Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Oh, and while we're at it...
Since we're going back to Holland next month, I thought it high time to post these neat pictures of European-style lights (that, and the winter games are on):
JAMBOG time!
(See here for a list of rules.)
A Drink
From Days To Come
"We checked in with the hostess and sat at the bar to drink a Coke and enjoy the cigarette smoke while we waited. Scott was talking about something at work and I was sitting in the bar stool leaning on the bar and sipping my Coke ..."
A Light
From Focht Tales
A Food
From The Real Food Revolution
"I tell my kids that we're going to have bird's nests for lunch."
Something Cold
Need I say more?
A Drink
From Days To Come
"We checked in with the hostess and sat at the bar to drink a Coke and enjoy the cigarette smoke while we waited. Scott was talking about something at work and I was sitting in the bar stool leaning on the bar and sipping my Coke ..."
A Light
From Focht Tales
A Food
From The Real Food Revolution
"I tell my kids that we're going to have bird's nests for lunch."
Something Cold
Need I say more?
Free ice cream is here again!
I will not miss this again, quotha. (Somehow I have missed it every single year I've lived where there are Brusters.) Michael was aghast when I told him, all gushing and bubbly, about my discovery and my plan to dress the girls up in their pyjamas, and wear my bathrobe over my sweats, because that's the closest thing I have to actual pyjamas, at least that could be worn in public.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Gold and dross
I'm sure you all have seen (or heard of) that little demonstration of time and priorities using a box of sand and some bricks. Someone performed it in our Sunday school class a few years ago, but I'd read of it elsewhere, and I think it's a terrific visual presentation.
Basically, you have a box full of sand, and a stack of bricks, and you're told to make them both fit into one box. If you try to cram the bricks into the box full of sand, you will discover that they will not fit: they simply will not occupy the same space. But if you put the bricks into an empty box (Ha! I caught you, a la Sherlock Holmes! I never told you that you had an empty box! [but then, as I told someone recently, who was complaining about S. H.'s habit of making himself look clever by withholding important information so that the reader could not out-guess him, Come on! This isn't Encyclopedia Brown we're reading! You're not supposed to figure it out on your own!]) , and then pour the sand in around it, then it will fit (at least more so). The idea is that you have to start off with the really important things in life, and fit the less important things in around them, or else the unimportant things will crowd out the important things.
Such is the way I feel about this season of my life. The more bricks I try to cram in, the more swiftly the sand flows out of the hourglass of my life...oh, well, never mind the metaphors. This is not, by the way, a roundabout (and that word always makes me think of England) announcement of the end of my blog, merely a meandering mulling over the sparseness of posts recently.
Sometimes blogging is sand. Fun sand...sandcastle-building-worthy sand...lie-lazily-in- the-sun-and-ignore-my-cares sand...but sand nonetheless.
All right, now I shall go off and do the dishes. Again.
Basically, you have a box full of sand, and a stack of bricks, and you're told to make them both fit into one box. If you try to cram the bricks into the box full of sand, you will discover that they will not fit: they simply will not occupy the same space. But if you put the bricks into an empty box (Ha! I caught you, a la Sherlock Holmes! I never told you that you had an empty box! [but then, as I told someone recently, who was complaining about S. H.'s habit of making himself look clever by withholding important information so that the reader could not out-guess him, Come on! This isn't Encyclopedia Brown we're reading! You're not supposed to figure it out on your own!]) , and then pour the sand in around it, then it will fit (at least more so). The idea is that you have to start off with the really important things in life, and fit the less important things in around them, or else the unimportant things will crowd out the important things.
Such is the way I feel about this season of my life. The more bricks I try to cram in, the more swiftly the sand flows out of the hourglass of my life...oh, well, never mind the metaphors. This is not, by the way, a roundabout (and that word always makes me think of England) announcement of the end of my blog, merely a meandering mulling over the sparseness of posts recently.
Sometimes blogging is sand. Fun sand...sandcastle-building-worthy sand...lie-lazily-in- the-sun-and-ignore-my-cares sand...but sand nonetheless.
All right, now I shall go off and do the dishes. Again.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Fetch and carry
One of the most mind-numbing aspects of keeping up with little people, whose energy and creativity seem limitless, most especially in comparison with my own, is the setting things to rights by insisting on believing that everything has its proper place, and should, ideally, stay there.
Far more minute - and thus more irritating and camel-back-straw-breaking than the endless repertoire of dishes, dusters, and laundry - is the unending courier duty of patrolling the hallways, counters, couches, tables, and tupperware drawers to ensure that used tissues, clean laundry, dirty laundry, foodstuffs, hairbrushes, papers, utensils, and the like didn't get misplaced by little hands. Jane and Ella are fond of picking things up and just following me around the house, distributing random items in their wake, quite apart from their intentional foraging expeditions, where they hide the magnets under the bathroom sink, because they are making popcorn. As if in space, objects drift casually through the house, coming to rest peacefully in the odd nook or cranny.
There seem to be two possible destinations for these unfixed objects: in full view, which is annoying to me because it gives the appearance of clutter and makes me feel, no matter how much time I spend running around putting things away, that my house is falling apart and I just put that away three times already this morning and what's the use of it all, or out of sight, which is only slightly more dire, because it may turn out to be something that we may require before we happen to discover its resting place. Asking Jane where she put the nasal aspirator is decidedly unproductive.
Far more minute - and thus more irritating and camel-back-straw-breaking than the endless repertoire of dishes, dusters, and laundry - is the unending courier duty of patrolling the hallways, counters, couches, tables, and tupperware drawers to ensure that used tissues, clean laundry, dirty laundry, foodstuffs, hairbrushes, papers, utensils, and the like didn't get misplaced by little hands. Jane and Ella are fond of picking things up and just following me around the house, distributing random items in their wake, quite apart from their intentional foraging expeditions, where they hide the magnets under the bathroom sink, because they are making popcorn. As if in space, objects drift casually through the house, coming to rest peacefully in the odd nook or cranny.
There seem to be two possible destinations for these unfixed objects: in full view, which is annoying to me because it gives the appearance of clutter and makes me feel, no matter how much time I spend running around putting things away, that my house is falling apart and I just put that away three times already this morning and what's the use of it all, or out of sight, which is only slightly more dire, because it may turn out to be something that we may require before we happen to discover its resting place. Asking Jane where she put the nasal aspirator is decidedly unproductive.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Legs and letters
I am constantly amazed at the little bits of profundity Jane pops out with. I should be writing this all down in her baby book. But at the rate I am going, I am doing well to remember to share it with Michael that night, let alone blog about it. Two clevernesses come to mind, however:
This morning she was admiring herself in the mirror and reading off the letters on her shirt. Now, she knows all her letters and the main sounds they make, but we've kept it simple thus far and only introduced her to the short vowel sounds. In absence of formal school time, I've taken to spelling out short words whenever I can and walking her through the sounds. Her shirt read, 'Dept. of Cute,' and she was happily reciting the letters.
So I decided to make a giant leap forward and introduce her to the concept of long and short vowel sounds. Leading her to the garish letter magnets on the fridge, I spelled out CUT and explained how, without an E, the U made an uh sound, but when you add the E, it makes the YEW sound! Never missing a trick, she said, 'Let's add the Z!' And then proceeded to line up all the rest of the letters, in order of colour.
Then this evening, she was running around sans-culottes. As I washed the dishes, I overheard this ensuing conversation:
Jane: Jane's legs are naked!
Michael: Yes, they are.
Jane: Jane is wearing no pants!
Michael: No, you're not wearing pants.
Jane: Just legs!
This morning she was admiring herself in the mirror and reading off the letters on her shirt. Now, she knows all her letters and the main sounds they make, but we've kept it simple thus far and only introduced her to the short vowel sounds. In absence of formal school time, I've taken to spelling out short words whenever I can and walking her through the sounds. Her shirt read, 'Dept. of Cute,' and she was happily reciting the letters.
So I decided to make a giant leap forward and introduce her to the concept of long and short vowel sounds. Leading her to the garish letter magnets on the fridge, I spelled out CUT and explained how, without an E, the U made an uh sound, but when you add the E, it makes the YEW sound! Never missing a trick, she said, 'Let's add the Z!' And then proceeded to line up all the rest of the letters, in order of colour.
Then this evening, she was running around sans-culottes. As I washed the dishes, I overheard this ensuing conversation:
Jane: Jane's legs are naked!
Michael: Yes, they are.
Jane: Jane is wearing no pants!
Michael: No, you're not wearing pants.
Jane: Just legs!
Friday, January 25, 2008
Silver linings (or not)
Sara's recent post about grey hair, and our response to it, reflects a lot of similar thoughts I've had on the topic. On the one hand, of course I want to accept my age. (But of course, I don't want to look too old while doing so.) Of course I want to age gracefully. (But just not too soon.)
I've wondered what I'll do when the time comes to deal with it. Aside from all the problematic health concerns linking cancer risks to darker hair dyes, and the problematic costs associated with the natural (e.g. henna) dyes (well, for that matter, surely even the most dastardly carcinogenic hair dyes must get expensive after a while), there's the old Institute baggage of the notion that we must accept ungrudging our ten unchangeables, such as aging and death.
(I don't actually believe this anymore, by the way. Death is inevitable, but that doesn't mean we don't strive to fight it every chance we get. It's a product of the curse, and therefore not something that we should just accept glibly without protest.)
Of course there seems something inherently dishonest about dyeing one's hair, just to pretend that one looks different from how one really appears. But that hurdle can be quickly resolved by pointing out that it's just as dishonest to wear makeup and coloured contacts, or to shave one's legs, or to get braces, or wear high heels.
No, my biggest problem with the notion of dyeing one's hair is the societal concession to an inflated standard of beauty. Just as the popular advent of make-up ('Painting like an Indian,' as Dad Gilbreth jeeringly called it in Cheaper By The Dozen) last century leveled the playing field for the masses and undermined the relative natural beauty of the genuinely good-looking, so the widespread and almost universal dyeing of hair gives us an inflated notion of youth. Most women who would otherwise go grey do dye their hair, because everyone else does, so we have come to associate grey hair with an exaggerated sense of oldness.
For that reason alone, I'd be eager to see society re-establish a rational, sensible acceptance of grey hair as compatible with vibrance and youth. But am I going to participate in countering the current trend? Probably not until the backlash grows to be a widespread phenomenon. No blazing of fashion trails for me.
I read recently (maybe in a review of this book?) that various tests and studies had proven that grey hair only advances the perception of one's age to the average viewer by three years. Whatever. I don't need to look three years older than I am. When I am thirty, fair and square, I will be perfectly happy to look thirty, thank you very much. Meanwhile, I will try very hard not to stress about it, since stress is supposed to bring on ye old hoary head.
I've wondered what I'll do when the time comes to deal with it. Aside from all the problematic health concerns linking cancer risks to darker hair dyes, and the problematic costs associated with the natural (e.g. henna) dyes (well, for that matter, surely even the most dastardly carcinogenic hair dyes must get expensive after a while), there's the old Institute baggage of the notion that we must accept ungrudging our ten unchangeables, such as aging and death.
(I don't actually believe this anymore, by the way. Death is inevitable, but that doesn't mean we don't strive to fight it every chance we get. It's a product of the curse, and therefore not something that we should just accept glibly without protest.)
Of course there seems something inherently dishonest about dyeing one's hair, just to pretend that one looks different from how one really appears. But that hurdle can be quickly resolved by pointing out that it's just as dishonest to wear makeup and coloured contacts, or to shave one's legs, or to get braces, or wear high heels.
No, my biggest problem with the notion of dyeing one's hair is the societal concession to an inflated standard of beauty. Just as the popular advent of make-up ('Painting like an Indian,' as Dad Gilbreth jeeringly called it in Cheaper By The Dozen) last century leveled the playing field for the masses and undermined the relative natural beauty of the genuinely good-looking, so the widespread and almost universal dyeing of hair gives us an inflated notion of youth. Most women who would otherwise go grey do dye their hair, because everyone else does, so we have come to associate grey hair with an exaggerated sense of oldness.
For that reason alone, I'd be eager to see society re-establish a rational, sensible acceptance of grey hair as compatible with vibrance and youth. But am I going to participate in countering the current trend? Probably not until the backlash grows to be a widespread phenomenon. No blazing of fashion trails for me.
I read recently (maybe in a review of this book?) that various tests and studies had proven that grey hair only advances the perception of one's age to the average viewer by three years. Whatever. I don't need to look three years older than I am. When I am thirty, fair and square, I will be perfectly happy to look thirty, thank you very much. Meanwhile, I will try very hard not to stress about it, since stress is supposed to bring on ye old hoary head.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Snow!
We had a winter storm warning on Wednesday, which was shortly followed up by the winter storm itself. Atlanta promptly shut down; as the first flurries of white flakes came down, every activity was canceled and the stores ran out of bread, milk, and toilet paper. I thought it was an urban legend when I moved here, but it's true: whenever it snows here (not too often, granted) people flock to the stores to stock up on supplies.
Meanwhile, Jane and Ella enjoyed their first brush with snow:
Meanwhile, Jane and Ella enjoyed their first brush with snow:
Monday, January 14, 2008
I know things have been slow with the recent writers' strike...
But honestly, is this the best they could do?
I won't tell you what movie I just finished watching, because that might give it away, but in the fit of scoffing that resulted I came up with the following obvious plot devices employed by low-budget and apparently desperate writers:
- In the dramatic confrontation scene, where the Hero confronts and fights with the Villain, sufficiently immobilise the Heroine so that her role is reduced to helpless screaming. For best effects, rig it so that her screams coincide with the most tense moments of the struggle, to further distract the Hero and highten the suspense. Give her enough of a free hand that we can waste precious screen moments by cutting back and forth between the epic conflict and her frantic struggles, but not so much that she breaks free and does something actually productive, such as clobber the Villain.
- When the relationship threatens to drag, bring in an additional potential love interest. Make her blonde. Trot her out and let her run her paces for a few scenes, then dust her off and return her to the wings from whence you plucked her so that the main characters can get on with their spectacular misunderstandings.
- Throw in a few sunset scenes. Zoom in on close-ups of the Hero's and Heroine's fake sobbing (didn't any of these people read Encyclopedia Brown?? Come on, we all know that when tears run from the outside corners of the eyes, they're not real!) in an attempt to distract from the obvious paintedness of the sunset.
- For good resolution, simply pair off characters with the likeliest candidates. Kill off all the leftovers so that nobody ends up alone.
I won't tell you what movie I just finished watching, because that might give it away, but in the fit of scoffing that resulted I came up with the following obvious plot devices employed by low-budget and apparently desperate writers:
- In the dramatic confrontation scene, where the Hero confronts and fights with the Villain, sufficiently immobilise the Heroine so that her role is reduced to helpless screaming. For best effects, rig it so that her screams coincide with the most tense moments of the struggle, to further distract the Hero and highten the suspense. Give her enough of a free hand that we can waste precious screen moments by cutting back and forth between the epic conflict and her frantic struggles, but not so much that she breaks free and does something actually productive, such as clobber the Villain.
- When the relationship threatens to drag, bring in an additional potential love interest. Make her blonde. Trot her out and let her run her paces for a few scenes, then dust her off and return her to the wings from whence you plucked her so that the main characters can get on with their spectacular misunderstandings.
- Throw in a few sunset scenes. Zoom in on close-ups of the Hero's and Heroine's fake sobbing (didn't any of these people read Encyclopedia Brown?? Come on, we all know that when tears run from the outside corners of the eyes, they're not real!) in an attempt to distract from the obvious paintedness of the sunset.
- For good resolution, simply pair off characters with the likeliest candidates. Kill off all the leftovers so that nobody ends up alone.
$100 sapphire...check. Now what?
When we went on our Alaska jaunt last summer, I think I mentioned that the high point of the trip, aside from the abundant food and the midnight chocolate, was dashing about from shop to shop at every port of call, collecting free trinkets. My plan was to work some of these into nice little Christmas presents, which didn't pan out so well, as a recent cleaning frenzy unearthed the crumpled bag of treasures buried under some obscure pile of Deal-Withs. Ah, memories!
One of them is a blue sapphire. It was billed as genuine, and touted as being worth $100. Is Alaska really so short on tourists, and long on sapphires, that they've taken to giving these little gems away as a thank-you gift for visiting their humble shores, you wonder? Not quite - rest assured that they have a plan. When I entered the store, flourishing my stateroom coupon, I was offered the incredible chance to have the free stone mounted in a ring or pendant for only $50. Never one to throw good money after...um...well, no money, I declined the offer and walked out of there with my head held high, clutching my $100 sapphire, with no notion of what to do with it but with a very strong fondness for it, as, after all, it was Genuine, not to mention worth $100.
(This is not an isolated incident, by the way. Another store promised free freshwater pearl pendants, and then spent several minutes explaining to me why I needed to buy their $10 sterling silver chain to wear the pendant on. Finally they just gave up and let me have the pendant. I still haven't figured out what to wear it with.)
One of them is a blue sapphire. It was billed as genuine, and touted as being worth $100. Is Alaska really so short on tourists, and long on sapphires, that they've taken to giving these little gems away as a thank-you gift for visiting their humble shores, you wonder? Not quite - rest assured that they have a plan. When I entered the store, flourishing my stateroom coupon, I was offered the incredible chance to have the free stone mounted in a ring or pendant for only $50. Never one to throw good money after...um...well, no money, I declined the offer and walked out of there with my head held high, clutching my $100 sapphire, with no notion of what to do with it but with a very strong fondness for it, as, after all, it was Genuine, not to mention worth $100.
(This is not an isolated incident, by the way. Another store promised free freshwater pearl pendants, and then spent several minutes explaining to me why I needed to buy their $10 sterling silver chain to wear the pendant on. Finally they just gave up and let me have the pendant. I still haven't figured out what to wear it with.)
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Now we're being followed by rocks
Just finished watching Pirates III and all I can say is, What? That's it???
No, seriously, now what? Is there going to be yet another movie to tie up all the rest of the loose ends satisfactorily? Hate to wreak havoc on this nice trilogy motif we had going, but there has to be a better resolution than once every ten years.
This is the woman scorned like which Hell hath no fury.
No, seriously, now what? Is there going to be yet another movie to tie up all the rest of the loose ends satisfactorily? Hate to wreak havoc on this nice trilogy motif we had going, but there has to be a better resolution than once every ten years.
This is the woman scorned like which Hell hath no fury.
Friday, January 11, 2008
A minor diatribe
Internet shorthand will always be with us (at least as long as we have the internet), but that won't stop me from gnashing my teeth at all the little expressions I find particularly irksome. And the one which at this moment has aroused my derision is the phrase dh, shorthand for, I can only suppose, Dear Husband.
A small part of me (a very, very small part) wants to like the convention, because it sounds so charming and refined to refer to someone as Dear. It also sounds almost British (as in, 'Dear Charlotte,' or 'Dear Mamma'), and anything British is sure to score high points with my passing fancy.
Another part of me wants to stop being annoyed by it, because some people whose writings I otherwise like tend to employ it, and I don't want to catch them in the crossfire of my snide and possibly quite irrational dislike.
Another part of me wants to encourage any instance of niceness and civility in our language that I find, because of course it is laudable to consider one's husband dear, isn't it?
But mainly I just find it annoying. It's a very tiresome cheapening of the language, like a case of chronic italics in an impressionable teenager or the overuse of the word 'love' to mean all things from mildly be interested in to passionately adore.
And why the need to perpetually tack on the chirpy adjective? It almost suggests some kind of insecurity, that one needs so flamboyantly to wear one's heart on one's sleeve and insist how dear one's husband is. It seems to imply a kind of superiority, in stark contrast to those of us poor saps who are so blase as not to publicly call our husbands dear at every opportunity. If you're content to let your husband off with the mere title of husband, which is nothing if not prosaically descriptive, without any reference to the state of your relationship with him, well then! We can see just how loving a wife you are!
In fact, why stop at dh? Why not go gung-ho for this Positive Speech thing and make up all kinds of cute little acronyms to demonstrate vociferously just how wonderful and healthy and enthusiastic we really are? How about my brat (beautiful righteous adorable tot) or my lunk (loving unselfish nice kid) or my gross (gorgeous reliable opinionated svelte spouse)? Yes, why don't we start scattering these little tidbits throughout our conversation and see if the wonderful trend will catch on?
Or is the point to be deliberately unintelligible? Is that why the lazy but somewhat onomatopoetic LOL was abandoned for the more obscure, erudite, and hence now wildly popular ROTFLOL? Because if it makes too much sense, then it wouldn't be clever and original enough to use it, now would it?
A small part of me (a very, very small part) wants to like the convention, because it sounds so charming and refined to refer to someone as Dear. It also sounds almost British (as in, 'Dear Charlotte,' or 'Dear Mamma'), and anything British is sure to score high points with my passing fancy.
Another part of me wants to stop being annoyed by it, because some people whose writings I otherwise like tend to employ it, and I don't want to catch them in the crossfire of my snide and possibly quite irrational dislike.
Another part of me wants to encourage any instance of niceness and civility in our language that I find, because of course it is laudable to consider one's husband dear, isn't it?
But mainly I just find it annoying. It's a very tiresome cheapening of the language, like a case of chronic italics in an impressionable teenager or the overuse of the word 'love' to mean all things from mildly be interested in to passionately adore.
And why the need to perpetually tack on the chirpy adjective? It almost suggests some kind of insecurity, that one needs so flamboyantly to wear one's heart on one's sleeve and insist how dear one's husband is. It seems to imply a kind of superiority, in stark contrast to those of us poor saps who are so blase as not to publicly call our husbands dear at every opportunity. If you're content to let your husband off with the mere title of husband, which is nothing if not prosaically descriptive, without any reference to the state of your relationship with him, well then! We can see just how loving a wife you are!
In fact, why stop at dh? Why not go gung-ho for this Positive Speech thing and make up all kinds of cute little acronyms to demonstrate vociferously just how wonderful and healthy and enthusiastic we really are? How about my brat (beautiful righteous adorable tot) or my lunk (loving unselfish nice kid) or my gross (gorgeous reliable opinionated svelte spouse)? Yes, why don't we start scattering these little tidbits throughout our conversation and see if the wonderful trend will catch on?
Or is the point to be deliberately unintelligible? Is that why the lazy but somewhat onomatopoetic LOL was abandoned for the more obscure, erudite, and hence now wildly popular ROTFLOL? Because if it makes too much sense, then it wouldn't be clever and original enough to use it, now would it?
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Goldilocks
Jane is quickly getting the world all figured out and, per her perfectionist nature, methodically and systematically putting everything in its place.
It happened a few weeks ago that she noted a difference in heights by commenting, 'Jane is little; Mama is big.' Mama did not like this depiction, and promptly informed Jane that while Papa may be big, Mama is medium. So Jane dutifully took in this tidbit of information and proceeded to run with it (in a very methodical and systematic way, of course).
Many days later Michael coughed, and Jane commented, 'Papa's big cough!' She then turned to me and observed, 'Mama has a medium cough.'
Jane is not satisfied with one-sided conversations, so I must not only acknowledge what she says, but agree with her whole-heartedly:
Jane: Papa has a big cough!
Mama: Yes, Papa has a big cough.
Jane: Mama has a medium cough!
Mama: Yes, Mama's cough is medium.
Jane: Jane has a little cough! (cough, cough)
Mama: Yes, Jane has a little cough.
Jane: Ella has a smaller cough!
Mama: Yes.
Jane: Ella has a smaller cough!
Mama: Yes, yes, Jane, Ella does have a smaller cough, doesn't she??
These conversations happen fairly frequently now, and they tend to be rather predictable.
Jane: Papa has a big sneeze!
Mama: Yes, Papa's sneeze is big
Jane: Mama has a medium sneeze!
Mama: Yes, Mama's sneeze is medium
Jane: Jane has a little sneeze!
Mama: Yes, Jane has a little sneeze.
Jane: Ella has a smaller sneeze!
Mama: Yes, she does.
And the possibilities are endless. Jane will never run out of gambits.
It happened a few weeks ago that she noted a difference in heights by commenting, 'Jane is little; Mama is big.' Mama did not like this depiction, and promptly informed Jane that while Papa may be big, Mama is medium. So Jane dutifully took in this tidbit of information and proceeded to run with it (in a very methodical and systematic way, of course).
Many days later Michael coughed, and Jane commented, 'Papa's big cough!' She then turned to me and observed, 'Mama has a medium cough.'
Jane is not satisfied with one-sided conversations, so I must not only acknowledge what she says, but agree with her whole-heartedly:
Jane: Papa has a big cough!
Mama: Yes, Papa has a big cough.
Jane: Mama has a medium cough!
Mama: Yes, Mama's cough is medium.
Jane: Jane has a little cough! (cough, cough)
Mama: Yes, Jane has a little cough.
Jane: Ella has a smaller cough!
Mama: Yes.
Jane: Ella has a smaller cough!
Mama: Yes, yes, Jane, Ella does have a smaller cough, doesn't she??
These conversations happen fairly frequently now, and they tend to be rather predictable.
Jane: Papa has a big sneeze!
Mama: Yes, Papa's sneeze is big
Jane: Mama has a medium sneeze!
Mama: Yes, Mama's sneeze is medium
Jane: Jane has a little sneeze!
Mama: Yes, Jane has a little sneeze.
Jane: Ella has a smaller sneeze!
Mama: Yes, she does.
And the possibilities are endless. Jane will never run out of gambits.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
These boots were made for walkin'
There is a little sketch somewhere by a famous artist of a man with multiple limbs doing cartwheels inside a big circle, the point of which is to prove that the length of the arms, fully extended, should exactly match the height of the body, or thereabouts. There are also optical illusions out there involving top hats and brims, which have something to do with ratios of height to width and all that.
Apparently footwear manufacturers draw their inspiration from these tidbits and decide that the circumference of a woman's calf must exactly match the length of her lower leg, from knee to heel, even including, say, a four-inch stacked heel for good measure (stop and admire my self-restraint for not ending that sentence with 'to boot.' Ha, ha!) From which you are to conclude that my long quest for a good-fitting black boot (or any colour boot, for that matter) continues unfulfilled.
I don't have particularly skinny legs. I am not plump, and I think my calves are about right for my height, and so it bothers me no end that absolutely no boot out there exists which will fit properly. All I want is a nice pair of basic leather (preferably zip-up) boots. I am past caring about price and will gladly pay any amount (and I already checked, and they don't sell boots at CVS) of ready money just to buy a good pair of boots that could last me a few seasons. Seriously, this search has been on for most of my married life, and you would think that at least one season they might come out with a normal boot for a normal-sized leg.
Apparently footwear manufacturers draw their inspiration from these tidbits and decide that the circumference of a woman's calf must exactly match the length of her lower leg, from knee to heel, even including, say, a four-inch stacked heel for good measure (stop and admire my self-restraint for not ending that sentence with 'to boot.' Ha, ha!) From which you are to conclude that my long quest for a good-fitting black boot (or any colour boot, for that matter) continues unfulfilled.
I don't have particularly skinny legs. I am not plump, and I think my calves are about right for my height, and so it bothers me no end that absolutely no boot out there exists which will fit properly. All I want is a nice pair of basic leather (preferably zip-up) boots. I am past caring about price and will gladly pay any amount (and I already checked, and they don't sell boots at CVS) of ready money just to buy a good pair of boots that could last me a few seasons. Seriously, this search has been on for most of my married life, and you would think that at least one season they might come out with a normal boot for a normal-sized leg.
Monday, December 31, 2007
New Year's resolves
At present the only thing I am absolutely set upon involving the course of the near future is the determination to go out to dinner tonight. That may not sound too ambitious, but considering how rarely we eat out, it could be a milestone.
Last year, for some reason (I can only assume we were given a gift card), we went out to Red Lobster on New Year's Eve, which is as good an excuse as any for establishing a tradition. While there, we used a coupon for a free appetizer (still good, by the way) and ended up getting charged $0.50 more than we should have. When I called the manager the next day, she was extremely gracious about it and mailed me a $10 Red Lobster gift card by way of apology. Which brings us around to this year. We have evidently not spent it yet, so I signed up Michael's email address for the Fresh Catch Club and we're going back for second helpings this year.
But you mustn't think that we never eat out at all. Why, just yesterday we actually went to Zaxby's for lunch (although, granted, we didn't spend any money there either, thanks to this). Hmm. In the eccentric spirit of last year's resolution to gain weight in 2007, perhaps a doable New Year's resolution for us would be to spend more money in 2008.
Last year, for some reason (I can only assume we were given a gift card), we went out to Red Lobster on New Year's Eve, which is as good an excuse as any for establishing a tradition. While there, we used a coupon for a free appetizer (still good, by the way) and ended up getting charged $0.50 more than we should have. When I called the manager the next day, she was extremely gracious about it and mailed me a $10 Red Lobster gift card by way of apology. Which brings us around to this year. We have evidently not spent it yet, so I signed up Michael's email address for the Fresh Catch Club and we're going back for second helpings this year.
But you mustn't think that we never eat out at all. Why, just yesterday we actually went to Zaxby's for lunch (although, granted, we didn't spend any money there either, thanks to this). Hmm. In the eccentric spirit of last year's resolution to gain weight in 2007, perhaps a doable New Year's resolution for us would be to spend more money in 2008.
Home again, home again, jiggity-jog
We're back again. We went to Ohio for Christmas, and I missed posting on the shortest day of the year, so I'll pause here to point out that the days are getting colder and longer now.
The Trip was fun but exhausting, and we remembered anew why we do not like long road trips. Jane was a perfect peach, but Ella the Cheerful One was peevish for much of the 12-hour drive back. Now that we're safely home again, we think we'll stay here forever.
The past few days have been devoted to catching up on laundry, unpacking, and writing thank you notes. Meanwhile I've played about with more kitchen alchemy. Upon my discovery that blue cornmeal is far superior to white or yellow in fiber and protein, I substituted blue cornmeal in this recipe with great success. I also snapped up five gallons of organic milk, which provided the perfect opportunity of trying out queso blanco, which actually worked:
The Trip was fun but exhausting, and we remembered anew why we do not like long road trips. Jane was a perfect peach, but Ella the Cheerful One was peevish for much of the 12-hour drive back. Now that we're safely home again, we think we'll stay here forever.
The past few days have been devoted to catching up on laundry, unpacking, and writing thank you notes. Meanwhile I've played about with more kitchen alchemy. Upon my discovery that blue cornmeal is far superior to white or yellow in fiber and protein, I substituted blue cornmeal in this recipe with great success. I also snapped up five gallons of organic milk, which provided the perfect opportunity of trying out queso blanco, which actually worked:
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Ten years ago
I have been writing a diary, more or less, for over ten years now. It was sporadic in the beginning, grew into an intense daily regimen for many years, and then, as Michael appeared on the scene and dispelled my superfluous angst, it dwindled away to brief and pragmatic updates at longer and longer intervals.
Recently I pulled an old volume from the shelf, dusted it off (not only has married life mostly dispelled my propensity to write down deep cogitations, it also seems to have removed my fascination with reading and re-reading my entries from the recent or distant past and contemplating whether I've changed much since then), and looked up December 1997, just on a lark, to see where I was ten years ago.
I had just read an article about double dactyls, a recently-invented (well, relatively speaking) poem form with very rigid parameters. I think the strictness of the rules fascinated me, because I popped off with one straight away:
Utterly uppity
Arrogant Aragorn
Knew that his shortcuts would
Never go wrong;
After a fight or a
Dawn he'd alight for a
Post-expeditional
Dinner and song.
Ha, ha! It still strikes me as terribly clever, although my far older and wiser self (who also happens to have access to high-speed internet for quick research purposes) realises that it was really more of a McWhirtle, because of the absence of a nonsense line.
Recently I pulled an old volume from the shelf, dusted it off (not only has married life mostly dispelled my propensity to write down deep cogitations, it also seems to have removed my fascination with reading and re-reading my entries from the recent or distant past and contemplating whether I've changed much since then), and looked up December 1997, just on a lark, to see where I was ten years ago.
I had just read an article about double dactyls, a recently-invented (well, relatively speaking) poem form with very rigid parameters. I think the strictness of the rules fascinated me, because I popped off with one straight away:
Utterly uppity
Arrogant Aragorn
Knew that his shortcuts would
Never go wrong;
After a fight or a
Dawn he'd alight for a
Post-expeditional
Dinner and song.
Ha, ha! It still strikes me as terribly clever, although my far older and wiser self (who also happens to have access to high-speed internet for quick research purposes) realises that it was really more of a McWhirtle, because of the absence of a nonsense line.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Do they sell bigger ice cream scoops at CVS, too?
Due to a flush of sales and coupons at CVS, we're wallowing in Edy's ice cream this week. It always surprises me to discover that most people don't love ice cream quite as much as I do. No matter how not hungry I am, I will always be happy to spring for ice cream.
After a nice dinner, I got out the ice cream and prepared to shovel out the portions. Michael mentioned that he wasn't that hungry, and would probably just take a couple bites of mine. That would not do, so I offered to serve him a bowl of Small Helpings, to which he acquiesced. When I brought him a very modest portion, he exclaimed, 'That's Small Helpings?'
'Yes,' I explained, and pointed to my bowl: 'That's Regular Helpings.'
'No, my dear,' he told me, 'that's Rose Helpings.'
Can I help it that it was free? Free stuff makes me feel reckless and unrationing. I don't have to make it last because I can always go out and 'buy' more tomorrow.
After a nice dinner, I got out the ice cream and prepared to shovel out the portions. Michael mentioned that he wasn't that hungry, and would probably just take a couple bites of mine. That would not do, so I offered to serve him a bowl of Small Helpings, to which he acquiesced. When I brought him a very modest portion, he exclaimed, 'That's Small Helpings?'
'Yes,' I explained, and pointed to my bowl: 'That's Regular Helpings.'
'No, my dear,' he told me, 'that's Rose Helpings.'
Can I help it that it was free? Free stuff makes me feel reckless and unrationing. I don't have to make it last because I can always go out and 'buy' more tomorrow.
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