Car Naming

Somewhere along the line I seem to have become somebody who names their cars. I never set out to name them all, but looking back, I realize that almost every one I have owned has had a name. Perhaps I was inspired by a friend who named her little red Chevy, Nanny Nova. My first car was a goose-shit green, four-door 1970 Chevrolet Malibu. My sisters and I each took a turn at driving it, and each of us hated it as much as the one before. We called it The Green Bomb. It had few redeeming features, unless you count the capacious back seat, which… saw some good times.

The Green Bomb was replaced by a little silver Honda CRX HF. It got amazing gas mileage and thrived on neglect. It was the first car I ever owned, and because my parents failed to educate me in the ways of car maintenance, I drove it into the ground. I think I serviced it once in the time I owned it. Because I always had bad dreams about werewolves, I named my CRX The Silver Bullet. Steve bought a CRX also, and after we moved up to the Bay area, it didn’t take long before we got tired of only having two-seater cars to transport our friends and family around in when they came to visit. The CRX was replaced with an Acura Integra with more seats, and apparently, less personality. Somehow the Acura never got a name.

Once I started doing field biology, I needed something I could drive off-road. Taking the Acura out on levees where it would bottom out and come back reeking of burning weeds wasn't a comfortable feeling, but it looked cool with a kayak strapped to the top. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to replace the Acura with until I saw the new Subaru Outback. What a great-looking car! It reminded me of the dirty little green cartoon SUV in the Chevron commercials with two bikes in a rack on top. Freddie 4-Wheeler was what it was called, and so that was what I called my Subaru. It was a great car for about eight years, but then, as my father would say, it began to show its whiskers. Subarus don't seem to hold together too well. Cup holders got shattered by the simple act of my children misstepping in the back seat. The front cup holders were positioned so that a sweating soda cup would drip right into the climate control knobs, which became sticky and quit working. The worst part of its aging was that the car developed a persistent oil leak that left it smoking from the hood at stop lights.

For my 40^th birthday, we replaced the Subaru with a Volvo XC90. I really wanted that car, but had some major reservations. Gas mileage was number one. With predictions that gas prices would go up to $5 a gallon, I thought seriously about getting the Toyota Highlander Hybrid. We liked the Highlander, but that third row of seats was tiny! Price was another factor. At over $40 thousand dollars, it seemed like a pretty extravagant expense. I tried to talk myself out of wanting the Volvo by doing a lot of reading online on car owner forums about the XC90. I hoped I'd find tons of people talking about what a crappy car it was for the money. Most owners really liked the car though, and the many glowing accounts about the safety of the Volvo, eased my doubts. One owner, however, recounted a horror story about a trip to Los Angeles when The Big Swede, as they had named their car, needed a major overhaul because its central computer had quit working. From that point on they called it The Scarecrow (as in, If I Only Had a Brain). Objections aside, we took the plunge and three years ago the new Volvo became mine. I told Steve we needed to come up with a name for the new car, lamenting that The Big Swede had already been used. Being and avid fan of cycling, Steve of course knew that this was the nickname of Magnus Backstedt, the professional cyclist who rides for the Garmin-Chipotle team. Now when we decide which car to take, it’s either the Audi (Steve doesn’t name his cars) or Magnus.

Garrettisms

Garrett rattled off a couple of funnies when we were in San Diego:

Steve, after concluding one of many very long chats with my dad, went to check up on the boys to find them playing their Gameboys back in the bedroom. He proceeded to take them to task, saying "You two are back here being unsociable playing video games, Mom is being unsociable reading....." To which Garrett replied, "Yeah, and you are being unsociable talking with Grandpa!"

My dad took some video of Garrett playing piano and Weston playing guitar. Both boys did a very nice job, and the grandparents were suitably impressed. Later, my dad was in his office, editing the footage of Garrett playing piano, and Garrett and Weston were in the next room, again playing their Gameboys. Garrett, hearing the piano music on the computer snickered to Weston, "Whoever is playing the piano, really sucks!"

Dare Devil

On a happier note than my last post, I met my friend Meredith and her brood of five, plus her sister Tammy, at Great America today. Weston isn't much into rides so the plan was just to hang out at Boomerang Bay and do the water slides. After a few hours, Garrett starting hankering for some more thrills though. He had his eye on one of this boat, that swings like a pendulum, finally gaining enough momentum to hang upside down, then plummet to complete a full circle. His initial reaction to the ride was a maybe, but when his friend Kaylie said she'd ride it with him, he was all for it.

After lunch (smart to plan the ride where they hang upside down after lunch, right?) we headed over to the ride. There was pretty much no line, so they were immediately at the gate watching the thing spin, with nothing to do but get cold feet. And cold feet were exactly what Kaylie got. She spun on her heel and left Garrett where he stood. He went as far as to actually get on the ride by himself, thinking that she would follow, but when it became apparent that he was going to have to ride alone, his shoulders slumped and he got off, resigned to never experiencing the swing.

Undaunted, I called Tammy who was elsewhere in the park with Kaylie's older brother Joey. Joey, like Garrett, will ride anything. He was only too happy to join Garrett. Once again, there was no line, so in minutes Joey and Garrett were strapped in and ready to ride. Just as it was about to start up, Garrett looked as if he was about to fill his pants, but by the time he got off (and after hanging upside down for what seemed like an eternity to his poor mother below), he was screaming his usual post-ride "AWESOME!!!" Kaylie, on the other hand, poor one, looked as though someone had stuck a pin in her and let out all of the air. She really wanted to be the one hooting and hollering at the end of that ride with Garrett. Alas she, like Weston, has that handy adaptive trait called fear.

Goodbye to Randy Pausch

Cancer has claimed another victim. Professor Randy Pausch, who delivered the inspiring Last Lecture that shot to fame on YouTube, has died at the age of 47 of pancreatic cancer. My condolences to his family. Since I first heard about Randy and watched him on Oprah (a show I otherwise never watch), I have followed his fight on his blog. Hearing he had died was like a punch in the stomach. Cancer is a son of a bitch!

Stupid is as Stupid Dogs

It is official. I have the dumbest dog in the world. Bo just randomly started barking like a complete maniac. What was he barking at?
























My wall calendar that has had the same picture on it since July 1st (naturally). And just in case you don't think he was pissed that it was a picture of a dog, he became more agitated when we praised and petted the picture.

Updated to add:

Perhaps this is a manifestation of intelligence on Bo's part. This article suggests that dogs are actually able to interpret the contents of photographs like humans do. Bo is really a savant.

The View From My Window

Growing up in La Jolla we didn’t have a whole lot of space between houses, so my bedroom looked out into the Springhorn’s side yard. For some reason, I referred to Mr. Springhorn as “Big Puff Man”. My father, never one to miss a good opportunity to invent a nickname, called him Nebbish. His explanation of the term nebbish went as follows: If a pile of dog poop was sitting in the middle of the sidewalk, a normal person would step over it or around it. A person of lesser intelligence would step in it. The nebbish? Well, the poop would fly up and hit him. I don’t recall anything about Mr. Springhorn other than the names we called him, so if we was indeed a nebbish, I was none the wiser. The Springhorns are long gone, their house now replaced with a multi-million dollar mansion which affords no view at all from my former bedroom window, save the looming side of this palatial estate.

The first apartment I lived in was home to a bunch of college students. I was roommates with my best friend Jenny. We have known each other since we were 14, but after living together, took a year-long, much-needed hiatus from speaking to each other. The group of neighbors in one wing of this complex got together regularly. We did our grocery shopping and hung out by the pool eating Popsicle Big Sticks and gossiping. Sort of like Melrose Place, without all of the promiscuity. My bedroom window looked out on the parking lot in which my poor little CRX HF got broken into multiple times, and gutted of its stereo system. On a more positive note, my neighbor, Matt serenaded me with You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling from the parking lot beneath this window (in a completely platonic way). This was the year that the movie Top Gun came out, and we lived about 2 miles from where it was filmed. One of my neighbors was my future husband, Steve.

About two years later, Steve and I flew up to northern California to look for a place to live. The company he worked for was relocated, and he asked me to move in with him. After a week of searching, we had had very little luck finding something affordable that was also in a neighborhood that lived up to our high standards. Running out of time, we finally found a little place with the coolest nautilus-shaped shower. The stall needed no door, and instead you circled back into the inner chambers to conduct your ablutions. The view from all of the windows was quite unremarkable, and did not indicate any cause for concern. Congratulating ourselves on our good luck, we paid our first month’s rent. Just as were signing the rental agreement, we heard the first train rattle by. Too late now, we shrugged, and finished off our signatures. Two months later, we had moved to a locale a bit more off the beaten tracks.

We lived with Steve’s parents for a while after we had Weston and before we bought our house. His parents have a huge old valley oak tree in front of their house, and our bedroom window looked out into the branches of that tree. At the time I was working on getting my Master’s degree in biology. One afternoon I was studying for my ecology class and reading about feeding guilds. According to the book I was studying, all of the species that feed on a plant in the same way are part of the same guild. This is not a totally easy concept to visualize, but as I looked out at that oak tree, it became totally clear. A flock of California quail could be seen pecking around the base of the tree in one guild. A nuthatch, and a bunch of chickadees feeding on insects gleaned from the bark belonged to another. The woodpecker drilling deep beneath the bark belonged to a third. I think I aced that question in the essay section of my exam.

I moved so many times between that first apartment and our current house, that by the time we owned our own little slice of San Jose, my personal belongings had been pared down to a few pieces of furniture, clothes, and the contents of one or two large boxes. When we first moved in our bedroom looked out on a Doughboy style pool surrounded by aggregate patio. Terrified that I would wake up one morning to find Weston floating face down in the pool, I insisted that we get rid of it. It wasn’t a very nice pool anyway. It was always filled with leaves from the overhanging trees. It wasn't heated either, so anything deeper than the first two inches was shrink-your-assets cold. So out the pool came, and after several years of trying to landscape the remaining hole, we finally put in a lawn and a nice interlocking paving stone patio. Now, eleven years later, we have come full circle. The summer of 2008 has been a hot one. Almost all of the kids in our neighborhood are a lot older than Garrett. Consequently though he loves to swim, he hardly gets invited to another house to do so. A couple of weekends ago, Steve and I went out and bought a small inflatable pool that holds about 180 gallons of water. The kids love it and spend hours wetting every available surface within 10 feet with their splashing. Including my bedroom window, which once again looks out on a pool.

Off to So Cal!

I'm off to visit family in San Diego until Tuesday night of next week. I'm sure it will be a really nice, relaxing vacation, but I gotta tell you, the lead-up to it has been a sunnuvabitch! I've been doing laundry since about 7:00 this morning and have finally managed to pare down the piles in each of our four laundry baskets to a few things we never wear, and some dry clean only items. The dishwasher ran out of salts, our water purifying system needed fresh cartridges, and the vacuum cleaner broke in the middle of my feverish cleaning binge. These malfunctions necessitated multiple errands to various parts of Silicon Valley, along with trips to the bank, gas station, grocery store, blah, blah, blah, God I need a beer. Posting will be light until I return. Have a lovely weekend!

Crimes Agains the Human Foot

I consider shoes to be one of the finest additions to any wardrobe. It is difficult for a woman to have enough shoes because unlike men, we can’t get away with pairing almost any outfit with shoes in the following categories: formal brown, formal black, casual brown, casual black, and running shoe, with the occasional casual sandal thrown in. Women need casual and formal heels in a myriad of colors and hues, flats, sandals, thongs, etc. ad nauseam. With all of the shoes we have to keep on hand, the occasional fashion faux pas is nearly unavoidable. But some shoes are just so mind-jarringly ugly that they give me a headache and make me grumpy. They follow in no particular order:

The peep toe flat:

This shoe (and even peep toe heels sometimes), is guaranteed to make any outfit, no matter how cute, scream 80’s frump.

Crocs:

These things are God awful! Add those Jibbitz things to them, and they don’t improve. They look like they would make your feet smell nasty after about a half hour. I’ve heard they’re comfortable, but people, wear them to fetch the newspaper at the end of the driveway or out to garden. Think of them like pajamas. Comfortable for around the house, but don’t leave the house in them. And here’s another thing. Mothers, don’t put these on your little boys. Just don’t.

Moccasins:

Spritz on a little patchouli and rat your hair into dreadlocks and maybe through on a gypsy skirt and your hippie look will be complete.

And these things:

How does any man plunk these on his feet and say to himself, “There. My look is complete.” They are guaranteed to highlight your worst features guys. White legs and toe hair! Step away from the clunky Velcro sandal.

Thank you for listening!

Amazon Kindle for the Brain

Last night I came up with SUCH a funny Twitter post. The only problem was, it was in the middle of the night when I was half asleep. Of course by morning I had forgotten what it was. Can someone please come up with a wireless download system that will glean all of the fabulous blog content, ideas for the next great American novel, and witty comebacks to snarky remarks that develop in my brain at night, directly to my laptop? Thanks.

$1,419,507 Strong

Weston, Garrett and I just finished the LIVESTRONG Challenge 5K Run/Walk. Following on the heels of the fund raiser appreciation dinner last night, it has been an inspiring weekend. I'm going to keep it brief because I was too amped up to sleep much last night, then got up really early to send Steve off on his 100 mile ride this morning at 7:30. Highlights were:

* Dinner at the Fairmont at which Lance Armstrong was present (with his girlfriend Kate Hudson) and spoke at length. Totally wanted to stalk him, but restrained myself in favor of just staring a lot.

* Positioning ourselves in JUST the right spot so that when Lance rode onto the course Weston and Garrett were so close they could have reached out and touched him. Again, admirable restraint by all.

* Being a part of that HUGE group of participants, survivors, and volunteers from San Jose that helped to raise $1,410,507 to fight cancer.

* Crossing the finish line with Weston and Garrett.

I'm off to get showered, finish my laundry and grocery shopping, and then meet my man at the finish line!

The Pain of Being Zookeeper to Stuffed Animals

I am evil. Or at least I feel like an evil person right now. About a month ago, Weston decided he was too old for stuffed animals and gave his enormous collection to Garrett. Nice, right? Yes, but Garrett already has an enormous collection of his own. For a week or so, Garrett's sleeping quarters were confined to a small sliver of his bed not already occupied by stuffed monkeys, lions, cats, bears, puffins, and unidentifiable puff-balls. The day before our cleaning lady was to arrive, I finally moved most of them to Garrett's closet. The mere suggestion that some of them should be donated to another child not so fortunate as him was enough to bring this otherwise stoic child to tears.

Fast forward to last weekend when an older (and more enterprising) boy across the street was having his semi-annual fleece-the-neighbor's-children sale. Garrett came in itching to turn over some of his hard-earned cash to this future Ron Popeil. My answer was that yes, he could buy a mini baseball bat, for a dollar, if and only if he gathered up 15 stuffed animals for donation to a worthy cause. Off Garrett went with fire in his eye and purpose in his step. A few moments later I began to hear sniffs and snuffles, and it was not long before he re-emerged with tears pooling on his lower lashes. He is now sitting resigned in front of the television, secure in the knowledge that his bears and cats are safe, but that the stewardship of this large collection of stuffed animals comes at at stiff price.

Skip to the Pooh My Darling

Since summer began we have instituted a program wherein the boys have to earn time on the computer by engaging in several hours of more productive time such as arts and crafts, music practice, reading, and outside time. They've been pretty good about keeping up with it, seemingly highly motivated by the opportunity to play hour after hour of Guild Wars.

The boys just got out of the new pool and then fulfilled a bit more of their outside time by taking the pooches for a walk. This resulted in a bit of an altercation because Garrett would not pick up a "nasty green pooh" delivered by Master Luke, on the excuse that he had no pooh bag (which was in his pocket). The rule is that you pick up the pooh of whichever dog is on the end of your leash. He insisted on taking Luke this time, so it was his to gather. I sent both boys back out to retrieve the turds, and apparently Weston laughed at Garrett's repeated attempts to collect the poorly constituted excrement and abandoned him part way through the process. Garrett returned in a rather ill humor, but my sympathetic attendance to his recounting of the whole affair along with a piano practice seems to have soothed him. He is currently plunking away at the piano and occasionally congratulating himself on a job well done.

California Fires

It has been about a month since the fire season started here in California. I'm fortunate to live in San Jose where all we've had to deal with has been the occasional holocaust sunset and a couple of weeks of really crappy air quality. Many others have not been so fortunate. Lost property, evacuations, and vanished pets have been thrust upon them by these fires. On the radio, I heard a story about home owners that refused to evacuate. They were informed by officials that they could not be forced to leave, but they must provide the names of their next of kin and dental records to identify their bodies later. I have been checking in regularly at CalFire for updates on the fires closest to us, burning in the Los Padres National Forest. Looking for a satellite image of the smoke from the fire, I found this blog, which chronicles the efforts of the men and women on the front lines of the war on California's fires. From the latest blog post, it sounds as though resources are stretched to the limit. Take a minute to look at this site and you'll get an idea of just how big of a job these firefighters are up against. Best of luck to you guys!

Do Books Reflect Our Speaking Style?

Steve and I have a huge collection of books. So large, in fact, that our five bookshelves don’t hold it. Books litter all of the horizontal surfaces of our house, and this is AFTER we had a garage sale (I hate those things) and practically gave away all of the books that we weren’t ever planning to read again. It also doesn’t include the two shelves of books in the boys’ rooms. My criteria for getting rid of a book was whether I could remember any of the plot details without looking at the synopsis on the back or inside cover. If the answer was no (hello Oprah’s Vanilla-Flavored Plots Book Club) then the book went into the get-rid-of-it pile.

It recently occurred to me that the reason that we have so many books is that Steve and I have completely different taste in books. While I love books that are heavy on plot, Steve is much more into books that engage in a lot of what I refer to as navel-gazing. I recently read Ian McEwan’s ,A Child In Time, and while I enjoyed it, I found my self mentally fast-forwarding through a lot of parts in which the main character embarks upon esoteric mental journeys into some perhaps imagined past. “Whatever.”, I thought, “Just tell me what happens next. Does he find his daughter?” Steve loves Ian McEwan, and Kazuo Ishiguro. He is as much enchanted by the linguistic style, as he is by the story. I loved The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty. Steve recently picked it up, and as much as he wanted to love it, just didn’t. If we had a more similar taste in books, I’m guessing our book cases would be less stuffed.

I think our reading styles are reflected in our speaking styles. When I tell as story, I leave out extraneous and sometime even necessary detail, and stick to the meat of the point I’m trying to get across. Steve’s speaking style is a tad more, (erm….) loquacious. When he tells a story, no detail is left untold, and he has yet to meet a subreference (or even sub subreference) that he didn’t feel would enhance his story by its in-depth exploration. If speaking style does in fact reflect reading style, I wonder how never reading for pleasure, as is fairly common in our television oriented society, is reflected in speech?

The Cost of Doing Business

About a year ago, the company that I had been working as an independent contractor for four years, picked up and moved offices from 1/2 mile from me to 60 miles away. This was supposed to be a central location for all of us who worked for the company from all over the Bay Area, but it just ended up being far away from everybody rather than just a few of us.

To add insult to injury, at the beginning of the year I was told that in order to continue to work with the company I had to hire on at an hourly rate that was a full $10.50 lower than my former rate. Dedicated employees were expected to make somewhat regular visits to the office (ie. at least once a week), oh and there will be no guarantee of regular hours because salaried employees get first crack.

Enter skyrocketing gas prices and you get the following sickening scenario:

Volvo XC90 (yup, probably should have gone with the Toyota Highlander Hybrid): 17 mpg average
Trip to the office: 121 miles round trip
Price of Gas: We'll go with about $4.60/gallon
Two Hours of unpaid time: 'bout $75

121 miles/17 mpg is about 7 gallons of gas. Factor in a gas price of $4.60 and I've spent about $35 in gas. Add on the $75 of unproductive time and it has now cost me a cool $100 to $110 to get to and from the office.

Now let's look at how much I make while I work. Typically I work from 7:30 until 1:30 to ensure that I miss traffic and get back in time to pick Garrett up by 3:00. At the end of the day I take home a mere $182.50. Subtract the worse case scenario of $110 in cost to me? $72.50. And that is before taxes. After I figure in taxes and wear and tear on my car, poof! I just paid money to walk out the door and have a shitty, stressful day in the office.

Will I be driving up to the office anymore? I'm gonna have to say a big "HELL NO" on that one.

Total Hands-Free Driving

As of July 1, 2008, all Californians have to use a hands-free headset while driving a car. About two weeks ago, I went out and bought a traditional headset with a cord that plugs into the phone and a microphone about midway down the cord. Steve recommended this over a wireless headset because it would never require charging. The first time I got in the car with it, the wires got wrapped around the seat belt, yanking the ear buds out when I went to strap myself in, I felt entangled in wires, and plugging and clipping all that stuff made me a little nutty every time I got in and out of the car. I quickly decided to spend a little birthday money to get a wireless headset, and that has proved to be an easier solution. With due credit to Steve, I keep the more traditional headset in my car as a backup for the times when I will find myself in need of answering a call in my car, and my wireless is out of juice.

This new law has ushered in a new and perplexing era for the Luddites of our fair state. The high tech and marketing folks have been operating their wireless headsets with ease for years now, but the rest of us are trying to catch up. On Tuesday morning, I hung up on a co-worker, not once but twice, because there is a slight delay which causes the phone to keep ringing after the headset has made the connection, but not yet activated the call. This caused me to hit the call activate button a second time, connecting me and almost immediately disconnecting me from my caller. Apologies were necessary. Others must be having this same problem, because in the grocery store parking lot I saw a man repeatedly trying to connect a call on his cell phone, finally surrendering the phone, along with an extravagant eye-roll, to his more-competent wife.

A friend told me about her mother (an older lady) attempting to work out the kinks on her wireless headset. Unaware that the headset could be powered down when she wanted to use her phone's microphone to talk, her mother called Meredith five or six times in rapid succession, moving a little farther away each time until she was out of range of her headset. Of course the headset was in a different room, so she couldn't hear her daughter yelling at her to knock off all the damn phone calls.

Steve and I got to wondering, early on in an hour-long drive to his parent's house, what other devices would be necessary to ensure that we never drive distracted. We came up with a few:

Hands-free sandwich/hamburger/burrito eating device
Remote activated fighting sibling smacker
Hands-free baby bottle deliverer and screaming baby soother
No-hands needed lipstick and eyeliner applicator
Automatic newspaper and map read aloud device (although to be fair these already exist in the form of your car radio, and GPS unit, but people still try to read newspapers, books, and maps while driving)

All of this talk of sandwiches and burritos is making me hungry. Any other ideas on hands-free devices for the car?

LIVESTRONG Challenge

Previous posts not withstanding, I am a huge fan of Lance Armstrong, so I was delighted and very proud of Steve when he decided that this year he would participate in the LIVESTRONG Challenge. With the help of friends and family, Steve has raised $3,395 so far and has put in 394.5 miles (not that he's keeping records, of course) on his bike in training.

Last night after dinner, Steve and I were talking about where we could see him off for his ride so we could be there to cheer him on. Then he mentioned that there was also a 5K run/walk in downtown San Jose that is also part of the LIVESTRONG Challenge. Sounded intriguing to me, so now Garrett, Weston, and I have all registered to participate in the run/walk, effectively raising another $150 to fight cancer. I am dedicating my run/walk (probably more walk than run) to my grandmother Virginia Dawson, to died much too early from pancreatic cancer. If you decide that you would like to sponsor my run/walk, you can access my personal page here.

Edited to add: I should also note that my own too-close-for-comfort brush with cancer also motivated me to take up this cause. You can read about that here and here and here. You just never know how close to home this bastard of a disease will strike. We all like to think of cancer as a disease that doesn't happen to us or our immediate family members. To think this way is a perfectly healthy and acceptable coping mechanism. I can tell you though, that when that mechanism gets taken away, it sucks. Really. Really. Sucks. Stay healthy all!

The Toenail Fairy

Sometimes the best parenting advice can come from the strangest places. Take this idea, which came from a friend of mine, whose life was at the opposite side of the spectrum from Dad. He was more fervently in search of Miss Flavor of The Week zone of the spectrum. (Sorry Tom, if you read this. I calls 'em as I sees 'em). When Weston was about three-years-old, his big toe got shut in the car door in a very unfortunate accident. Within a week or so, it became clear from the blackened appearance of the nail, that it was going to fall off. The nail took its own sweet time singing its swan song, but there came the fateful day when, hanging by a minuscule thread of skin, that puppy was about to go. Weston was very alarmed by this, particularly since it appeared that a little surgical intervention (via some nail scissors) was going to be required to dispense with the dangling, blackened mess. As luck would have it, we were armed with my bachelor friend's suggestion: the Toenail Fairy. Weston was too young to care about money, so instead of bringing money, we promised him that the Toenail Fairy brought LEGOs. Goodbye anxiety, hello anticipation!

Some years later we trotted out the Fingernail Fairy when Garrett's finger got shut in a door and he subsequently developed an infection (yes, let's all just dwell on that for a moment) under his nail bed. By some miracle, he managed to keep the fingernail despite the large amount of La Jolla Shores Beach sand that became lodged underneath during our vacation in San Diego. He was so sad about not getting LEGOs from the Fingernail Fairy, that we took pity on him and allowed him to put a trimming from the injured nail under his pillow once it became clear that the nail was staying put. There should be a designated fairy for every body part one might lose!

Glory Hole-aluja!

I very recently came across the slang term glory hole on Twitter, and of course had to satisfy my curiosity by looking it up on Urban Dictionary. Imagine my amusement when, having been invited to go house boating for a weekend with a friend at Lake New Melones, we drove by the following sign on our way there:
I believe this must be where Senator Larry Craig vacations. I picture long lines of furtive looking men, waiting to get into the next of row upon row of bathrooms. Nearby there was the Glory Hole Shopping Center which featured Glory Hole Sports. Residents of this area must do a lot of eye-rolling each time some wag thinks he is the first individual, hip enough to make all of those great glory hole puns. New Melones being in the heart of gold country, I think it is safe to assume this area is named after a mining term, but still, the puns are difficult not to make.

I Deserve A Belly Ache!

This morning I left the house early to do a survey for burrowing owls at a site in San Jose that was once planted with orchards, and now only has a few remnant trees left. Some may find them enjoyable, but my personal feeling about burrowing owl surveys is that they are dull. They pretty much amount to tromping through tall weeds or disked areas, looking for squirrel burrows. Sure, when you find an owl it's all worthwhile, but development being what it is in the Silicon Valley, actual owls are sadly lacking from most of the places where they used to be.

The bright spot in all of this was the orchard trees. Most of them held green nectarines, and small sour-looking cherries that held little temptation for me, but a handful of apricot trees were covered in ripe fruit. Not wanting to look like a free-loader, I nipped behind a tree and casually picked an apricot. A single fruit would never be missed, right? I think you see where this is heading. By the time I finished my survey I had eaten two apricots (sooooo yummy!!!) and both pockets were laden with fruit. I convinced myself that I was bringing them home for Steve and the boys. I could resist the fruit. I set them in the center console of my car. They smelled really good and I could still taste the two I had eaten. One more couldn't hurt, I rationalized. Too much fruit would give the boys stomach aches anyway. By the time I was a mile away from home, all that remained were four small apricots, my sticky hands, and my shirt and a bit of my leather seats spattered with apricot juice. But I don't have a problem. I can stop eating them whenever I want.

The Post In Which My Carpets are Saved by Doggy Intelligence

As Bo's owner, we greedily await any signs of intelligence and or compliance in our pup. Please understand, we love our Bo, but erudition cannot be counted among his many virtues. Today he showed a brief, and very much appreciated glimmer of intelligence. Earlier today, I took a quick break from work to let the dogs out for a pee, and then a bit later another to let them back in. Both dogs are usually very anxious to get back in, and typically alert me of their readiness by hurling themselves repeatedly against the sliding glass door. This time, Luke bounded in but Bo hesitated, standing with what could only be described as a hang dog expression on his shaggy mug. As I stood looking at him, trying to decide what the matter might be, he began hacking as though trying to pass a small bird lodged in his upper respiratory passages, then turned and bounded out onto the lawn to deposit the contents of his stomach extravagantly onto the grass. Having mopped many a puddle of dog yarp from the floor of my house, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate this display of intelligence and forethought. Today, Bo is the Good Dog. Luke (the smart one) is meanwhile lying on his back, gently snoring, genitalia generously on display, with his short legs atwitch in interpretation of some doggy dream.

The Lost Smartypants Weekend

This was a lost weekend. Thursday afternoon my good friend Joanna (hi Joanna!) loaned me a copy of The World According to Mimi Smartypants. Consequently, I lay around all weekend, nose pressed into a book, occasionally breaking out into snorts of hysterical laugher, rather than doing the host of Things That Needed Doing around the house. Yes, I got a huge pile of laundry done, and completed the weeks grocery shopping, but the ginormous pile of stuffed animals on Garrett's bed that desperately needed culling still remains, and every horizontal surface in the house is still littered with papers and books. The only other thing that got done was Steve and I looking as scooters in response to the skyrocketing price of gas. Oh and a lot of beer was consumed. Yes people, stand back an bask in the shared glory of my warm sense of accomplishment.

He May Be Loud, But He Tells The Truth

You know that guy that yells really loud on TV about OxiClean? Garrett and I have been poking fun at him for a couple of months now. Every time one of those ads comes when Garrett is watching cartoons, I yell from the kitchen, "WHAT'S THAT HE'S SAYING? IT SOUNDS VERY INTERESTING, BUT I CAN'T QUITE MAKE IT OUT!" To which Garrett replies in an even louder voice, "MOM, HE SAYS YOU SHOULD USE OXICLEAN!!!" And so it goes.

All very humorous until Garrett put a ballpoint pen in the pocket of his brand new Abercrombie shorts (which, by the way, I did not purchase). An entire load of his clothes and mine came out smeared with blue ink. Most of it I could have shrugged off, but the thought of those ruined Abercrombie shorts just stuck in my craw, so I decided to give that yelling man's product a try. After two different applications of a scoop of OxiClean with really hot water, and soaking for about 12 hours, there was actually no trace of the ink. I soaked a few more things from the load in a more dilute solution and for a shorter time, and the results were a little less impressive. The stuff that I soaked also came out feeling a little rough, so I imagine repeated treatments would cause your clothes to wear out more quickly. It's still a better alternative than never wearing an expensive item of clothing again. That's my product plug for the day!

Hannah Montana Meets Emerica

A couple of weeks ago Weston came to us, expensive 3-month-old skateboard shoes in hand. The shoes were in really really bad shape. Skateboarding is not kind to shoes. Weston informed us earnestly that the perfect pair of replacement shoes cost just $95 dollars, and were the one brand of skate shoe designed to withstand the punishment dealt out by grip tape.

Nike Zoom Air Tres. Now Nike, in addition to making high quality shoes, has a great marketing strategy. Only release new shoes every two month, in small quantities, to a very limited number of dealers. After calling about four different specialized skateboard shops, we found a store in Lafayette that had a pair in the color Weston wanted. This was convenient, as we were headed up to Lafayette anyway to celebrate Steve's mother's birthday with her.

On the way, we stopped at Nordstrom to look for a sport coat for Steve and to get a somewhat cheaper pair of Nike skate shoes for Garrett. The children's shoe department as Nordstrom carries Crocs, and those stupid little accessories you shove through the holes to doll those otherwise hideous shoes up. While we were paying for Garrett's shoes, we found the perfect solution to hide the holes in my burly 12-year-old's ripped up skate shoes. What do you think?

Priceless

Wii - $250 dollars. Wii tennis - $50.

Playing Wii tennis with no pants on during summer vacation. Priceless!

Let's Get Sarcastic

My friend Meredith sent me a link to an article on Yahoo news which totally blows sunshine up the butts of those of us that practice the sarcastic arts. The following email thread resulted.

Me: I feel so validated right now!

Meredith: Like we have mastered a skill that people with brain injuries can't. Fuck we rule!

Me: Yeah!!!! Sing with me.....

(to the tune of that Black Eyed Peas song)
Everybody, everybody, let's get into it
Get snarky, get satiric
Let's get sarcastic in here! Let's get sarcastic in here! Woo hoo!!

In another email thread Meredith wrote:

I just had chicken for breakfast, I am starting a new trend. Left over chicken breast and Diet Coke. I know I know I can see the saliva dripping from your mouth......

To which I replied:

When I first read about your breakfast, I read it as "I just had A chicken for breakfast" which called up an image of you gnawing on a carcass, feathers and all, like a cat might do, Diet Coke clutched daintily in one blood-soaked mitt. Once I re-read the sentence, a simple cold chicken breast sounded relatively appetizing. Perhaps I should lay off of the mind-altering substances, aye?

Spread me with butter because I am I on a roll today!

Couldn't Hit The Side of a Barn at 10 Paces!

Help me out here. I'm not a guy, so I lack the understanding of certain plumbing issues. Twice this year, Garrett (8 years old) has gotten in trouble for "peeing on the wall of the bathroom." Today was pretty tragic because his teacher was so pissed (heh, see what I did there?) she wouldn't allow him to go on his end-of-year swim party unless I could come and supervise him. That couldn't happen because I was stuck in the dentist chair, so his missed his field trip. Both times this has happened Garrett has claimed that certain things stick to certain other things, causing him to misfire and hit the wall behind the toilet for a brief period until he got the flow under control. Then, some other boy (apparently one with better aim) tells on him, and by the time he gets back to class he is in trouble.

Full disclosure: Garrett gets in trouble a lot at school. He has a hard time focusing, he has bad impulse control, poor judgment, and insists on acting as the class clown. As a result, his teachers aren't super fond of him. When someone comes running to tell on him, the benefit of the doubt is typically not his for the taking. I get that his behavior is irritating to his teachers, and probably to other kids. I also think that other kids clue into the teachers' feelings about Garrett and tell on him for small things because, well, it's fun to get another kid in trouble, and it makes the tattler look and feel like the star.

I'm not sure if I'm being totally naive by taking Garrett's side. I tend to believe it was an accident because my bathrooms at home always smell like monkey pee because he frequently misses the bowl. On the other hand, Weston (who is almost 13) tells me aiming at the toilet is no biggie, and that anyone should be able to do it. Here's my question: Do those of you with boys have similar problems at home, or is my kid weird? Oh, and if your kid is a tattle tail, give him a good swift kick in the arse, courtesy of me!

Updated: Turns out my little angel wasn't telling the truth. About 9 other little boys were witness to his whizzing with great abandon ALL over the wall. Upon confrontation with the witnesses that had stepped forward, Garrett 'fessed up that it wasn't a simple case of "missing" the toilet. Furthermore when his teacher got mad at him, he told her that she was "overreacting". Yeah. Turns out I AM totally naive.

May He Be a Bar of Soap

Before I got pregnant with Weston, I was scared to death of the whole notion of giving birth. Images of women with their sweat-stained hair pasted to their red faces as they concentrated on expelling the contents of their womb did nothing to reassure me. I worried about nausea during pregnancy too. Nobody likes to throw up, but just the thought of vomit is enough to make me anxious. I’ve always been pretty vain too, so the thought of becoming huge and bulbous during those nine months of gestation filled me with anxiety too. Not surprisingly, I didn’t sleep so well the night I found out I was going to have my first child.

Flash forward about 8 months, and many of my fears had calmed or at least been replaced by new fears. Did I mention that I used to be a little high-strung? Instead of worrying about nausea, I worried that I would be totally incapable of dealing with a newborn. I no longer worried about becoming huge and bulbous. Instead I wondered how quickly I could lose the weight after giving birth. The one fear that remained unchanged was that of giving birth. Steve and I went through child-birth classes, and the information disseminated there went a long way towards making me feel more prepared though. So when the big day arrived, and Steve and I headed off to the hospital for my labor to be induced (2 weeks and one day past my due date (not that I was counting)), I was mostly feeling glad for the chance to face my big fear.

Many of you will want to kill me for saying this, but labor and deliver was really pretty easy for me. Labor was induced for both of my children, a few hours later I asked for a received my epidural, and until pushing time arrived; I was blissfully unaware of what was going on in Uterus Land. With Weston, I started pushing around 3:10 and he was born about a half hour later. Pretty darned easy for a first pregnancy. Not that it was totally without pain or stress, but calling it “labor” seemed a bit overdramatic. Prior to giving birth to Garrett, a bunch of people at the company at which I was working at the time sent me well-wishes. The best was from our lead biologist at the time; a guy named Doug Bell. Doug’s wish was, “May he be a bar of soap.” And Garrett was. At 3:00 in the afternoon, the L&D nurse came in and informed me that I was at 10 cm and that she was calling my doctor to tell him to get in his car (!!!) and drive the few miles to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital so he could deliver my baby. Traffic was heavy, so she turned off my Pitocin drip and had me lie on my side. My doctor must have broken all land speed records because he got there by 3:08. By 3:10, and after two pushes Garrett was born. So as far and unfounded fears go, my anxiety about labor and delivery rates pretty high on the list. The one about being totally incapable of dealing with a newborn, well….. that’s a whole other post.

Chicken Caught on Toilet and Subsequently BBQd

Browsing through the Willaims-Sonoma catalog the other day I was struck by the following photograph:



My mind works in strange ways, and I often see things that other people would simply overlook as completely normal, so I took a quick poll of my family members. "What is this chicken doing?", I asked each one. The answer was unanimous. Taking a crap. Apparently this chicken is suffering from a violent case of huskarrhea. Now that's some marketing, folks!

All The Best Stupid

This website pretty much distills my twisted sense of humor into an easy visual tutorial. I can't decide what I like best. The bacon wallet, the dog pooh calendar, or the guide to traumatizing your children. Or maybe it's the little animated links to each of the products. Good times!

May I "Lance" That Boil For You?

Steve is a huge fan of Lance Armstrong. And rightly so. The man not only won seven Tour de France titles, but did it after winning a battle with testicular cancer that his doctors pretty much assumed he had already lost. I admire Lance Armstrong too, but not enough to name one of our children after him; which is what Steve wanted to do.

Why did I object so to naming our second-born "Lance"? For one thing, all the words that rhyme with Lance are bad. To whit: dance, pants, prance, romance (OK that one's not so bad). All words that remind me of that poem that some wag feels the need to leave on bathroom walls:

No matter how do jump and dance,
That one last drop stays in your pants.

Then there are the definitions for the word lance. Verbs: to spear, to stab, to open with a stabbing tool. Nouns: a spear, a stabbing device, a tube with a nozzle for cleaning furnace walls, a whale-killing implement. None of the mental images that go with these definitions are ones that I want to associate with one of my children. The deal breaker with this name? If I was to do a word association test with "lance", my first response would be "boil". As in "I'm sorry sir, that pustulant boil on your ass will need to be lanced in order to relieve the pressure." Enough said.

Life Hack

My husband is so sweet. I, on the other hand, am a total control freak. See, here's the thing. I USED to leave huge piles of laundry on the sofa after dragging the clothes, fresh out of the dryer to fold them there. My new tactic to force myself to put the laundry away? I fold the laundry on top of the washer. The theory goes, I can't put another load in until all of the clothes on top of the wash are put away. Poor Steve came into the laundry room to help this weekend and when he started to pull the load out to drag it to the sofa, I explained that the laundry was now folded standing up! Not in front of the hockey game on TV. When he kept plopping shirts in any old place on the washer, I repeatedly pointed out which pile was the correct one. Finally, he picked up a pile of freshly folded laundry and announced that he would put it away for me. Despite there being more piles that needed putting away, he never came back. I wonder why?

Word Lust

I love words, and not just a little bit. I love words so much, I have entire books devoted to the subject of words. No, in fact they aren't dictionaries smart one! Here are a few of my favorites:

Unctuous - it tastes gooey and delicious in your mouth when you say it.
Twee - just say it.
Pedantic - it means showy and overblown, but says "erudite".
Onus
Nefarious - this always makes me think of Feathers McGraw from The Wrong Trowsers.
Prurient - sounds so seedy.
Smattering
and finally
Smarmy - (see unctuous).

What are some of your favorites?

Here's Foam in Your Ear

The last two weeks can only be called "interesting" on the family medical front. It started last Wednesday when Luke woke up sneezing. And sneezing, and sneezing, and sneezing and SNEEZING. Now, if you have a corgi, you well know that for a dog with legs this short and a head this big, sneezing on a hardwood floor can be downright painful for them. After the third or fourth time his poor snout went THWAP against the floor, I was ready for the achoos to stop. When a fine mist of blood covered the toe of my Converse knockoffs I knew if was time for a call to the vet.

Off we went for his appointment at 1:45. Of course by then the sneezing has largely subsided. Dog noses being constructed as they are, and dogs not being very good at staying still, the vet informed me that Luke needed sedation. They needed to scope his nose and flush it out with saline solution because he likely had a foxtail lodged in there. She also suggested that I could save some money and unnecessary risk by having him neutered at the same time. They never did find any foxtail, but that didn't stop them from handing me a $350 invoice when later I picked up my still-sneezing and freshly manscaped dog.

Flash forward to Monday when Garrett clutched at his recently repaired front tooth (he chipped it back in April) in pain after taking a sip of cold water. After giving the teeth the requisite couple of days to change their mind about costing me a bunch more money, I finally called the dentist He recommended that I bring Garrett in so he could evaluate the need for a root canal (gulp). Turns out all the dentist did was to grind the tooth down a little so Garrett couldn't grit it against the lower one while he sleeps. That's right people. My son is a tooth grinder.

Was my day over? Oh hell no.

At 2:2o the phone rang. Some whiff of maternal instinct told me before I even looked at the caller id that I didn't want to get this phone call. On the line was Garrett's school nurse calling to tell me that Garrett had a piece of playground foam lodged in his ear. Let's just all pause a moment and consider that for a moment. How does safety foam from the playground floor get in a kid's ear? Answer: his friend put it there. And yes, removing it required yet another doctor's appointment. Unlike the elusive foxtail, the doctor actually did pull a chunk of foam from Garrett ear. Tomorrow, I plan to wrap my entire family in bubble wrap before sending them out the door.

An Open Letter to Double Parkers

Dear Lady Who Could Use a Little More Exercise But Instead Double Parks and Lets Her Kids Out In The Middle of the Street -

Could we talk? Here's the thing. We all have things we need to hurry up and do in the morning. We all run a little late occasionally. I get that. But tell me, what gives you the right to block traffic for a full block while your kid rummages around for his Science Fair poster, you all the while simultaneously guzzling a Starbucks, carrying on a conversation on your cell phone, and bitching out your small son in the car seat? Your sweat pants reveal the undeniable. You could use the little bit of exercise that would come with parking a block away, and walking your child to his classroom. And who knows, maybe you could even hang up your phone while you did it. And another thing. Why not stop at Starbucks AFTER you drop your kid off. Finally, when you do double park, can you please look before pulling out to see if somebody finally got sick of waiting for your kid to get out (or get in, as the case often is) and is trying to pass you in the sliver of left-over roadway that your giant SUV left behind? Thanks!

- IFO

How to Fill the Summer Void?

Summer is once again upon me, and I have no plans for my kids. We are taking a few quick trips; three nights at San Jose Family Camp, and a trip down to San Diego to visit my family. Other than that, ten weeks of inkless days on my calendar stretch out ahead of us, waiting to be filled. The challenge of course is to balance my work days, limit the amount of time the boys spend at the computer, not spend too much money, and find ways to be entertained. The thought of spending the summer this way fills my head with a dull buzzy feeling, much like a fly caught in a glass jar. There is this crazy part of me that wants to seize this opportunity and just take off somewhere. Projects are wrapping up at Steve's work leaving him with more flexibility to take time off, I have little to no sense of commitment to or from my employers, and the boys are free and clear until August. This may not happen again for years. How do we best take advantage of this rare freedom though? With two dogs and a cat, we aren't exactly unencumbered. Maybe this is why people do the unthinkable, and rent a mobile home. The thought of the four of us cooped up in a rolling home with two dogs and a cat, paying $4 a gallon for gas turns that lazy fly into an angry wasp. Maybe I'll just invest in a summer membership to Great America!

Growing a Spine Damnit!

A good friend and I were talking recently about letting bad behaviors slide for too long and letting kids get away with stuff. I had a little epiphany this weekend as I watched myself, once again, fall all over myself to make sure nothing was an inconvenience to Weston. Whatever he asks me to do, I do with a smile. Make his meals, run forgotten items to school during my work day, do his laundry, drive him to the mall, give him more spending money that I require for myself for snacks, clothes, etc. If I was somebody else, I'd give myself NO respect for this behavior. In return he leaves jobs undone or done sloppily around the house, rarely thanks anyone for favors, and gets on my case for not taking care of things that should be his responsibility. Charming, right? He'll make somebody a lovely husband some day at this rate. So tonight he came into the house, asking what was for dinner, and rummaging around for snacks to spoil his appetite. I told him if he wanted me to get dinner right then and there he needed to help me clean the kitchen, so he turned on his heel and said, "No thanks, I'll wait.", and headed off to skate. That's when I told him that if he didn't clean the entire kitchen, then and there, not only would I not make dinner for him AT ALL, but that he'd be grounded. For a week. So my kitchen is clean now and I just realized that I have this strange bumpy thing that runs down the middle of my back.

Congratulations!

It cannot go without comment that three of my favorite bloggers, Heather Armstrong, Alice Bradley, and the now not-so-nameless Laid Off Dad, have gotten together with a few other folks to produce this new book. So congratulations all of you, and thanks Heather for recognizing just how great these people are and including their writing.

It has been a strange, Through the Looking Glass kind of day on the Blogosphere with finslippy announcing her miscarriage, and Laid Off Dad telling us he and his wife are divorcing. I was taken aback by both revelations because the lyrical and sometimes very personal descriptions of family life that both blogs (and dooce.com also) provide sometimes mimics a close friendship. Though it's not face-to-face, I interact with them on an almost daily basis, and on a pretty personal level. I guess along with congratulations, that makes me want to send along a "hang in there." So.... hang in there.

My Last Lecture

I just finished reading Randy Pauch's The Last Lecture. I my opinion, this is 2008's The Life of Pi or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night. I got to thinking, what pearls of wisdom might my kids pass on that they have learned from me? The following is my crack at a list:

1. You can never be kind and polite to too many people. Even if you don't like somebody or if they are mean to you, simply remaining kind and polite in all your interactions will mitigate all sorts of problems.
2. Get the stuff that makes up your daily work load done first. With no work to worry about you'll enjoy the rest of your day so much more.
3. You can learn something from everyone. No matter how young, how inexperienced, or uneducated, everyone has a different perspective from yours. Listen and watch, and you'll probably figure out something you didn't know before.
4. Family should always be your number one priority. Your friends come and go, often as a function of how convenient it is to interact with them on a frequent basis. If you are lucky, your family was with you when you were born, and will be with you at the end of your life.
5. Never value objects over people. If something gets wrecked or lost, you can almost always replace or fix it. Getting angry at someone for accidentally damaging or losing something can never be undone. Your finest moments are when you rise above worrying about objects and realize value of the people in your life.
6. Take time to stop and do what you love. At the end of your life, chances are pretty good you won't wish you had spent more time at work, doing laundry, or doing your taxes.
7. Dogs and children can be very frustrating. Try very very hard to not fly off the handle at them because the guilt that follows those kinds of acts will eat you alive.
8. Don't stand aside and let someone bully or tease and friend or family member. Meanness should be faced off and dealt with.
9. Don't play practical jokes on people or poke fun at people and then make them feel badly for not taking it well. You are being a jerk. Stop, apologize, and don't do it again.
10. And speaking of apologies, keep them sincere, never make excuses for your self, own your screw up, and.... don't do it again.
11. Be considerate of the people you live with. Just because they are family doesn't mean you should treat them with less consideration than the people you work or go to school with. If you wouldn't do it to your co-workers or fellow students or even a stranger, think hard about if you should do it at home.
12. How you perceive other people reveals flaws about your personality. If you don't trust people, perhaps you need to become more trustworthy yourself. If you walk a mile out of your way to become offended by the smallest things, perhaps you are thinking offensive things about other people. Examine your responses to people and consider that maybe what bugs you most is that characteristic you most need to work on in yourself.
13. Be honest when it's truly important to do so. You never know when your integrity may be all you have to fall back on.

Funny, this was really easy. Once I started, the ideas just kept coming. Cheers and deepest respect and admiration to Randy Pausch with fervent hope that he gets the miracle that he so deserves.

How to Be a Hero

At 12, Weston is allowed more freedom to roam, as long as he's no more than a cell phone call away. Last weekend he used that freedom to ride to 7-11 with the three boys that live across the street (12-year-old identical twins, and their very jaded 15-year-old brother). About half an hour after they left, I got a call from Weston. "Mom. We found a bird that fell out of it's nest. I think it's a mockingbird." I explained that it would be best for the chick if they just left it, and that the parents were probably nearby, feeding it. After doing my best to explain nestling/parent interactions, and with his impatient friends champing at the bit to leave, it became apparent that the bird was coming home with him in his baseball hat.

At home, all of the boys crowded around the box to which they had transferred the tiny bird. Shouldering my way in, I laughed in relief! A killdeer! This would be easy to reunite with it's parents. They had only managed to find it because it was hiding amongst some vinca, where it must have had only minimal camouflage. I packed four boys and a baby killdeer back in my car, and as we headed back to the church where they found the bird, they indignantly related that the minister had told them to leave it behind, that if the bird died, it was "Nature's way".

No parents could be heard or seen around where they found the baby, so undaunted, we headed a few hundred yards away to Ross Creek, a channelized stream with gravel levees. Sure enough, the anxious parents (and if you know killdeer, you know they do anxious really well) were there, flying in circles and calling. We set the box down, backed off and waited for the parents to get a bead on the location of their chick. After about 20 minutes, the trio was reunited. Who would have thought that something as small as a killdeer chick could get four gangling, world weary teens high-fiving and feeling like heroes?

The Job Hunt

If it rains, apparently it does indeed pour. This time last month I was desperate for work. Any work. Certain I would never hang out my shingle as a biologist again, I was willing to consider becoming an administrative assistant again, just so I could feel like I was contributing to our finances, rather than being nothing but a drain. Now things have picked up (albeit only a little) at my current job, and the work spigot seems to be cranked to the open position. Spring is a great time to imitate the local flora a fauna and get busy being prolific!

Things on My To-do List This Week

- Call Dr. Contini about heart palpitations (for Weston, who is 12). Thankfully they went away.
- Fire Garrett's pyschologist (No. Leaving his cookies at home next time is NOT an appropriate solution when my son has tackled and dog-piled the kid that stole them.)
- Pick up dog pooh in the back yard (Yes, two dogs DO generate twice as much!)
- Make an appointment to have my moles looked at (Every six months. Melanoma or not!)
- Call consulting firm to grovel for a job (Ugh! I hate being underemployed!)
- Call Weston's school to figure out why he's getting an F in Social Studies (maybe fix the palpitations while I'm at it?)
- Clean hardwood floor in kitchen (Two dogs means twice as many lick marks)

Ten things you may not have known about me....

1) I have a morbid sense of curiosity. If I could read about forensic anthropology every day, I would be very happy.
2) I have named two hockey teams. Seven in Dog Beers. Pucker Up.
3) I am terrified of bees.
4) I secretly admire Dr. Laura.
5) When I get REALLY mad, I cry.
6) I hate to cry.
7) I am lazy. Very very very lazy.
8) I have a green belt in kung fu.
9) I can parallel park in the teensiest space.
10) I can back up a trailer without jackknifing it.

Pulling Bo's Leg

The first night we had Luke I lay awake in a total crisis, asking myself just what the hell I thought I was doing getting another puppy. Bo was a total nightmare at this age and continues to be a large pain. Last night Luke was very sleepy and wanted a place to snuggle, so I picked him up and he just fell asleep on his back snuggled in my arms. Totally justified the purchase. He and Bo are starting to play together now, which is hilarious. He goes up to Bo and starts gnawing on one of his hind legs or hanging off of his fur by his teeth. Bo lifts the abused foot up as high as he can and puts up with it all very patiently. Finally Bo gets to a point where he had it, and roofs at Luke smushes him to the ground with his front legs.

How to Tape (or Brace) Puppy Ears

Our new corgi puppy, Luke, has one ear with a crease in it. His ears are not up yet, so this one flops back a bit, rather than over the front. To correct this, the breeder's vet recommended that we use Breathe-Right (TM) strips. I tried this, but one good shake of his head sent the strips flying. I have modified this method and it seems to be working really well. Luke is almost 7 weeks old. This method may not work as well with an older puppy or one with ears that have thicker skin or really dense, heavy fur. I used a generic drugstore brand of the nose strips and the thin tape that you use to attach gauze to a wound. Don't use the heavy, super-sticky stuff. This will weight the ear down too much, causing it to sag down, and will pull off fur more when the tape is removed. Pull one nose strip off and place it over another so that you have a single strip of double thickness. Trim the strips down so that they fit inside the ear as pictured above, but don't go down into the ear canal and irritate the ear. Place the strip INSIDE the ear. Pull of two strips of tape that are about 4 inches long. Wrap them around the ear, front and back taking care not to bend or distort the ear, and to secure the nose-strip. Leave the ear braces in place for a week, but replace them if the ears appear to be set oddly or the tape becomes tattered or is falling off excessively. If the ears are still not corrected inside a week, contact your vet, groomer, or breeder for some help. The puppy will be irritated with the tape initially, so distract him with some play time or a good chew toy. Luke got used to them in about a half hour. Happy taping.

Edited to add: Because the floppy ear was not standing up enough, I used a couple of inches of tape to attach it front and back to the other ear. I left about 2.5 inches of space between the two ears. This forces both ears to stand up a bit more. After just one day, both ears are now consistently up. This has not corrected the crease however.

Luke

Meet Luke. He is our brand new Pembroke corgi puppy. We got him this Saturday from a breeder in Fair Oaks. He is one of a litter of five puppies (one female and four males). Because we are so unoriginal, we once again kept the name that the breeder had given our puppy. Bo was also named by the breeder, but now we have our own little Dukes of Hazzard!

We originally thought we'd go with a female, but female corgis tend to be the alpha dogs, with males being more laid back. This was certainly the case with this litter. Luke's loan sister, Leia (yes they were all named for Star Wars characters) was a little pistol. We didn't think Bo and Kasey would deal with that well, so instead we picked the quietest pup in the group.

Bo has taken this pup in stride quite well, but Kasey is totally miserable. Poor cat spends all day on my bed in the back of the house. She comes out to eat, and if she happens to encounter the little guy her eyes get as big as saucers and she growls and hisses at him. Bo has been around other dogs so little, his only problem with the pup is interpreting puppy play signals. When Luke paw slaps and yaps at him he jumps like he's been stung. When he tries to get playful with Luke he yaps and bounces so fiercely that he sends the poor baby yelping and scooting for cover in terror.

He is a total handful when he is awake, so thankfully he sleeps something like 20 hours a day. I've been getting up once a night to take him out for a pee which I don't mind. The only problem is, it takes me at least an hour to get back to sleep. Then I have to get up early to make sure he's gotten out to pee again and have something to eat. Three days after getting him and I'm already staggering around in a stupor, hair unwashed and laundry undone, like a new mom. It's all worth it though!

Circular

Garrett's new favorite word: circular. It's amazing how many times he can make that word come up in a sentence.

Merry Microbial Christmas

My husband gave me a cold and mange for Christmas..... and I love them!

Thank Jesus for Cheese

The following is Garrett's list of items he is thankful for:

chickens (I mean, who ISN'T grateful for chickens for gosh sakes.)
Texas (Because Sandy Cheeks from Spongebob Squarepants is from Texas. Duh!)
Jesus (This despite that fact that we, as a family, are totally atheist.)
science (Can I hear a Hallelujah on that one!!!????)
cows (Apparently he feels very blessed for barnyard animals this season. Surprisingly though, the turkey did not make the list.)
trees
family (awwww)
Canada (wtf????)
Kailey (his best buddy)
Alan (his other best buddy)
and last but not least......
cheese.

Dream Dinners

My friend Meredith and I tried Dream Dinners today. After eating the food for dinner tonight I thought a little feedback was merited. The whole experience was well organized. You set up an appointment time and order and prepay for all your meals ahead of time, and are given the option of ordering 3 or 6 serving portions. I would prefer that they did a four or five serving option, because three servings was not enough, even for my family of four pretty small eaters, and six would be too much. Also, you really only get your meat course and maybe a rice side. Not a whole lot of vegetarian choices.

Preparation is easy. You walk in and they give you a print out of all the stuff you ordered. All the ingredients are laid out with a station for each different dish they offer that month. Everything is pre-chopped and measuring is easy. Each meal takes five to ten minutes to prepare, and they provide you with Ziploc bags to hold and separate ingredients and preprinted labels to tell you what the meal is and how to cook it. The place was a little crowded and chaotic, and despite stern warnings to NOT brings your kids, some guy had his two rowdy toddlers running around with the staff pretty much forced to babysit them. Not cool in my opinion. After you are finished all your prep, they load everything up on a cart and wheel it out to your car for you. The staff was friendly and helpful. Oh, and very perky.

They provide you with a little checklist of all the stuff you ordered. They also provide you with side order suggestions and the general cooking method and prep time needed to cook the stuff. Don't be like me and forget to leave time for the thawing step. The food was very tasty. We had southwestern grilled chicken, which I served with my own Mexican rice and salad. We also had peach cobbler which was TASTY!

Overall, I was impressed. I won't make a weekly or even monthly ritual of this because a) I like to cook, b) I already have most of these ingredients on hand, c) it didn't really save me ALL that much time, d) it was a little on the spendy side. I do think it would be really fun to go back and do a private party there with a bunch of friends and a bottle of wine.

Lyrics to Indian Thriller English Translation

Credit for these lyrics goes to Buffalax.

Link to the video here.

Because you know you want to be able to sing along while you're practicing all those hot Bollywood pelvic thrusts and head twitches:

I think I’m the evil of the people…

(Praise the glory of the evil!)

GIRLY MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

Girly Man!

Girly man, man, man, man, man!

Gosh, my old calculator ain’t got no bow!

Nipply man I met, he ate my motorboat!

Calm down and park that comfy shin guard armor!

Welcome the dude who ain’t the buyer of mugs.

Girly Man!

Girly man, man, man, man, man!

RRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPYOURMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Woot, I’m Coming!

Mutton goes YAY!

Cook the chicano’s day!

Mucho Caliente!

I’ll eat wasabe on my dude!

All my body just got ruled!

Kinda like a fish on road!

One more body for your car!

OOO! OOO! Papa’s Restaurant.

OOOOOOOOOOO You’ll be pumping Ovaltine

or Salty Shanty’s One Shot Tea!

Roll, jam, belching, raving son!

Mork, and bull, and mumued star!

Kill her! Kill her! Kill her! Killer! Killer! Killer!

Girly Man!

Girly man, man, man, man, man!

Kill her! Kill her! Kill her! Killer! Killer! Killer!

(please don’t buy the bald seal!)

Move then Connie!

Let me go yay!

Cause it’s a yardless day!

Conga line too, Good Day!

Salad is a cargo you could do!

Chet’s my buddy, Chester Rowe!

Called him at the coaster room!

Smashing all the people up!

It’s the child no parka rule!

OOOOOOO laddie, ready, bite your knee!

OOOOOOO conk a Collie, Conquer he!

Deal them. Peel them. People look shocked!

Move, too, then you got private shower!

Kill her! Kill her! Kill her! Killer! Killer! Killer!

Girly Man!

Girly man, man, man, man, man!

Gosh, my old calculator ain’t got no bow!

Nipply man I met, he ate my motorboat!

Calm down and park that comfy shin guard armor!

Welcome the dude who ain’t the buyer of mugs.

Girly Man!

Girly man, man, man, man, man!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Beyonce

Me, looking at People Magazine and Weston looking over my shoulder.

Weston: I think Beyonce is ugly.

Me: Do you, really?

Weston: ..... (laughs) no.

Update to Round Table Debacle

When complaining about a business, I feel it's only fair to also acknowlege when they have fixed the problem. We received an apologetic letter in the mail from the manager of Round Table with a coupon for $20. We ordered pizza from them tonight and the customer service was much improved. Thanks Round Table, we are no longer mad!

Round Table: How'd You Like to Hold 'Til HELL FREEZES OVER!!

What better forum than my blog to pass on to the world how Round Table Pizza on Branham Avenue in San Jose treats their customers? Tonight I was stuck on hold with Christmas music blaring in my ear for 13 solid minutes. Finally I hung up and called back. Here's what happend:
Phone:Ring, ring
Round Table Employee: Welcometoroundtablepizzacanyouhold(Click)
Me: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
Phone: Slam!
Me: Crap. I'm never ordering from that place again.

Will you?

The Old Grovel and Shiver Trick

We have a sweet dog. He's very nice, but as I have mentioned before, he's not the sharpest tack in the bulletin board. He can't be trusted in the house for long periods of time because he has never learned to scratch at the door when he has to pee. When I work at home, he normally stays in all day, and I have to periodically remember to remind him to go out and pee. He is, on occasion, very brilliant.

Today, for example. I left the house at 6:30 am, and Steve got the boys off to school, putting the dog out for the day as he was leaving. Strangly enough, however, when I got home, the dog was in. I immediately put him out, thinking his bladder must be stretched to bursting point, then headed off to empty out my own. I intended to call Steve once I had a chance to gather a few items from my car, so I could ask him how the dog happened to be in. We're having a cold snap, but Bo has a dog house outside. Besides, we JUST had the carpets cleaned. Walking past the sliding glass door, I happed to catch site of this miserable, shivering creature:

Then it all became clear. Bertha, my cleaning lady, had been at the house earlier, and seeing the pathetic display above, let the poor worthless creature in. Sucker! I'd think he was seriously freezing, if I hadn't seen him do the same shiver in 95 degree weather. As I said, moments of brilliance!

On a more serious note......

I’ve been thinking about the two miscarriages I suffered quite a bit lately after reading this post, and because three of my friends are early on in their pregnancies right now. After Weston was born I suffered two miscarriages. In both cases, I was about 8 weeks along.

For me, coping with the loss of a pregnancy amounted to a fairly brief period of intense sadness. Once I got past the first trimester of pregnancy with Garrett, I felt like I was finished with the process of grief, but certain things will still bring those feelings back. For instance I found myself in tears on the phone with a friend one day who was considering terminating a healthy pregnancy because she had just begun her relationship with the baby’s father. The idea of choosing to end a pregnancy is abhorrent to me after having that choice taken from me on two occasions. Apparently my tears made an impression on her, because her beautiful baby girl will be a year old in October.

After reading the follow-up to the post, I considered my own approach to coping with the loss of two “potential children”. That is what a lost pregnancy is; the loss of who that child could have potentially been. When I look at the child I did end up with I can’t be sad about the two I didn’t have. There is some sort of magic about Garrett that is impossible to miss. If two miscarriages are what I had to suffer to have him in my life every day, the price was worth paying.

Skate Camp

This week Weston and Garrett are at skateboarding camp at the Campbell Community Center. They have taken a six week skating class there before and had an absolute blast, but three intensive hours for five straight days sounded like a great idea. When they only went once a week they didn't get enough of a chance to get really comfortable with whatever trick they were working on before it was time to leave. Garrett could almost drop in on the elbow with lots and lots of help, but once class was over and his favorite instructor was not able to work with him, he wouldn't even try it.

The first two days of camp they both pretty much stayed in their comfort zone, practicing tricks that they already knew how to do. Yesterday however, I went to one of the instructors and told him that Garrett is capable of much more than he lets on and that without a little pushing he would spend the entire week rolling down one little ramp and practicing ollies. I felt like one of those pushy show biz or athete moms thats constantly pushing their kids into more spectacular feats of daring, but darnit, they need a little nudge every now and then!

Well, the pushiness paid off! When I picked them up today Weston came tearing up to the fence of the park with this ear-to-ear grin as I got out of my car. "Watch this, mom!" Up he went to the top of the start ramp, where he proceeded to drop in on the second-hardest ramp. Prior to starting the camp his response to that ramp was "maybe later". Then Garrett hopped up onto the elbow and dropped in all by himself!!! Woooo hoooo! I'll be rich rich rich when they go pro!!! Oh! Did I just say that?

Ban The Fluffernutter

This my friends is the noble Fluffernutter. It must be an east coast thing, because while I've HEARD of a Fluffernutter, until recently, I couldn't have told you what it was. It goes without saying that I've never eaten one either. Now come to find out, the Fluffernutter (which, for those NOT in the know is a peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwich) is under attack from Senator Jarrett T. Barrios of Cambridge, Mass. He is offering up an amendment to a junk-food bill that would limit serving the sandwich in school lunches in that state. Now another group is fighting to make the Fluffernutter (it's just fun to say!) the official state sandwich (!!). I can just see it now. Huge billboards proclaiming "NOW ENTERING CAMBRIDGE MASSASCHUSETTS, HOME OF THE FLUFFERNUTTER SANDWICH!!!" Which begs the question, if California had an official state sandwich, what would it be?