun

Please 'scuse my big old arm in the shot. You never know when some kind of dramatic happening will necessitate the ending of a recording in record-lightning-reflex time. Anyway. This is my son, enjoying the table. Really enjoying it.

Where else?

So, once a week I decide to put on makeup, usually for no good reason. I put on makeup for the days when it will rain, or on days when I'm going to be outside and getting all sweaty, or on days when V and I take three naps instead of one, so I have baggy mascara eyes by 11am.

Today is makeup day. I wasn't sure where to put the baby so I could keep an eye on him...

Happy Anniversary!

So, Spouse wanted special attention on the blog the other day, because he did something funny. I asked him if that was really the way he wanted my millions of faithful viewers to remember him, and he said yes. So, here goes.

He went to get a refill from the coffee pot (which was on the counter, where it belongs, full of hot coffee), and spent five minutes standing staring into the fridge, wonder why he couldn’t remember what it was he had gone in there to get. So, there we go. Moment of fame for my very special doofus, who has been married to me two whole years as of today, and has neither killed himself, myself, nor gone insane. Pretty impressive.

The Rant: Coda

Here’s the other thing about kids being picky.  It makes it especially hard on a child to be polite and accepting of new things when he is a guest if he has not been accustomed to accepting new things at home.  Don’t let me mislead you.  I hate turnips.  I hate hate HATE brussels sprouts.  (My computer does not know how to spell brussels.)  I strongly dislike beets, mushrooms are icky, green pepper unless carefully prepared makes everything else also taste like cooked pepper and thus icky, rye and pumpernickel bread and yuck, banana pudding tastes like, well, banana, but waaaaay too much of it.  Also I dislike sauerkraut.

There are foods I do not like.  There are foods I do not run around preparing and force-feeding to myself and my family just because “it’s good for them!”

But I also know for a fact that I disliked tomatoes, asparagus, shrimp, fish in any form, green beans, lima beans, tomato soup, sweet potatoes, and a host of other items.  I hated them then, I was made to eat them then, and now they are things that I like very much.  I really like them, I really eat them.  No forcing or unpleasantness involved.  However, if I had not been given them repeatedly, in various incarnations (my mother is not cruel, nor stupid) until one was found that we all thought more palatable than others, I would not want them now under any form.

For example.  My mother never tried to talk us into eating liver.  She never tried, we never tried, and if you tried to give me liver today I would spit it out on your Pier 1 plate and say, “Ugh!!  It’s disgusting! I can’t stand it!”

Zee Pampered Chef

I’m debating with myself.

Host a show.  Not host a show.  Host a show.

Do I really want to get in to this?  My friend has just started as a consultant, she does such a good job, I want to help her, I want discounted and free products.  But I hate inviting people to things.  It’s like, not my favorite thing.

Besides, my house/kitchen are set up very poorly for a cooking show.  Can one “host” a show at the consultant’s house and still be not tacky?  Probably not.

Maybe there is a show that doesn’t require the oven, or sink, or countertop.  Maybe they have a living room show.  The Pampered Couch.  The Pampered Remote.  There we go.

Nice Ascot

So, Toy Story 3 was pretty good.  Not the smash comeback that Toy Story 2 proved to be, but this final installation was in no way a disappointment.  The now-standard “go back and remember the child that once loved you” scene was gut wrenching, and I cried at one part near the end (nothing like I did with “Up!” though, geez…I bawled for like half the movie then) but all-in-all it was great.

Ken and Barbie.  HA!  Too funny.  The vintage (and 80s-90s, do those count as vintage?) toys that make appearances all through the film are really fun, too.  You really feel like the whole thing was just a waltz down memory lane for the animators.

Speaking of waltzing, my in-laws called me from inside “It’s A Small World After All” yesterday, to give me a thrill.  My father-in-law wants a t-shirt that says “I’ve been on It’s A Small World.  You can shoot me now.”

Finally, A Rant

Often, I think of something I want to post on, but Sheila beats me to it, or else she posts something different yet similar enough to dissuade me from my original idea.  This is, most likely, a service she is purposely rendering to humanity, and I accept.  Thank you, dear.  However, I’m really feeling derailed over her recent post on children and discipline, because that’s about all I’ve got in my head these last few days.

I shall take a little portion of the subject and whine until the baby gets tired of the cracker he is eating, at which point I will publish this post abruptly and without proofreading.  Sometime later, maybe tomorrow, I’ll come back to read it over and I’ll say, “Well, cuss.  That really doesn’t make any sense at all, and it certainly doesn’t say what I meant.”

And now, the rant.

WHY ARE KIDS TODAY ALLOWED TO BE SO EVER-LOVING PICKY???

I think that pretty much sums it up.  I realize that I, myself, me, personally, was brought up in the style of a slightly older generation.  Everyone, for example, that is my parent’s age grew up sitting at the table for several hours after mealtime (how come it was always the evening meal?) starting at a plate of cold-growing somethingorother and just knowing deep in their soul that “it” could never be stomached.  Everyone in the generation previous to that probably did so as well, and they were doing it in an age when sugar, butter, and meat were rationed.  My grandmother still thinks we are in that age.

I am, alas, too young for such things, but my parents were backward and uninformed and so raised us to clean the plate or else.  I have no problems with that method (I have not, in fact, since I was about 12) now, and I’m happy to report that I have never been to a home, a function, a party, a rave, or any other meal-type occasion away from my own kitchen where I refused food because I didn’t like it.  I like everything.  (Except Brussels sprouts, which are icky, but I would eat them with aplomb were they served to me in public.  But no one in public is dumb enough to serve clearly icky food.)  This paragraph reflects also the rearing of my non-blogging Local Friend Who Has Moved Away To Someplace Nice And Left Me Here.

Such was not the experience of many my age (including my husband), nor is it the experience of anyone I’ve been meeting lately who is under the age of eighteen.  I am not amused by a young someone being served food at my table and reflecting after the first bite, “Hmmm…not a total thumbs down, but I’m still really not liking it at all.”  I mean, yes, that’s hysterical, and honesty is a great virtue.  But that’s not nice.  It wouldn’t be nice for this same ten-year-old to say to me, “Hey, you’re pretty fat from having a baby, aren’t you?  Because I can see how your stomach is hanging over the top of your pants!”  That would be honest, but that would not be nice.  It would be rude.  In my old-fashioned and backward mind, it is also rude to make honest observations about one’s EXTREMELY NARROW food preferences in front of the person who is voluntarily sharing her time, her space, and her grocery budget with you—tell everyone about it on the ride home, kiddo.

Is this wrong of me?  Most of the people in my extended family think so.  My backward and old-fashioned mother agrees with me, of course, but she is backward and old-fashioned about this, remember, so she’s probably not a good backer as far as political clout is concerned.  I feel immensely justified in this miffedness.  Once before, the comment (from a considerably older child with equally narrow food preferences) was, “Ugh! It’s disgusting! I can’t stand it!!” and he spit out what had been in his mouth onto a plate.

In my house.  At my table.

Hell no.  (As St. Paul would say.)

That’s not cool, people.  I don’t like it.  It is rude.  When you are a guest, you are a guest and that’s final.  Whatever liberties you take at home might be liberties you take at home, but I have no use for such behavior from visitors.  Biblically, one would have given up one’s own bed, the best of the food, etc etc etc (Lot tried to give people his own daughters to save a guest from getting, well, rudely compromised, but that was going a bit far).  The guest is the greatest of blessings a house can receive, and guests who are mindful of that status should reflect their awareness by graciously accepting any proferred hospitality, or finding away to politely turn down a particular dish.  Coming into the kitchen, requesting a menu, then saying, “Oh, well, I’ll eat just the bread and salad.  I can’t stand lasagna!” isn’t really what I meant.

And for the record, the thumbs down was for macaroni and cheese.

Trouble Brewing

I was so excited and happy last week—at the prompting of my dear mommy, I finally went out and got a yard stand for my wind chimes.  We also got a couple bird feeders and a stand for them.

The trouble arises from the fact that, in addition to the natural fauna around this place, there is a decent-sized community of Base Cats.  The Base Cats are feral, numerous, and one of them has had babies in the woods behind my house.

And she wants the birds on the feeder…so bad.

But why?

Not sure why my spam commenters always have some sort of bizarre semi-platitude to post.  What happened to “Plz can u send me $50000 for my sistr can com here 2 the uniteds state?”

“Charisma without Competence leads but to the Grave”

Someone very wise said that to me.  I thought it was funny.

So, today is a busy and chore-filled day for me, at least until lunchtime.  Then the Great Family Influx begins sometime in the late afternoon.  We’ll have ten extra people hanging around by dinner.

Let the games begin.

Experiment

Just now, after what, three days?  Just not exploring more of the installed features on my new computer.  It seems that LiveMail (the new outlook express) won’t talk to free online mail services, so my dreams of consolidating all four (!) of my email addresses into a single host program are not to be realized.

However, as a consolation, the tool I’m using right now is a blog-writer-editor-thing that is (a) always signed in, and (b) runs straight off of my desktop instead of in the web browser.

Let’s take off our jacket and loafers, and put on our cardigan and slippers, and see if it works, shall we?

Stuck!

When my mom opened my front door yesterday afternoon, this silly little guy was hanging from the outside screen for dear life. We're not sure why, because no portion of his feet or beak was really "stuck" in the traditional sense, but he sure as heck thought he was one with the screen. There aren't, alas, any pictures of him before mom and I pried him loose. He flopped around for a little while, until his teeny tiny little, well, bird brain kicked in and he flew off.

Christmas

So, it has been a big week for the postal service and my household. I've been holding off blogging, even though myriad interesting and bizarre occurrences have occurred, because I was waiting for something.

My birthday present.

My precious.

The little laptop that Spouse promised I could get.

I ordered it late Saturday night, and the days just d-r-a-g-g-e-d on between then and this morning. This beautiful, sunny, muggy, perfect morning when the hunky and debonair (ok, not really, in fact the guy didn't even say hello and was kind of a twit and a little dumpy looking. love is blind.) FedEx man brought me a big brown box that had shipped from New Jersey. And in that box, that the green grass grew all around all around, was my laptop. And I liketh it so muchly.

Also this week, the baby's little wooden rosary came, and the netflix movie, and the baby's replacement doll-toy-thing because I lost the one he was given by his grandmother. The only thing Mr. Postman owes me now is the $50 Target card that I expected to have come a week ago. So there you have it.

I'm blogging from my own hardware again! Yay!

Tech Update

I discovered yesterday that V loves being carried around on my arm while I'm crawling--something like the Mommy Gorilla version of babywearing. I have christened this the (go figure) "Mommy Gorilla" and so far the novelty hasn't worn off for either of us. I will tell you, though, that the size ratio of real mommy gorilla-to-baby gorilla is not quite the same as mine-to-V. V will outgrow the Mommy Gorilla soonly.

Anyway. Mommy Gorilla fell asleep yesterday afternoon with the phone in her hand (not unusual), and her hand under her body (not unusual) and when she woke up, the cell phone did not (unusual). Sooo, Mommy Gorilla took the phone to the Verizon guy, who said, "Yep, it'll never wake up again." An hour (!) later, Mommy Gorilla had stolen Daddy's upgrade date (an interesting Verizon perk on family plans) and had herself a new phone with all the data from her old phone restored...except, alas Horatio, the Bejewelled Twist game. It could not be salvaged. My all-time score had to be well above 4,000,000,000. My level achieved was sixty-something, or Twistmaster Omega. I was rockin' that sucker, man.

Probably not a bad thing that I lost the game when the phone died. And there you have it. Awesomest feature discovered so far on the phone--the charging cable is simple a USB, which plugs into a USB port on an AC wall plug when you want to use it for actual charging. Otherwise, the phone speaketh freely to the computadora. Hurrah!

Left, or Something Like It

So, now I'm genuinely stumped with a couple of my students. Both of them, to one degree or another, are starting to have serious problems telling their right hand from their left. The first one I'm not as worried about, because he doesn't do it when he's relaxed. It seems like he gets stressed and defaults to playing with the right hand (or, if I ask him to move his left hand, he almost always moves his right hand). Not a huge worry.

This other one, though, the girl. So strange.

She will transpose a line of music (to the correct set of notes! this is what blows my teeny little mind!) from the left hand to the right hand, or from bass to treble clef if you prefer, and back without batting an eyelash. I cannot for the life or me figure out where this habit comes from. It is because they are used to using just one hand at a time for the duration of a piece? Am I making them that nervous?

Granted, she is coming to me from a couple of years' experience playing the clarinet (nothing else before that) so the concept of reading one line at a time is throwing her for a loop. Perhaps running back to a "single line" mentality is begetting this hand switching. The one-line thing is funny, too, by the way. Today she kept pausing in the oddest fashion, in strange places, and I finally stopped her and I'm like "Child, why are you stopping?" And she said, "I'm counting the rests!"

Sure enough, every time she got to the end of a line [in the treble clef] she went back to count out all the bass clef rests that had been going on during the right hand melody, as if each individual line of the grand staff were to be read like single-line band music.

I'm figuring it out. One half of my brain at a time.

Momicure

Nothing like cutting your finger [and toe--yuk!!] nails over a trash bag in the front seat of a car while heading down the interstate. There just wasn't time to do it before. I was busy cutting other people's nails.

Spent a fun, packed weekend up in the Deep North, after declaring at noon on Friday, "Quick, let's go before I change my mind." Too much there to blog at the moment.

Am annoyed that the traffic feed does not allow me to adjust settings to ignore my own IP. This is irritating, as it shows every time I visit my own blog, which would be just about every time I open my browser window, as the blog happens to be my homepage. If I can't figure out how to recify that problem, I'm going to delete the fun traffic feed because the issues are just, well, annoying.

Also, I cannot believe it is June. I mean, wowie zowie. Last year at this time I was back in Tennessee, I think, for a little while before I came home to spend a couple weeks with my sister. I only stayed a week, as I recall, before Joeba called and demanded that I return to Fort Sill (which I did, posthaste). We were here long enough to go for a couple bike rides, and for me to visit the doctor, but that was pretty much it.