My reindeer flies sideways

This was taken a few days ago. Pictures from today coming soon.

And History and Systems in Psychology make three

B+ again. This one I'm pretty happy about. I did poorly on the first two exams but got a 93 on the paper and a 93 on the final. I'm a happy, happy camper.

She really liked my paper.

So, three B plusses. Still waiting on my Technical Report Writing grade.

Grades gradually garnered (Updated)

One in so far. Counseling Psychology. B+. I was expecting an A. Must have done less well on the final than I thought.

Edited to add: Make that two. Statistics. Another B+.

Final final finally finished

Feeling fatigued, fantastic, forlorn.

Phew!

That's odd

I just got a thank you note from the blood donation center I gave blood to back in March. Seems they used my blood last week.

Anyone else ever get a thank you note for this?

Soft

Last night there was a college marching band, complete with drumline, on my roof. The rain came down in such heavy torrents, I was sure that MM would wake up and come running into my room. Amazingly, he slept through it.

Today the rain is still coming down, but so gently that I can't hear it on the skylights above my head. The flowers and leaves in the garden are plump and juicy, freshly washed, with little beaded droplets balanced delicately on them.

Drumming

BadumbadumbadadumbadadumdumdumdumdumBOOMdumdumdumdudmdumdbadadumBOOMBOOMbadumbadadumbadadumdumdumdumdum

Classes over, Finals coming up

Last class was on Saturday.

First final is on Thursday. I've got a paper due that day as well, then I've got a final on Saturday and my last final is a week from tomorrow and then Convocation is on Thursday.

BigSister is coming for my convocation!!! Her husband, BuildsBeautifulThings is graduating this weekend with his Bachelors in Architecture. He's in a cool program where he gets his Masters degree next year. I'm so proud of him! I wish I could be there but see final on Saturday (above).

But you better believe I'll be at his Masters graduation. Ayup.

Why do I feel like somebody's watching me? I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me*

MS shakes me to get me out of bed this morning.

Me: "Quit it, you're sloshing my bladder."
Radio Snooze Alarm: "...and it was all yellow"





*Because Madeleine is right, goddamnit.

Blogging against disablism

Lately, I've been learning a TON about how we, as a society (my county in particular), care for people with disabilities. I still have a lot to learn, but I want to point you to this site. UDES is working to get legislation passed that will allow parents to set up 529-like savings instruments for their children with disabilities.

Sorry this post isn't deeper. I know I need to do better to combat my own disablism. I'm working on it. In the meantime, I'm learning.

In the garden

Planted: 2 cantelope plants; many green bean seeds; a pot o' basil and parsley.

Found growing: wild raspberry plants.

On its way (from Amazon, via gift certificate): a garden composter; a kitchen composter; Let it Rot.

It may be a very flavorful and garden-y summer!

Movie Review: Forbidden Kingdom

Went out to see this tonight while a friend babysat for MM.

It was sooooo good! We had a great time. It was the first time MS had been to a theatre to see a movie since December 2001, and it was so worth it.

Forbidden Kingdom is like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon meets The Princess Bride and The Last Action Hero. Funny and sweet and lots and lots of action. Beautifully filmed too. The parts that take place in Boston have a very gritty texture while the parts in China are lush and rich.

While there were a few opportunities to make a deeper movie that the director didn't capitalize on, I'd recommend this film whole-heartedly. I came out of the theatre excited and happy.

This is definitely a movie we both were glad we saw on the big screen.

Ahoy, 'Maties! (and cukes and zukes)

In the ground today: two Big Boy tomato plants; two "burpless" cucumber plants, two zucchini plants.

Out of the ground today: lots and lots and lots of rocks. Including one bigger than my left tit.

In the ground tomorrow: green bean seeds.

Sometime this weekend: we'll start a planter full of basil. I'm going to have a pesto-filled summer.

Next up in the Aero Garden: Romaine lettuce.

Quiz Answers

1. "The eastern seaboard is crammed with dead people". Charlaine Harris, An Ice Cold Grave. Charlaine Harris is the Guest of Honor this year. I love her work. She's got several series, all of which are well-written and as delicious as a box of Godiva Truffles. She also has some stand-alones which, while satisfying, leave you wishing she would make them into series because the characters are so engaging.



2. "By nine o'clock that Thursday night, there was little outward indication that murder had occurred six floors above the busy midtown Manhattan avenue." Margaret Maron, Death in Blue Folders*. Y'all know how much I love me some Margaret Maron. She's moderating the panel on the best new novel nominations this year. Nominated for what, you ask? I'll get to that in a moment.



3. "Late at night when the dreams woke him, he would lie in the dark and try to forget the faces of people he'd watched die." Earlene Fowler, Steps to the Altar. Earlene Fowler writes a great series set in the California horse country with a richly-drawn set of characters. Her main character, Benni Harper, curates a quilt museum. All the titles in the series are based on quilt patterns.



4. "It was five o'clock on a winter's morning in Syria." I think you might count this as cheating...It's Agatha Christie. Murder on the Orient Express. Agatha "attends" Malice Domestic every year. The annual awards that are given out at their banquet are named for her. See? I told you I'd come back to what they were being nominated for!

I'm sad to also be missing Carole Nelson Douglas. I love her Irene Adler series (beginning with Good Night, Mr. Holmes). I didn't see her name on the program at first, or I'd have included her in the quiz.

I'm gonna be there next year!

*You people have no idea how much it irritates me that this book is out-of-print. The idiocy of publishers astounds me.

Book Quiz! I'm Missing Malice Domestic Edition

Sigh....

I have class Saturday morning and it's just too much money to spend on something I'm not going to be able to attend all of.

To the Quiz!!!

1. The eastern seaboard is crammed with dead people.
2. By nine o'clock that Thursday night, there was little outward indication that murder had occurred six floors above the busy midtown Manhattan avenue.
3. Late at night when the dreams woke him, he would lie in the dark and try to forget the faces of people he'd watched die.
4. It was five o'clock on a winter's morning in Syria.

Now, to be fair, I have to say that one of these books is out of print. Three are by authors who will be AT THE CONVENTION. And one is by an author who is always at the convention.

I can't believe I missed it

April 6, 2005 was my first blog post. I missed my blogiversary.

I didn't post anything 3 years ago today, but I did post something 3 years ago tomorrow.

I didn't post anything 2 years ago today, but I did post something 2 years ago yesterday. Two days after I posted my original 20 sentences.

I didn't post anything 1 year ago today, either. But I did post something a year ago tomorrow.

In fact, this is the first year I posted something on 04/22. But every year I've posted something on 04/21 and 04/23.

Thank you all for being here. For being my friends. For being the loving, funny, delicious people you are. I love visiting with you and having you come here to visit with me. I love getting to know you. I miss you when you are gone.

Thank you.

YOu all make me feel so much better. I have no words to express how much I love you all and how supported I feel by you.

Not Speaking

Speech posted below.

I Am

Faculty members, my family, my friends, welcome. I’m just so glad to be here with you all today. It’s been a long time coming. In 2006, during my first semester here, I took a communications course with the aptly named [communications aptonym]. She had us do an intriguing exercise. Write 20 sentences starting with the words, “I am.”

The first several sentences are easy: I am a woman. I am a mother. I am a wife. I am a daughter, a sister, a friend. I am a student at Nearby University. I am 39. Then it gets a bit harder. How do you describe yourself? I am Jewish. I am very short. I am a reader. I am a knitter. I am…

When I first did this exercise over two years ago, I thought about what I would have written when I was in college the first time, at 18. Who was I then? How would I have described myself? Some of the sentences would have been the same; others would have been very different. I was not a mother or a wife. I didn’t know how to knit. I was, at the time, an indifferent student, because I only did well in classes that interested me. But have I really changed? I still only do well in the classes that interest me, but the difference is that, this time around, I find all my classes interesting. I see the connections between them. I see their connections to me. My time here has made me feel more connected to the world itself. I see the connections between myself and the greater community, between my choices and actions and their ripples outward. I see the connections between what I have learned as a student, as a mother, as a wife, and as a daughter. Unlike my 18-year-old self, I no longer ask, “Will I ever use this in the outside world?” I know the answer. Everything we learn, we use. As a student I use what I’ve learned as a mother, as a wife, as an employee. As a mother, as a wife, as I live in the world, I use what I’ve learned here.

What would I have written ten years later, about mid-way between my 18-year-old self and now? I was married. I was a college drop out. I was in therapy. I was learning to program computers after spending years managing a bookstore. I was a New Yorker. My husband and I were contemplating our move down to Northern Virginia and I struggled with that decision, since so much of my identity was as a New Yorker. As a non-driver. A pedestrian. A city girl. My time at Nearby U. has made me feel like a Virginian. Being a part of this community, diverse and welcoming, has helped me finally feel at home in this very different place from where I grew up. This global community of students and faculty, of all ages and nations, has made me feel more at home here than anything else I’ve encountered in my ten years in Northern Virginia, even including my husband’s election last year to the [thing he got elected to].

During the election season, I realized that Ms. Aptonym’s class was even more valuable than I had thought. Her lessons helped me immensely going door to door and talking to people on back-to-school nights. My Women and Work class, my Psychology in the Community class, oh heck…every single class I’ve taken here taught me something that I used during the campaign. During my classes I saw the connections between the History of Religion, the History of Western Civilization, and their connection to Hawaiian Dance. I saw the connections between Small Group Communications, Women and Work, and Psychology. I saw the connections between the books I’ve read for pleasure and the books I read for class. The connections between knitting and politics. If you don’t think knitters can change the world, then you haven’t seen one turn a long piece of string into a cable knit sweater*.

Professors are not the only ones who taught me here. I also learned from my classmates. In my classes have been students who are old enough to be my mother, and a teacher nearly young enough to be my daughter. And I have learned from everyone. Everything I have learned has helped me to grow, to become.

What will I write when I am 49? When I am 59? 80? Who will I be and how will I describe myself? The years ahead are as open for me at 39 as they are for those of my classmates in their twenties. We are, as the existentialist Rollo May has said, constantly changing, becoming. I am.

I am. I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a granddaughter, a friend. I am 39. I am, to my own surprise, a good student. I am a reader. I am a knitter. I am political. I am short. I am hopeful. I am strong. I am silly. I am loved and loving. I am proud and grateful today that I can also say, finally, I am a college graduate and that the college was Nearby University




*Thanks to Stephanie Pearl-McPhee for inspiring this line.

Dreaming of blueberry pancakes

We just planted two late-fruiting blueberry bushes. Sometime next year, we will take a collander, go out the door of our screened-in porch, down the steps onto the patio, around the corner to the shady side of the house, and pick blueberries. Then we will bring them back inside, rinse them, pat them dry, and make blueberry pancakes with our own blueberries.

Oh who am I kidding?

I probably won't say anything. But I'll be thinking it.

Mmm....garlic

I made pesto again today, using the basil, parsley, and mint from our Aerogarden. And 8 cloves of garlic. (Oh! and olive oil, cheese, and pine nuts).

10 hours and 7 scrubbings later and my hands are still perfuming the air with their pungent aroma.

I can't wait to eat the sauce over rotelle tomorrow night.

I think it's called TMI.

So I bought some new bras yesterday (34 Ginormous). And new shirts today (XL). And I have to tell you people that there is only one time when I don't like my body - when I'm buying clothes for it.

As you all know, I'm short. Short. Fifty-nine inches in my stocking feet. My arms are in proportion to that. My bodacious tatas not so much.

How to buy a shirt that doesn't gap in the front and, at the same time, doesn't make me look like I raided my husband's closet? And that I can afford?

Well, the Merona shirts come close to perfection on those points. The XL is a tad bit too long in the torso for me, but not so much that it looks bad. It's got princess seaming so it doesn't look like a man's shirt. It satisfies the "no pockets" rule (never, ever wear a shirt with pockets on it if you have a bosom the size of a small country). The sleeves are about 2 inches too long, but they have a long cuff that folds tidily without being obvious. And they're $18.00.

They come in an elbow-sleeve version, but that actually looked like crap on me. I think elbow sleeves draw attention to my bust line.

Finding a bra that fits, is supportive, and doesn't have a seam across the front was a true adventure. The Fantasie 4500 seems to fill the bill quite nicely. I liked my Wacoal minimizer better but, alas, Wacoal doesn't make it for the G market. Neither is the Fantasie 4500 as lovely as my Fayreform Daisy (in chocolate), but the Daisy is not smooth. It draws attention to itself under light solid colors and thin fabrics. And even the cream version has pink details on it which show under a white shirt.

Last year (seriously, almost to the day), the whole process made me feel horrible about myself. This year, I just feel frustrated at the lack of choices. It's not me, it's the lack of choice in clothing sizes. Thank God for the HAES movement. It's made all the difference to my mood this time.

I don't have any of the usual front-loaded problems, either. No backaches, very little gouging in the shoulders, generally no angry red marks all over (the result of wearing the right bra and not slouching...when you're not quite five-feet tall, you tend to stand up straight).

I do want to put y'all on alert, though. A time is coming when my breasts are going to be a big enough pain in my ass that I'm going to want to take them down a notch or two - but only if I can be reasonably sure that they'd stay there. And y'all? Still leaking. 5+ years post pumping.

Mummy/Crit asks...

What's so unfortunate about the local baseball team's logo?

Well, it's a W. A Dubya, if you will.

And since he doesn't seem to have been phased at all by this, I'm guessing that he felt having so many people wearing his initial cancelled out a few hecklers.

RBOC: TGIF edition

• This was gardening week at Chez Mystere. We put pansies (mostly dark and light purple, some blood red, two yellow) in the beds that line the front walk and de-thatched the lawn. We also did some soil analysis and while our soil is maxed out on the potassium, it's got absolutely no nitrogen, so it looks like we are entering fertilizer city this weekend.
• Tonight we are going to the circus which has coopted the parking lots at Nearby U. Front row seats at $12.00 a pop! I love my Student ID!!!
• Tomorrow my boys (the hubband and the son) are going to see the major league baseball team with the unfortunate logo play.

What are you doing this weekend?

Gene Weingarten has lost me.

I'm not reading him anymore. His stance on this issue, that an overweight pageant winner sends an unhealthy message while one that smokes does not, is a deal-breaker for me. He will not even consider that Chloe Marshall might be more healthy than her skinnier peers in the pageant circuit. Please note that I'm not linking to his post on this, either. He can get readers on his own from now on, TYVM.

Instead of reading about his notions of what comprises a good standard of beauty, go here, and see what millenia of artists have thought about it instead.

FWIW, I have a BMI slightly lower than Ms. Marshall's. Not that BMI is the end-all-be-all. But because I have skinny arms and legs, my torso is quite a bit wider than hers...and I wear a size 8 Petite in LL Bean Flannel-lined Relaxed Fit Jeans, a size 6 in Jones NY Sport, and a size 10 in everything else. So there, Mr. "She's lying about her clothes size" Weingarten.

What MM would sing if he thought of it.

Star Wars! Nothing but Star Wars!
We're playing Star Wars each day after school.
Star Wars! PS2 Star Wars!
Next to Lego Star Wars nothing can seem cool.
Without Lego Star Wars our days are empty indeed
For Lego Star Wars we perform amazingly derring deeds
(like getting no strikes)
So it's Star Wars! Yes! Lego Star Wars!
We're playing Star Wars! My parents and me!
Star Wars! I love me my Star Wars!
Oh my sweet Star Wars, how much I love thee!

I miss you guys.

The three people I read the most when I started reading blogs three years ago aren't posting anymore.

Lovely

Just flipping lovely.

"Memo: Laws Didn't Apply to Interrogators"

Hopeful

Nearby U has a slot for a student speaker at Commencement. I sent in a speech. I do so hope that they pick mine.

Whether they do or not, I'll post it here after the commencement ceremony.

Earth hour

I didn't know about it until MS told me yesterday that he'd heard about it, so we did it and it was lots of fun.

Next year, he's going to try to get the whole county to do it.

I have been to the theatre before.

I donated blood today and now I feel every inch the civic-minded member of the community.

I often go to the blood donation center, fill out the paperwork, answer all the questions, get bp, temp and pulse taken, and only then do they do the stick for the blood-iron test. Then I get rejected for low iron and go home, having wasted my time and theirs.

This time I got smart. "Before you do anything else," says I to the nurse, "Please check my blood iron level. I am often rejected for low iron and I don't want to waste your time if I'm low today."

And wonder of wonders, she actually did as I asked.

And this time, of course, I was ironed up. So I gave.

"My veins are juicy, but quite wiggly," I said to the next nurse, "I won't watch as you stick it in, since I have a tendency to tense up and that moves the vein." She got the needle in first try.

After it was all over and I was sipping my water (no juice on display) and eating a cookie, I recognized the slight sensation of looking at everything through a camera's view finder was the familiar symptom of light-headedness. I informed the recovery nurse and he had me lie down again, put ice packs on my neck and chest, and whipped out a bottle of juice from the secret stash.

I wish that I could have gone to donate platelets instead (AB+, universal platelet donor), but they require you make an appointment for that and I've never been able to make my iron levels match my appointment time.

I've often thought that they should set up a blood donation center at the court-house for the jury pool. As long as you're there doing your civic duty, you might as well do your civic duty.

Answers to the verklempt quiz

1. Suniverse was right! It is Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey.
2. Charlotte Bronte's Villette.
3. L.M. Montgomery's Emily of New Moon.
4. Agatha Christie's Curtain. This is the only one without even one listing on IMDB.

In other news, we used up 3 pounds of carrots here this weekend making carrot soup, carrot bread, and carrot cake.

The carrot bread was supposed to be carrot cake, but we left out the sugar. Oops! It tasted pretty good with honey.

The carrot cake was better, though.

I need to call up my grandma for her recipe for carrot soup. The one we made was good, but not as good as hers.

Thanks guys!!! I'm all verklempt.

I'm feeling much better and loving 39 so far. Is it just me, or does each year get better and better?

Here are more first lines for you (famous authors, less filmed works):

1. No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine.
2. My godmother lived in a handsome house in the clean and ancient town of Bretton.
3. The house in the hollow was "a mile from anywhere" - so Maywood people said.
4. Who is there who has not felt a sudden startled pang at reliving an old experience or feeling an old emotion?

Hints: Each of these authors has at least one book that has been made into a movie more than once. Only one of the books whose first lines I've given has NOT been made into a movie or tv series of some sort.

40 - 1

Happy 39th Birthday to me!!!

Birthdays always make me think of a child-hood friend (the daughter of the woman who wrote Apple Pigs). Like her mom, she had a gift for rhyme and an adorable British accent. And this is the song she would sing on my birthday

(Please add a veddy uppah crust British accent when singing and you must sing it in a high-pitched 6-year-old girl voice).

Happy Birthday to you
Squashed tomatoes and stew
I thought it was you
So I put you in stew

Thinking of you, silly friend.

For my mom...since the link in email didn't work

Click here, mom! Thank you so much!

Mono-a-mono

It's not strep. It might be mono. I'm on the hard drugs - Zithromax.

God, I hope it's not mono. Please, please, please let it not be mono. And please let me not have given it to MM (or anyone else for that matter).

Going back to bed now.

Gimme fever

I'm sick again, dammit! Fever and sore throat. I'm guessing that the strep came back.

Doctor's appointment at 2:15. In the meantime, I have posted a sign saying, "Beware of Grump".

PSA

Peggy Nature did a school project - "A PSA From Your Body". I think it's great, and that's not just because I've got a picture in there. See if you can spot me!

A dilemma

MM got a strike at school today...for talking at lunch. Apparently the teachers made it a quiet lunch when the kids were getting too noisy.

Normally, our rule is no screen-time for a day after a strike. But I just can't get het up about talking at lunch. I mean...he's six. He needs time to socialize at school. I'm just not feeling any enthusiasm for enforcing this one.

So we said no screen time tonight, but he can get it back in the morning 'cause he did such a great job otherwise at school this week.

So I'd like you to vote:
Reasonable or Wishy-washy?

Pesto*

The basil, parsley, and mint in our aerogarden^ were growing tall. I cut them back and put 2 cups worth of the freshly cut leaves into the food processor with 4 cloves of garlic, a 1/2 cup of good parmesan cheese, and a heap of pinnoli nuts. I set phasers to stun and started drizzling in a 1/2 cup of olive oil. Then, drunk on the heady odors of basil and garlic, I poured it into a covered container to chill in the 'fridge overnight.

Tonight we had it on rotelle.

It was ambrosia.



*Recipe from The New Basics Cookbook, page 12.
^ Christmas present from my sister-in-law.

He did great

He was well-behaved and very, very quiet. He watched The Return of the Jedi and a bit of The Incredibles and ate candy. During the break, I had him run up and down the hall and around me and do jumping jacks.

During the break and after the class, several of my classmates cooed over him and his big brown eyes. He was quite at ease and told them he was just visiting because he's only in kindergarten and doesn't go to college yet.

And then we went and bought a Star Wars Lego kit (Anakin's Star Fighter) and he spent the afternoon putting it together. And then we played Crash Bandicoot. And that was that.

He was most impressed by the fact that I get a muffin and coffee from Dunkin Donuts before class and wants to come with me every Saturday.

Pray for me

Tomorrow I'm bringing MM to my 3-hour class.

God help us.

Better pray for the professor, too, I guess.

I've got treats and dvds and books and quiet toys. And headphones for same.

MM has promised to be vewy, vewy quiet during the class. He'll get a Lego Star Wars kit on the way home if he can do it!

Did you hear the one about the two male flightless water fowl? UPDATED

Yeah. Guess which county I live in? We're that silly place that got itself ridiculed on The View.

So a whole group of right-minded folks are going to dress up in black-and-white (penguins! Get it?) and go to protest at the school board meeting tonight.

I wish I could be there, but MS will represent for the Mystery Household. They won't have any choice but to pay attention to him, too. Since, you know, all the smilingsmilingsmiling gives him power of the purse over the school board.

UPDATE: Here's a link to an article about the meeting which includes some of MS's comments.

Moreena's got something to tell you

Pssssst....pass it on.

Tim...something. Tom? NO! WILL! Now, what was his last name?

I laughed and laughed and laughed. That weeping, shuddering, silently roaring laugh that there is no way to stop. Tears rolled down my cheeks, I had a coughing fit, I laughed some more. Oh my goodness, it was funny.

And there's no way to explain why. The way he said it. The stabbing finger on "no! Will!" The bemused end of the statement. I was convulsed with laughter.

Later, at the lunch table, I nearly started in again, just at the memory of it.

Good Lord, but it was funny.

On the plus side...

MM can read the instructions on his bottle of medicine.

He's "very advanced" according to his teacher, Miss MomOfTwins. He and two other kids in his class are in the "fluent readers" group, which means they are reading and comprehending on a first grade level or above. And he seems to have a natural grasp of some math concepts, like the reversibility of formulas and some multiplication. His only issues are those of focus and following directions when he's not interested. According to his teacher, he's right about average on that, so no worries at the moment about ADD. He does do better following directions when he gets to read the instructions himself rather than being told, so they're going to experiment with that a bit.

Yesterday he spent hours putting together a new Lego Star Wars kit we bought. Two hours working on the Hailfire Droid, a break for dinner, and another 45 minutes putting together the Spider Droid (times include sorting out the pieces). Then he drew a picture of the super droid. He did most of it himself, only asking me for help on things his hands physically couldn't do yet (like doing the last link to make the loop for the tank treads). And even then, he told me exactly how to do it.

I reminded him that last year he'd gotten a Lego Star Wars kit and he couldn't do it himself, he needed help with the directions and with putting it together and he couldn't concentrate long enough for us to do it in one go. "Isn't it amazing how much more grown-up you are?" I asked him. "I love seeing you do things you weren't able to do before. I love watching you become a bigger boy and do all the things a bigger boy can do."

He was very pleased.

Things I didn't know before I became a parent

The throat is not the only mucus membrane that can contract strep.

'Nuff said.

Sigh

I sent a link to this video to 4 professors who I have had for Biology 103 & 104 (intro); Biology 124 (anatomy and physiology) lecture and lab; and History of Psychology



All have discussed evolution and Darwin in class.

I received two responses back. One (from my bio 104 & 105 professor, whom I adore) said, "That was great, thanks for sharing!" Which made me feel good.

The other (from my anatomy and physiology lecturer) said, "I found your attachment offensive". Because he's mocking Christian (big C) beliefs. She didn't like "Defenders of Marriage" either (I didn't send it, she watched it on her own initiiative.)

I wrote back that I was sorry for having offended. I also wrote that I don't think RZ is mocking Christian beliefs; I think he's mocking intolerance, willful ignorance, and hypocrisy. Then I apologized again.

I keep forgetting that not everyone was raised listening to Tom Lehrer, nor have most people heard of Christine Lavin. Oh well.

Why I love "The Franchise Affair" by Josephine Tey

"You see, I am not a marrying woman. I don't want to have to put up with someone else's crochets, someone else's demands, someone else's colds in the head. Mother and I suit each other perfectly because we make no demands on each other. If one of us has a cold in the head, she retires to her room without fuss and doses her disgusting self until she is fit for human society again."

Written in 1949, The Franchise Affair is acknowledged to be one of the best mysteries of all time. It has been cited in real-live cases. A journalist, reporting on a case of some celebrity a few years ago wrote: "How could such a thing happen? Hadn't any of them read The Franchise Affair?"

My copy is a paperback printed in 1988. Beautiful cover. I regret that this particular edition is out of print and that it is only available in a less-pretty trade-sized edition.

The story revolves around an attorney who is hired by a woman who has been accused of enslaving a young girl and keeping her a prisoner in her house. The attorney believes in the woman's denials and does his utmost to find out what really happened to the girl during the two weeks she claims she was held prisoner. It is well-plotted, tightly written, and very snarky. Many mystery mavens rank Tey higher than Christie, and I have to agree. Christie was more prolific (Tey wrote just eight mysteries), but Tey's books are all better than Christie's best.

A friend of mine is flying to Korea tomorrow and I lent her another Tey, Brat Farrar, to take with her. "Is it good?" she asked. I pointed out the broken binding and the banged up corners. "I've read it at least 20 times. Judge for yourself."

The same goes for The Franchise Affair. I've read it at least 20 times. Judge for yourself.

How I Spent Valentine's Day by Mystery Mommy

My Valentine's Day started 4 weeks ago when I bought a box of chocolates for the 2 fellows I live with. Lindor Milk Chocolate Balls in a heart-shaped tin with rhinestones on it. I know my audience. MS will eat more chocolates than MM, but MM will keep the tin.

I cleverly hid the box in a plastic grocery bag on a big pile of papers on my desk. Neither of the fellows I live with noticed. Sometimes being messy is an asset.

Valentine's Day continued yesterday when I realized in a panic that I had not gotten any cards for MM to hand out in school. I remedied this situation with a judicious application of Microsoft Word 2003, clip-art, and Word-Art (so that I could flip the interior text upside-down). I chose clip-art that would look good in shades of black and grey, because I will NOT sit around and wait for 33 cards to print out of an ink-jet printer and that is that.

Then, after we ate dinner, I put MM to work signing his name to all 33 cards. Next year, I will add his name to the interior message and have him write his class-mates' names instead. I had that job this year. There are 3 girls in his class with 3 different variations on a common name (imagine a Liz, a Lisa, and a Liza - but that's not their names).

This morning was red clothes and chocolate and going to school. MS came to meet me at school and sat in on RequiredClassThatHasAMisleadingName. Then we came home and I went to a meeting.

The End.

(We're eating out tomorrow. MM's school is doing Parents' Night Out)

Fun Election Day Facts

I was #620 out of about 720 voters at my precinct today. MM was a great help. He was disappointed he wasn't allowed to mark the ballot, but he put it in the machine for me. They'd run out of stickers but he still thought Democracy in Action is on par with ice cream.

And I'm starting to agree with him. Look at this factolicious goodness!

Dems outvoted Reps by more than two to one! Statewide! Heck, across the whole fireplacing region!

Nearly three times the number of expected voters came out today - our precinct had to get more ballots! (They were expecting an 8% turnout and got 21.23%) Is it any surprise they ran out of stickers?

Holy shit, people! Virginia really might go blue this year!

This is amazingly exciting! WOOT!

I love Gene Weingarten

Today's chat is dedicated to one of my favorite musical artists of all time: Tom Lehrer. Go on and read it, I'll wait....

Okay, did you catch that bit about Roy Zimmerman? I'd never heard of this guy. But boy, I am hooked!




Oh, and it's nice to know that Tom Lehrer and I voted the same way.

Why I love "The Shuttle" by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Shuttle, which I bought at a used book store for $2.00, was written in 1907. I don't believe I have a first edition, but it might very well be. It's not in great condition, it's very much a "reading" copy.

Again, like Skating Shoes, it smells divine. I wish I could hold it up under your nose. See how good it smells?

The book revolves around a young woman, Bettina, the daughter of a man so wealthy that he's ranked among the Rockefellers and Morgans. Her older sister married an impoverished English lord, left America to go live with him and was pretty much never heard from since. The reader finds that the husband, Sir Nigel Anstruther, is abusive. Bettina Vanderpoel (called Betty mostly) is a highly intelligent girl, better educated than most young debutants of the era, and has a decided and stubborn personality. She's determined to go and rescue her sister...and she does. She also has firm opinions on philanthropy and is very practical.

Here's an example of the kind of heroine we're dealing with here: There is an epidemic in a nearby village, and Lord Mount Dunstan (who is in love with Betty, but poor as a church mouse and too proud to ask a wealthy woman to marry him) has to figure out a way to help his villagers and he basically asks himself "What Would Betty Do?" so he makes his grand ballroom (practically the only room without a leaky roof) into a hospital for the sick villagers. But he still has no real way to get them medical help:

...But even before he had left the house, the problem was solved for them. The solving of it lay in the note Miss Vanderpoel had written the night before at Stornham
...[the vicar] opened the note and read it gravely, and then as gravely, though with a change of expression, handed it to Mount Dunstan.
"Yes, she is a creature of action. She has heard and understood at once, and she has done something. It is immensely practical - it is fine - it - it is lovable."
"Do you mind my keeping it?" Mount Dunstan asked, after he had read it.
"Keep it by all means," the vicar answered. "It is worth keeping."
But it was quite brief. She had heard of the outbreak of fever among the hop pickers, and asked to be allowed to give help to the people who were suffering. They would need prompt aid. She chanced to know something of the requirements of such cases, and had written to London for certain supplies which would be sent to them at once. She had also written for nurses, who would be needed above all else. Might she ask Mr. Penzance to kindly call upon her for any further assistance required.
...She had, in fact, gone to London to consult an eminent physician, who was an authority of world-wide reputation...he had experienced a new sensation in the visit paid him by an indubitably modern young beauty, who wasted no word, and whose eyes, while he answered her amazingly clear questions, were as intelligently intent as those of an ardent and serious young medical student. What a surgical nurse she would have made! It seemed almost a pity that she evidently belonged to a class the members of which are rich enough to undertake the charge of entire epidemics, but who do not usually give themselves to such work, especially when they are young and astonishing in the matter of looks.

Betty is basically Sara Crewe, if she had been American and her father had not died after he found the diamond mines. She does rescue her sister. And Mount Dunstan finally comes off his high horse. And the evil brother-in-law gets what he deserves, pretty much.

Oh, it's over-the-top in many ways but it's so goooooood. And it's WAAAAY ahead of it's time in dealing with spousal abuse, rape, and other feminist issues.

I love, love, love this book.

Alas, it's out of print. 5/22/15 ETA: It's available on KINDLE! Not all these versions are unabridged, please choose wisely.

Saturdays

One of the benefits of the outcome of all that smilingsmilingsmiling is that I get to go to functions (hereafter called fxns, since that is how I abbreviate it in notes). Three weeks in a row, now, I have gone to dinners honoring people who drive around in red and yellow trucks that go woo ah woo ah. These are people who volunteer to run into places most people run out of and who take other people quickquickquick to the hospital.*

They take volunteers as young as fourteen and tonight I met a man who was in his 80's and still volunteering (he trains others now).

I've never seen so many strong people in one place. And they are all, each and every one, built on a broad scale. S H O U L D E R S. These are rugby players bodies, football players bodies. Men and women both built big and strong. And the women wearing strapless or backless gowns because they know that their bodies are strong and healthy. They prove it to themselves every day. These women can pick up grown men and make it look as easy as me picking up Muffin Man.

I am more grateful than I can say for having the opportunity to go to these fxns and meet these incredible people. Incredible for what they do, and for the confidence in themselves that it gives them.



*Each st8n has their own banquet. They are all run somewhat independently of each other.

7

Ramblin' Red tagged me for seven random things....

1. We got an Aero garden for Christmas and it came with Herbs growing kit: chives; mint; parsley; dill; two kinds of basil; and cilantro. And you all know how I feel about cilantro, right? So, guess which one didn't sprout? MS keeps joking that I gave it the evil eye.
2. I have a weird habit of smelling my hair. I hold a bunch of it in front of my nose and hold it there when I'm thinking. This is one of the reasons I get fed up with longer hair and cut it off periodically. Then I forget and grow it again. I do like the smell, but I hate this habit. It looks ridiculous.
3. The other habit I have is not so easy to break. I've been chewing my fingers again. Not the nails, the fingers themselves. Quite painful, really. But, apparently not painful enough for me to just flipping quit it already.
4. We've been doing a pretty good job of keeping the downstairs presentable for company (though right now it looks like a toyshop exploded in our living room).
5. A friend of mine just told me that she's lost a lot of weight in a very short time on an 800 calorie-a-day diet. Then she said, "and I'm going crazy." I sent her to Junkfood Science.
6. I've felt like crying ever since. Why do we do this to ourselves? She's a beautiful, tall, voluptuous woman. She has a beautiful, tall daughter who is going to be voluptuous.
7. And I've been thinking about this kind of shit all week anyway because MM's pediatrician was concerned that while MM is in the 50th percentile for height, he's only in the 10th percentile for weight. So I said, "He's growing, his skin tone and color are good. He's eating well, from multiple food groups. He's active and energetic. He's got good muscle tone. I'm not worried." She conceded those facts. I told her that if any one of those facts changes I will bring him in pronto. She said that would be fine. I want to keep MM feeling good about himself and food.*

TAG! You're it if you want to be!
*I will offer him more snacks during the day on weekends, since he gets one snack in the morning before lunch and then two snacks in the afternoon at school and I forget 'cause I'm not hungry, but he often is.

RRRRAAAAAAHHHHHHHRRRRRR

MM was in a school play today. The Wizard of Oz.

Guess which character he was?



Am I the only one in the world who wants to start sobbing when I see 10 kindergarteners in costume, putting on a show? They're so proud all over their little selves and they're so big and so little and so cute and so serious and I want to eat them up and make them stay just like that, just as they are, for all time.

Why I love Skating Shoes

One particularly beastly day, when it looked every minute as if it were going to rain and never quite did, Harriet was coming home from the river feeling as blue as a lobelia, when a car stopped beside her.

"Hullo, Harriet. How are you getting on?"

Harriet had been so deep in gloom because she was cold and tired that she had not noticed the car, but as he spoke she saw Doctor Phillipson. Quite suddenly everything she had been thinking about spindly legs and fresh air and not going to school came over her in a wave and she did what she would never have done in the ordinary way: she told the doctor exactly what she thought of his treatment.

"How would you feel if you were made to walk up and down a river in almost winter, all by yourself, getting colder and colder, and bored-er and bored-er, with absolutely nothing to do, and not allowed to stay indoors for one minute because you'd been ill and your doctor said you'd got to have fresh air? I feel simply terrible, and I shouldn't think I'll ever, ever get well again."...

..."I must say," he agreed, "you do look a miserable little specimen. I hoped you'd pick up after that convalescent home the hospital sent you to."

Harriet looked at him sadly, for she thought he was too nice to be so ignorant.

"I don't see why I should have got better at that convalescent home."

"It's a famous place."

"But it's at the top of a cliff, and everything goes on at the bottom of the cliff, sea-bathing and the sands and everything nice like that. I could never go down because my legs were too wobbly to bring me back."

The doctor muttered something under his breath which sounded like "idiots"...

-Skating Shoes by Noel Streatfield (pp 6-8, from the second printing of the 1951 edition.)

Later that evening, the doctor pays a call on Harriet's parents and suggests that Harriet take up skating to strengthen her legs. The book is filled with fully-drawn characters, all of whom are loveable and flawed. Not one of them says anything that another character could have said, they are all completely individual and themselves.

And the book smells good in the way only a book that is over 50 years old and has been read over and over again can. It's not musty or moldy, it's old and papery and salty.

And it's out of print, as Meg Ryan's character in You've Got Mail correctly points out. But countless Bratz books are IN print. How does that happen?

Madeleine asks...

"You aren't serious about identifying the kids in that picture are you?"

Why, yes! Yes I am! MM was the only one in a striped blue and black shirt. LovesHighSchoolMusical was the only one with a ponytail. That is definitely CanYouBelieveShe'sOnlySix's chin. The only one that's iffy is MomBakesBrownies. It might actually be SwamWithUsLastSummer. Hmmm. Okay, I'll concede that bottom left is SwamWithUsLastSummer, but I stand by the rest.

The best thing about the picture, actually, is that it captures perfectly the light and movement and general other-worldly-ness that is Laser Tag.

"Is it just me, or is the funky lighting completely disorienting?"

Again, yes. Yes it totally is. Actually, it made me kind of nauseated. But the kids just loved it.

RB: Now we are six (NOW WITH PICTURES!)

• First off, my SIL is profoundly awesome. She made a Yoda cake. The folks at the Laser Tag place said they had never seen a more fabulous cake. And they see at least three a day on the weekends.

Yoda is a cake all by himself, then there are little star cakes holding candles, then there are little action figures on a desert of raw sugar.

• It tasted good too.
• MM had a blast at his party (HA! A blast! Playing laser tag! I kill myself).

That's MM in the striped shirt. LovesHighSchoolMusical is next to him (with the ponytail), MomBakesBrownies is on the far left, and CanYouBelieveShe'sOnlySix is upper right.

• My mom and stepdad were here and a lovely time was had by all from Friday onward.
• MM was offended that he had to have his Hep A shot ON. HIS. BIRTHDAY.
• We have leftover Yoda cake, double-chocolate cake from Friday's family celebration, and brownies that the mom of one of MM's friends made at MM's request.
• Please come visit and bring a fork.
• MM loves his presents. Especially the big one from us...
• ...a used PS2!!! With....
• LEGO STAR WARS!!!!
• He doesn't want to stop playing.
• Used game systems are cheap! And he doesn't know the difference! And neither do we, come to that.

How was your weekend?

Fat is the new Colored

http://www.junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/

Mississippi Representatives Mayhall, Read, and Shows are on my list of people who need to have a session with the cluestick posse.

I sent an email to Mr. Mayhall with these facts:

According to the Mississippi Development Authority’s press release from May of last year, tourism brings in 5.75 billion annually to Mississippi.

Mississippi does not have a ban on smoking in restaurants (some localities do, but not the state as a whole).

I am ashamed to be living in the same country with elected officials who would think this kind of discriminatory bullshit is okay.

Answers to the small quiz and the Sappy Romance quiz

The Small Quiz

1. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. Yes, it is Holes.
2. It was January in northern New York State, sixty-seven years ago. Farmer Boy is right!
3. Even when the last of the medicine bottles were cleared away and she was supposed to have "had" convalescence, Harriet did not get well. Skating Shoes by Noel Streatfeild. I love this book. LOVE. IT. And though the two main characters are girls, one of them has three brothers and they are really strong characters too.
4. She scowled at her glass of orange juice. The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. Read it. You'll thank me later.
5. Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. People, this is The Little Prince. Genevieve got it!

The Sappy Romance Novel Quiz

1. Wife For Hire by Janet Evanovich (yes, the mystery author)
2. Beyond Eden by Catherine Coulter
3. Venetia by Georgette Heyer (I may have mentioned her once or twice).
4. The Royal Mess by Maryjanice Davidson (alternate reality. Alaska is an independent nation with a hereditary monarchy).
5. The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett. What, you didn't know she wrote romance novels?
6. Plains of Passage by Jean M. Auel (guilty pleasure)
7. The Lady by Anne McCaffrey (yes, the author of the Pern novels).
8. Little Earthquakes!
9. One on One by Tabitha King (basketball and romance by the wife of Stephen King).
10. Die for Love by Elizabeth Peters. This one is the inside joke. It's a mystery and the detective is a romance writer.

Alexa

I don't know if any of you know Alexa, but I'm rooting for her and her daughter Simone.

I can do that.

Debangel said: "You know what would be a great "April Fools"-type idea in this theme? The first sentence from a bunch of sappy romance novels!" Well....some of these are more sappy then others. There are a few that you probably never heard of. There are a few you definitely have heard of. And there is a joke in here. See if you can find it!

1. At the turn of the century the Bigmount Brick Company hired new arrivals from Eastern Europe to work in the New Jersey clay pits.
2. The sirens were shrill.
3. "A fox got in amongst the hens last night, and ravished our best layer," remarked Miss Lanyon.
4. Dear King Alexander, My name is Nicole Krenski, and I am your illegitimate daughter.
5. No man knew when the Shuttle began its slow and heavy weaving from shore to shore, that it was held and guided by the great hand of Fate.
6. The woman caught a glimpse of movement through the dusty haze ahead and wondered if it was the wolf she had seen loping in front of them earlier.
7. Follow the coast road to Greystones, turn right at Blacklion, and watch out for the traffic haring up from the town -- some of the drivers buy their licenses at the post office.
8. I watched her for three days, sitting by myself in the park underneath an elm tree, beside an empty fountain with a series of uneaten sandwiches in my lap and my purse at my side.
9. An iridescent confetti of snow tarnished by sodium arc light sifts from the void over the glowing horizontal bulk of Greenspark Academy.
10. "When Blaze awoke she found herself lying on a silken soft surface amid the seductive scent of strange perfumes."

Answers to St. Quiz the Obscure and a new small quiz

1. Indian Captive.
2. Theatre Shoes by Noel Streatfeild.
3. Sorrow's Song by Larry Callen.
4. Roller Skates.
5. Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars by Daniel M. Pinkwater.
6. The View From Saturday
7. Cornelli by Johanna Spryri.

Good job to those of you who got these and boo hiss to me for going a bit far on the obscurity scale for some of them.

New Quiz!

1. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.
2. It was January in northern New York State, sixty-seven years ago.
3. Even when the last of the medicine bottles were cleared away and she was supposed to have "had" convalescence, Harriet did not get well.
4. She scowled at her glass of orange juice.
5. Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest.

Knitting for MM is awesome.

I started a scarf at noon yesterday sitting by the fire at a local coffee shop place waiting for a friend who never showed. Still haven't heard from her, actually. I hope she's okay.

ANYwhoooo, I started knitting this scarf for MM. It's made of the same yarn that I used for his daddy's scarf and I'm using the Mistake Rib stitch (you know, multiples of 4 and then an extra stitch at the end...k2P2 and always P the last stitch. Always start with a k.) It's 25 stitches wide and it's looking gorgeous. And here's the best part. 25 stitches wide means 100 stitches is 4 rows. With this yarn and #10 needles, I'm getting 4 rows/inch.

Ladies and gentlemen, this scarf is a yard long as of this writing.

Knitting for kids is AWESOME!!

St. Quiz the Obscure

Since y'all got all eight of the books last time, here's a few I don't think you'll get as easily*:

1. "Molly-child, now supper's done, go fetch Neighbor Dixon's horse."
2. It is very difficult to look as if you minded the death of a grandfather who, though you may have spent your holidays in his house, seldom remembered you did.
3. The Zoo Man came riding into Four Corners on a coal black wagon pulled by a coal black mule.
4. It was Patrick Gilligan in his hansom cab who took Lucinda around from the old Gedney House to the Misses Peters' apartment, two flights up.
5. I got off to a bad start at Bat Masterson Junior High School.
6. Mrs. Eva Marie Olinski always gave good answers.
7. Spring had come and once more the young beech trees beside the rushing Illerbach were a tender green.

*same rules as last time except that some of these books came out more recently than 30 years ago.

Quiz!!!

Here are first sentences from some children's books* I happen to have lying around...Tell me which book the sentence comes from!

1) When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.

2) It was Mrs. May who first told me about them.

3) Cedric himself knew nothing whatever about it.

4) The little old kitchen had quieted down from the bustle and confusion of midday; and now, with its afternoon manners on, presented a holiday aspect that, as the principal room in the brown house, it was eminently proper it should have.

5) The primroses were over.

6) "Did Mama sing every day," asked Caleb.

7) Ba-room, ba-room, ba-room, baripity, baripity, baripity -- Good.

8) The first Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day -- a day to be awaited with dread, endured with courage and forgotten with haste.



*Children's books, in this context means one or both of two things, either it is a book written for children, or it is a book that I read and enjoyed before I was 12. You may disagree with my definition. All the books used for this quiz existed 30 or more years ago and are republished frequently, though I don't guarantee that they are currently in print.

Transportation update

There's no way for me to take public transportation to Nearby U that isn't either too expensive or too complicated or too long.

• The simplest route (two buses) takes an hour on the first bus to almost all the way to DC, then over an hour on the second bus to work my way back West to Nearby U and it costs $7.35 each way.
• The cheapest route is $3.65 each way, but it requires driving 25 minutes to the bus, taking a bus, a train, and another bus - ending up with about a 2 hour commute. And it doesn't have a bus coming back until 4:00.
• All the other routes require driving, three buses and just as much time and a bit more meandering.

Sigh.

I guess I'm driving.

Thinking

We're trying to use less energy, both to save money (the smilingsmilingsmiling wiped us out) and to be better global citizens.

Our cars are both guzzlers (Jeep Wrangler and Kia Sedona), but they're still in good condition and we're not going to replace them anytime soon. So we're driving more thoughtfully, making less trips. And, as I said in the post below, I'm going to try to find a way to get to Nearby U by taking mass transit. There may not be a way, but I'm going to look for it. If there is no way to do it now...well, the smilingsmilingsmiling had to be good for something, more transportation alternatives might just be it!

Our house has dual-zone heating so whatever area we're not using gets the heat turned down to 50 F. And we're keeping the areas we are using down around 67 F. But our thermostat's not all that precise. I'm going to get us all some long johns to wear under our pjs and turn the heat down farther when we're in bed.

We're turning off lights and, even better, not turning them all on in the first place.

And we're planning...what car(s) will we get to replace our current ones? How much car do we really need for the driving we do? When our appliances need to be replaced, what's the best thing to replace them with? How much would it cost to put in more insulation, or a solar system for some of our electricity? Should we downsize to a smaller house? We have a boat-load of computers running all. the. time. Most of those are necessary servers for various business functions, but maybe we can double 'em up? But that would require a block of dedicated time, and that, my friends, is not to be found at the moment....

What are you thinking about?

Scarf done, work done, school starting, other stuff

The hooded scarf is done, it's thick and warm, but I literally look like Death in it. All I need is a scythe. Or, considering my height, perhaps I look more like a Jawa. I'll have MS take a picture and let you all decide.

Work is over, I really had a good feeling about it. I mostly did busy-work admin things, but it was busy-work admin things that they actually needed to have done to help them pass their CMMI-Level II stuff in April.

School starts Tuesday. I'm going to see if there's any way I can take some form of public transportation to get there. I really enjoyed having that down time!

Classes: History and Systems in Psychology; Statistics; Technical and Report Writing; and Counseling Psychology. That last is a Saturday morning class. The others are Tuesday/Thursday.

Muffin Man (thanks KLee!) learned about acids, bases, and neutrals today when he pulled out his chemistry set. He also learned about hypothesis and the scientific method. It was alot of fun!

We're reading The Magic Tree House series together, he's doing a great job of reading, but I think I'm going to get him checked for an astigmatism since he keeps tilting his head to read (which is something I did until I was diagnosed with an astigmatism). I've got lots of other books waiting in the wings for him...I can't wait!

Finished reading Aunt Dimity and the Deep Blue Sea, Aunt Dimity Goes West, Grave Surprise, and An Ice Cold Grave. Good books all.

What's up with you?

Gah!!! I'm getting comment spam again!

I've had to set comments to no anonymous comments. Sorry.

Holy shit

MH* wants to amend the Constitution to bring it in line with God's word (hat tip to The Well-Timed Period).

Seriously. Please, please, please anyone but him.


*I'm using initials because I don't want fans of that horror show to come here.

I think they should let him compete

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/14/AR2008011400595.html?hpid=artslot

Random bullets of an uneventful Saturday

• The scarf part of the scarf-hood combo is done. It's about 6' long. I knit it all in a bit over a week. Now I just need to work on the hood. I'm debating what technique to use. Pick up stitches off the long side where my ugly bit is and knit from there or knit it separately and attach it later? I'm leaning towards picking up stitches.
• Also, I found some skirt patterns that look like they might work and I'm taking your points to heart!!!
• MM's fever is yo-yo'ing (highest since yesterday is 100.4), but he's in a great mood, so I'm not worrying too much about it. If his mood changes or the fever's still with us on Monday, we're heading off to the doctor.
• I bought meat and veggies to roast slowly tomorrow. I'm looking forward to eating them tomorrow night.
• Also, we bought a crusty loaf of bread. Out of which I plan to make french toast for MM. Here's my latest recipe for excellent french toast!

Secret Ingredient French Toast

4 large thickly-sliced slices of crusty bread, 1 egg, 1/2 cup of milk, 1 to 2 tablespoons of cinnemon and sugar mixed together, 1 to 2 tablespoons of applesauce (shhhh...MM hates applesauce) and a pinch of salt. Beat together everything but the bread and then soak the bread in the mixture while the heavy cast-iron skillet is heating up and some butter or butter-substitute is melting in it.

Fry the battered bread for about 2 to 3 minutes a side or until the french toast is, as Alton Brown says, "golden brown and delicious".

If you're serving it to MM, you will be a hero if you cut the french toast into "sticks", the better for dipping in the (real! Vermont!) maple syrup. MM has declared this to be the best french toast in the entire world. And he doesn't know that the secret ingredient is in there. In the winter time, I get as many fruits and veggies into that boy as I can. And he likes most of them. This is the only thing I actually use stealth tactics for. Though I may start adding shredded carrots to my spaghetti sauce.

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

It's National De-lurking Day!!!!

Hi! Pleased to meetcha! How are you?

Sorry that this post is so short, but MM woke up today with a fever and was home all day with his dad while I was at work, so I just got done with packing a full day of mommy cuddles in before bedtime.

Books I'm reading: Aunt Dimity and the Deep Blue Sea and Grave Surprise both of which I recommend. However, read Aunt Dimity's Death before Deep Blue Sea and read Grave Sight before Grave Surprise.

What I'm knitting: A loooooong scarf in Lion Brand Homespun yarn (the color is 313 Ebony, which I think has been discontinued). This is a very soft and luscious acrylic yarn (only $4.69/skein) that I bought to fill out another project which ended up not happening and became something else. I think I may add a hood to the scarf I'm knitting, because the place I switched skeins is looking nasty and I don't think I can fix it happily. I started the scarf last week, and have knitted it steadily on the bus.

What I'm doing at work: Mostly admin stuff, word processing, and data entry. It's fun but mostly because it's only for a month. While I really like the people and the working itself, I don't want to work in the tech world anymore. The endless quest for quantifying and qualifying processes and metrics (but not really believing in them) wears me out. I just don't have the patience for paying lip service to processes no one follows and that the customer thinks is stupid and that upper management don't buy into.

Not that that's necessarily the case in this instance, but I can spot the signs and I'm glad to be leaving before the disillusionment sets in.

A thought on skirts

So, I'm working in DC for a month. Thus, there are things of which I must take advantage. For example: Shoe repair shops. There is one 4 blocks from where I work. My boots are going there tomorrow.

Which brings me to skirts.

I love skirts. When they are the right kind.

I know the right kind of skirt when I see it.

Generally it doesn't fit me.

The skirt I want is brown wool, but not a suit skirt. I want one to wear with my brown not-quite-riding-boots and brown tights.

It's long enough to cover the tops of the boots.

Maybe it has buttons down the side, I don't know.

What I do know is that it is brown and made of wool. I know this because I want to knit it.

Which means I am insane.

Are there even any patterns for knitting your own skirt? Can someone who can't even sew KNIT her own skirt?

Help me, my friends! Can I knit a skirt? And if so, do you have a pattern?

My bus riding and car-pooling partner...

...is my boss. I like her a lot. She's a pretty near-by neighbor, actually, though I never met her before I got this temp job.

We ride in together every morning and, while on the bus, I've taught her to knit. I donated 4 skeins of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Sun Yellow Single Ply (the thick stuff) to the cause!

She picked it up really quickly and is doing a great job. Nice even stitches.

After I go back to school, we're still going to meet at the coffee place nearby once or twice a month to knit together.

I love making new friends.

Rant - UPDATED

This time, against Webkinz. MM got one from his aunt on Saturday. Sunday morning, we tried to "adopt" it, which means we have to register.

Everything was going fine. Name? Done. Region? Done. Username and password? Done and done. Webkinz code word? Done.

Then it asks us to type in the captcha letters we see on the screen.

Except...we don't see any captcha letters on the screen. And there's no link for "I don't see the letters". So I finally find my way to the help section, which says that we need at least IE 6 and the latest Adobe flash. Well, I've got IE 7 and my Adobe is up-to-date. So then I try to send a note to Webkinz Tech Support.

And here's where they've lost me.

To send a message to tech support, you need to be registered.

But I NEED TECH SUPPORT TO GET REGISTERED!

So I go to Dr. Google and find an email and phone number (not listed on the Webkinz site) and I send an e-mail and leave a phone message. Whereupon I learn that Webkinz tech support is only available 9-5 EST, M-F.

When are most kids playing with their Webkinz? On the weekends and in the evenings.

MM was bummed that he didn't get to play on-line with his new toy, but we showed them! He decorated a box to be a house, and made a little bed out of curly ribbon for his friend and is sleeping cuddled up with her right now.





I know that in the grand scheme of things, this is truly minor. But it irks me that their customer service is so lousy.

UPDATE:
I finally was able to get MM registered (captcha letters appeared late last night), but I haven't gotten a response to either my phone call or my e-mail. Do you think enough people complain over the weekend that they can't get to them all in one eight-hour work day? Or do they just not respond to complaints? I'll let you know if they get back to me!

Statistics

At nearly 38 years, 10 months old, I am 59" tall and 125 lbs.
At over 5 years, 11 months old, MM is 45" tall and 40 lbs.

He grew a quarter inch in less than a month. Looks like he got his genes from his grandmothers' fathers.

I'm your little senoriter

MM liked it, but he liked Rabbit Seasoning better. Still, he spent a good five minutes of snuggle time massaging my head while singing.

I'm comfortably well off!

Ickity Ackity Ook.

Happy New Year!!!

I've introduced MM to the joy that is Bugs Bunny. He now knows what we mean when we say, "Pronoun Trouble".

Also, I've started a new weekend tradition: we're going to bake something every weekend (if possible). Last weekend, it was chocolate chip pecan almond cookies; this weekend it was cheese-cake brownies.

Also, the public areas of our house are neat and clean. Our new year's resolution is to be able to have guests over at a moment's notice. Our primary goal is to not have to madly clean and straighten for MM's b-day on Feb. 1. One month. CAN WE DO IT? The answer will be posted in a later episode!

Also, MS is officially an official. As of 12:00:01 this morning! We parked in his special reserved spot last night when we all went to First Night (good magician, juggling, and "reptiles alive!").

All my best to you and yours for this bright new year. Only 385 days until that nightmare is gone. May he be replaced by someone who doesn't have the initials MH. Can I hear an amen?

It's that time of year again.

I did it last year and here it is again. The first line of the first post of each month from 2007.

January: ...Picked up his stool, carried it to the cabinet near the sink, climbed up, opened the cabinet that holds the drinking glasses, got one of his plastic tumblers, closed the cabinet door, climbed down, carried his tumbler to the fridge, opened the fridge, got out the jug of filtered water (only 1/3 full), handed his tumbler to me, said, "Would you please hold this while I pour?", poured the water, put the jug away in the fridge, returned his stool to its home, retrieved his glass of water from me, drank it, and put the tumbler in the sink. (he's my big boy)
February: Was at The Little Gym. (paaaaarteeeee!)
March: Chores done by my 5-year-old: (yes, yes, I know. It's a sentence fragment. Sue me)
April: Monday: Computer shuts itself down without warning while I'm in the middle of writing a paper due yesterday. (my flesh still creeps thinking about it.)
May: I find there are three things that keep me posting regularly(ish): (yes, yes, I know. Another sentence fragment. Sue me)
June: God, I love my cable modem. (don't we all?)
July: Mostly, I've been working on unbloggable stuff and have nothing to say. (so very, very glad I figured out a way to blog about that!)
August: I got three A+'s and a B+ for the semester. (but man can not live on grades alone)
September: "Find your hook and hang up your backpack." (or, RTFM)
October: I can't believe the amount of gunk my sinuses can hold at one time. (or, TMI)
November: I walked. (oh, how I walked)
December: I made them. (latkes, that is)

230,500

Three years have passed.

I didn't make it to The Nutcracker this year...

So I thought I'd post this:

Santa has come...

MM has been read to (Mouse Tales, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and A Visit From St. Nicholas) and told to stay in bed or Santa won't come. He's sleeping soundly now.

So Santa came. He ate the cookies (chocolate-chip with pecans and almonds), the reindeer ate the oats. The presents are wrapped and ready under the tree.

Happy Christmas to all and to all a goodnight!

Sometimes it's good to swear in front of your kids

MS swore today in front of MM. And I was proud of him.

C, C+, B

Meh. I'm okay with it. I still have a 3.54 GPA. I wish I could have done better but, MS points out that the World's Best Camp pain Man ager (who's getting his master's at Nearby U) got an A+ for his work on the Camp pain. And that if I could have gotten scholastic credit for it, I'd have gotten an A+ too.

Ah well. Time to start applying to Grad schools.

Work was boring but good. No e-mail. No internet. I got work done and twiddled my thumbs. Taking the bus was good too. I'm bringing my knitting tomorrow. I hope I can get it through security.

I got a job

I'm covering a maternity leave during winter break. I start tomorrow!

My temp agency says it's the fastest turn-around time they've ever had. I called yesterday, they got an interview lined up for me...hired today.

Posting will be light but, perhaps, more interesting!

More about the blasted pink crap

I sent an email to Hasbro through their customer support link on their website (not an easy site in which to find the "contact us" button). I hope they get the message.

I'm also wondering...I boycott W@lm@rt of course and I'm thinking I'm going to start boycotting the pink plastic crap. I'm not buying it for my son. I'm not buying it for his friends. I'm not buying it for my neighbors.

If it's pink, I'm not buying it.

If it's shelved only in the pink ghetto, I'm not buying it.

I'll buy it in blue. I'll buy it in purple. I'll buy it in De1g@udi0 orange, for crying out loud. But I'm not buying anything, ANYTHING in pink.

What did we do this weekend?

Oh Boy! Chocolate chip (MM mixing and spooning) and delicious buttery sugar (thanks to DeepVoicedKindergartener's Mom)! Yumyumyumyumyum.

Gender, gender, gender

What the hell is up with Littlest Pet Shop and their Electronic Paws Off diary? Is there any reason why it only comes in pink?

What, Hasbro thinks that boys don't like dogs guarding their stuff? MM begs to differ.

However, that led me to find out that most reviewers thought it was crap. So...we're not buying it for a couple of reasons now.

And for the record, if it had gotten GREAT reviews I might have bought it but I'm just so flipping sick of manufacturers vomiting pepto-bismol all over toys so that they can market them to girls.

It's insulting.

It's insulting to girls, because --- what? They need to only buy pink stuff? Oh! No! if it's not pink then it's a boy thing!!!

It's insulting to boys, because ---what? They need to be told there are certain things they can't use because oh! no! IT'S PINK!!!! Ewwww! You're using a girl thing!

And I'm not against MM using pink stuff. I get him pink stuff quite often. But he does get pressure about it and I don't want him thinking that only girls can be diarists or cooks or parents for crying out loud.

I'm angry and shocked that almost 40 years after this album came out, things are actually worse.

I mean...have you been to Target lately? In the toy section there is a pink ghetto. Three aisles where not only are all the toys packaged in pink, but the section signs are also in pink.

That is the section in which you will find all The Littlest Pet Shop toys.

TLPS toys are plastic crap. I am not denying this. I have guilt over the amount of plastic crap in my house, but that is not what I'm ranting about today.

MM loves TLPS. LOVES it. What's not to love about cute little animals? And most of it is not pink.

MM also loves to write. LOVES it. So why did Hasbro decide that THIS toy needs a pepto paint job? Hasbro is going to get a nasty letter from me tomorrow.

But I think there's going to be a disappointed boy on Christmas Day. Because we're not buying that pink plastic piece of crap.

Think, Hasbro. If it had also come in yellow or green or purple I would have bought it before reading any reviews!

Holy cow

Cecily wrote this post inspired by this post. And they both just hit me WHAM right between the eyes.

You remember this post? And how, afterwards, I got down to my marriage weight? And I wanted to get down to my bookstore weight? Well, it didn't happen. What happened instead is I went right back up to my just-had-a-baby weight.

And then I went walkingwalkingwalking for that thing back in November and I lost 10 pounds. And I felt really good about it. But then I stopped walkingwalkingwalking and the weight is creeping back on.

And it's not because I'm eating hugely. And it's not because I'm scarfing down Mallomars (though I'm not denying myself them either). It's because I'm not walking at least 2 hours a day at least four days a week. Which is an insane amount of exercise and I don't have the time for it anyway.

So here I am.

I am never going to be 108 pounds again.
I am never going to be 112 pounds again.

I am just not.

I need to exercise a decent amount to stay healthy, but I'll be damned if I'm going to do it to lose weight.

I will never be a D cup again. I will always have trouble finding clothes to fit. And I'll be damned if I will let that make me feel bad about myself. I had trouble finding clothes when I was thin, because I'm FLIPPING SHORT!

Heart disease runs in my family. That is a fact. I will exercise to stay fit so that I can live to see my grandkids. But I am not going to focus on weight or clothing sizes anymore. I am an apple and I am going to be proud of it.

Latke recipe

Ingredients:
2-3 lbs of potatoes (I used butter potatoes, but any kind will do)
1 small onion (or medium-sized if you're like me and think there's never enough)
1/3 cup flour
2 eggs, whisked
Salt and pepper
Enough olive oil (or canola oil) to make it 1/2 inch deep in your cast iron skillet

Peel your potatoes and put them in a bowl of water to keep them from getting yucky. Put your grating attachment in your food processor and grate those suckers, along with the onion.
Put the grated potato/onion mixture into a large bowl and add the flour, whisked eggs, salt, and pepper. Spoon mixture into the hot oil and flatten each spoonful with a spatula. Cook 3 minutes a side. Remove them to a paper-towel-covered platter. Put paper-towel between layers of latkes on the platter as the pile gets higher.

Serve with sour cream and apple sauce. And a roast chicken makes a tasty side dish (in which case, if you're kosher, skip the sour cream)!

Keep the oil in the pan to reheat leftovers. Only discard the oil when all the latkes are eaten (usually after breakfast the next morning).

MS thinks that I should use our english muffin rings to make them next time...I'll try it next year and let y'all know how it worked.

Weekend Update

Taking a two-minute break from cramming for Cell Bio to bring you random bullets of What's Up:

• Public areas of house are neat and clean (stairs still need to be vacuumed).
• MakesBooksForGrandkids and SingsLullabyes were here and great fun was had including:
• Putting up the tree
• Opening some Christmas gifts with MBFG & SL
• MM putting on a show!
• I banged my elbow so hard last night, I thought I'd chipped a bone. Kept ice packs and frozen blueberries on it all evening. It's much better now, but that whole side of my body is fireplacing sore.
• Pin Art can keep a 5-year-old boy occupied for hours.
• These toys can keep a 49-year-old boy occupied for hours.

See you folks later this week!

Adequate/Inadequate

Lindsay over at Suburban Turmoil has a post up about ways moms feel judged and judging of other moms. I don't necessarily feel judged or judgmental of other moms in the real world, but I do measure myself by fictional moms' standards and it's by that yardstick that I often feel inadequate.

Inadequate:
Mama in All-of-a-kind Family has 6 kids and has to do the laundry by hand, yet she still has time to do charity work, take care of a sick friend and spend quality time with her brother. I have a washing machine and dryer and only one child and I haven't put away the clean kitchen linens from last week's wash. My house is a sty.

Adequate:
On the other hand, she relies a lot on Ella to babysit for all 5 younger siblings and she allows her toddling son to go to the store downstairs by himself. I've never left MM alone with a 12 year old for God's sake! And no, he is NOT allowed out of my house without supervision. Plus, I can pretty much trust him NOT to put hot coals in his lap.

Inadequate:
Ma from the Little House books cooks at an open hearth, cleans, draws water from the fireplacing WELL and homeschools! I live in the modern world and...well...see Inadequate above. Also, MM doesn't know how to tie his shoes. I should have taught him that already, right?

Adequate:
I don't rely on my deathly ill child to crawl on the floor and get water for the rest of the family. Nor do I expect MM to put a sibling through school by sewing 10 hours a day.

On par: MM gets a bath at least once a week, more often if it seems necessary. He can read. He's happy playing by himself while I get dinner ready. He loves to vacuum. And, while his Christmas list is rather long, he understands the concept of "enough" and is not expecting to get more than one or two things off that long list. And he'd be really really happy with some silly slippers as a present.

But I feel horrible about how often I feed him crap, or spend time on my computer instead of playing with him, and how messy our house is, and how much tv I let him watch, and and and...

But he's loving, and a good friend, and loves nothing more than to have me and his daddy read to him or listen to him read, he spends a huge amount of time coloring and writing stories, he's a good kid.

On balance, I guess I'm doing a good job. I guess my feelings of inadequacy come from knowing I could be doing much better. But sometimes good enough is good enough.

Now, I'm going to work out some guilt feelings in the kitchen with a mop.

That's all folks!

The World's Best C@mp@!gn M@n@ger played this for me today and after I went and changed my pants, I came to share it with you.

Latkes of love

I made them. Fried. Oil. Oh, the sweet sizzling of it.

We ate them. Fried. Potatoes. Onions. Ohhhh, why oh why does heart disease have to run in my family? I want to eat the fried potato-y goodness forever.

And then, could it get any better? Mallomars for dessert.

Heaven is hanukkah.

Hibernating

MM is hibernating today. He's in school in his jammies, fuzzy bear slippers, and sleeping bag with Paddington* watching Brother Bear.

Can I hibernate too?





* a bear was specified in the instructions for the day. "Can I bring Boo instead?" he asked his teacher. "Ghosts don't hibernate," she said. "What about my fox?" queried my little rebel. "We really are talking about how bears hibernate," said his teacher. Hmmpf.