Category: silliness

a little crabby

The trouble with committing to doing something like writing a blog post every day is that you feel this irritating compulsion to write a blog post every day. Even when you are tired and crabby and should really get to bed. And then you find yourself trying to work up any of the dozen or so blog post ideas that you have recently had, but find yourself too tired to follow through. You find some drafts that are half-written, but you don’t have the energy to half-write the other half. So you putter through your photos again and again looking for something quick to post. But you just posted cute photos of your kids last night when you were tired, so you want to vary the subject matter a bit more. And then you have all this work to do, which you’d probably do better if you got a decent night’s sleep, which you didn’t last night, probably due largely to an unfortunate binge of Halloween candy. So you putter around on your laptop some more, not doing your work, and just getting more and more tired and crabby.

This is all purely hypothetical, of course. You know, the generic you. Not YOU you. And certainly not at all me. I am only imagining these things, and not in any way speaking from personal experience. I am cheerful and perky. Why, right this very moment I am totally not slumping into the dents of my couch cushions and scowling at my laptop, but dancing around the house making everything sparkle. With bluebirds singing and everything. I’m like the love child of Donna Reed and Mary Tyler Moore.

Oh, but I did remember these photos. I took these during my hike with YTSL during my trip to Hong Kong. See the cute little crabs?


These first two were in a stream that we crossed over.


I think this one looks like it’s wearing boxing gloves.


This third one was a land crab. (Land crab makes me think of Land Shark.)

making excuses

For the first time in my life, I am finding myself in the position of needing to write a bona fide excuse note for someone else. Phoebe has had a fever the last couple of days, and we kept her home today.¹ Now that she’s in kindergarten, we have to go along with The System. I must play the role of the Responsible Adult.

Anyhow, I need to write an excuse note. And I have this urge to…make something up.

  • Dear Ms. X,

    Please excuse Phoebe’s absence from school yesterday. She came down with a mild case of leprosy, slight hydrophobia and severe anthracnose. She’s all better now, though.

    Sincerely,
    Phoebe’s mother

  • Dear Ms. X,

    Please excuse Phoebe’s absence from school yesterday. We had misunderstood the upcoming “Fall back” time change, and set our clocks back 3 months. We thought it was late summer and spent the day at the beach. Please accept this envelope full of sand in lieu of any schoolwork that Phoebe may have missed.

    Sincerely,
    The woman on the couch

  • Dear Ms. X,

    Please excuse Phoebe’s absence from school yesterday. She was abducted by a roving band of barracuda rabbits, who forced her to peel carrots and sing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” all day. She was returned safely upon our payment of a ransom of 12 sock monkeys and a bag of potato chips.

    Sincerely,
    Phoebe’s mother, who is clearly not insane

  • Dear Ms. X,

    Please excuse Phoebe’s absence from school yesterday. She was sick in bed with a hangnail.

    Dispasssionately yours,
    Phoebe’s mother

  • Dear Ms. X,

    Phoebe wasn’t at school. I’m tired of making excuses.

    A

    • As for me, I have my own set of excuses for why I haven’t posted here in over a week. I’ve been busy with, believe it or not, work. My own research, even. Also, I have a hangnail.

    —
    ¹ Well, not actually home for all of the day, but out of school. The school rules ask that you not send your child to school with a fever, but they don’t specify where you should put her. She ended up spending some of the day at John’s office.

    teachable moments

    Parenting small children can be tough. But what’s important is work with the challenges, and turn them into teachable moments.

    Yesterday morning, Phoebe came to me and said: “Theo just called me ‘stupid bad Phoebe.'”

    “Theo!” I scolded. “Is this true?” Theo instantly dropped to the floor and hid his face from me, an apparent admission of guilt.

    “Theo, that’s a hurtful thing to say. Those things are just not true.” Theo continued to avoid looking at me.

    “What’s more,” I continued, “your choice of words is both unoriginal and uninspired.” I whipped out the thesaurus. “Look here, Theo. Instead of ‘stupid,’ there are plenty of other words you could have chosen: brainless, doltish, simpleminded, half-witted, thick-headed..obtuse! Now there’s a good one.”

    “Obsoot?” Theo tried, tentatively, still face down on the floor.

    “And instead of ‘bad,’ you could have used…let’s see…beastly, deficient…inferior, atrocious, substandard…Putrid! There’s a nice colorful word. How about putting beastly and doltish together?”

    “Beasty goldfish?” Theo turned to look at me.

    “Or maybe we can learn from some famous insults…” I quickly googled famous insults. “Ah yes, here we go: “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!” Nice! But, no, no. That won’t do. Let’s not insult me! I’m your mother, too. Ooh, how about this? “You warthog-faced buffoon.” Yes, that’s the way. But better yet would be to make up your own. Think of an animal…or maybe a vegetable. Monkey…turnip…You can combine them with adjectives, like “doltish monkey” or “simpleminded turnip.” Or make compound nouns. How about calling her a substandard, simpleminded turnip-nosed monkey face? Brainless waterbuffalo? Putrid potato head? The combinations are endless! You just need to use your imagination.”

    “Now, I want you to give Phoebe a hug and say you’re sorry,” I said sternly. “And next time you insult your sister, I expect to hear something more creative.”

    Theo, thoroughly ashamed of his banal insult.

    —
    I’m going to borrow from Neil, here, and give a truth quotient. Let’s say 50%. I’ll let you guess which parts really happened.

    what I’ve been doing the last 4 days

    The daycare where Theo goes (and where Phoebe goes 2 days a week) was closed this past Friday, and also today, as the provider was taking some vacation time. What this meant was that I was not going to be getting a lot of work done for a few days. It also meant something exceedingly rare: a 4-day stretch with Theo at home. Not in daycare, not travelling. And not sick, either. A combination of factors that may not have been experienced since he started full-time daycare over a year ago. I realized, with a combination of dread and resolve, that the time had come for…potty training.

    (Don’t worry, I’m not going to go into details. At least not many.)

    Our main motivating tool for this endeavor is a progress chart, linked to the promise of a bigger prize. Each successful potty usage gets a sticker on the chart, and a full chart gets a trip to a store pick out a toy.

    On Friday morning, I printed out a new chart for Theo. (Actually, the same chart we used for Phoebe¹, courtesy of my digital hoarding tendencies.)

    Phoebe got mopey when I made out a chart for Theo, as she realized that she wouldn’t be having a chart, and thus Theo was in position to be gaining a toy when she wasn’t. Seeing as I have been struggling to get Phoebe to practice violin, I thought maybe this was an opportunity:

    Phoebe was quite pleased that she was on her way to a prize. She practiced enthusiastically that very morning, and again the next day.

    Theo, it turns out, was good and ready to be using the potty. He earned many, many stickers on his first day. And by the end of his second day, he was well on his way to have a filled chart. This is, of course, fantastic.

    Unless you are Phoebe.

    If you happen to be Phoebe, this is a near tragedy. Because while Theo’s chart had 20-odd stickers, Phoebe’s had only 2. All Theo had to do for his stickers was pee in a pot, an achievement that he quickly learned to achieve quickly. Phoebe had to do somewhat more than this. It was not likely that she would be practicing her violin 10 times a day.

    Phoebe does not like to be the one left behind.

    Sensing that Phoebe was ready to give up on her chart and her new-found enthusiasm for practicing violin, I had a flash of inspiration:

    Phoebe, observant girl that she is, realized that I would not likely outpace her with my chart. If she couldn’t be at the front of the race, at least she wouldn’t be bringing up the rear.

    As you can see, I have yet to put any stickers on my chart. I made mine on Saturday, and it was a long and harrowing weekend of exaggerated cheerfulness and frequent handwashing. Then, as I mentioned, there was no daycare today. I do hope to start adding stickers. I think I’m going to have the requirement that I work on my own research for at least a solid hour to earn a sticker. Failing that, I may just have to reward myself for peeing in the potty.

    I can’t say how well this will all go in the weeks to come. Theo heads back to daycare tomorrow, which may be great for my own chart, but likely to be a big setback for his. (We achieved success by having Theo not wear a diaper at all, but that won’t fly at daycare.) In the meantime, check out this measure of success:

    Here is the toy Theo picked out for his first filled chart:


    Molly, a yellow engine from Thomas & Friends. Our first train with a face.

    I’m also very happy to say that Phoebe’s flurry of practice sessions also paid off, if not yet with a toy. Our violin teacher was pleased enough with her progress to say it was time for us to get Phoebe her first violin book. Phoebe was thrilled. She may even have described herself as “ecstatic.”

    Moral of the story: peeing is not the only route to success.

    ¹ I’m still very entertained by my post “Standoff at the P. P. Corral,” which I wrote almost 3 years ago. I crack myself up.

    364 down, 1 to go


    364:365 A ridiculous still life, with everything but the kitchen sink.

    Unbelievably, I have just about made it through Project 365. 364 days in, I have managed to take (at least) a photo a day to share online. Admittedly, there were 2 or 3 times when I didn’t quite manage to take a photo before midnight, plus some other times when time zone mismatches made it look like I’d missed a day, but I always remembered to take some sort of photo by the time I went to bed. In this year of chaos and of feeling stuck, this project has felt like an accomplishment.

    For my penultimate shot of the project, I decided to get all wacky and revisit some props and repeat subjects from my year of photos. (It’s sort of a pictographic summary.) In this photo can be found at least 20 things that have either been the subjects of my photos more than once, or that represent things (or categories of things) that have recurred in my project photos. (I’m sorry to say that even though it appeared in at least 4 of my photos, the kitchen sink is not included in this still life.)

    How many can you find?

    If you are curious, but haven’t looked at many of my photos, you can peek the thumbnails in batches on my flickr account:

    And here’s another game for you, if you want to play. Each month, I chose a theme (or some sort of visual motif) to work with. Can you identify them? (Okay, it was not actually all 12 months.)

    If you want to play, leave a comment with:

      1) one thing from the still life photo above that has either appeared in some of my Project 365 photos, or that might represent things from those photos
                      ~ or ~
      2) a theme identified from one of my monthly sets
                      ~ or ~
      3) the number of things from the photo you have been able to identify
                      ~ or ~
      4) any months for which you have been unable to identify a theme

    If you don’t want to play, leave a comment telling me:

      1) how cool I am for doing this project and for achieving awesome levels of awesomeness
                      ~ or ~
      2) what a dork I am for making up this game and for achieving dorky levels of dorkiness
                      ~ or ~
      3) the number of times you rolled your eyes while reading this post
                      ~ or ~
      4) any moths for which you have been unable to identify a thorax

    If you don’t want to play or leave a comment, click here.

    n00b in the b00nies

    Do you ever feel you’ve landed inside the plot of a novel? In the book in my head, I’ve always been the feisty heroine in an adventure tale, overcoming hardship with ingenuity, wit and grace. Lately, I have felt more the bumbling anti-hero. And I think this may be a tragicomedy.

    After the Great Yard Sale Fiasco of 2011, I decided to regroup. After several rounds of donations, I still had excess stuff.

    I decided to try Craigslist again.

    Mind you, I’m rather wary of Craigslist. I know that some people have used it successfully, but I have heard plenty of horror stories. Or at least general annoyance stories. But I decided that it was worth a shot.

    In addition to a few for-sale items, I listed a free futon mattress. I got an email response pretty quickly:

    i would like to pick up or if i remember u r really close if u could drop it off either way works for me i’m in [town] were r u located?

    No, I couldn’t “drop it off,” as “really close” in fact meant 40 minutes away. And I was giving the thing away. For free.

    tomarow would b fine is there a way we could meet half way its about a 40 min drive it would only b 20 if we met up ?

    Hmmm…I’m giving something away to a total stranger, and you are asking me to drive 40 minutes (round trip) to give it to you? On the other hand, this would mean that I wouldn’t need to give said total stranger our address. I decided that since our grocery store was 10 minutes in that direction, and I had to go grocery shopping anyhow, I could meet him halfway.

    He also wrote:

    do u txt ? if yes txt me to set something up with me

    Actually, I don’t really text. I have a relic of a cell phone, and I am slow and incompetent at it. However, I didn’t want to admit this. I sent him a txt.

    No, really, it was a text. I am txt illiterate.

    I painstakingly tapped out a few short lines using my numeric keypad. Several minutes later, after proof-reading and editing, I sent the text.

    He responded within 30 seconds.

    After several more similar back-and-forths, we agreed to meet at a school parking lot halfway between our towns.

    I don’t want you to think that I was writing out full paragraphs or anything. I didn’t even include any parentheticals or subordinate clauses. There were several instances where I let capitalization slide, and even once where I left out a comma. Because I’m hip like that.

    I found myself rather amused, and even slightly charmed, by the exchange. Here was this kid, likely half my age, who was fluent in a written language that I could decipher, but was otherwise pretty alien to me. Meanwhile, he must have found my own writing to be very formal and old-fashioned. The equivalent of how I might feel about a hand-written letter from an elderly aunt. I imagined myself sitting at an antique secretary with a sheet of stationery, dipping my pen in the inkwell, using my most careful cursive:

    Dear Sir,

    As regards your previous inquiry, I would be amenable to arranging our rendezvous at a point that is located in between our two places of residence. I suggest that it would be most suitable to determine a location with adequate space that we might easily station our vehicles within close proximity to each other, perhaps a sizeable place of commerce or educational institution, that we may most advantageously complete our transaction.

    I hope that you will forgive the brevity of this missive, but I am presently due to deliver a platter of petits fours for the fornightly meeting of the Ladies’ Auxiliary Horticultural Society, and further I must hasten to catch the postman on his daily rounds.

    Warmest regards,
    Mrs. Bottomham-Pantsbury

    Fast forward to this morning. John helped me shove the futon in the car. It was too big for the trunk, and we didn’t want to remove the carseats, so we lay it across the tops of the carseats. We had to have both back windows open.

    At 9:56 a.m, I got another text:

    Still good for today at 1130 right?

    “Save for unforeseen obstacles, I shall be there as pre-arranged, fine sir.”

    Ok ty c u latterZ

    I got a phone call shortly before leaving, so I was running a bit late. I spent 5 minutes composing a text saying I was running 5 minutes late.

    At 11:35 sharp, I found the school. The parking lot was conspicuously devoid of compact cars of the type mentioned by my text buddy. After a few minutes, I sent a text. At 11:47, the guy called to say he’d overslept. (Dude, you texted me at 10 am! Whatevs.) The guy was really apologetic and said he felt like crap for doing this to me. He said he could be there in 20 minutes. Not really enjoying the thought of another 20 minutes sitting in the hot sun in the abandoned school parking lot with a futon sticking out of my windows, I suggested I could drive out 10 minutes further and meet him midway. The trouble was, there looked to be exactly nothing between the two towns. No, that’s not true. There was a state forest. I couldn’t really see arranging to meet with a strange guy in the middle of the woods. (Well, I could see the headlines.) But I had the damn futon in the car, and I’d gone this far. I was either handing it off to him, or abandoning it in the school parking lot. I don’t litter, so I offered to drive the extra 10 minutes. Making the new driving total 80 minutes roundtrip.

    It might not surprise you to learn that I arrived at the designated shopping center first. But the guy did show up. I helped him transfer the futon, and he even gave me $5.00 for gas. (If not for the $5.00, I would have felt totally scammed. As it is, I only feel partially scammed.)

    So that’s how things are going with Project Get Rid of Stuff. Several hours of my time wasted and close to a couple of gallons of gas. To give the futon away. For free. To a complete stranger.

    (Next up, do you want to hear about my adventures as an Amazon Marketplace seller?)

    Caption, anyone?


    Since this photo came up in the comments of my sort of non-post last night, I thought I would share it. Before I go and ruin things by explaining my motivations for this shot, does anyone want to have a go at giving it a caption or story?

    America’s Most Dangerous Vegetables

    I think that would be a catchy name for a TV show. America’s Most Dangerous Vegetables. Each week, the show could highlight some sort of menacing produce: murderous-looking rutabagas, carrots with vicious points, or dainty new potatoes that pose a threat as choking hazards. All of them would pale in comparison with this week’s monster:


    This artichoke does not want to be eaten.

    Check out the size of those spikes! This thing tore through a reusable produce bag…and drew blood! I felt like I was declawing it rather than trimming it.

    masters of communication


    This sketch from A Bit of Fry and Laurie amuses me. Quite a lot. (Thanks to The Skwib for offering up these tasty nibbles, which are neither plain, nor prawn flavored.)

    If you enjoyed that, you might also enjoy sketches by The Two Ronnies. I confess I’d never heard of them until reading the comments for the Fry & Laurie sketch on YouTube. (Which is usually a dangerous endeavor, as 99% of the comments on YouTube are written by 12-year-olds.) However, on this occasion I learned that the sketch above was likely influenced by this other sketch comedy pair. You can see a bit of their skillful timing below in “Crossed Lines.”


    And one more from the Two Ronnies. This last one is chock full of fun with phonetic ambiguity. (You scream, I scream, we all scream for phonetic ambiguity.)

    (This post actually relates to several of my candidates for categories of things I like, but I won’t count this post as one of my 40 since I don’t have time to say more. But can you guess what some of the things I like are?)