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August 2005
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October 2005

I'm sorry. What?

The sleep situation, while it is improving, is still not ideal. Again, this is not unexpected (he's not even 3 months old yet) and is manageable, but the continued deprivation means that not only have my proofreading skills gone to hell, but that I also can't remember anything for more than a few seconds. I now understand how a parent of more than one will occasionally misplace a child or forget to wear pants. And I have completely given up on callling anyone by his or her actual name.

So here is a more disjointed than usual set of links, full of things that I've intended to link to (I think) but keep forgetting about. I'm sure there are more. Maybe. Or not. I'm sorry. DId you say something?

1) Serentiy the movie opens today and the Browncoats have been active in the Oneonta area. I've now spotted two Xeroxed flyers in different locations. Whomever you are, I salute your efforts. My dearest wish (well, right now) is that the movie does well enough to keep Joss and crew in all of the crullers they can consume. Plus, I want a sequel, simply because I loves me some Fillion. Sadly, the Hub and I won't make it to the film this week. It'll happen soon, tho.

2) I can't remember what was supposed to go here. So, something shiny, instead. Next time I have some spare cash lying around (heh.), I'm getting one of these.

3) While I admire the Jones Soda ethos, I don't understand why they keep putting together holiday packs. The Candy Corn, my favorite holiday treat EVER, intrigues me. Not enough to drink it, mind.

I now give up on trying to figure out what else I meant to tell you. Oh, yeah, the ponchos that Martha is selling look like something you'd pull off of your dryer's lint screen. Maybe that's just me.

4) This should have been #2. It came to me in a flash. The Amazing Race Family-style kicked off this week. I'm a huge AR fan, granted, but wasn't sold on the idea of a family race that stayed in the U.S. I'm warming up to it, tho, mostly because they are exploring all of the out of the way touristy crap that I've always wanted to have the time to see. It's a lark of a show that isn't nearly as griping as the regular series, but still has its amusements. Again, tho, I have to point out that if you know you're going to be on AR, why wouldn't you take a week and learn how to read a frickin' map? Come on, people.

Now, more coffee. Eventually, photos of the finished Springtime Oreo sweater. Maybe. If I can recall where the camera is.


Thursdays are when the wheels come off

Mooch would like you to know that he is wet and cold. And that Scott and I suck.

See, in the early morning race to get ourselves out of the door, by the end of which both the Dude and the Diva were in the backseat screaming their respective skulls off, Mooch ran out of the back door. He does this all of the time. On nice days, I encourage the cats to go outside and stalk undergrads.

Today was not a nice day. Winds were just shy of gale-force, whipping branches off of trees and creating fanciful sculptures out of my hair. The skies were, at best, ominous. A cold rain was forecast and was moments away from pelting all of us.

Once I drove away with the screaming bundles (honestly, there's just somethign about Thursday that brings out the worst in all of us), Scott tried to convince Mooch to come back in, lest he be swept away to Oz. I don't know why Scott felt compelled to do this. It's not like either of us actually like Mooch.

Mooch would not be persuaded. The coming storm was just kicking up too many new smells. So Scott left.

I pulled into the driveway at noon. My drive home was littered with fallen branches and huge puddles. My socks and pants and shoes are still soaked from my 10 a.m. dash across campus and it is now a balmy 57 degrees. Soon, I shall go put on a flannel shirt, my second official flannel shirt of the fall. (The first was yesterday, when the morning mercury was at 40.)

Mooch turned up at the sliding glass door about ten minutes after I walked in. He is wet, which cats just looooove, and, I assume, chilly. He is still glaring at me whenever I walk past his perch on the couch, like this is somehow completely my fault.

So I thought I'd spread the guilt, just like a cat would. Mooch is wet and cold. And you are all complicit in his wet coldness, simply because you exist. Now give me tuna.

In other news, Fall, my most favorite season ever, has truly begun. Let the celebrations commence.


a justificaiton for my small attention span

From an interview with the all-powerful Joss Whedon and the all-groovy Neil Gaiman:

NG: I saw a lovely analogy recently. Somebody said that writers are like otters. And otters are really hard to train. Dolphins are easy to train. They do a trick, you give them a fish, they do the trick again, you give them a fish. They will keep doing that trick until the end of time. Otters, if they do a trick and you give them a fish, the next time they'll do a better trick or a different trick because they'd already done that one. And writers tend to be otters. Most of us get pretty bored doing the same trick. We've done it, so let's do something different.

Read the whole thing. Especially the bit about the Klingons.


much better

Thursday, admittedly, was a sucky day. By Friday, life became vaguely amusing again.

Example 1: Friday night. While I was giving the Diva her bath, the Hub came upstairs bearing her pink rubber boot. "Look inside," he said and pointed the mouth of the boot at me. Since it is currently spider season and all of our dark crannies are full of them, I expected to see one cowering in the boot. Instead, there was a thin little tail and a fluffy mouse rump. Mooch, the cat voted most likely to irritate the crap out of you, had brought it in from the outside and cornered it in a convenient boot. Even after Scott chucked the mouse back outside, where it landed with a cartoonish squeak, Mooch spent the better part of the night looking for it.

Example 2: I keep finding stuffed animals in the pantry. According to the Diva, that is where their bedroom is. One of these mornings, when I'm reaching for the cereal at 5:30 a.m., I'm going to find out what a bejeezus looks like, because those little beady plastic eyes are going to scare it out of me.

Example 3: The Diva has spent the last week looking for the moon, since it has been visible during the day. Every time she spies it, she says "it's just so beautiful." The exception was yesterday, when I mentioned that it was only half a moon right now. "Oh," she said, "it must be broken."

Maybe you had to be there.


Bad Mommy

In hindsight, getting out of bed was the mistake this morning. Not that there were any real options on that particular move, given that the wee man demanded attention at 5:30 a.m. and could not be shushed, but, still, it was the critical error that may prove to be what sends me to the liquor store for several gallons of gin. I've already warned the lime in the fruit bowl that his demise will come soon. Very, very soon.

While the early hour is partly to blame, it goes further. The Diva, who had diaper leakage last night that required a complete change of all clothing at 3:30 a.m., was extra pokey when it came to getting out of the house. By comparison, her normal dawdling is a whirlwind. It was that bad. Coupled with that was a spilled bowl of cereal, continuous demands for oatmeal and general clambering over the couch like a crazed weasel and it is a wonder we got out of the house at all.

But even that could have been handleable had both the spouse and I been better rested. He was the one who handled the aforementioned pee-flood at 3:30 while I was feeding the Dude. The Diva then decided she wasn't going to go back to sleep, then finally did...at 5:30 a.m. The Dude was then up. I took him downstairs to give Scott a chance to actually sleep, then I promptly crashed on the couch until about 6:45, which is when everyone else got up. The general lack of sleep meant that we were about 30 minutes late getting the shower routine started, which meant that we left the house late, which meant we got the kids loaded up late -- we would have almost been on time had the Diva not used her Zen-like stalling techniques -- which meant they got to school late, which means the adults got to work late.

And even that would be OK. Lateness happens. It's not like we're brain surgeons or somesuch, where life and death hang on our promptness. Yet it adds a level of frantic to an already stressful day, that is complete with a trip to the doctor with the Dude because he has a weird belly-button issue, several loaads of laundry (read again about the urine) and at least one trip to the grocery. Oh, and I have to teach a class and grade. This doesn't even begin to take into account the revisions I haven't yet done on The Book and the fact that the deadline is rapidly approaching. Plus there are two columns that I should have done already. And, no, the 15 minutes I've spent throwing this post together could have been better served doing something else -- but I don't have any projects that will take just 15 minutes and feel like I need to complete something today.

I think my head might pop.

Even that's not what has really sent the morning into a grumbly funk. The true culprit is the fact that I looked at the schedule of the other babies in the Dude's class and realized that I'm the only one who has him in there five-days-a-week. No, he's not there eight hours every day, but he is there more than the other infants. And, frankly, on some mornings, like this one, I wish he were there all of the time, which makes me think that I had no business having a second one and trying to have a life outside of my house, that I am a bad mommy. And then I get all cheesed off that no one thinks the same of my spouse and that he probably does not suffer the same sort of guilt about the whole thing and then I realize that life isn't fair and that my problems are of the first-world sort and are not life-threatening and my house isn't underwater but, still, fuck. Why do I keep ramming my head against this particular issue? You'd think I'd have figured it out by now. Or given up. But, noooooooo.

Here endeth today's rant, not because I'm ranted-out, but because I have to go fetch the Dude and sit in a doctor's office. The fun never stops.

Later: Because this is turning into *that* kind of day, I made it worse by parking someplace where the Diva could see me when I went to get the Dude for his appointment. There was wailing. There was pouting. There was rending of garments. During all of this, I just felt like a Grade A schmuck because there were so many other ways to get into his room and avoid detection. End result, because I needed to assauge my mommy guilt, I promised a special treat for tonight. It may involve a trip to Friendly's with the Dude, which will be an adventure. I'm afraid to find out what will happen next. I'm betting on locusts.


worth 3000 words

Some lousy pictures to share with y'all. One of these days, I'll get around to learning how my camera works. And shortly after that I'll have time to find a cure for cancer.

The Dude at 8 weeks:
100_0794
(and those are Scott's hairy legs, not mine.)

The Diva at 1,976 weeks:
100_0784

Visual proof that the Nemo blankie is being used:
100_0812

Today I am off to get my hair cut, then teach. Will I have the guts to go short? Will I wuss out and get the same hair cut I always do? Who would be up for a small wager?*

*Note: martinimade does not advocate gambling, unless I get a cut, then I'm all for it.


Mountweazels and more.

The Dude started day care today. While I'm enjoying the time to do things with both hands and to be able to complete a thought without interruption, I'm feeling oddly unsettled, as if something were remarkably wrong with the universe. Weird. But it's not like I don't have a bottom-load of things to do with my so-called free time. Work waits for no woman.

But -- some internet flotsam before I go:

Fun with dictionaries.

A covetable mouse.

Knitters and their tattoos.

Now, to clean off my desk.


see. it is all about me.

Your Birthdate: April 7
Born on the 7th day of month gives you a tendency to be something of a perfectionist and makes you more individualistic in many ways.
Your mind is good at deep mental analysis and complicated reasoning.
You are very psychic and sensitive, and you should usually follow your hunches.

You may not take orders too well, so you may want to work alone or in a situation where you can be the boss.
This birthday gives a tendency to be somewhat self-centered and a little stubborn.